CH 425

The torn lips curled upwards, the thin man licked the threads around his lips. Zhuang Wen’s dismembered body was reflected in his eyes. “An abandoned failure can have such a strong hatred?” He smiled brighter, “Looks like I’m quite lucky today, such merchandise is incredibly rare.”

He took one step forward and disappeared into thin air. The next moment he materialized at the alley. A black shadow followed behind him. Every human face on his body was screaming in pain.

“This alley leads to the outer city, have you been to the edge of the night? Or you’re running back from it?” New fingers grew out from the man’s hands. However each finger looked different, like they had been taken from different people. One of the fingers contained a pattern similar to the ones on the Mirror God. Inside the dark alley, the man stood about 10 metres away from Zhuang Wen.

Black flame appeared to flicker on the surface of the man’s skin. The flame would leave behind light red scorch marks. The human faces were strung together by the red marks. They looked grotesque. Sin radiated from his soul. The man sized Zhuang Wen up. In his eyes, Zhuang Wen was already dismembered, each of her body parts stored inside prepared containers. “You will fetch a good price.”

Instigated by the intense sin, Zhuang Wen was losing her mind. The black flame in her eyes burned without concern. While the black flame could bring her power, it would burn away her humanity too.

“Yes, that’s right. Let me see if you have the right to be placed on the top floor, chosen by our most esteemed patrons.” The threads on the man’s lips unraveled. While he prepared to attack, he didn’t forget to turn back to warn the figures who ran out from the mall. “Don’t think about escaping, you won’t be able to.”

The shutter creaked noisily. Under the streetlight, the building casted a giant shadow, enveloping everyone inside it. The people who just escaped from the mall appeared to be caught in some kind of invisible waves. Their bodies were bound by the shadow and they could barely struggle.

“The mall’s previous owner didn’t discover the secret of this place.” The man laughed loudly, “This is not a mall but a platform for soul exchange. Your life experience dictates the weight of your soul and all your effort is for this moment, to have yourself priced.”

Opening his arms, bathed in the shadow, the man’s 10 fingers slowly closed. The building behind him surfaced with 10 trapped souls. Once you were dragged into the mall, there was no escape. The figures who had just escaped from the mall started to walk involuntarily back towards the mall. This mall at the intersection of many territories was like a whirlpool, sucking everything in.

The threads on the man’s face snapped. An indescribable stench leaked out from the wounds, it was the smell of decomposing soul. Faced with such hatred, the madness inside Zhuang Wen couldn’t be controlled anymore. The black flame burned her skin as she walked towards the man. Her eyes focused on the man. The walls crawled with blood and cracks. But in that silence, the streetlight before the mall entrance suddenly flickered and then went out. The smile on the man’s face froze like he could feel something. He turned to look at the street which connected the mall and the plastic surgery hospital. There was something hidden in the dark, he couldn’t sense it but it was definitely there.

Bang! A window faraway suddenly shattered. The glass pieces fell into the mist. The culprit was not even seen.

“What is that?” As the mist spread, the windows on the street shattered one after another. An intense danger was rapidly approaching! The man’s eyes darted about. The broken world in his eyes was enveloped by the mist. He realized that he couldn’t see the things inside the mist!

The smile on his face had disappeared. He revealed an expression that was completely different from when he saw Zhuang Wen, serious, surprised and a well-hidden anxiety. He had not encountered something like this before, even a Deep Red Pure Hatred couldn’t hide before him. However, this new arrival had eclipsed all of his senses, or rather he didn’t even have the right to see the thing. What was coming?

The man had encountered many ghosts and been through unimaginable torture, only unknown could cause him fear now. The mist rolled. It looked harmless but in the cryptic world, appearance was always deceiving.

‘Should I run or stay to block the mist?’ The black flame in the man’s eyes flickered. His 10 fingers tightened. When the mist approached, he suddenly tightened his hands!

The shadow of the mall cracked to form an abyss. Like a beast opening its maw, it chomped at the outer edge of the mist. However, it couldn’t sense anything. Even the endless ghosts and merchandise trapped inside the mall couldn’t sense the ghost inside the mist!

‘What kind of power is this?’ Just as the mist was about to envelope the giant mouth, the man actively pulled back. This was a bet he was not going to make. Using the shadow of the mall, the man retreated rapidly. He waved his 10 fingers and the shadow formed layers of protection around him. When he controlled the shadow projected by the mall, the people previously trapped by the shadow immediately retreated. They rushed towards the plastic surgery hospital.

The man wanted to stop them but the jumper woman chose that moment to charge out from the alley. The mist was rolling in. The man chose to evade after some hesitation but Zhuang Wen chose to attack. Her bloody face was twisted as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

At the same time, the mist had arrived. The mist didn’t care what it had entrapped, the ending for those trapped inside it was singular, which was death. The song of soul-summoning drifted out from the mist, the song pierced through the soul!

The man’s expression shifted when he heard the song. When he retreated, the mist had already swallowed Zhuang Wen. There was screaming as blood and flesh exploded. Zhuang Wen was shattered in an instant. The negative energy and broken body parts were consumed by the mist. The soul of the jumper woman tried to escape but it was captured by something!

