Chapter Two: I'm Just a Passing Wild...
Lu Yuanming was squeezed into the elevator, his mind filled with the sight of those two souls being dragged into Building C Tower.
This was completely different from what he knew.
In Year 2028, countless ghosts and curses had run rampant, but people killed by those things all fell into the Dark Matter World. At least, Lu Yuanming had never heard Alfred or Tang Zhean mention any cases of souls being devoured.
Still, Tang Zhean had mentioned that the number of deaths reported above didn't match the number of souls that fell into the Dark Matter World. But that was basically because there wasn't enough dark matter around when those people died. Without dark matter, their souls would quickly dissipate after death, leaving them unable to fall into the Dark Matter World...
Come to think of it, it's June 2024. At this point in time, is there enough dark matter only at the secret base in New York, USA? I remember Alfred telling me that souls could only be manifested in that laboratory, then fall into the Dark Matter World. And at this point, the USA was still researching the immortality of the soul. Those wealthy old men had started investing around then... So why can souls be formed in CQ too?
Lu Yuanming felt his thoughts spiraling into confusion. The situation now was completely different from what he knew. Neither Alfred nor Tang Zhean knew of any ghosts or curses appearing anywhere in the world before 2027.
As Lu Yuanming pondered this mystery, the elevator reached the first floor. The people inside began rushing out of Building A Tower, and Lu Yuanming followed the crowd toward Building C.
People always loved a spectacle. With so many police cars entering the residential compound, setting up a cordon, cutting off power to the entire building, as the public believed, and sending a crowd of officers inside, something major had to be happening.
When Lu Yuanming reached the main road through the compound, he saw at least one or two hundred people gathered outside the cordon. At least a third of them were filming on their phones. The police outside Building C kept trying to stop them from approaching and recording, especially from filming the two people who had jumped. Lu Yuanming also saw that more than half the officers were anxiously watching the upper floors. Several kept talking into their radios, but clearly, no one was answering.
Lu Yuanming gradually moved closer to Building C with the crowd. The people around him didn't dare cross the cordon, and only stood outside it, peering in. They kept speculating about what had happened. Some said it was drug traffickers, others said there was a murderer, while still others claimed a group of people were about to jump to their deaths.
Standing among the crowd, Lu Yuanming watched the group of police officers at the entrance to Building C. As he focused, it was as if a magnifying glass appeared before his eyes. He could easily make out the officers' faces, clothes, and expressions, even the radios in their hands and the fingerprints on their palms. As his focus sharpened, everything around him began to slow down.
...My Sense of Time from when I was in a soul state has stayed with me, and my eyesight, hearing, and other senses have improved dramatically... It's just a pity that a soul can't affect matter. Wait, that doesn't seem right. If souls can't affect matter, then what are these curses and ghosts?
Lu Yuanming was full of questions. He watched the officers closest to Building C, and the surrounding din gradually faded from his ears until he could hear their conversation.
"...Unit Two, Unit Three, Unit Four, Unit Five, this is Unit Nine. Do you copy? Do you copy? Over!"
The officer standing closest to Building C was a middle-aged man with graying hair. He was speaking urgently into his radio, but there was no answer, only a steady hiss.
Just then, an officer behind the middle-aged man said, "Captain Wang, the experts said they'll be here in three minutes. They're almost at the compound entrance."
"Experts, my ass! Weren't the people who just went in experts? They said the domain had only just unfolded, and this was the best time to break through and defeat the ghost. And what happened? Four teams went in and we lost contact with all of them! Twenty people in total! Three experts went in with those twenty people. Where are they!?"
Captain Wang, the middle-aged officer, roared under his breath. As he spoke, he glanced at the civilians outside the cordon and muttered something. Then he immediately turned to the officers beside him. "There are too many people here. Find a way to get them all moving. We don't know what's happening inside. What if the danger spreads to the civilians outside!?"
The officers beside him all looked troubled. One asked, "But, Captain Wang, the cordon's already up. Everyone watching is outside it, and some of them live in this building. Their homes are here. We can't exactly evacuate them."
Captain Wang was at his wit's end. He kept rubbing his hair and speaking into his radio, but still there was no answer.
Lu Yuanming heard all of this clearly. Hearing them mention experts in particular gave rise to even more suspicions.
Clearly, these officers knew about the existence of supernatural events. That meant this wasn't the first incident involving curses and ghosts. They had also mentioned experts, which meant the government was already quite familiar with supernatural events. Otherwise, there wouldn't be experts for them.
But how was that possible?
It was only 2024. The curses and ghosts of the future wouldn't appear on a large scale for at least another three years...
