He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 126 Tom and Jerry

Wings, and —

Although momentarily stunned, Hugh quickly regained his composure, sizing up the uninvited guest before him. He took a deep breath and raised the gun slightly—"Who are you?"

There was a deathly silence, and Hugh received no response.

The figure in the corner merely raised their head slightly, yet even faced with a gun barrel larger than a wrist, they remained rooted to the spot, their ruby-like pupils shimmering with an inorganic quality.

— Weird.

Hugh frowned and carefully observed the strange fellow: he had found it incredible before that he could not find any trace of human modification in his sight—this was extremely unusual.

After all, fragile flesh and blood cannot withstand a harsh environment—it is very difficult, and almost impossible, for a human to survive in the bottom nest.

Because he has a side job outside, the groups he usually comes into contact with are not ordinary people—Hugh considers himself to be the most "knowledgeable" person in town, but even with his knowledge, he still finds it hard to understand the scene in front of him.

"Can you speak?"

He silently increased his vigilance, then pressed the thick barrel of his gun directly against the uninvited guest's forehead, his voice deliberately suppressed, serious, and muffled, "Who are you? How did you get in here? What is your purpose in coming to my house? Answer me."

In reality, Hugh wasn't as calm as he appeared on the surface—if it weren't for the fact that the "moonstone" hanging around his neck hadn't reacted yet, he might have directly identified the strange entity in front of him as an "alien species."

The bottom nest is not a world that belongs only to humans.

"Can't we communicate? —"

Faced with the girl's continued lack of response, Hugh's expression grew increasingly grim. He then confirmed his target's sexual characteristics: intact flesh and wings proved her identity as a "winged species"—

Everyone in the bottom nest knows that it's best not to mess with the winged bird-men, because they are especially good at sticking together, and each one is more troublesome than the last.

Then, looking at her appearance, Hugh shifted his gaze from that delicate face to the girl's back.

Two pairs of flamboyant and proud wings—a vibrant color rarely seen in the bottom nest—that touch of golden-red, like a sharp, rosy blade, stung Hugh's pupils, which were already accustomed to darkness.

He narrowed his eyes.

—In a world dominated by gray and black—such a high-profile individual usually doesn't live long.

After confirming once again that there was no abnormality in the device used to identify the alien species, Hugh breathed a brief sigh of relief—although the current situation was hard to understand, it was at least still within our control.

—Just an outsider who doesn't belong here.

Hugh already had a preliminary guess: given the girl's extremely low rate of human modification, she was very likely an unlucky girl who had accidentally ended up here from [Metropolis]. He had seen similar cases before.

Although the person in front of him seemed quite special, she was still within Hugh's acceptable range—as long as he could get rid of her before trouble came his way.

"If you can understand me, please leave my house."

His tone was stiff, and he tried to cover up the immaturity that came with his age with his hoarse voice. "The Southern Association's supervisors patrol near the [Lighthouse]. If you run into any trouble, just keep heading north. That's the border of Usa. Someone will take you back to where you belong—"

Suddenly, the rest of his sentence was swallowed back down his throat. Hugh froze on the spot, because the strange man in front of him raised his head at that moment—this time, that inorganic gaze was truly cast upon him, and a spark of starlight ignited from it.

The next second, Aina blinked.

Looking into those golden-red eyes, Xiu slowly lost himself in a kind of tremor, his unfocused pupils covered by mottled colors, trembling slightly.

"————" The girl with wings tilted her head.

Where is this?

Slowly regaining her senses from the hazy, jumbled thoughts, Aina stared at her fair palms, flapped her wings, and began to sort out her chaotic thoughts little by little—what happened?

Perhaps it was the first time that some kind of "fluid" sealed in the blood of the glass vessel emitted a faint light, and a newborn, hazy consciousness flowed inside this body—slowly but steadily building up a "thin" personality.

【Aina】

She pondered the meaning of the name and naturally anchored it to the foundation of her own "existence".

