Chapter 594: Then, the Next One…

Elsewhere.

Huá Sāng hurried down Sleepless Street, following the trail left by the accident scenes and steadily closing in on the direction where Lu Yibei and Fang Ji might be. The brilliant streetlights and hurried pedestrians became strange, blurred afterimages at the edge of her vision.

Just then, without warning, a fierce burning pain shot through her eyes. Along with it, an inexplicable anger rose quietly in her heart, like a flame gradually swelling higher.

Immediately after, as her vision wavered, she saw a horrifying scene unfold before her eyes like a hellish scroll slowly being unrolled.

…

In a room lit by a warm nightlight, a husband and wife lay on a soft bed, their child sleeping soundly between them.

All at once, an unsettling presence descended. In an instant, the entire room was filled with a lifeless “vitality,” as though it had been swallowed whole by some dreadful existence.

Then…

The light went out without warning, and darkness engulfed the family of three.

The husband seemed to be attacked by something. He let out a scream and struggled to rise, but his body was pinned firmly to the bed, as if bitten and held fast by an invisible beast.

“Creak—creak—!” The bed shook violently, giving off a series of soft, teeth-grating noises. Within those sounds there was, unmistakably, a kind of blood-soaked, malicious glee.

At last, with a mournful cry, the husband froze with both hands raised upward, as if trying to grasp something.

Beside him, suppressed sobs kept sounding.

“Darling! Darling, what’s wrong?”

The panicked wife heard her husband’s wail and cried out in a trembling voice.

Immediately after, she too was assaulted by that unseen “beast.” Her body spasmed violently, yet she did not scream. She only gave a muffled groan, then used every last bit of strength to break free from the eerie restraint, twist around, and throw herself toward her child. Curling up, she shielded him in her arms.

“Help! Someone, please save us… anyone will do, please save my child…”

Sensing death drawing near, she begged in a voice that was growing weaker and weaker, pleading for a rescue that could never arrive.

At that moment, Huá Sāng faintly heard Lu Yibei’s voice beside her ear.

“I’m sorry,” Lu Yibei said. “I can’t help you…”

Amid her fading pleas, the woman seemed to understand something. She froze there for a long, long time. The light gradually went out of her eyes, and, clutching her dead child, she let out a heart-rending wail.

The child in her arms had already died—perhaps even a little earlier than her husband.

In the end, as her body stiffened, her skin grew rough like unpolished wood, and her flesh gradually fused with the bed, she lost even the strength to cry out.

She raised one hand and reached tremblingly toward her husband. That hand dragged the cream-colored bedsheet forward across the bed, like a traveler struggling through a storm-swept polar wasteland, swaying on the verge of collapse.

Then…

Just as her fingertips were about to touch her husband, she stopped breathing.

And so, in the final moments of their lives, she and the one she loved were forever separated by a chasm less than two centimeters wide.

“Clatter—!”

The framed family photo hanging on the bedroom wall crashed to the floor and shattered into pieces. The entire room was swallowed by darkness and sank into deathly silence.

…

“This is…” Huá Sāng braced one hand against the outer wall of a roadside building and pressed the other to her head, dizzy from the intense discomfort in her eyes. After standing dazed for a long moment, she abruptly snapped back to herself. “Is this what Lu Yibei saw?”

Just as she muttered to herself, a vast flood of images poured into her sight.

She saw an old man sitting in front of the television being devoured by a sofa that suddenly surged and heaved. His flesh turned into cotton, gradually filling his entire body. His abdomen swelled high until it burst. From the bedroom came a voice calling, “Dear, stop watching and come to bed early, all right?”—but no one answered…

A young man working late into the night lifted a customized mug filled with coffee. Seeing his girlfriend’s photo on it, he smiled to himself. His slightly tired eyes were instantly filled with anticipation for the future, becoming bright and full of life. Then his arm suddenly trembled violently, his body convulsed, and he turned into white porcelain…

A girl whose neck was being “gnawed” by her phone…

A boy whose hands were shredded by a keyboard…

All kinds of scenes were recounting, in the most tragic ways, a riot stirred up by “objects”!

And so, that vast flood of images, carrying emotions so vivid they felt almost real, surged into Huá Sāng’s mind, making her head throb violently. She nearly fainted on the spot.

