11: Transformation deactivated

Leaning against the cold wall, Lu Jianchuan took a deep breath of the familiar, slightly dusty air of his home, finally ceasing his hesitation. He raised his slightly trembling right hand, his index finger accurately pressing the Crimson Jewel at the center of the armband on his left wrist.

There was no earth-shattering noise, only an extremely faint "buzz," like the sigh of some form of life.

The next moment, the silver-white Biomass armor covering his entire body seemed to instantly lose all the life energy sustaining its form. Starting from the head, it suddenly became covered in countless fine cracks, like rock weathered for billions of years!

The cracks spread rapidly, as if alive, reaching the neck, torso, and limbs... until the entire body was covered. Immediately afterward, the entire suit of armor silently shattered, breaking down into countless silver fragments, the size of fingernails, flashing with their last bit of faint light.

These fragments did not fall. The moment they detached from his body, they further disintegrated, turning into countless finer, firefly-like silver light points, which finally vanished silently in the dim room, like dust scattered by the wind, leaving no trace.

It is worth noting that the rough, gray-black iron outer layer that had accidentally adhered to and covered his left side during the warehouse battle, due to hitting a shelf, had long since peeled off and shattered like dried mud blocks during his desperate escape, high-speed movement, and subsequent climbing, due to structural instability and continuous energy decay. It was lost in the shadows and alleyways along the way, and did not return with the core armor.

It was as if the brutal battle and desperate flight he had just experienced were nothing more than an overly realistic illusion.

However, the sensation of cold air directly touching his skin immediately pulled him back to reality.

Lu Jianchuan instinctively looked down, then let out a low cry filled with shock and weakness: "W-where are my clothes?!"

He was currently sitting naked on the cold floor. The police uniform and underwear he had been wearing were completely ripped and torn when the armor violently grew out from within him. Now, probably only scraps of fabric remained on the warehouse battlefield. The cool night wind blew in through the slightly ajar window crack, brushing against his sweaty skin and causing a shiver.

But at this moment, he had no time to feel embarrassed about his nudity. An impulse far stronger and more primal than that, like a dormant volcano suddenly erupting, violently swept over his entire body!

Hunger!

An unimaginable sense of hunger burned fiercely from deep within his stomach, rapidly spreading to all his limbs and bones! This feeling was not just the emptiness and violent spasms of his stomach; it was more like every cell in his body was letting out a sharp wail, frantically demanding energy, as if the recent battle had overdrafted all his vitality for the next few days.

Following this was a wave of intense weakness and dizziness, causing his vision to blacken in spells and his ears to ring, almost making him collapse to the ground and lose consciousness.

Food! He had to eat immediately! Immediately!

This thought overwhelmed everything, including grief, shock, and confusion about the future. He practically scrambled up from the floor on all fours, his limbs slightly weak from exhaustion. Staggering and leaning heavily on the wall, he stumbled toward the old refrigerator in the cramped kitchen that emitted a low, continuous hum.

He yanked open the refrigerator door. The scattered food inside now radiated a fatal temptation in his eyes, like sweet springs in a desert.

He grabbed the half-eaten, slightly stale loaf of bread left over from last night and shoved it whole into his mouth without looking. Driven by instinct, he forced himself to swallow it without even chewing. The rough crumbs scraped his throat, causing a slight sting, but he paid it no mind.

Next were a few lonely hot dogs. He roughly tore open the packaging and swallowed one in two or three bites. He chugged a 1-liter carton of milk in one go. The icy liquid slid down his esophagus but failed to extinguish the burning fire of hunger inside him. He didn't even have time to wipe away the milk stains dripping from the corners of his mouth.

Everything that didn't require cooking and could be eaten immediately was devoured by him like a whirlwind sweeping away scattered clouds in just a minute or two.

With some solid food filling his stomach, the maddening hunger finally eased slightly, dropping from a "near-death" level to an "unbearable" level. But the ghost of hunger still lingered, far from satisfied. His empty stomach was like a bottomless pit, still emitting intense signals.

His gaze, sharp as a hawk's, immediately locked onto the unopened bag of frozen dumplings in the freezer and the few remaining packets of instant noodles in the cupboard.

Without hesitation, he grabbed the instant noodles and put water on to boil at the fastest speed possible.

The few short minutes of waiting for the water to boil felt like centuries to him. He paced anxiously back and forth in the narrow kitchen, his bare feet stepping on the cold tiles, while his stomach embarrassingly let out loud, empty rumbling sounds that were particularly clear in the silent room.

