Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 513 - 103: Betraying Esper?

"Die! All of you, die!" Yang Lian snarled, swerving the car to smash through a group of aberrations, simultaneously flinging off those who had climbed onto the vehicle.

In just a few seconds, the car had sped hundreds of meters ahead, reaching the nearest intersection—yet even here, many aberrations continued to pour out from nearby buildings, lurching toward Yang Lian like zombies.

"How could even the residents here... Is this also Chimera 17's doing?"

Yang Lian glanced toward the villa, turned the car around, and headed towards the research institute.

"Please, don't die..."

...

...

Sun Hang flicked his fingers, and the streetlights on both sides of the road "melted," transforming into hundreds of metal blades hovering around him. Meanwhile, the mud creature slowly "crawled"—or more precisely "flowed"—from inside the house to the grass outside.

Something slowly rose from within the mud, its form shifting several times before finally resembling a humanoid figure.

Sun Hang could tell that the creature seemed to be attempting to mimic his own appearance, though the mud's poor pliability resulted in a crude dummy lacking detail—even the facial features and hair were a mess, and it took Sun Hang a while to recognize the bathrobe wrapped around him.

The only thing close might be the similarity in height between them.

"That's not right, watch mine." Sun Hang shook his head, frowning, as two fungus puppets rose beside him—compared to the abstract mimicry of the mudman, the two puppets were uncannily lifelike, virtually indistinguishable from Sun Hang except for their vacant eyes.

"Go!"

At Sun Hang's command, the two puppets charged toward the mudman from opposite directions, while the hundreds of metal blades flew low across the grass, reaching the mudman in an instant.

The blades launched a first wave of attack, slicing through the mudman's body effortlessly, emerging from its back, turning and piercing again—before the puppets even touched the mudman, the blades had already passed through it multiple times.

Had this been some hard material rather than mud, the mudman would have become a sieve riddled with tiny holes.

The result was just as Sun Hang suspected, the metal blades' attack appeared fierce but actually had no effect—it was akin to stabbing flowing water, whether ten stabs, a hundred, a thousand, even ten thousand, would make no difference.

In other words, doing so was utterly pointless.

The puppets grabbed the mudman's arms from left and right, but the arms morphed instantly into the thin membrane-like form that previously attacked Sun Hang, wrapping around the puppets instead—Sun Hang manipulated the puppets' hands to revert to fungal form, penetrating into the mudman.

Nothing inside, only mud.

No body, no core, and certainly no aberrant's meme.

What the aberration possessed was some form of control over objects…extremely pure control.

This ability differed from Sun Hang's control over metals—in controlling metals, Sun Hang would aberrate these materials, crafting new aberrant tool-like entities. Although this aberrant condition wasn't permanent, Sun Hang could revert these entities at any time…but at least while he was controlling them, they remained in an aberrant state.

Sun Hang's manipulation over soil and stone transformations, sound barriers...even the disguise skill used on Shinkata Misaki, were all accomplished through meme ability—were Misaki undergoing a detailed inspection, traces of meme could indeed be detected on her.

Of course, Sun Hang hadn't infected her, merely used the power of memes to alter her appearance, and once the attached memes completely dissipated, she'd revert to her original form.

For an aberration to use its abilities, memes were the essential medium…thus, determining whether an event was caused by an aberration simply required checking for residual meme traces at the scene, aside from some fleeting aberrations, most leave some traces upon using their abilities.

Unless those aberrations possessed human-like intellect, knowing to erase residual marks post-"crime"…based on current knowledge, such aberrations were even rarer than fleeting ones.

Yet traces remained traces, if the aberration was actively "committing a crime," using its abilities, completely masking its meme fluctuations wouldn't be feasible...especially in front of someone like Sun Hang, acutely sensitive to meme fluctuations.

"No…it's not an aberration…" Sun Hang was startled.

His thoughts quickly turned to Zhong Ling.

The one controlling this mud wasn't an aberration, or more precisely, wasn't using aberrant powers!

An Esper!

"An Esper hostile to humans?" Sun Hang's mind raced, "Has it betrayed us, or is it under control? Can Espers be aberrated? Would an Esper's original abilities conflict with meme abilities gained post-aberration?"

Sun Hang felt a strong urge to question Pei Zongjun, yet all his devices—whether phone or Hunter band—had no signal, the only solution was to escape this interference zone utilizing electromagnetic acceleration, then communicate.

However, he was reluctant to let that cloaked Esper get away easily.

As the saying goes, fear not the thief stealing, but the thief's planning…if an enemy of that sort targeted him, peace and quiet thereafter would be impossible.

Sun Hang couldn't constantly be on edge during intense activities with a girl, worrying whether sounds were emerging from under the bed or the faucet.

He didn't enjoy a life of constant vigilance against anything, thus, whatever posed a threat had to be promptly eliminated.

"Espers' abilities likely have distance limits…at least Zhong Ling couldn't remotely control her aberrant remnants…except for her self-driven 'mother'."

Apart from those spectral remnants that share vision with Zhong Ling, she even needed them within her visible range to control them.

This mud certainly didn't sprout eyes.

As Sun Hang entangled the mud with fungus puppets, his peripheral vision swept the surroundings, attempting to identify any hidden places nearby.

Yet, this street offered far too many hiding spots.

Without considering the villas, the opposite neighborhood alone—with multiple towers, hundreds of main residences, thousands of rooms…each could shelter that Esper.

No need for a direct gaze towards Sun Hang's battlefield, a few mirrors, or a subtle surveillance camera could provide full coverage.

"No…still not right."

Earlier in his room, the Esper still controlled the mud, mounting a surprise from an extremely tricky angle…only a spot that could perceive the room through windows would suffice.

Sun Hang glanced at the villa's windows, then across at the high rises—instantly narrowing the search area.

Assuming, of course, the Esper couldn't gain vision through the mud, nor possess some sense that substitutes vision.