Just as Lu Yuanming was puzzling over this, his eyes suddenly went wide. He saw countless fine threads spreading out from Building C. The first to be struck were the officers standing at the entrance. The threads reached their heads, and their eyes immediately went blank. They began walking stiffly into the building. Then the other officers were affected. In no more than ten seconds, every officer had been caught by the threads, and they all headed inside.
That wasn't all. The threads stretched farther outward, reaching dozens of civilians closest to the cordon. The threads wrapped around them, and they actually pulled the cordon aside and walked in. Without looking back, they followed the officers into Building C.
The civilians noticed something was wrong. This was Z Country, after all. There might be people who liked watching a spectacle, and there might even be people bold enough to confront the police, but very few would dare act so brazenly in front of so many officers, let alone move the cordon and walk into the scene of a murder. Yet now dozens of people were calmly crossing the cordon. Many of them hadn't come alone; their relatives or friends were outside. When they saw them walking toward Building C, they started shouting for them or ran over to grab them. But the people kept walking forward, without answering or changing expression. It was terrifying.
The crowd erupted into chaos. More than a hundred people ran away, while others called out to their relatives, but no one could stop those people from entering Building C.
Seeing the chaos, Lu Yuanming immediately followed behind them, mimicking their stiff gait as he joined them in walking toward Building C.
Just like that, Lu Yuanming entered the building among the crowd. Building C was pitch-black, all the lights having gone out long ago. The moment he stepped into the lobby, Lu Yuanming smelled a thick stench of blood. By the light coming from outside, he saw three people lying on the lobby floor: one in a police uniform and two ordinary civilians. All three were covered in blood, which had pooled across the floor. They lay completely still. Clearly, they were dead.
The moment they entered the lobby, everyone caught in the threads snapped out of it. Dozens of civilians immediately ran screaming toward the exit, while more than ten police officers warily watched their surroundings. Several of them even drew their guns.
"Wait! Don't run toward any doors!"
A voice rang out from deeper in the lobby. A blood-soaked officer came stumbling out, supporting himself against the wall. He shouted at the top of his lungs, but the dozens of civilians were already terrified out of their minds. They had never encountered such a supernatural, bizarre event in their lives. They'd only seen things like this in novels and horror movies. Now that it was happening to them, they couldn't possibly think clearly. As the officer shouted, three civilians had already dashed out through the lobby entrance.
But before they could celebrate, they realized they were plunging rapidly downward. Only then did everyone suddenly understand: that wasn't a door... It was a window in the stairwell. They had been scrambling over the windowsill to jump outside. The three who had rushed out first fell straight down, and two more, running too fast, tumbled out after them. Everyone could only hear their horrible screams, followed by the distant, muffled thuds of their bodies hitting the ground. Then the five of them fell silent for good.
"It's over... Don't go near any doors or windows!" the blood-soaked officer screamed in anguish.
Everyone quickly retreated into the lobby. They shouted, screamed, asked questions, or buried their faces in their hands and wept. The whole scene descended into chaos. Captain Wang ran toward the blood-soaked officer, shouting as he went, "Li, where are the others? The experts?"
The blood-soaked officer immediately shouted again, "Don't come any closer! I'm bait!"
Captain Wang froze. Suddenly, his foot slipped and he fell to the ground. That was when he saw the threads too. They covered the blood-soaked officer and stretched straight into the darkness of the stairwell. As Captain Wang approached, the threads wrapped around his lower leg. A great force yanked at him, pulling him toward the darkness.
"No, Captain Wang! No! Kill yourself! Hurry!" the blood-soaked officer screamed again.
Just as Captain Wang was about to be dragged into the dark stairwell, a huge arm suddenly reached out and stopped the threads. Only then did everyone see a young man wearing an Ultraman Mask standing beside Captain Wang. A nearly three-meter-tall Golden-red Armored Figure had appeared out of thin air behind him. It was the armored figure that had stopped the threads.
"Who are you!?"
Several officers shouted at once. Two of them even pointed their guns at the young man and the armored figure.
"I'm just a passing wild..."
Lu Yuanming deliberately spoke in a hoarse voice, but before he could finish, two young officers and several men in the crowd shouted.
"A Stand User! He's a Stand User!!"
"...Ultraman..."
Lu Yuanming muttered with his mouth hanging open. Then he stopped paying them any attention. The nearly three-meter-tall figure suddenly exerted its strength, pulling the threads taut. A series of sharp snaps rang out, and more than ten human skulls rolled out of the dark stairwell.
Then something was dragged out from deep in the dark stairwell by the threads...
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