1888: Memoirs of an Unconfirmed Creature Hunter-Chapter 82: The Enemy That Cannot Be Hit

The roar of the 1887 shotgun echoed over the wilderness of White Church District, then was swallowed by the damp night fog.
After that brief flash of violent light vanished, the surrounding world was once again enveloped in profound darkness.
Marcus's chest heaved, the corner of his mouth twitching.
For a warrior like him, having his attack deflected by an enemy in such a contemptuous and unreasonable manner was a tremendous insult.
This feeling left him powerless and frustrated, as if a heavy punch had struck empty air, all its force dissipated and redirected.
And that black, burnt-branch-like humanoid creature, the UMA Lin Jie had called the "Twisted Man," still stood quietly not far ahead.
Its distorted silhouette appeared increasingly eerie and ominous under the beam of Marcus's hurricane lantern.
It neither attacked nor retreated, maintaining that bizarre, inviting posture while calmly appreciating the confusion and frustration displayed by its prey struggling futilely in the trap.
"I don't believe it, again!" Marcus growled deep in his throat.
The pride and ferocity inherent in this battle-hardened warrior had been awakened.
He refused to believe this world contained anything his weapon couldn't harm.
He sharply worked the shotgun's lever, a hot, gunpowder-scented shell ejecting from the chamber.
Then he aimed the barrel once more at the motionless target.
This time he didn't use buckshot, instead focusing entirely on the front sight.
He attempted to use his extensive shooting experience to predict the trajectory of that invisible force field, hoping to find a lead for correcting his aim.
"Marcus, don't waste bullets!" Lin Jie's voice sounded in his ear. "Its ability isn't a 'barrier,' it's a 'force field'! You can't hit it!"
But Marcus was now dominated by warrior instinct.
He pulled the trigger again.
"Boom!"
Another dull gunshot roared.
A massive single slug engraved with purification runes spiraled out with a shriek.
This shot's power was more concentrated than the previous buckshot, enough to penetrate a brick wall at fifty yards.
Yet the absurd scene repeated itself.
The space around the bullet that should have torn through its target was brutally crumpled by an invisible hand.
The bullet's trajectory was forcibly yanked downward and left at a sharp thirty-degree angle, ultimately burying itself in the muddy ground nearby, leaving only a small hole.
This time Marcus wasn't surprised.
He finally accepted Lin Jie's assessment.
This wasn't defense—this was high-level mockery.
"Believe me now?" Lin Jie's voice held no mockery, only factual calmness.
Meanwhile, the "Twisted Man" seemed to have grown weary of their futile attempts.
It lowered its arm from the inviting gesture.
Then it moved.
Its movement was equally bizarre.
It didn't walk or run.
Its body slid sideways across the ground toward the empty space on their right, like an inkblot blown by wind.
Its path wasn't straight but an irregular, meandering curve, making any effort to predict its position meaningless.
As it approached, Lin Jie and Marcus immediately felt the surrounding spatial distortion intensifying exponentially!
The edges of the steady light beam from Marcus's lantern began showing obvious stretching and distortion, like a funhouse mirror.
Even his burly figure appeared sometimes squat and sometimes elongated in Lin Jie's vision.
Lin Jie could even see his own outstretched fingers stretched thin like spaghetti, writhing unnaturally in the air.
This continuous pollution affecting fundamental physical perception sent their brains into chaos and overload.
Intense dizziness and nausea repeatedly assaulted both men's nerves.
Even the strong-willed Marcus now had to kneel on one knee, using his useless shotgun to support himself and prevent collapsing from the spinning sensation.
Beads of sweat covered his forehead.
Lin Jie's condition was even worse.
As someone with extraordinary mental strength and acute environmental perception, the "cognitive pollution" he endured was far more severe than Marcus's.
His entire visual field had become a surrealist painting randomly daubed by a drunken Salvador Dalí.
The ground undulated, the sky rotated, and even his own body lost fixed form, threatening to dissolve into this field of twisted laws at any moment.
He could only focus all his willpower on the "Crooked Sixpence" in his right palm.
The coin now emitted scorching heat—it was one of the core coordinates of this distorted domain, and a temporary mental anchor allowing Lin Jie to maintain self-awareness amid this chaos.
But Lin Jie knew this was only temporary.
This UMA hadn't made a single genuine attack from beginning to end.
It was merely strolling, showing them its home.
Its very existence was the lethal weapon.
And it was amid this pressure and chaos that a terrifying thought flashed through Lin Jie's nearly broken mind.
Something's wrong! We're not its target!
Lin Jie suddenly realized the UMA never intended to settle things with them here.
To this monster that delighted in luring souls, they were merely two bothersome flies that had stumbled into its web—if it truly wanted to act, there were more direct and efficient methods.
And its movement direction wasn't aimed at them—that direction, that direction led to where Weston's family was located.
Its attention had been firmly locked on its chosen prey from the very beginning!
Everything it had done here—trapping them and tormenting them with twisted laws—was merely to buy time!
But what exactly was it buying time for?
An answer that froze Lin Jie's blood surfaced in his mind.
It's... "moving house"!
"Marcus!" Lin Jie mustered all his strength to roar at the nearly defeated burly man beside him. "Its threat isn't attack! It's... transference! It's gradually 'dragging' this twisted place toward that girl's apartment! It wants to turn there into its new 'Twisted Home'!!"
This deduction exploded in Marcus's mind!
He immediately understood the severity.
Every minute they were delayed here, the real space containing Weston's home several blocks away would be further eroded.
Once the erosion completed, that apartment building would be physically and spiritually dragged into the Twisted Man's separate domain.
By then, Lily inside would be cut off from the real world.
Her fate wouldn't be simple death, but as the nursery rhyme foretold, becoming the Twisted Man's eternally imprisoned "family"!
An outcome more terrifying than death itself.
As if confirming Lin Jie's conjecture, the black "Twisted Man" ceased its aimless sliding.
It slowly turned its back to them.
Then its twisted arm lifted, pointing toward distant London city in the direction they'd come from.
Its eyeless black head tilted slightly, as if listening to something.
And Lin Jie caught a faint trace of a girl's laughter carried from afar through the distorted force field.
It was Lily's laughter.