Chapter 272 - 268: Marionette

Chapter 272: Chapter 268: Marionette

"Harano, are you sensing something’s wrong?"

The tallest young man in the group of six turned to the boy who was throwing up and asked.

Harano Shihi was the one with the sharpest senses in their group—not normal hearing or smell, but a special kind of intuition.

"HUFF... HUFF... I’m not really sure, but it felt so weird. It was like I suddenly saw a phantom image inside the building, and then I felt sick..."

Hearing him say this, the others looked a bit confused.

Harano Shihi immediately suggested,

"In any case, it was a really bad feeling. We shouldn’t stay here. I think it’s my intuition warning me."

After throwing up, he was fraught with anxiety.

"Maybe you’re right. As much as I want to help them, they’ll probably try to arrest us after they’re done dealing with the Demon."

In truth, the greater reason for their reluctance was a sliver of fear. It wasn’t a lack of courage; many of them had sensed the black Shadow inside the TV station building before. At the time, their sixth sense, sharper than an ordinary person’s, had bombarded them with warnings, telling them to get away.

"No way! If we leave now, what if these officers can’t handle the Demon? It’s all civilians outside. Now that this Demon has started to make its move, there’s no reason it’ll stop."

Makino Xiangnai immediately shot back, though even she didn’t know how to deal with the Demon.

"We have Spiritual Power! In ancient times, we would have been something like Demon Exorcists. We might not be stronger than those officers, but at least we can stay here and keep watch for them for a while."

From these words, one could tell that this group of delusional teenagers still had some self-awareness; at least they understood their current destructive power might not match a bullet’s.

As the only other girl in their small group—besides Yumi, who they were protecting—Makino Xiangnai was a beautiful young woman who always received preferential treatment.

Since Xiangnai had spoken, the others had to tough it out for a while, if only to save face—not to mention their own overwhelming sense of justice.

...

Inside the building, the assault team from the top floor and the team from downstairs finally met up and reported to the chief commander that the sweep was complete.

The entire process took nearly half an hour. The only non-human monster they encountered was the one on the 9th floor. As for the TV station staff, there was no one. The estimate was that either some had escaped without calling the police, or they had all perished. Where the bodies went was also a question.

Researchers in hazmat suits had gone up to inspect the scene with the chief commander.

Underneath the black mass that had been riddled with several rounds of gunfire, an ink-like fluid flowed everywhere.

Kumamoto Taro, along with his colleague and several of the mission’s assault team leaders, frowned as they watched the research staff carefully handle the monster’s "corpse."

"Sir, these eyeballs don’t belong to the monster!"

A researcher, after removing several eyeballs from the monster, observed them for a long time before suddenly turning and speaking.

"What makes you say that?"

The researcher came over with a glass container, pointing to the eyeballs inside for them to see.

"Based on pupil and iris scans, six of the eyeballs are actually in pairs. These must have been removed from other creatures and then attached to the current ’body’ through some special method."

Kumamoto Taro put on a pair of plastic gloves, opened the glass container, and carefully took out an eyeball to examine it closely.

Then he looked up at the biology expert.

"What creature do you think these eyeballs belong to?"

"Humans!"

Everyone’s heart skipped a beat, their scalps tingling slightly, but Kumamoto Taro seemed to have expected it.

"Chunzi, in the report for that previous homicide, the head was missing its eyes, right?"

"Yes, Captain."

Placing the eyeball back in the container, Kumamoto Taro took off his gloves.

"There are only seven here. What about the rest? Far more than three or five people have gone missing in this building..."

Regardless of why this monster wanted to attach eyes to itself, judging from the current situation, it was very likely there was more than one.

Elsewhere, a colleague was recording combat information.

Since the six-man squad that engaged the monster didn’t have any recording equipment with them, the battle details could only be recalled from memory.

Key phrases such as "appeared from the shadows," "capable of some flight," and "had a blade but the weapon couldn’t be found after the battle" were heard from time to time.

"GACK~~ COUGH~~ GACK~~"

A researcher, seemingly disgusted by a puddle of viscous, ink-black filth on the floor, couldn’t help but dry heave. When he couldn’t hold it back any longer, he quickly left, ran to the bathroom, opened his mask, and threw up for a while.

A few of the nearby assault troopers looked on with disdain, though most just kept their contempt to themselves.

The researcher himself felt quite embarrassed and was a bit awkward after returning to the scene.

But now, he heard a "CREAK... SQUEAK..." sound in his ears, like an auditory hallucination, similar to the sound of threads being pulled.

"UURRGH~~~"

A wave of nausea also rose from the depths of an assault trooper’s throat, but he forcibly suppressed it with willpower. If he threw up, his comrades would probably laugh at him for a year.

...

