Prologue: The Meteorite (Revised)

A dazzling trajectory crossed the sky, but under the kaleidoscopic glow of the night market's neon lights, it vanished in the blink of an eye, disappearing from everyone's sight.

After a violent collision, a meteorite, dark gray and the size of a basketball, plunged into a narrow alley, embedding itself deeply in the concrete.

The tremendous crash scared off the stray dogs scavenging through the heaps of garbage, yet it was still drowned out by the clamor of the night market.

As the faint scent of burning dissipated, the red-hot glow on the meteorite faded, but the disturbance was far from over.

Inside the meteorite lay a mass of pink jelly-like substance. Despite the intense heat of friction, it neither boiled nor deteriorated, instead transforming quietly.

The meteorite's surface spontaneously cracked into a fine web of fissures. A trace of air seeped in, igniting a violent reaction within the pink gel, as if a spark had touched diesel.

This sliver of air dissolved into the liquid, giving rise to tubular, spherical, and sheet-like strange structures within the gel. Some burst into tiny bubbles, while others merged seamlessly, proliferating rapidly.

Structures that reacted explosively dissolved again, integrating into the successfully fused formations, becoming their nourishment.

Soon, most of the jelly-like substance was consumed, coalescing into a pink, thumb-sized, slug-like creature, writhing amidst a puddle of waste fluid.

Some unknown mechanism triggered the meteorite's shell to crumble into a pile of powder.

Bathed in the alien air of this world, it had finally adapted to its surroundings.

The gap between life forms is unfathomably vast; what sustains one may prove poison to another. Unnoticed in a hidden corner, it completed in moments a process of adaptation that earthly life took millions of years to achieve, overcoming the perilous crucible of its birth!

With the formation of the slug, a sudden, intense burst of brainwave activity erupted.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Resentment flooded its minuscule body.

It crawled along the ground, its feeble, gelatinous limbs barely able to bear its own weight, dragging its limp form across the floor.

Struggling in the darkness, its body was so immature it had yet to differentiate organs or systems, resembling nothing more than an enlarged paramecium.

This frail vessel could not even prevent fluid from leaking, leaving a trail of glistening mucus behind. Even after adapting to the planet's atmosphere, countless obstacles still loomed before it.

Yet within this lump of organic matter, weaker than any insect, a terrifying will was imprisoned, radiating waves of malice as tangible as electricity.

In that instant, every electronic device within a hundred meters flickered.

The hatred was so pure and intense—it simply loathed its own weakness and impotence.

Its silent roar shook the electrolytes inside, sending weak bioelectric currents coursing through its form, while its chaotic biological structures shifted and morphed. These structures were mere experiments of natural evolution, cluttered with useless components, relying on instinct to streamline themselves into more efficient forms.

But it could direct this accelerated evolution, compressing the work of millions of years into moments.

It abandoned any attempt to construct circulatory systems, recklessly consuming what little material remained, pouring everything into its hunting instincts.

Its tender skin rapidly darkened and thickened—not to prevent fluid loss, but to evolve hunting weapons, sprouting hardened claws and fangs.

The stray dog, initially frightened by the meteorite, eventually returned to the garbage heap, unable to resist the lure of food. Midway, it caught the scent of something sweet. Panting, it trotted over and saw a lump of strange flesh. Sniffing it tentatively, it hesitated to bite—yet the flesh lunged into the dog's mouth of its own accord.

Dodging the interlocking canine teeth, it squirmed deeper, and as it slid down the throat, it suddenly extended newly formed hooked claws, stabbing into the tender flesh, spinning its body to burrow inside.

The dog convulsed as if electrocuted, writhing in agony, its plaintive howls soon replaced by the ragged rasp of torn esophagus.

The slug climbed up the airway, unerringly locating the foramen magnum at the base of the skull, tearing through the throat to force its way in, feasting ravenously on the brain, while sprouting tendrils that latched onto the spinal cord and auditory and visual nerves.

This alien creature, through the dog's senses, saw the world for the first time. As a mere worm, it had lacked the capacity to evolve complex sense organs, relying only on faint touches, temperature changes, and chemical signals to perceive its surroundings.

The dog soon ceased its trembling and staggered to its feet, as if transformed into a newborn pup.

Its bewildered consciousness fused with the dog's brain, acquiring the most basic hunger, thirst, and ferocity—and suddenly, it understood that to become stronger, it must hunt.

Quickly, it commandeered its new host, lurching forward in a clumsy run.

Yet it remained dissatisfied—it needed more flesh, more life to sacrifice to itself.

It drew nourishment from the body, causing the dog's form to grow gaunt and skeletal, but under its relentless stimulation, the dog possessed a surge of explosive strength—though only for a single, fleeting burst.