The moment the water boiled, he immediately dumped in the noodle block and all the seasoning packets and sauce packets. He couldn't even wait for the noodles to fully soften; as soon as the block broke apart, he impatiently picked up the small pot. Disregarding the scalding soup burning his lips and tongue, he ate in large gulps, practically swallowing the food, completely oblivious to the hot broth searing his esophagus.

Only after finishing the entire pot of instant noodles and broth, and then immediately boiling water again without pause to cook and wolf down the entire bag of frozen dumplings, did he finally feel the ferocious, sanity-devouring hunger gradually recede. It was replaced by an extreme fatigue spreading from the depths of his Soul, coupled with the heavy fullness in his stomach from the large quantity of food.

He slumped in the chair, gazing at the messy stovetop and the empty food wrappers before him. His naked body was faintly steaming from the preceding exertion and eating. His mind was blank, filled only with the numbness of surviving a catastrophe, while all the memories of the night, which he had forcefully suppressed, slowly flowed back like a tide in the darkness.

The feeling of fullness weighed heavily in his stomach, yet it could not fill the emptiness in his heart.

Lu Jianchuan, slumped in the chair, his naked body no longer trembling from hunger, began to be enveloped by a deeper, spiritual coldness. The numbness slowly receded like the tide, leaving behind a beach strewn with sharp fragments of memory.

He raised his hand, staring blankly at the armband on his left wrist, which had now reverted to a simple silver-gray. The metal his fingertips touched was cold and solid, silently proving that everything that happened last night was not a nightmare.

Power... he truly gained the power to transform into a "Hero," something that only appeared in childhood fantasies. The feeling of the silver armor possessing him and the lightning surging was so real, so powerful, capable of tearing through darkness and destroying monsters. This should have been a moment of ecstatic realization, yet all that remained was endless absurdity and heaviness. The way this power arrived, the price of this power... those Mysterious Departments... "new Anomalous Individual," "suspected of being eliminated by him"... the cold gazes and words of the fully armed personnel pierced his heart like needles. The way they looked at him seemed fundamentally no different from how they looked at the monster.

He was no longer Lu Jianchuan, the police officer who maintained order. In their eyes, he had become an "Anomaly" that needed to be controlled and studied. A chill of being isolated and hostilely viewed by the entire world quietly spread.

And the root of all this ultimately pointed to the pain he least wanted to touch right now, yet could not escape—

Uncle Li... Li Ming's eyes, relieved of a heavy burden, as he pushed him away for the last time; the image of the bone claw piercing his chest; the silent mouth shape he made before being dragged into the darkness... Every detail was like a high-speed photograph, brutally replaying again and again in his mind, clear enough to suffocate him.

If only he hadn't insisted on investigating... if only he hadn't been so useless, requiring Uncle Li to protect him again and again... if only he had gained this power earlier... Immense sorrow mixed with bone-deep guilt finally crashed through his fragile composure like a tsunami.

He abruptly covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking violently and uncontrollably. Suppressed whimpers, like those of an injured cub, sporadically escaped between his fingers, sounding especially desolate in the silent room. Hot tears surged out, mixing with the oil stains and sweat from eating earlier, miserably streaming down his cheeks and arms.

He cried for Uncle Li's sacrifice, he cried for his own incompetence, and he cried for this suddenly changed, uncertain destiny.

He remained immersed in boundless grief and self-reproach for an unknown period of time.

Until a streak of extremely faint, yet undeniably powerful, warm gold, like the finest gauze curtain, quietly streamed through a gap in the thick curtains, projecting diagonally onto the cold floor and dispersing the gloom in a small area.

Lu Jianchuan sensed something, and slowly, with extreme difficulty, raised his head, looking through tear-blurred eyes toward the light.

He struggled to stand up, his bare feet crossing the cold floor. He walked to the window and, with a trembling hand, gently pulled back a corner of the curtain.

Outside the window, the deep night sky was slowly shedding its inky cloak. The distant horizon was rendered in a soft, pearly white, its edges inlaid with faint orange-red and warm gold.

The sun was struggling to awaken from beneath the city skyline, preparing to bestow its light and heat once more upon this land, which had endured fear and sorrow.

The light of dawn shone on his face, which was still wet with tears and etched with exhaustion and grief, yet it brought no warmth. This new day had arrived, but for Lu Jianchuan, certain things had forever remained in that bloody, dark night.

He had lost his Senior, who was both a mentor and a friend, and was now burdened with an unspeakable secret and power, standing at a completely unknown crossroads.

Dawn had arrived, but his long night seemed to have just begun.