Chapter 401 Enochs Inhuman Eyes
The production crew was filming continuously, so naturally, the control room was the first to know when something went wrong.
A camera operator's panicked voice soon came through the comms.
"Holy shit..."
He was not the only one. Several other camera operators cried out almost simultaneously.
The control room was immediately confused. "What happened?"
The field producer accompanying Enoch answered in a strained voice, "I think... there's been an accident over here."
Enoch had not been the one in the crash, but the news still threw the entire production crew into chaos.
The last thing anyone wanted was an accident during filming, especially one that injured a cast member. Enoch might not be a celebrity himself, but he was Vivian's son. If anything happened to him, Vivian would probably tear the entire crew apart on the spot.
When those in the control room switched to the live feed, they found everyone at the scene staring in shock.
Enoch stood where he was with a faint frown, looking somewhat displeased.
The clean-cut young man had an unusually striking appearance, but no one was in the mood to admire it. Behind him, the supermarket's front windows had been shattered, and a van had crashed straight through them after narrowly missing him.
Yet everyone had clearly seen that the vehicle had originally been heading directly for Enoch.
Then, impossibly, it had veered sideways.
Not turned.
Veered.
When a driver made a turn, even a sharp one, the movement of the vehicle still followed a natural arc.
But the instant this van reached Enoch, it seemed to be struck by an enormous invisible force.
The entire vehicle was shoved sideways out of his path, scraped past him, and then shot straight into the supermarket.
The people inside were terrified. Fortunately, there had not been many customers, and the impact had slowed the van down. Only one employee suffered minor scrapes.
But that was not the strangest part.
The strangest part was that no one was inside the van.
There was no driver.
The entire production crew was dumbfounded. There had been no way to prevent something like this. What truly stunned them was the series of impossible events that followed.
Meanwhile, the boy at the center of it all simply stood there as though the incident barely concerned him, even though he had almost been run over.
There was not a trace of fear on his face.
That degree of composure could no longer be explained by someone having simply been through a lot.
None of the camera operators dared imagine what the real reason might be.
At that moment, Enoch raised his eyes toward the van.
Had a camera moved around to film him from the front, it would have captured the black vertical slits that had appeared in his eyes.
They were no longer human eyes.
"Enoch, step back. Don't stand there."
The field producer finally came to his senses and hurried forward to pull him away.
Enoch snapped out of his daze. His eyes had already returned to normal. He blinked, then slowly nodded.
His movements were unhurried, almost sluggish.
Not far away stood a veteran actor who looked as though he had nearly suffered a heart attack. He had gone to the supermarket with Enoch but had still been inside paying when Enoch carried the groceries out.
The instant the van crashed through the storefront, the actor had nearly fainted. Fortunately, he had been far enough away to escape unharmed.
By the time Zara arrived, the producers were already ushering Enoch into a production van to take him back.
When Enoch saw her, he pressed his lips together as though he wanted to greet her.
Zara, however, was already staring into the supermarket.
No one else could see it, but to her eyes, the crashed van was shrouded in black energy.
Something unnatural was hiding inside.
And it did not dare come out.
With Enoch already taken back to the hotel, Zara went to investigate on her own.
People were screaming and scrambling in every direction. The van crashing into the supermarket had clearly terrified everyone nearby.
Someone had already called the police, and officers would arrive soon.
If Zara walked straight over, she would attract too much attention. Instead, she watched the cloud of black energy gradually fade.
Just as it was about to disappear completely, a towering figure suddenly burst out of it and fled at a terrifying speed.
But speed meant nothing if it still could not escape Zara.
She followed without hurrying, though her movements became so fast that no one on the crowded streets noticed anything unusual.
The shadow raced toward the city's harbor and plunged into the sea, apparently hoping to escape through the water.
Zara spread one hand.
The calm surface of the harbor suddenly erupted into a massive whirlpool. Water exploded into the air, sending the people nearby into another round of screams.
A mass of black shadow was dragged out of the sea.
Zara controlled everything from a distance, so no one noticed her involvement. Ordinary people could not see the creature itself. They only saw the water erupt without warning and panicked at the bizarre sight.
The moment Zara seized the shadow, she pulled it away and vanished with it.
At the corner of the street, a security camera silently recorded the entire scene.
Zara dragged the creature back to her hotel.
She had brought Aurelion along, and the instant she stepped inside, he began shouting.
"What is that disgusting smell?!"
He could not see the creature yet, but he knew Zara had brought something back with her.
With a flick of her hand, Zara revealed the black shadow.
It was an enormous, grotesque figure made entirely of shifting darkness. Its twisted features resembled a demon from some ancient legend.
Aurelion froze the moment he saw it.
The creature, however, seemed completely unaware of how dangerous Zara was. The instant it appeared, it opened its enormous mouth.
Its jaws resembled a slit leading into a bottomless abyss, as though it intended to swallow Zara whole.
Zara did not hesitate.
A crescent-shaped blade of energy formed in her hand and plunged into the creature's body. The force tore it apart from within, shredding it into pieces before reducing it to ash.
Zara had sensed immediately that the creature possessed no real intelligence. Since it had tried to attack her, there was no reason to let it continue existing.
Aurelion looked thoroughly shaken. "How did an Abyssshade get here?!"
Zara turned to him. "What's an Abyssshade?"
Aurelion raised his neck, his tail stiff with alarm.
"They're creatures born in one of the abyssal forbidden zones in our world. They're technically classified as mystic beasts, but they're fundamentally different from us."
"They have no intelligence, and no one knows whether they obey anyone. They devour anything they encounter. Humans and mystic beasts are both food to them."
"But they don't simply eat flesh. They drain the energy from living beings. They also seem to feed on emotions, especially darker ones. The more evil something is, the more they enjoy it."
"The worst part is that they're incredibly difficult to kill. They're nothing but living shadows, and because they originate from an abyssal forbidden zone, even mystic beasts have few effective ways to deal with them."
"Just one of them can cause an enormous amount of trouble."
Aurelion was not particularly surprised that Zara had destroyed it with a casual attack.
Still, the incident proved once again that Zara somehow managed to exceed the limits of what he thought he could endure every single day.