Anomalous Creatures

The silver moon was dim, and the night was deep. The vast and desolate wilderness was silent and empty, except for the sound of wings flapping high in the sky. A vampire girl with bat wings on her back swiftly crossed the sky. The moonlight fell on Weilili, spreading into a vague blur of light and shadow, completely concealing the vampire's aura. Uncertain whether the haunted castle here would attract real demon hunters, Weilili was very vigilant, using the power of the moonlight to cover her aura all the way.

Kevin was hanging in the sky, with Weilili holding him under his armpits. He felt very excited. "Actually, when you first said you would hang me up and fly, I refused. Because I can't just fly when you tell me to. At least you should let me adapt. I didn't want to be..."

Weilili's voice came from above, "Speak human language."

"...Give me some psychological preparation, sister! I haven't agreed yet and you've already brought me this high. An ordinary person's heart can't take it, okay!"

"Aren't you taking it now?" Weilili glanced down at Kevin. She had grabbed him and flown into the sky before Kevin could react, and now she felt no sorrow or regret. "You should be happy. Ordinary people don't have this honor. Do you think our vampire clan likes to carry people and fly? It's heavy and troublesome."

Kevin was silent. Although he felt a little embarrassed being hung up in the sky like this by a girl, since there was no one else around, he just treated it as a novel experience. He was a bit nervous when Weilili first grabbed him and flew into the sky, fearing that the vampire might let go halfway due to exhaustion. He didn't know if the body enhancement that Raven 12345 had given him could withstand it. But now it seemed that Weilili was not human after all. Although she couldn't match Lily in strength, it was still quite easy for her to carry an adult and fly for tens of kilometers.

Kevin looked down at the ground below. They were very high up, but with the moonlight, he could still see the situation below. He saw a tiny silver-white figure following directly below him on the wilderness covered with rubble and yellow soil. It was Lily running after them. To keep up with Weilili's flying speed, Lily had transformed into her werewolf form, and was running on all fours the whole way. The silver-white color came from her tail and long hair.

The amazing thing was that the werewolf girl was still sleeping - she was following with her eyes closed. Even Weilili was amazed by this girl's following ability. She could actually follow a vampire flying in the sky just by her sense of smell while sleeping. This proved that Lily, who seemed very foolish on the surface, actually had astonishing "hunting" talent. She just didn't want to strive. Otherwise, with just this tracking ability, she would probably be one of the top hunters among werewolves.

The three of them arrived at the ancient castle of Yorkfold dozens of kilometers away in such a magical way. Besides avoiding the main roads and sticking to the wasteland, Weilili also had one of her bat doppelgangers follow closely behind Angus's car from afar to keep track of their movements. Fortunately, everything went smoothly along the way. The people in the car didn't notice that there were werewolves and vampires traveling together so openly nearby, including the pompous Mr. Nangong, who didn't even bother to glance out the car window.

"That's the ancient castle of Yorkfold," Weilili's voice suddenly came from above on the side after flying in the darkness for who knows how long. Kevin looked up and saw a pile of rubble on a highland ahead. The castle had collapsed beyond recognition, but one could still tell from the scale of the rubble how magnificent it had once been. "Let's land here."

Weilili brought Kevin down to the ground steadily. Kevin quickly jumped up and down in place to loosen his stiff limbs that had been hanging for the whole journey. Although it was still summer, hanging in the high sky and blowing the night breeze for more than an hour was not very comfortable. Kevin felt like he would freeze if he hung around for a little longer. As Kevin rubbed his sore arms and prepared to head towards the castle, a silver-white figure suddenly dashed past him like a gust of wind, kicking up countless bits of grass and dirt.

Kevin and Weilili stared in astonishment as the white figure flew hundreds of meters away in the blink of an eye and crashed straight into a huge rock in the distance...

With a loud bang, the solid boulder several meters high was shattered as if hit by artillery fire. Amid the noise, there came a faint groan of pain from Lily. Kevin quickly ran over in two bounds and found the werewolf girl rubbing her head and rolling on the ground in the gradually dispersing dust and stone chips: Well, Lily was finally awake, albeit not naturally.

Weilili was stunned. "That head... It's good enough to apply for a job as a pneumatic hammer at a quarry! Werewolves really do have muscles in their heads..."

Lily got up from the ground in a very embarrassed manner. The once lively pair of pointed ears now had only one standing up, while the other hung limply on her head. She seemed to be in pain. The werewolf girl was covered in mud and grass clippings, and when she shook her hair, stone chips fell down clinking. However, she was in good spirits. She wiped her face casually and shook Kevin's arm. "Landlord, landlord, you see I can keep up, right? That one with wings said he flies so fast, but he's not much faster than me!"

Weilili shook her hair. "Duh, I'm carrying someone. Next time you carry the landlord, and I'll fly in the sky. Let's see who's faster."

"Stop fooling around and let's get down to business," Kevin pressed down on both hands to quiet down the two superwomen. Then he saw some faint lights moving towards them from the distant hillock and quickly pulled Lily and Weilili away. "Let's leave this place first. The commotion from Lily's head-on collision just now was too loud. It seems like it attracted someone."

The three of them quickly left the already chaotic "landing site" under the cover of darkness and made their way to another nearby hillock. This spot was closer to the ruins of the castle and offered a better view of its surroundings.

Yorkfold Castle was situated on a highland, but unlike other ancient castles, it wasn't strategically located. This was probably because the terrain in this area was flat, and even the lords of the past couldn't find a more suitable place to defend with natural barriers. The castle itself had completely collapsed, just as Kevin had seen from the sky earlier. All that could be seen on the highland were vast piles of stones, barely recognizable as the remains of a once-grand stone building. The grayish-white, cold stones had formed a roughly rectangular site that looked devoid of life.

Near the highland, a small cluster of lights could be seen. With the help of moonlight and lantern light, one could make out some tents and several large wagons, with figures flickering in the lights. Presumably, these were enthusiasts of paranormal events attracted by the haunted castle.

There weren't as many people as Kevin had imagined. It seemed like there were only a dozen or so people. It seemed that die-hard fans who would camp out in the wilderness at midnight to search for ghosts were in the minority. This made Kevin feel much more relaxed - he had thought the place would be packed with people.

Obviously, this guy had confused the ghost-hunting gathering with a temple fair.

"Mr. Nangong and the others have arrived," Weilili pointed with her hand. Kevin saw a pair of headlights approaching from the distance. In the darkness of the night, he could make out that it was the SUV of Angus, the hotel owner. Mr. Nangong was sitting in the back row, still wearing his arrogant expert expression.

"Hey, wait a minute," Kevin suddenly felt something was off. He rubbed his eyes hard and gazed far into the darkness on the other side of the wilderness. "Weilili, how's your night vision?"

"Pretty good," Weilili nodded. "I'm a nocturnal creature, after all."

"Can you see three dead trees in that direction? And there's one... no, two big rocks under one of the trees."

"Yeah, I can see it clearly," Weilili said casually, and then suddenly realized, "Wait, can you see it too?!"

Kevin winked and noticed a detail he hadn't paid attention to before: despite the dense darkness around them, with only a faintly shining moon in the sky, everything in his field of vision was as visible as during the day! The three dead trees in the distance were estimated to be at least two or three kilometers away, yet he could almost make out every branch on the trees!

"Is this... the salary from Raven 12345 has arrived?" Kevin suddenly remembered what Raven 12345 had told him before they left. "Under suitable conditions, various effects of physical enhancement will be gradually unlocked. Is this what it means?"

Kevin's mood lightened up. He felt that after being tricked for so long, he had finally encountered something good.