361: Chapter 361 Appearance 1

There was no movement in the wreckage.

Only the night wind swirled fine sand, hitting the twisted metal shell with a faint rustling sound. From deep within that charred crack, smoke continued to drift out, carrying an indescribable, slightly sweet, and strange scent.

Lu Jianchuan stared at the crack, unmoving. Shen Mingyuan stood behind him to the side, his red eyepiece flickering slightly as he scanned the interior of the wreckage with Long-range Vision. Golden Bone stood between the two, the joints of his Mechanical Exoskeleton emitting a faint hydraulic sound.

Then, that hand reached out.

From the deepest shadows of the crack, a pale hand gripped the charred metal edge. It was not a human hand—slender, covered in a grayish-white exoskeleton, with five fingers ending in sharp, inward-curving claws that glinted coldly under the moonlight. Faint blue patterns were visible on the back of the hand and wrist, appearing like some kind of energy conduits pulsing slowly in the darkness.

The hand pushed off with force.

An entire figure crawled out of the crack.

It stood there, atop the heap of twisted wreckage, head lowered as if not yet fully conscious. The moonlight shone from behind, outlining its silhouette—humanoid, yet entirely non-human.

Its body was covered in a layer of grayish-white exoskeleton, smooth-surfaced with a ceramic-like texture, but faint blue light patterns peeked through the joints and gaps. Those light patterns flickered slowly in sync with its breathing—or some rhythm resembling breath.

Its limbs were slender, with proportions similar to a human's, but the contours of its muscles were hidden beneath the exoskeleton, making its original form unrecognizable. Both hands and feet were sharp claws, gripping the metal wreckage tightly and leaving deep gouges.

Most striking was its back.

Two structures bulged at the shoulder blades, extending outward into two pairs of slender, nozzle-like devices arranged in an X-shape.

The interiors of the nozzles were a faint blue, slowly rotating and adjusting their angles as if adapting to a new gravity environment. Between the nozzles, a mesh-like structure was faintly visible, resembling some kind of heat exchanger that was drawing in, compressing, and storing the surrounding air.

On the front of its torso, the chest and abdomen were covered in thicker armor, but within the gaps of the armor, soft biological tissue could be seen slowly squirming.

It was breathing—or rather, separating the inhaled air, storing oxygen in an internal organ while compressing the remaining gases to be expelled from the nozzles on its back.

It finally raised its head.

In that instant, the moonlight illuminated its face.

The upper half of its face was transparent—not bare skin, but a single curved piece of transparent material embedded in the grayish-white exoskeleton frame, like an astronaut's helmet visor. Through that transparent layer, a pair of human eyes could be seen inside.

Chen Yuan's eyes.

Those eyes were cloudy and bloodshot, but they were still recognizable as his. They stared at the three figures before them, pupils contracting slightly as if identifying them, or perhaps struggling.

The lower half of the face was completely different.

It was a seamless face covered in grayish-white exoskeleton. There was no nose, no lips, none of the characteristics of a human face—only a horizontal, extremely thin slit about two inches below the eyes.

Then, that slit opened.

It was a mouth. Or rather, some kind of feeding organ. The slit tore open to both sides, revealing layered structures within—not a simple oral cavity, but rings of fine, sharp teeth growing inward. Those teeth were arranged in a spiral, extending deep into the shadows, each one reflecting the cold moonlight. The outermost teeth were the longest, gradually shortening inward to form a perfect structure for biting and devouring.

When it opened its mouth, soft, squirming tissue was faintly visible deep in its throat—it was both esophagus and trachea, specially reconstructed biologically to allow continued breathing while eating and to maintain an absolute seal of the oral cavity while swallowing.

Because one cannot open their mouth in a vacuum.

Thus, this mouth had to be able to feed when open and be completely sealed when closed, leaving no gaps.

Now, it closed.

The slit pulled back together, fitting perfectly without a trace. The lower half of the entire face returned to a smooth, grayish-white curved surface without any openings, leaving only the eyes behind the transparent visor still staring at them.

It stood on the wreckage, motionless.

The four nozzles behind it rotated slowly, emitting a faint hissing sound of air jets.

"You—"

Just as Golden Bone uttered that single word, the figure moved.

Without warning or buildup, the four nozzles on its back simultaneously blasted faint blue air currents. The powerful thrust instantly launched it from the wreckage like a shell from a cannon, charging straight at the trio!

It was too fast.

The shockwave blasted a crater into the sand, sending wreckage fragments flying. The grayish-white figure pulled a trail of afterimages through the air, its sharp claws pointing directly at Golden Bone—not to attack, but to capture. It wanted a live catch, to feed, to tear open that layer of Mechanical Exoskeleton and pull out the warm flesh within.

The nearest living thing.

The only living thing.

Golden Bone's pupils shrank. He kicked off the ground, his Mechanical Exoskeleton erupting with maximum power as he launched himself backward. But the speed was too great; the claws were already in front of him—

A silver-white arm intervened.

Lu Jianchuan.

As Golden Bone retreated, he had already stepped forward, raising his right arm to block the lunging claw head-on. The ear-piercing sound of metal clashing rang through the night sky, and the shockwave from the collision of two forces exploded into a visible ripple in the air.

The claw was blocked.

But the grayish-white figure hung in the air, the nozzles on its back continuing to fire to maintain thrust. Its face was less than half a meter from Lu Jianchuan's, and the eyes behind the transparent visor—Chen Yuan's eyes—stared straight at him, cloudy, hungry, devoid of any light of reason.

Lu Jianchuan's right hand firmly parried the claw while his left hand rose from the side, fingers splayed. Silver-white Bioelectricity condensed and leapt wildly in his palm, emitting a piercing crackle.

Then, he threw a punch!

The current condensed into a blinding ball of light, smashing straight toward that grayish-white chest—

The figure moved.

The nozzles on its back instantly changed their spray angle, shifting the direction of thrust and pulling its entire body upward at the critical moment. The current brushed past its soles and blasted into the night sky, vanishing into the horizon. It hung in mid-air, looking down at the three people below, its four nozzles slightly adjusting their angles with a hissing sound of airflow.

Then, it drifted backward.

There was no pursuit, no second pounce. It simply floated in the air about a dozen meters above the ground, its grayish-white exoskeleton glinting coldly in the moonlight, eyes behind the transparent visor fixed on them.

It was observing.

Judging.

And also—

Hungry.