—My name is Aina—

The next instant, as the embryo of the spirit hatched from the tin shell, certain pre-compiled messages were etched into the depths of her mind, the first of which was a "bottom protocol".

"Initial Log: Trying to complete myself."

Note: Have fun!

—That's it.

Aina gently twirled the hair behind her ear with her fingers, somewhat puzzled as to why the information in her memory bank seemed a little—indecent.

An unknown personality, born from nowhere, modifies her behavioral framework, so Aina naturally learns some human-like actions, such as using "tilting her head" and "shaking her head" to divert attention, and incidentally to indicate that she is in the process of "thinking".

She scanned her surroundings, and the environment she saw gradually corresponded with the "cognition" in her preconceived personality. She quickly understood many things and gained a preliminary ability to "connect" and "judge".

—I am currently in someone's private residence.

Regardless of which world's rules you judge it by, this shouldn't be considered a "normal" spawn point.

-besides.

She tilted her head and squinted at the scene in front of her: a stranger was holding something strange and pointing it at her forehead.

—It is a weapon.

And more—Aina blinked again.

—The soul before her, which was not particularly complex to her, was shedding its outer layer in her crystal-clear gaze, revealing its inner workings and complexities—

Hostility, vigilance, tension, fear —

"Eh?"

Aina quickly realized that she seemed to be committing a crime of trespassing and had been arrested on the spot.

—What a hassle—

Although she still didn't understand why she was in this place, she instinctively felt that it wasn't a serious problem. So, Aina leaned against the wall and staggered to her feet, using her wing bones for support so that her somewhat clumsy body could stand firmly in place.

"Hello there."

She looked at Hugh, who was staring blankly at her, hesitated for a moment, and then decided to say hello.

Although it was her first time interacting with outsiders, the girl spoke naturally and skillfully, a friendly and seemingly harmless smile on her face. "Is it strange to ask this? — Anyway — is this the bottom nest?"

."

A faint buzzing sound lingered in the confined space. Hugh snapped out of his daze a few seconds earlier, and after a half-second's reaction, he shuddered violently, forcefully raising the gun in his hand again. "Don't move! When did you get up?!"

The dangerous element who was huddled in the corner a moment ago suddenly appeared out of thin air, even closer to him. Realizing that his thoughts had been interrupted, Hugh's breathing quickened, and his trembling fingers silently climbed the trigger.

"Relax." Aina stretched and squinted at him. Yi Erxiu felt a sudden stiffness, and when he refocused his gaze, the gun in his hand had vanished.

"————" Hugh took a deep breath and looked at the woman in front of him who was playing with the shotgun with great interest, and felt a chill run down his spine.

"Energy person————"

When this guy appeared, Hugh felt a strange sensation, as if his mind no longer belonged to him—combined with the "mutation" that had occurred in him recently, he could guess some things.

—Are we the same kind?—

Stop thinking:

Was it because of a mistake in one of my actions that led to this trouble—or was it because my special nature was noticed by someone equally special?

—This world has a power that technology cannot explain. Hugh knew this a long time ago, or rather, the existence of “ability users” is not a secret that needs to be kept in the Underworld.

But at least, she didn't seem to harbor any hostility.

When faced with an inescapable and bizarre force, the best way to comfort oneself is to think that "the other party is not hostile." Hugh tries to calm himself down and quickly recognizes the current situation.

—Save your life first.

"This—sir, you—" he tried to speak in a clumsy, obsequious tone, but the woman opposite him didn't seem to want to listen to him and continued moving around in the not-so-spacious house on her own.

Opening the cold cabinet door, Aina pulled out a metal can with condensation on its surface, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Is this drinkable?"

"Please." Hugh pouted resentfully. Drinks were a luxury here; these were hard-earned items at home, and he himself wouldn't even drink them.

"Click—" Aina pulled the tab without hesitation, downed half the bottle in one gulp, and licked her lips with lingering satisfaction. "Dr. Pepper? I never thought I could get this at the bottom of the sea."