Only after a long while did the images before her finally vanish like smoke.

Her face was already covered in bead-sized cold sweat. With both hands braced against the wall, her pale lips slightly parted, she gasped heavily. Her vacant eyes stared at the ground, her pupils shrunk to tiny black dots.

“…”

What exactly had Lu Yibei encountered?

Was it an attack by the Esoteric Society?

Those scenes… could she really endure them? Huá Sāng wondered.

Though she did not know what Lu Yibei had been through or what kind of temperament she had, from Huá Sāng’s point of view, even someone like herself—someone who had lived through the night Jinhua Village was destroyed—had nearly lost her mental balance after seeing those scenes and being infected by the emotions of the dead in their final moments. If it were an ordinary person, they would probably collapse on the spot and lose their sanity.

After pondering for a few seconds, she took several deep breaths and steadied herself. Then, following the trail left by the accident scenes along Sleepless Street, she sprinted forward.

In the brief moments between her rapid strides, she pulled her phone from inside her clothes and called the front desk of Chenyi Inn.

“Hello? Junior Brother? Mm, it’s me. I’ve discovered a serious psychic energy attack over here. I’m on my way to the scene right now. Hurry and notify Elder Wang, then contact the senior brother from Great Pure Palace who’s on night duty…”

“B-but, Senior Sister Huá Sāng, Elder Wang has already gone to sleep. If we disturb him at this hour…”

“Where the hell did all this nonsense come from?!” Huá Sāng couldn’t help but curse. “If I tell you to go call him, then go. If he wants to get angry, tell him to come at me!”

What time did he think it was? Who cared whether Elder Wang was happy or not? Even if he were dead, they’d have to summon his soul and drag him up!

In the eyes of the disciple on-duty at the front desk of Chenyi Inn, Huá Sāng had always been as quiet as a turtle basking in the sun by a river. It was his first time seeing her say so much, and even curse. He was stunned for quite a while before hurriedly answering, “Uh, yes, yes, all right, Senior Sister. I’ll go right now!”

“Mm. I’ll send you the address once I reach the scene.”

After hanging up, Huá Sāng put away her phone. Her figure darted forward for some distance, when suddenly a faint explosive pop pierced through the noisy voices around her and entered her ears.

She froze for a moment, her steps immediately slowing. Then she looked in the direction the sound had come from and noticed that narrow, unremarkable street leading toward a residential district, hidden at the edge of the bustling Sleepless Street. At the end of her line of sight, she could vaguely see the light emitted by a spell formation flickering.

The next moment, several figures flew past between two buildings. Immediately afterward, another burly figure holding a curved blade flashed past behind them in pursuit.

Vaguely catching the facial outline of the person holding the curved blade, Huá Sāng was stunned for a moment. “Looks like… that bearded foreigner from the bus earlier? Who is he chasing?”

After murmuring to herself, her gaze sharpened slightly, and she turned and ran into the depths of the street.

————

“All right, then we’ll go back and kill them!”

Lu Yibei’s voice was very quiet, almost swallowed up by the roars and strange shrieks coming from outside the residential building. But as it faintly entered the ear, it seemed to carry a dense scent of blood.

Hearing this, Fang Ji suddenly felt an astonishing heat wave surge toward him from behind. For an instant, he felt as if he were standing beside a furnace, his back to the flames.

He froze for a moment, then turned to look at Lu Yibei. His gaze fell on the side of her face, and in just an instant, all his attention was drawn to her eyes.

In the darkness, the side of her face was only a vague outline with delicate contours; only her eyes could be seen clearly.

Those eyes seemed to have been stimulated by something. A few bloodshot streaks surfaced, and within her pupils, a dazzling radiance like lava seemed to leap faintly.

Yet beneath that leaping light was an unsettling depth…

Looking into those eyes, Fang Ji vaguely felt that “Miss Reinforcement” seemed to have seen some extremely terrifying scene.

Previously, he had thought that “Miss Reinforcement” had always fought enemies in this fearless, forward-charging style. But now, he felt that “Miss Reinforcement” must have seen far more than he had, and that was why she was so furious.

