Early in the morning, the hotel lobby was almost empty of guests. A uniformed woman at the front desk yawned listlessly. Seeing someone enter, she immediately straightened up, a smile blooming on her lips, her eyes instantly sparkling.
"Good morning, do you have an appointment?"
The exceptionally beautiful woman before her remained silent, staring intently at the receptionist.
Thinking she hadn't understood, the receptionist repeated her greeting with a standardized smile and tone: "Good morning, could you have an appointment?"
"I'm looking for a cat."
A red glow appeared in the woman's eyes, with a hint of seduction. "Have you seen it?"
"No, no."
"Then what about the person with the cat?"
The woman gestured in the air, and a scene resembling a memory appeared. A group of people were holding a black cat, respectfully handing it to a man. "This person, he took the cat."
The receptionist's eyes showed a flicker of resistance, then confusion. After a moment, she lowered her head. "The guest in VIP room 5068, named, named."
The woman impatiently snatched the registration list. Upon seeing the name, she demanded, "Give me the room card."
The receptionist hesitated for a moment, still struggling, but it was clearly futile. "I, I don't have a room card. I'm not... a Golden Key..."
The woman turned away in disgust and walked towards the staircase.
Clearly, if the receptionist had waited a moment longer, she would have told her how to get in. But the woman suddenly remembered she didn't need a room card to enter.
Perhaps she had stayed in that place for too long, forgetting her usual methods.
When had she ever followed the rules?
She entered the stairwell and climbed floor by floor. The lighting in the stairs was dim, and it was too early for much light to filter through the glass windows. Her steady footsteps echoed rhythmically in the stairwell, like the tolling of a death knell.
"Thump, thump, thump."
"Thump, thump, thump."
"Thump, thump, thump."
A cleaner passed by and, seeing her strange behavior, couldn't help but speak up. The woman turned around, and the cleaner instantly seemed to lose his senses, turning around blankly and pushing his cart away.
"Thump, thump, thump."
She knocked for the fourth time, but still, no one opened the door.
She stepped back two paces. The hotel security door before her transformed in the blink of an eye back to its original state, from an intact door, to a pile of iron and steel, then to ore, and particles...
She walked in. The person in the room clearly hadn't expected anyone to enter and stared with wide eyes. "Who are you? How did you get in!"
"Where's the cat?"
The man seemed groggy from sleep, or perhaps he was feigning ignorance. "What cat? Get out! Or I'll call the police."
"Where's the cat?" She walked closer, her aura like that of a soul-reaping demon from hell, exuding a chilling aura as she approached him.
"The white one, that cat!"
The man flinched, then reacted, immediately scolding sternly, "I don't know what you're talking about! Help! Help!"
Someone rushed in, bringing the cat with them.
"Young Master Fu, what... Who are you!"
Someone had already drawn a gun and aimed it at her.
The cat, upon seeing her, instinctively tried to bolt.
She reached out, her hand like a magnet, drawing it back.
"Bang!"
As they witnessed the bizarre scene, someone subconsciously pulled the trigger.
However, the bullet didn't hit the woman. In their sight, a rapidly fired bullet transformed from a stream of molten iron, to a pile of black mist, and finally disappeared completely.
All of them were profoundly shaken. Their instincts told them to flee immediately.
But having taken the money, they had to do their duty. Some foolhardy individuals fired two more shots.
The result was the same as the first shot.
As the person took aim for the third shot, before it was fired, the firearm in his hand, along with his body, began to revert to its original state.
They heard a scream. In mere seconds, they watched a living person transform from vibrant youth to withered old age, his face rapidly creasing with wrinkles, desiccating, becoming a skeleton, the skeleton turning black, decomposing, and disappearing from this world particle by particle.
If her earlier act of deflecting bullets with a bizarre technique was still within their realm of comprehension, what she was doing now made them see reality clearly.
This was a monster.
A monster that could age someone to dust in an instant.
They fled through the door.
In a flash, only the man and the cat remained.
"I didn't want to kill anyone. Why are you so stupid?"
The man's body trembled, filled with extreme fear.
This fear stemmed not only from her bizarre abilities but more so from the unknown, from the dread of a mysterious power.
"Who told you to catch this cat?"
The man stammered, "N-no one? I just, I thought it looked cute."
"Cute?"
The woman let out a scoff. She threw the cat to the ground. The moment it landed, its body expanded seven or eight times, instantly transforming from a small kitten into a ferocious beast.
This wasn't the most terrifying part.
What was truly horrifying was that as its body expanded, a multitude of heads emerged from within.
Some large, some small, countless numbers of them.
This scene was utterly grotesque.
"Ah!"
"Still cute?"