On a distant overpass, Harano Shihi once again felt a wave of nausea, much stronger than before, so much so that he couldn’t hold it back at all.

"BLEGH~~ COUGH COUGH COUGH..."

A large spray of partially digested filth poured from his mouth.

In a daze, he felt as if he were in a spacious office, surrounded by police and people wearing what looked like hazmat suits.

The light bulbs were clearly on, but the light was unusually dim. And in the dimness, four or five withered, monstrous hands were reaching out from the darkness, countless black threads wrapped around them.

Then one of the hands, trailing threads, suddenly pierced through a version of "himself."

"UURRGH~~~"

Harano Shihi vomited in perfect sync with the researcher from just a moment ago.

The anxious shouts of his friends on the overpass seemed to come from a world away.

In his vision, the terrifying, withered hand reached for another fully armed assault trooper in a black uniform, but it failed to pierce through in one go.

The assault trooper’s expression changed, but he forced himself not to move, and the withered hand was repelled.

In the final moments of his vision, one of the withered hands, covered in threads and emanating a black glow, once again took aim at another assault trooper.

"GACK~~"

Harano Shihi began to vomit uncontrollably again, as if he were about to spit out his own bile. He realized he had switched "bodies" and was now the assault trooper who had been "pierced," with eerie threads squirming on the surface of his skin.

Suddenly, in his vision, a pair of large, gray eyes met his. An intense feeling of fear and repulsion washed over him, as if he were being chased by a malevolent ghost.

"AHHHHHH!!!!!"

The boy screamed in terror and fell backward, caught by the strong hands of his companion.

"Run... Quick, run!!! We can’t handle that Demon at all!!!! Run!!!"

Harano Shihi frantically pulled at his friends, trying to make them leave the rooftop. Everyone was a bit frightened by his deranged state.

"Trust me this once! Trust me!! I’m begging you!!! Those police can’t win! They don’t even know where it is!!! It saw me!! It already saw me!!"

...

"TATATATATATA..."

Muzzle flashes once again lit up the inside of the building.

A soldier who had just been laughed at for vomiting suddenly raised his gun and opened fire without any warning. If one looked closely, you could see his face was a mixture of confusion and ferocity.

Kumamoto Taro, relying on a god-like intuition for danger, tackled his companion aside, but in that brief moment, three people were still hit.

Only then did the surrounding assault troopers react, opening fire and killing their crazed comrade.

"Medic!!"

"We have wounded!! We have wounded!!"

"What happened? Why did he suddenly open fire?"

"Has he gone crazy? It was just because he got laughed at a little!!"

The office on the 9th floor of the building fell into brief chaos.

But before they could tend to the wounded, someone saw the puddle of black "sludge" on the floor move.

Like a slithering mud snake, it instantly attached itself to the "crazed" assault trooper who had been gunned down.

"SQUEAK..." "SQUEAK..."

A sound like thin steel wires being pulled taut rang out. The surrounding lights flickered a few times, and from the shadows in some corners, several more black Shadows emerged. Each of their surfaces was embedded with seven or eight eyeballs, almost identical to the monster that had been killed earlier.

"TATATATA..." "BANG BANG BANG..."

Gunshots erupted in an instant. The reaction of the assault troopers on site was incredibly fast; they hit two of them in a moment, but the others scattered and approached like phantoms.

Especially in the shadowed areas, their speed was too fast to see clearly. Only in the light could their movements barely be tracked by the eye.

Those nearby only felt a blur before their vision swam and the world turned upside down.

The heads of five assault troopers flew into the air as blood sprayed out like rain.

"POP!" "POP!" "POP!"...

The fluorescent lights overhead began to burst one by one under the intentional attacks of several monsters.

The scene became a chaotic symphony of gunshots, screams, electrical crackling, and shouts.

In addition, several other assault troopers who had already fallen got up at some point, raising their guns and frantically pulling the triggers at their former comrades.

However, apart from a few sporadic shots, all that was left was the "CLICK-CLACK-CLICK" of empty firing pins. These "people" even shook their guns a few times, as if confused why they wouldn’t fire.

A chill shot up Kumamoto Taro’s spine. He fired his pistol while roaring the order to retreat.

"All units, retreat! Covering fire, covering fire!! Attach your high-intensity flashlights!!"

"BANG! BANG! BANG!"

A few precise shots hit the heads of the puppets "fixing" their guns, and he then charged out of the office with his comrades.

But a single bullet was clearly not enough to take down a puppet. After staggering for a moment, they seemed to finally give up their efforts to get their guns working again and charged toward the crowd with awkward steps.

The highly trained assault troopers, after their initial panic, quickly discovered that as long as these living dead didn’t have guns, they were far less of a threat than the ghostly black Shadows.

A few precise shots to shatter their knees was enough to temporarily ignore them.

PS: First Chapter for Friday.