"Sorry—" Seizing the opportunity, Hugh quickly interjected. He had accumulated too many mysteries from the beginning, but being suffocated by this overly familiar woman's rambling and interruptions had almost made him choke. Finally finding an opening, he asked, "What you said at the beginning—"

"What? Is this the bottom nest? What does that mean?"

Hugh was skeptical of her habitual use of the term "bottom nest." In fact, 80% of the bottom nest residents did not know the world they lived in. At an even higher level, the term "nest city" was used by people of a different generation. In fact, the new generation after the Illumination Century could no longer understand the concept of "nest city."

So, Hugh still had half a question left unasked: "Are you from the upper echelons?"

Instead of worrying about this—

Aina squinted and shook her head, clearly not wanting to answer the question. She pointed to the door with the Dr. Pepper in her hand, abruptly changing the subject, "It seems someone is coming back."

Before the words were finished, a "beep" sounded, and a ray of light shone in from outside the dark living room.

"dad-

"6

Hugh watched as the door behind him was opened from the outside. He turned his head with a look of utter fury, but because Aina was present, he couldn't react too much. He could only follow the "secret code" he had agreed on with his father beforehand—his long, thin cat tail was practically wagging like a diamond-patterned rattlesnake—to try to signal to the person outside that there was danger.

—Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!

He roared silently, but unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.

As the door was pushed open, a strong smell of alcohol began to spread under the cramped ceiling. Aina frowned, instinctively thinking that a drunkard would be the one who pushed the door open, so she turned around without much interest. She didn't try to hide, but just quietly looked at the "refrigerator" pieced together from many discarded structures, and the furnishings in this simple house.

—All the appliances here are handmade—

Aina glanced at the cat-eared boy beside her, showing some interest, but quickly became stunned by what she saw.

A petite figure, reeking of alcohol, rushed into Hugh's arms.

"Hugh! Hugh!" The little man, whom Hugh called "father," was making a racket. He didn't seem very bright and didn't notice Aina, the uninvited guest, for a moment. All his attention was focused on the "son" in front of him.

"I brought you something good—look, look." He pulled out a glass bottle containing a solidified, oily substance. "What you've always wanted, lubricant or engine oil? —I secretly brought some back. See if it'll be of any use —"

Hugh looked a little bewildered. After noticing the ambiguous look from Aina behind him, he took a deep breath, slowly took the glass bottle, rubbed his big ears, and quietly protected his "father" behind him.

"Very useful, thank you Dad."

He turned to look at Aina, his complex expression freezing on his face when he met her sparkling eyes.

"So cute————" It turns out that although her personality was hatched from a certain fox, Aina still has little resistance to cute things.

"Hugh, do you have any friends over?" The little guy clearly couldn't read the complicated and eerie atmosphere of the scene, so he just jumped up happily and greeted Aina.

Hugh's father appeared to be of some kind of rodent-like descent, no more than 1.4 meters tall. He wore a dirty-looking uniform, his long, grayish-black hair covered in bits of dust. His round ears, almost the same size as his head, looked soft and beautiful—unfortunately, the edge of his ear bore a roughly made metal slingshot. Although the wound had healed, it left a severe scar.

"Why didn't you tell me? It's rare for a friend to come over."

"Sorry." He smiled at Aina, looking a little embarrassed, but then tried to maintain his fatherly authority, gently tugging at Hugh's wildly wagging tail. "Hugh is usually aloof and doesn't know how to entertain guests."

"No." Aina looked at him and tilted her head.

—When I first arrived at Cai Di's nest, I wasn't greeted by a bloody fire scene, nor by greedy hyenas and vultures who only wanted to chew others up and swallow them whole.

Instead, it's a peculiar family, a father and son consisting of a cat and a mouse.

—A start that doesn't quite fit the stereotype of a bottom nest might be a good one.

"I'm so happy." Aina crouched down and, under Hugh's horrified gaze, gently rubbed the pair of round mouse ears.

—It's really soft and fluffy.