When he concentrated, trying to capture more from those eyes, in that instant, it was as if some indescribable thing inside his body had been seized away by those eyes. A fierce wave of dizziness suddenly swept over him.

“Mm…”

In a daze, Fang Ji gave a muffled, indistinct response, then lowered his head.

Very soon, his world once again spun violently…

————

Ever since she was little, Lu Yibei had greatly envied those classmates whose family members were alive and well, whose lives were happy and complete.

Although her old man and Shui-Ge treated her very well, and she was not lacking in love, she had always felt that compared to those classmates, she was missing something—something difficult to describe concretely.

So when the complete lives of hundreds, even thousands of people in this residential district were ruthlessly shattered before her eyes, her emotions went out of control.

Since she couldn’t find a way out for the moment, and she couldn’t escape, then she would turn her blade against the enemy!

Killing one meant she wouldn’t lose out; killing ten meant a bloody profit. Moreover, it wasn’t as though she had no chance of winning at all…

Didn’t Shem and Salih think I’m the Miracle Saint Child? Maybe this time, I can create a miracle and seize that tiny chance of victory that’s less than fifty percent? Lu Yibei thought.

“…”

Judging from the situation just now, in this area, aside from the ground and the buildings, nearly every “object” could possibly launch an attack against me.

So I absolutely can’t get surrounded. Once I’m surrounded, the surrounding “objects” will surge over, and I’ll only sink deeper and deeper…

I don’t know what those “objects” and members of the Esoteric Society rely on to track me besides line-of-sight detection. If it’s psychic energy fluctuation…

After a brief moment of thought, Lu Yibei used the familiars mark to send a message to the jacket: “Jacket, later, pay attention and keep observing the surroundings at all times. Change color. Every time I kill an enemy, imitate the aura of the psychic energy fluctuation on them.”

The jacket: “?”

(´｀;)？

Is that too complicated for the jacket? Lu Yibei pondered for a second, then sent another message to the jacket: “Simply put, try your best to conceal my existence and blend into the environment, like a chameleon. Understand?”

The jacket: “…” Understood!

(o゜▽゜)o☆

After receiving the jacket’s response, Lu Yibei took a small step back, then sprinted toward the bedroom window.

The cover of night, the jacket’s peculiar ability, the relatively complex terrain of the residential district, exploiting the blind spot right under the lamp to confuse and mislead them… If I make use of all these, maybe it’ll work! Lu Yibei thought.

“Crash—!”

Accompanied by the piercing sound of shattering glass, Lu Yibei burst out through the window. Together with the sharp fragments scattering through midair, she plummeted toward the ground.

“There!” Someone caught sight of Lu Yibei’s figure and shouted. Immediately, dozens of pairs of eyes locked onto her. Spell formations, alchemical bullets, and innate abilities that could not be named—endless methods of attack instantly surged into the sky, like a colorful storm flying upward in reverse.

The next moment, the color of the jacket abruptly changed, simulating the aura of a psychic energy fluctuation. Lu Yibei, along with Fang Ji on her back, vanished from the sight of the Esoteric Society members, as if melting into the air.

Their attacks, having lost their target, continued upward, shooting into the clouds and triggering violent explosions amid the piled-up cloud layers. Blazing lights of every color flashed, bursting with thunderous roars.

Very quickly, someone came back to their senses and shouted, “It’s an invisibility spell formation! She’s invisible! Everyone, watch for her psychic energy fluctuation!”

But immediately after, they noticed that Lu Yibei’s psychic energy fluctuation had vanished too!

An unsettling dead silence spread, briefly enveloping the Esoteric Society members.

Then, a low roar carrying a cold, mechanical quality broke the silence.

“Everyone, stay calm! This area is only so big. She’s still airborne and not that agile. It’s impossible for her to dodge every attack! Don’t worry about accuracy. Each of you take responsibility for one area and attack upward with everything you’ve got!”

The speaker, whose head had fused with a phone, seemed to be some kind of minor leader. As soon as her words fell, she immediately received the approval of most of the Esoteric Society members.

Thus, an endless stream of attacks once again shot into the sky, even fiercer than before, almost completely covering the empty space between the buildings…

————

She leapt down from a window more than ten stories high.

In an instant, the wind howled.