Her struggle only managed to agitate the mist slightly. Hearing the screams from inside the mist, the man’s expression changed again. He retreated rapidly to avoid the mist. In less than half a minute, the ghost with black flame was fully consumed. Her trace was completely wiped from the dark night. After the mist had its fill, it slowly dissipated.

The thin man widened his red shattered eyes. He saw a flickering figure in the mist. The man was wearing a cattle mask. His soul was fleeting like the mist and deep like the sea. The man slowly turned around. Evil, insouciance, like god or demon!

“An Unmentionable!” The thin man retreated back into the mall. His heart trembled. He pulled back his presence. In his world where everything was dismembered, only that figure remained complete, he couldn’t find any flaws or weakness in that soul.

‘The plastic surgery hospital has found an Unmentionable?’ He had seen an Unmentionable’s altar but he had not seen an actual Unmentionable before. However, as the local of the cryptic world, he understood this very clearly, “Once an Unmentionable appears in an area, a big tragedy will be imminent! Many souls and spirits will disappear until no one dares to mention that ghost’s name anymore!”

‘The altars around the mall have been consecutively destroyed and there is a name that people keep repeating lately.’ The man’s 10 fingers joined with the shadow of the mall. He disappeared silently. He was reminded of that name but he was unwilling to voice it anymore. ‘A new tragedy has appeared, I wonder if he’s like Fu Sheng who wanted to murder everyone.’

The shutter of the mall fell. The thin man melted his body into the mall. ‘I need to be prepared and imbue my soul into that thing.’ His clothes shredded. The threads on the man’s body tore him apart. He dissolved into a pool of horrible-smelling black blood before seeping deep underground. As the black blood submerged, 9 other figures walked out from the corners of the mall. They were of different sizes but all of them had carvings of human skulls on their bodies.

8 of them dissolved into black blood and seeped underground. The last one hid inside one of the containers, disguising itself as merchandise. After all the black blood disappeared, the yin energy that surrounded the mall disappeared and the giant shadow casted by the mall returned to normal.

As the thin man returned underground, the mist cleared up. A man in a mask collapsed to the ground. A piece of his chest had collapsed in. The light disappeared from his eyes. He could barely keep himself conscious.

“Building manager?” “Han Fei?” Zhuang Wen, who was supposed to be dead, shielded beside the masked man. Her body had been separated into 3 parts. The youngest girl was unharmed. The other 2 parts were shredded into pieces and the girl was slowly piecing them together.

“Drake, what happened earlier?” Laughing and Xu Qin asked. Their fate was sealed when they were captured by the thin man but the pure hatred from the ‘hospital’ suddenly decided to attack. They used this opportunity to escape but when the mist faded away, they realized the thing inside the mist was not a Pure Hatred from the hospital but Han Fei.

“We shouldn’t stay here, we need to retreat first.” Mirror God tapped on the mirror. Hatred burned in his eyes, he appeared to see his own finger being attached to that thin man.

“But the red dress and the weeping kid are still trapped inside the mall.” Laughing’s face was pale, his laughter was sad.

“Ten Fingers already knows the secret underneath the mall. They have sealed up the mall so temporarily no one will be able to enter or leave.” Mirror God sighed. “They appeared to be frightened by the building manager. Before they come out from the underground, all the merchandise inside the mall will be safe, after all, they will fetch a good price.” Seeing no one move, the Mirror God added more sternly, “Ten Fingers has become a Pure Hatred, even if we throw ourselves at him, we wouldn’t be his match, do you want Han Fei’s sacrifice to be for nothing?” Mirror God pointed at Han Fei on the ground. “He forced himself to connect with the altar to activate its power. Sacrificing his soul and consciousness as a price, he managed to cause the mist to billow down the streets. It lasted only a few minutes but it almost claimed his life. When the mist was about to thin, even I was worried for him. Thankfully he reacted quickly.”

“The mist that can eclipse one’s senses came from the manager’s soul?” Lee Zai was shocked.

“Yes, but the mist does only that, it has no damaging effect on its own.”

“But I saw the windows of the buildings on the street explode like they were attacked.” Lee Zai was tricked by the performance too. He thought they were dead for sure.

“The rest of us hid inside the mist to shatter the windows, this was something Han Fei planned. He’s very good with these things.” Mirror God interrupted Lee Zai. “We need to create the impression that an Unmentionable has appeared at the plastic surgery hospital so we need to retreat back to the hospital. We’ll discuss this further when we’re safe.”

After Han Fei was unconscious, the Mirror God took over. “Zhuang Wen’s black flame will be silenced only when the little girl is here. But as the girl slowly pieces herself together, the black flame will reignite and attract other people’s attention so we need to return to Ziggurat before her body is reconstructed or else Ten Fingers might realize Zhuang Wen merely had faked her death.”

The Mirror God tapped on the mirror. He had Xu Qin carry the fainted Han Fei and they retreated swiftly.