Hellish Phenomenon

"How could it be this fast?!"

With almost no time to react, Ji Li's mind went blank. His hand was still resting on the man's shoulder, but the man's head had already begun to turn!

It happened too suddenly. Ji Li froze for an instant, then leaped up and grabbed both of the man's arm joints with both hands, desperately pulling them backward!

"Li Xing! Bring everyone over here, now!"

Ji Li was not actually that far from Li Xing and the others. There were eight people here in total; logically, this should not have happened.

But it had happened, without the slightest warning.

A sheen of sweat formed on Ji Li's forehead. In less than a second, he felt both of his arms beginning to stiffen.

It was as though he were gripping two steel bars—hard objects tainted by a curse. By holding them, he had already touched the curse himself, and it seemed to be spreading.

Little by little, he watched his palms turn bluish-black, as if something were slowly infecting him from the man's shoulders!

Ji Li shuddered violently. This was something he had never encountered before, and he immediately let go.

His hands trembled uncontrollably, as if covered in frost. The icy chill would not disperse, remaining concentrated in his hands.

At the same time, Li Xing arrived with the others and saw Ji Li leaning against the wall, his hands unnaturally black, as though he had been poisoned.

"What happened?"

The moment Li Xing saw the scene, he could not help asking. Then he heard a sharp crack, like human bones breaking apart!

He took half a step forward and saw, beyond the corner, a living man's head being twisted in an unnatural direction!

"What are you standing around for? Take him down!"

Ji Li shouted furiously, his palms pierced by bone-deep stiffness and cold as he reached behind his waist and tightly gripped the handgun.

Bang! Bang!

The two shots struck the dying man's legs, but...

He still did not fall!

Li Xing and the staff behind him were nearly frightened senseless by the situation. The staff did not understand what was happening.

They saw an employee from the same building about to commit suicide, while Ji Li was attacking a living person for no apparent reason. Most importantly, that man had taken two bullets and had not fallen at all!

Blood streamed from the two bullet holes, about to drip to the floor, yet the man remained utterly motionless.

Only his head, which was about to be twisted off, continued to press against the limits of the human body!

Li Xing's eyes were bloodshot. He clenched his fists, wanting to rush forward, but he understood clearly!

The man looked alive, but there was a ghost inside him!

He had already been possessed by a ghost. If Li Xing rushed in now, would the ghost kill him as well?

Besides, he was not an idiot. If they could rush in, Ji Li would have stopped him himself. Why would he wait for Li Xing to arrive?

Seeing that the man was already on the brink of death, Ji Li could no longer care about the strange injury to his hands. He sprinted forward, raised his left shoulder, and slammed it viciously into the man's back!

The impact immediately made him feel as if every bone in his body had come apart, as though he had crashed into a freight truck.

The man did not move at all. Instead, Ji Li's entire body went limp, and his left shoulder completely lost feeling, leaving only swelling and numbness!

As death drew unbearably close, Ji Li ignored the pain in the left half of his body and yanked a short knife from his pocket.

His eyes filled with madness as he stabbed the man's wrists again and again, trying to cut them off before he died!

Li Xing and the others behind him were completely dumbfounded by Ji Li's "inhumane" method of saving someone.

Li Xing was terrified. The living man before them had been possessed by a ghost, and every possible method had failed to move him.

Protect him? How could they protect him? They could not stop him from being killed at all!

The staff behind them had already begun backing away, intending to flee.

When Ji Li had killed before, he had been so rational that they had not dared resist.

But now, watching Ji Li first shoot and then stab a "living person," they had thoroughly realized that Ji Li was a cold-blooded madman who killed without blinking.

The five staff members ran. Li Xing stayed beside them, repeatedly trying to persuade them and barely buying time.

He had been no help at all with Ji Li's situation. If he let these five people escape as well, he did not dare guarantee that Ji Li would not turn his anger on him.

Ji Li was completely exhausted. The man's arm was riddled with wounds, especially at the wrist. By all rights, his hand should have been severed no matter what.

He had slashed more than a dozen times. Though he could inflict wounds, every strike stopped at the flesh.

After the man had been possessed, the hardness of his bones was no longer something Ji Li could overcome.

Ji Li gave up completely and watched him slowly twist his head completely off, unable to say a single word.

"This is... Unsolvable Killing!"

Only the Third Personality let out a cry of extreme shock within his mind.

Unsolvable killing.

Ji Li saw it too. Once someone was possessed by a ghost, then no matter how they tried to save them, they could not reverse it!

Death was inevitable!

"Does Isolation Theory not exist...?"

Ji Li turned to look at the five staff members entangled with Li Xing, then looked at the man standing beside him, already dead where he stood.

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible..."

His dull gray pupils were filled with too much confusion and shock.

The store employees had been in the building for nearly two hours.

Ji Li had come face-to-face with possessed victims several times, and he had only worked out one killing pattern.

Staff near the store employees would be possessed and killed when they were isolated in an unknown number.

But...

The first conclusion seemed valid. Every employee who died had been near the store employees.

But Isolation Theory had indeed been completely overturned.

At the time, there had already been as many as eight people around them. That number had even completely packed the space around the corner. Calling it isolation no longer made any logical sense.

But if there was no isolation killing, why had no one died when so many people gathered together on the first floor?

Ji Li watched the people struggling together. Though there were still far too many unanswered questions,

one worst-case possibility had already emerged. The efforts of the past two hours had been completely wasted.

They had been searching in the wrong direction for the path to survival.

Ji Li sat on the ground, looking at the six people around him. His vision gradually became inexplicably dazed for a moment.

It was as though something had interfered with his optic nerves. When he came to again, he saw a scene that filled him with even greater despair!

Li Xing let out an incomparably shrill scream. He was fine, but the other five staff members crowded together...

all froze completely at the same time.

Some were half-kneeling on the floor, some leaned against the wall, and some were sprinting toward the Corridor Entrance, but without exception, they were all frozen in place!

Before the terrified and helpless eyes of Ji Li and Li Xing, every one of them raised both hands to the top of their own heads.

There was no blood, no screaming, yet the scene was absurd and eerie to the extreme, like a hellish phenomenon!

On the Eighteenth Floor, aside from the store employees, every living person was possessed and killed at the same time!