Just as the boy was about to crash into the flames, a pair of large black wings suddenly unfolded from his back. Ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs, he quickly adjusted his direction and glided safely on the sidewalk.

At the same time, Xiao Yi's brain was working at full speed. (The road folded in half; with this much traffic, cars should've been stacked on top of each other. But here, the cars on both sides of the road were staggered like jagged teeth, crashing into one another but never merging.

The person behind this probably... doesn't have the ability? If they could, wouldn't it be easier to teleport me inside an exploding tanker truck or into the concrete walls of a nearby building? That way, I'd definitely be dead—or at least, this body would be...)

Before the youth could finish thinking, the space around him twisted again. This time, both he and the ground beneath his feet were suddenly transported beneath an off-road vehicle hurtling down from above after being thrown by an explosion.

Already prepared, Xiao Yi moved like lightning, dodging to the side just in time. A loud crack followed as his ribs, which hadn't fully healed yet, broke again. Even so, he barely avoided being crushed under the falling SUV!

"Damn it!* Does this ever end?" the black-haired boy cursed, clutching his side and standing on guard.

*Was written as "MD" in raw. A shorthand for a swear word or an exclamation in Chinese, "妈的" (mā de), which is a mild curse similar to "damn" or "hell."

But his mind kept racing. (He couldn't place me directly in the center of an explosion. Instead, he keeps twisting space to use either my own speed or the speed of these vehicles to kill me. As long as I don't move, the risk is cut in half.)

Once again, the space shifted and rearranged itself. Seizing the moment before gravity pulled him too far down, Xiao Yi flapped his wings and flew over the blazing tanker truck. From the higher vantage point, he surveyed the area. Just as he had guessed, the twisted space only covered a 200-meter stretch of road. Beyond that, the distant scenery looked strange, like a shattered mirror.

(This 'world' has boundaries! Because the mastermind needed precise control over this area, this 'world' was much smaller than last night's. If I were him, how would I maximize the range of my domain to kill someone on a highway?)

At this point, Xiao Yi had no idea how much the person behind this knew about him. Did they know he wasn't human? Were they trying to make him slip up, or was this purely an attempt to kill him? Or perhaps they already knew everything about him and were trying to lure him into using the rest of his hidden body parts so they could trap and kill him once and for all?

Xiao Yi summoned his black threads but didn't use them to heal his ribs or transform his body. Instead, he chose the safest and least energy-consuming way to test his theory.

Amid the flames and explosions, with heat waves carrying the smell of gasoline and burning plastic, the boy gently flapped his wings. He slowly flew toward the rooftops of the nearby buildings, moving at a pace of 20 centimeters per second. Xiao Yi suspected that these rooftops marked the boundary of the twisted space.

His slow movement was almost laughable in such a tense situation, like a giant black fly hovering awkwardly in the middle of a battlefield. The space twisted several times, but Xiao Yi, already moving at a snail's pace, easily avoided the dangers and continued inching toward the boundary.

After repeating this seven or eight times, the explosions and flying debris on the street gradually subsided. Finally, Xiao Yi approached the shattered mirror-like edge behind the buildings.

When he got within five meters of the boundary, the hidden enemy surprisingly did nothing, as if they had forgotten about the battle entirely. The youth was now close enough to dive into the boundary with a quick burst of speed.

But he maintained his snail-like pace, slowly creeping toward the fragmented space while sneering inwardly. (You're trying to trick me into rushing through the boundary, hoping to ambush me when I speed up and crash into the flames? Not happening!)

Three meters left. Xiao Yi kept his slow pace.

Two meters. Still crawling forward.

One meter. The mastermind finally lost patience and twisted the space again, transporting Xiao Yi back to the middle of the road. This time, they didn't even bother setting traps, as if they had given up entirely.

And so, the black-haired boy hovered again like a ridiculous giant fly on the burning street.

Xiao Yi's ribs had already healed, but the intense heat in the air left him drenched in sweat. Even so, he remained focused, sticking to his plan to test if passing through the shattered boundary would break this strange space. The hidden enemy made no further moves for several minutes as if they had completely given up.

Three meters. Two meters. One meter. Yet, no space distortion occurred. Slowly, Xiao Yi, still resembling a "hovering fly," passed through the shimmering boundary. And then…

He came out on the opposite side of the street, back inside the same twisted space. The youth's heart sank. Passing through the boundary hadn't worked—it only transported him from one side of the space to the other. So why had the mastermind pretended to fear Xiao Yi' breaking through' earlier, going so far as to teleport him back to the road?

They're stalling for time!

The person manipulating this space clearly had many limitations. The larger the area and the more space they twisted, the greater the effort required. By pulling the black-haired youth away before he could "reach" the boundary, they were likely buying time to recover.

This also meant there must be a flaw in this space—a way to escape. That's why the mastermind didn't want Xiao Yi to continue his experiment. They hoped to kill him before he found the way out!

As if responding to Xiao Yi's thoughts, the surroundings suddenly trembled violently. The entire space split in two along the road's centerline. The section of the road opposite the youth began to rise like a tectonic shift during an earthquake. Within seconds, it was 17 or 18 meters higher, with burning car wreckage now level with the rooftop where the youth hovered.

But instead of slamming toward him as he had feared, the elevated road and buildings continued to rise. Layers of earth beneath the road were exposed, climbing higher than Xiao Yi's position. And still, they kept going.

