Black Hole

Chen Miemie stared at the swirling black vortex before him, utterly baffled.

When he was in his [Huangyi] form—especially when facing those Eternal Moon eyes of his—very few aberrants dared to act this arrogantly.

Take the two he'd just encountered, [Discount Tag] and [Stiff Neck]; never mind anyone else, even if Chen Miemie himself stepped out of [Huangyi] state and handled them without showing his full power, they probably wouldn't have given him a second glance.

"Black hole? How come I don't feel any gravitational pull from you?" Chen Miemie poked the black vortex directly with a finger.

"Hey hey hey, where's your sense of personal space? You just reach out and poke my eye!" [Black Hole] immediately yelped.

"Oh? So this is your eye here. My apologies. But if the center of the vortex is your eye, then wouldn't you only have one eye?"

"Duh! Of course I have two eyes. The front one is this one, and if I flip around, that's my other eye."

"Consider me impressed. So you actually have a 360-degree field of vision, completely without blind spots."

"Hmph, you bet. I, the great [Black Hole], am perfect."

"So why did you stop me?"

"I could tell with 'one eye' that you're no ordinary being. I want to tag along with you." [Black Hole] had the same blunt directness as most aberrants.

Chen Miemie crouched down in front of it, carefully sizing up this swirling black blob of unknown material.

Honestly, at first glance, this [Black Hole] wasn't the type that immediately appealed to him. But this guy was the first one in a long while to voluntarily say it wanted to follow him.

For that alone, Chen Miemie decided to give it a chance.

"Alright, tell me—what exactly are your abilities?"

"I am the great [Black Hole], master of the power to devour time."

"Time! Impressive. Give me some specifics."

"Hahaha, scared, aren't you? Feeling pressure from traveling with me is only natural.

Let me let you in on a secret—my trump card skill is called [Snooze Five More Minutes].

I can form a brief temporal black hole in a bedroom. When people are drowsy or determined to sleep just five more minutes, I can suck away those five minutes and make them approach zero seconds in reality. The sleeper thinks they only closed their eyes for a moment, when in truth, half an hour has passed."

Chen Miemie's face went blank.

If there had been a table in front of him at that moment, he would have flipped it without hesitation.

"That's your time ability? Are you messing with me, or are you messing with yourself?" Chen Miemie stood up, ready to ditch this deadbeat.

"You can't leave!" [Black Hole] immediately latched onto the hem of Chen Miemie's clothes.

"I'm really impressive. That five minutes of wasted yet falsely hopeful time when you're clinging to bed in the morning—that's the ultimate meaning of existence. Whoever can master those five minutes can master life itself."

Chen Miemie shook his leg, half-heartedly. [Black Hole] didn't let go.

"Let go. We're not a good fit. I lie in bed at least half an hour every morning."

"I can erase that half hour for you. Straight out of bed!"

"See, that's exactly why we don't fit. For me, that half hour isn't just torture—it's also pleasure."

"Then I can help you make other people lie in. How about I make someone stay in bed all day?"

Chen Miemie looked suspiciously at the pitch-black lump at his feet. "You can do that?"

[Black Hole] seized the chance to show off. "Of course I can! As long as they don't check the time, I can keep making them think only five minutes have passed, so they can stay in bed with a clear conscience."

"You really want to follow me?"

"Really."

Chen Miemie stared at it for a good ten-plus seconds.

"Fine. Then the contract is yours."

The [Moon's Invitation] was quickly completed, and [Black Hole] became a new member.

Chen Miemie taught [Black Hole] how to view its status panel. It was an excitable one and immediately started fiddling around.

[Black Hole / Bed-Dwelling Time-Devourer [Mystery] 3.0 [Undying] 8.3 Abilities: Time-Devour, Dream-Guard, Mind-Clarity, Eternal Moon's Kin]

This was the first panel Chen Miemie had ever seen like this.

"Black Hole, didn't you say you were super strong? Why is your [Mystery] only 3.0?"

"I am super strong. I'm a rule-type aberrant. I can't be killed, can't be stopped, can't be sealed.

As long as there are living beings who sleep, I can freely appear the moment they wake up. When I target someone, I don't need to go through a Mystery confrontation, so Mystery doesn't mean much to me."

"That doesn't add up. Not needing a Mystery confrontation goes against the whole [Mystery] system of this world."

"I haven't broken any rules.

If a Mystic consciously resists me, they can easily fend me off.

But here's the thing—who actually fights against their own drowsiness? The moment someone wakes up, how could they immediately form a combat mindset against an aberrant?

In simple terms, I can attack people when they're in a 'non-combat state.'"

Chen Miemie still felt something was off.

"A [Mystery] gap of 3 means you can't even touch them. Your ability should be useless against high-rank Mystics."

"Then let me ask you this—if a high-rank Mystic is sleeping like a log, and a kid who isn't even a Mystic walks up to his bed with a knife, can he stab him to death?"

"Of course he can."

"There you go. The kid also 'can't touch' the high-rank Mystic, but he can still kill him."

"That's a flawed scenario. There's no way a high-rank Mystic could be approached and stabbed while completely unaware."

"True. But I'm a rule. My ability lets me accomplish that impossibility you're talking about.

In this world, no one treats their drowsiness or their morning laziness as an enemy to guard against in battle.

'Can't touch' and 'can't kill' both presume the target doesn't want to be touched. But I don't give people the thought of 'wanting' to resist in the first place."

Chen Miemie was almost getting dizzy from the mental gymnastics, so he quickly changed the subject.

"Forget it. With your [Undying] stat that high, from now on you're the primary meat shield of the house."

"Oh, okay."

"By the way, Black Hole, why did you want to follow me?"

"Because I could tell at one glance that you're the world's biggest fan of staying in bed.

Other people only lie in for a moment. But your composition is 99.99% made of lying in bed. I like being around you."

Chen Miemie's gaze turned hostile. So that means even the clothes and the light spots on me only manage to squeeze into the remaining 0.01% share, huh.

Chen Miemie started flipping through the terms and conditions of the [Moon's Invitation], half tempted to cancel the contract with this infuriating deadbeat.

"Black Hole, do you have any idea what I'm capable of? How dare you mock me like that."

"Mock? I'm not mocking. I speak only the truth. I'm an aberrant born of rules, and I never misjudge. From the moment we met until now, you've been in a state of lying in bed. You never stopped."

"You're slandering—" Chen Miemie stopped mid-sentence.

'My true body is the Eternal Moon. Right now, I walk the earth as the moon's proxy. So... could this version of me be the moon's state of lying in bed?'