The summer wind carried a trace of dry heat. Lu Yibei’s gaze locked onto the dense mass of black shadows below the residential building, yet her emotions were exceptionally calm.

The more dangerous it was, the calmer one had to be. Relying only on hot blood and anger was like a cluster of fireworks—brilliant, but only for a single instant.

“…”

Although leaping down from the building would leave her completely exposed to those guys’ vision for an instant, turning her into a living target.

But inside the building, “objects” were everywhere, and there were even more “enemies” to deal with than outside. In a sense, it was even more dangerous.

She could only dodge as much as possible. As long as she did not suffer too serious an injury, once she reached the ground, it would be killing time… Lu Yibei thought, her gaze turning cold.

While dodging the streaks of flowing light that constantly grazed past her body, each containing astonishing psychic energy, her eyes and psychic sense rapidly swept over the crowd on the ground.

She memorized their current positions, predicted the paths they were about to move along, distinguished the strength of their psychic energy fluctuations, and then swiftly selected the first victim.

The next moment, Lu Yibei fell to a point about five meters above the ground. At that moment, the Esoteric Society members below finally detected her presence once again.

“She’s there!”

“Kill her!”

Amid a burst of noisy clamor, dense alchemical bullets carved scorching trajectories through the air, and a foul-smelling wind swept in, mixed with arcs of light.

Seeing that there was no way to evade, Lu Yibei clenched her pearly teeth. Her slightly sweaty hands tightened around the Pure Lotus Sword as she released her innate skill.

The Pure Lotus Sword, ignited by the innate skill, blossomed into a flower of flame in midair, stirring up a scorching storm as it slashed down fiercely from above.

Taihe Gentleman Sword—Heavenly Symphony!

In an instant, roaring erupted. The grating sounds of the blade colliding with the alchemical bullets rang out without end. Brilliant sparks scattered in every direction, and the air was disturbed by the violent collision of psychic energy fluctuations, becoming hazy as if a thick fog had risen.

Amid that hazy interplay of light and shadow, Lu Yibei finally reached the ground. She shook her numbed hands, then charged into the crowd.

Like a drop of water falling into the ocean, it stirred not the slightest ripple, utterly silent.

What surprised Lu Yibei was that during her descent, countless streaks of light had grazed past her body. The closest one had been less than a millimeter from the tip of her nose, yet she had miraculously dodged almost every attack. Only at the very moment before landing had she been left with no way to evade and forced to take one blow head-on.

The instant her feet planted firmly on the ground, Lu Yibei did not pause for even a moment. Her gaze locked onto the “lucky one” she had chosen, and she executed her movement technique, nimbly slipping through the gap between two figures.

In the blink of an eye, she closed in behind that person. Then she raised her hand, drew her sword, and without hesitation slashed at the one whose head had fused with headphones.

Taihe Gentleman Sword—Wind Chasing Order!

A shrill rush of wind erupted. A pale cyan blaze flashed and vanished.

After finishing the slash, Lu Yibei did not linger for even an instant and immediately moved again.

“Ah—!”

The first “lucky one” let out a scream. Pale, viscous fluid sprayed from the half of his head that had been cut away.

Only then did the people beside him suddenly come to their senses and catch sight of Lu Yibei’s figure. But the next moment, the alchemical dirty bomb that had silently rolled to their feet burst with crimson fire, and the ground shook violently.

The roar of the explosion covered the characteristics of her voice. Lu Yibei shouted, “To the right! She ran to the right! Everyone, chase her!”

As her words fell, she used the firelight of the explosion and the cover of the chaotic crowd to quickly disappear from everyone’s sight once more.

Lu Yibei knew very well that even with the help of the jacket, no matter how well she concealed her figure, it was impossible for her to go completely unnoticed. So after one strike, whether or not she successfully killed the target, she had to keep moving.

Then the next one… Lu Yibei murmured to herself inwardly and continued darting toward the next target. One second later, a second scream abruptly rang out in the darkness.

That young girl whose body had fused with a stuffed doll was separated from the object. Torn scraps of cloth and splattering pale, viscous fluid drifted together in the wind.

Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth…

And so, a terrifying aura that followed like death itself quietly spread among the Esoteric Society members.