It can't be… The black-haired youth's eyes widened as realization dawned. Flapping his wings, he quickly descended toward the ground on his side of the street. Staying on the rooftop felt far more dangerous now. He has one last move that could break this space, but it was too risky to use unless his life depended on it.

As he landed, the other half of the street had already risen 70 or 80 meters. Suddenly, a massive shadow engulfed everything, casting the burning buildings and cars into darkness. Ten seconds later, the raised section above the youth began to flip over—completely upside down!

Everything on top—buildings, cars, asphalt, even trees—came crashing down like an overturned plate of food.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Xiao Yi muttered, looking up at the inevitable destruction about to rain on him.

"Do you have to push me this far?" he growled, tilting his head back to glare at the descending chaos now less than 40 meters away. With a grim expression, he activated his system space. (Let's see just how much your special space can handle. I don't believe you can accommodate what's coming!)

With 20 meters to spare, the black-haired youth unleashed over 10,000 fat pigs he synthesized in his storage space.

Suddenly, the entire street was packed with fat, squealing animals. Their combined weight was enough to destabilize the space, which began to rapidly collapse. Flames scorched the pigs, causing them to shriek in pain, but their sheer bulk slowed the falling debris. Within moments, Xiao Yi darted and dodged through the chaos, avoiding the initial wave of falling buildings.

As the space dissolved, the youth's surroundings brightened. He found himself back in reality, seated inside a moving car.

Before he could say anything, the driver, Liu Mo, slammed on the brakes and shouted, "What the hell?! Where did all these pigs come from?!"

As the twisted space vanished, all 10,000 pigs reappeared in the real world along with Xiao Yi, filling the 200-meter-long street. Though nearly half of them had perished in the earlier chaos, the remaining 5,000 pigs trampled over the remnants of their fallen comrades, wreaking havoc as they charged uncontrollably through the streets.

Liu Mo's reflexes as an ability user allowed him to brake just in time, narrowly avoiding seven massive pigs ahead. However, the off-road vehicle behind them, driven by someone with normal human reflexes, failed to stop in time and rammed into their car. Similar accidents erupted simultaneously across the street as the rampaging pigs collided with cars, pedestrians, and each other, triggering another wave of chaos and destruction.

Sitting in the overturned car, Xiao Yi guiltily turned his head away from the mess he had caused. (The pigs have completely dispersed and no longer have any connection to my black threads. I can't control them anymore...)

.

Four hours later, Huo Li, who had just returned from another planet, stared at the group of bruised and battered people in front of him, completely dumbfounded. No, to be precise, the disbelief had started earlier. While faking records for the interstellar Philip Conglomerate that afternoon, he had glanced at a news broadcast on a business tower's screen. The headline? "Breaking News: Flying Pigs Descend on Prosperity Planet!" Among the chaos, he spotted his subordinates being interviewed as victims.

Huo Li had no idea what could have possibly injured his battle-hardened team before the parasites launched a full-scale attack. Still, since neither his subordinates nor Xiao Yi had sent out any distress signals, he suppressed his doubts and continued with his work:

Forging personnel records in planetary registration buildings.

Establishing grand Philip estates and villas on seven luxury planets.

Placing two "parents," a "sister," and an "uncle's family" that Xiao Yi stored in his system space into the estates and controlling them remotely.

Altering the memories of 455 top-tier household staff to serve as Philip family servants.

Modifying the memories of over 40 billion interstellar residents—or parasitic creatures—to make the Philip family a household name in the galaxy.

After completing these tasks in record time, Huo Li rushed back to Prosperity Planet, still plagued with unease. He arrived to find his subordinates and Xiao Yi… enjoying a full pig feast in a private room at a fancy restaurant near their hotel.

"Boss, don't be angry!" With his head wrapped in bandages, Liu Mo quickly pleaded when he noticed Huo Li's dark expression. "We've had a really rough day! So we decided to take a break and have a feast to calm our nerves. Even sister-in-law agreed!"

He glanced at the black-haired youth, who was eating ribs with a blank expression, and eagerly passed the responsibility to him.

"Going to the hospital today or tomorrow is the same anyway," Xiao Yi said, swallowing a bite of roasted pork as he glanced at Huo Li.

Huo Li's eyes swept over his injured team. To his shock, aside from Xiao Yi, every single one of them was sporting injuries!

"We were already on the news and couldn't heal immediately without raising suspicions, so we're stuck like this for now." Da Li explained, pointing to the stitches on his forehead from where he'd taken a six-centimeter cut. The combination of his injury and delicate features gave him a strangely fragile beauty that Huo Li found unsettling.

Nodding slightly, Huo Li accepted the explanation and turned his attention to Aliena.

Of everyone, she was by far the most pitiful. Dressed in a sleeveless red gown, her once-flawless arms were both broken and wrapped in heavy bandages. They lay stiffly on the table, immobile. Her usually radiant and sultry face was now pale and sorrowful, her tearful expression lending her a delicate vulnerability. She was gingerly nibbling on roast pig with the help of Britney, who fed her with a fork.

Huo Li could barely believe that someone as capable as Aliena had been severely injured.

Fighting the urge to rub his temples, Huo Li asked, "Aliena, what happened to you?"

Her fiery red hair framed her small face, which was now on the verge of tears. "I-I was smashed by a fat pig!!"