At exactly nine o'clock in the evening at the edge of White Church District, the rain had stopped, but thick dark clouds still shrouded the night sky without any gaps, preventing any moonlight or starlight from penetrating.
Damp moisture drifted from the direction of the Thas along with the uniquely pungent sulfur sll characteristic of slums, originating from the incomplete combustion of low-quality coal.
This was a forgotten corner of London where even the most dedicated patrol officers wouldn't linger at night.
Lin Jie stood at the end of a muddy path overgrown with wild grass, dressed in dark hunting attire suitable for movent.
He didn't light the carbide lamp in his hand, simply rging silently into the surrounding heavy darkness, his figure completely motionless.
After a mont, heavy, rhythmic footsteps approached from the darkness behind him.
The newcor was Marcus.
This burly man looked quite different from his cheerful afternoon self in the bar.
He had changed into a practical combat suit made of thick UMA leather and canvas, his always teasing expression had vanished, replaced by the cold focus unique to professional hunters.
His massive shotgun hung diagonally across his back with a wide strap, while he carried a military-grade storm lantern with concentrated light and a heavy light shield.
"Right place?" Marcus walked to Lin Jie's side, lowering his voice to a volu only the two could hear.
His gaze swept warily across the open wasteland swallowed by darkness ahead.
"Correct." Lin Jie nodded, pointing toward a slightly elevated area about fifty ters ahead.
"According to the old map Julian provided, that's where the foundation of the 'Crooked House' stood two centuries ago."
The area looked ordinary, with only so scattered brick and stone debris hidden by wild grass indicating that structures had once existed here.
There were no supernatural signs, no eerie lights, no unsettling sounds—everything was so normal it felt disturbing.
"I can't sense anything." Marcus slightly furrowed his brow.
"No spiritual fluctuations, no energy fields, not even a trace of UMA's malevolent presence. Are you sure your French friend's intelligence isn't so two-hundred-year-old expired joke?"
"No, my feeling is quite the opposite." Lin Jie's expression beca exceptionally grave as he slowly pulled the Crooked Sixpence from his pocket, but didn't fully open his palm, just letting it sense the environntal changes in his hand.
"Marcus, don't you think the wind here feels strange?"
"Wind?" Marcus paused, instinctively feeling the air.
The night wind was cold, cutting like knives against the face, but that was normal for late autumn in London.
"No," Lin Jie shook his head, his voice low as if dreaming, "Not wind, but 'lines'."
"Look at the treetop of that withered tree ahead, Marcus. How far do you think it is from us?"
Marcus followed his pointing finger to see a lonely old oak tree stretching its gnarled branches in the night.
Based on his experienced hunter's estimation, the distance was about seventy yards—just at the effective range edge for slugs from his shotgun.
Yet when he focused, trying to judge the distance more precisely, a strange sensation quietly erged.
He noticed the tree's outline seed to sway slightly—one mont he felt the tree was pulled closer, every detail clearly visible, the next mont it seed pushed far away, becoming blurred and distant.
His brain struggled to process these contradictory visual signals, and a slight nausea and dizziness similar to seasickness began uncontrollably rising from his stomach.
"What's happening?" Marcus's expression turned sowhat unpleasant.
As a seasoned physical combatant, he particularly despised this kind of eerie attack affecting senses and spirit that couldn't be countered with strength.
"Welco to the 'Crooked House'." Lin Jie said softly.
"We've already stepped into the 'domain's' range."
He opened his palm, and the Crooked Sixpence was now emitting a low buzzing sound in his hand.
The originally blurred patterns on the coin's surface had co alive, slowly twisting and deforming themselves—it had activated like a resonator sensing its master's force field.
"It seems to have already discovered us." Lin Jie clenched the coin again.
"It's 'greeting' us in its own way—this UMA is tampering with the most fundantal 'physical laws' and 'spatial perception' between us and this world."
Marcus imdiately understood the danger implied by these words.
For a hunter relying primarily on ranged firepower, "trajectory" and "distance" were his lifelines.
If these two things beca unreliable, then the weapon in his hands would instantly transform from a deadly killing tool into useless scrap tal.
"Damn, I knew nothing good would co from following you." Marcus cursed under his breath, but his grip on the storm lantern beca steadier and stronger.
He pulled a gleaming yellow slug from his ammunition pouch and smoothly loaded it into the shotgun's chamber.
"Let's go in." Lin Jie made the decision.
The two moved forward slowly, one after another, toward the center of the ruins.
Marcus walked ahead, his large fra blocking most of the view for Lin Jie.
His storm lantern was tightly controlled by the light shield, projecting only a narrow but stable bright beam that pierced the darkness ahead.
Lin Jie followed closely behind, his mind fully imrsed in perceiving the increasingly obvious eerie changes in the surrounding environnt.
The closer they got to the center of the ruins, the stronger the sensation of spatial distortion beca.
Lin Jie saw a collapsed stone pillar that should have been straight now displayed an eerie S-shaped contour.
The ground beneath his feet had lost its flatness too—walking felt like going downhill one mont and climbing uphill the next, with each step landing slightly off from where his brain predicted.
Even sounds beca abnormal—Marcus's heavy footsteps sounded sotis distant, sotis exploding right by his ears, completely losing any sense of distance.
This was a world being "rewritten," where all physical common sense used for positioning and judgnt were being gradually stripped away.
"Sothing's ahead." His voice turned wary.
Lin Jie peered past his side and saw, at the very end of Marcus's bright beam, right at the center of the ruins, a dark, slender figure standing motionless with its back to them.
The figure's silhouette was discordant, like a black human shape hastily sketched by an unskilled artist using charred charcoal.
Its limbs and torso displayed unnatural bends that violated human skeletal structure.
Its neck was twisted to one side at an angle that would break a normal person's cervical spine—it resembled a broken marionette carelessly discarded, emanating a heart-palpitating aura.
"Twisted Man." Lin Jie slowly uttered the na.
As if hearing his voice, the black figure turned around with a dislocated-joint-like eerie posture.
It had no eyes, but a large mouth revealing crimson gums stretched across its face.
And as it turned, Marcus instinctively raised his shotgun.
Purely driven by combat instinct, he pulled the trigger aid at that figure!
"BOOM!!"
A massive explosion roared as the M1887's muzzle spat a fan-shaped blast of blazing flas mixed with purification holy salt and silver powder.
Several steel pellets, propelled by violent kinetic energy, ford an impenetrable curtain of death that completely swallowed the dark figure!
The lethal curtain powerful enough to tear a bull to shreds collectively perford an eerie turn just before hitting the Twisted Man's body!
As if an invisible massive gravitational vortex existed before the UMA, all pellets were captured by that irresistible twisted force field.
A complete miss!
And the Twisted Man remained standing quietly in place.
It slowly raised its twisted branch-like arm, then made a gesture inviting the two forward.
"Fuck, that's impossible!" Marcus's face showed clear displeasure.
"No, it's very possible." Lin Jie's voice remained exceptionally calm.
He placed a hand on Marcus's shoulder and said gravely, "I told you earlier—the 'physical laws' we're familiar with no longer apply here."
"Marcus, put away your gun. Until we find a way to counter its abilities, conventional physical attacks an nothing to it."
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