Chapter Three: Seizing
Lu Yuanming was in a strange state.
He felt as though he had two bodies. One was his real-world body, a little over 1.7 meters tall—ordinary and frail. He could run a hundred meters in more than ten seconds, had slight nearsightedness, and possessed the strength of an average adult man. In fact, because he had spent years studying without exercising, he might have been weaker than average. His reflexes were slow, and he was as fragile as paper in the face of monsters. Never mind monsters—even a slightly powerful beast could tear him to pieces.
His other body stood nearly three meters tall and wore steel armor, giving him the impression that he was impervious to blades and spears. He was strong enough to uproot a willow tree and could probably run a hundred meters in five or six seconds. His dynamic vision and reflexes seemed good enough to catch bullets with his bare hands. And these were only his basic abilities. Once he fused with Colorless Light Particles, one could unleash three times his basic physical abilities, while two could unleash seven times as much. As this body grew stronger, those bursts became even more terrifying.
After Lu Yuanming entered Building C Tower, he realized he could control both bodies, and his perception had split into two as well. It wasn't anything like multiple personalities; rather, the two perceptions overlapped in a way that was even more remarkable.
A certain field enveloped the entire Building C Tower. Within its bounds, Lu Yuanming sensed something like the Dark Matter World, yet the field also contained the material composition of the Material World. It was truly bizarre, completely overturning the theoretical model of the Dark Matter World proposed by Tang Zhean.
Because of this strange superposition of the Material World and the Dark Matter World, Lu Yuanming now had a body made of matter from the Material World, while also being able to use his Soul Body from the Dark Matter World.
When the crowd came under attack—especially when the police officer called Captain Wang was about to fall into the dark stairwell—Lu Yuanming finally couldn't hold back and intervened. He had assumed that his material body would disappear when he used his Soul Body. But who could have guessed that his material body would remain while his Soul Body appeared right behind him? It was, well, rather awkward.
Regardless, his Soul Body could appear, and Lu Yuanming could also see the more than thirty Colorless Light Particles floating around it. That put his mind at ease.
As the threads were pulled, more than ten human skulls tumbled out. Then, from deep within the dark stairwell, an octopus with fluorescent light emanating from it was dragged out.
This octopus was composed entirely of countless human souls. Human-shaped figures in grotesque, skeletal forms moved beneath its fluorescent skin, each silently wailing as something corroded and digested them. Several of them hadn't yet turned into skeletons and still looked human.
"Xiao Zhang! Old Xu!" Captain Wang suddenly howled in anguish. The other police officers also wore furious, grief-stricken expressions. Those with guns immediately aimed their pistols at the octopus, but the skeletal figures moving inside it kept them from firing.
The creature only vaguely resembled an octopus. Its eight tentacles were covered in mouths, and an enormous, hideous maw gaped open in the center of its body. Every tooth in that mouth was needle-sharp.
As soon as it was dragged out of the dark stairwell, it opened its maw toward the crowd. A visible ripple began spreading from within its monstrous mouth. Everyone it touched immediately clutched their heads and screamed. In about a second, blood began to seep from their mouths, ears, noses, and eyes. The skin of several nearby police officers even began to bleed.
Just then, several men and women rushed in from outside the lobby. The woman leading them immediately shouted, "Get back! Take cover behind a pillar or wall! That ripple—"
The Soul Body behind Lu Yuanming began to act as well. The nearly three-meter-tall Golden-red Armored Figure's arms jerked with force, and the threads yanked the nearly ten-meter-long octopus into the air. It kept opening its mouth and howling, but neither Lu Yuanming's material body nor his Soul Body was affected by the shrieking ripples. The Golden-red Armored Figure raised its fists toward the octopus.
"ORA ORA ORA ORA..."
Its two enormous fists began raining down blows. The terrifying force brought terrifying speed. Lu Yuanming felt that his Soul Body's basic strength had probably already reached the level it had when he was 2.4 meters tall and had absorbed one Colorless Light Particle. In other words, his physical abilities had increased more than threefold. As his fists shot out, they actually produced shock waves that broke the Sound Barrier. His arms landed nearly a hundred blows in a single second, and the octopus couldn't last even one second against them. The fists smashed it to pieces, and all the wailing skeletal figures inside it vanished along with it.
Only then did the screaming crowd collapse to the floor. Those with weaker wills fainted outright. The rest continued to cry out and groan in pain, while the newcomers were unharmed, along with a few police officers who had the strongest willpower and managed to prop themselves up.
"Xiao Zhang! Old Xu!" Captain Wang got to his feet, bracing himself. He didn't even bother wiping the blood from his face and body. Seeing the specks of fluorescent light left behind as the octopus vanished, he burst into tears and wailed.
The newcomers hurried toward the place where the octopus had disappeared. Each pulled a container about the size of a thumb from their clothes. Some were Glass Containers; others were made of metal or graphite. Everyone except the woman leading them tried to collect the dispersing Fluorescent Particles and threads in their containers.
The woman tried to approach Lu Yuanming as she said to Captain Wang, "It's no use. The people absorbed into its body are already dead. Every extra second their souls remain alive is like being plunged into Sulfuric Acid and suffering unbearable agony. At least now they're free..."
Captain Wang immediately roared at her, "Xiao Zhang was only twenty-four! His parents personally brought him to the police station, and now they can't even see their son one last time! And Old Xu—his daughter is only four months old, four months! It's all because of you people. You said the field had just opened, that the ghosts and monsters were at their weakest, so they came in with you—and now they're all gone! They're all gone!"
The woman sneered and pointed toward the stairwell entrance. "Isn't there still one left? Hurry and get him out. He might still be saved."
A police officer lay at the stairwell entrance, covered in blood. Most of both his legs were gone; his shins and knees had been gnawed away, bones and all. He had been the closest to the octopus and had been knocked unconscious by its howling ripples. He had lost a lot of blood, and his breathing was growing fainter.
Captain Wang and several officers immediately rushed over. One took off his belt and tightly bound the officer's severed legs. Another, a tall, burly-looking officer, hoisted him up and staggered into motion, intending to carry him out of the building.
Just then, the Soul Body behind Lu Yuanming reached out, stopping both the officer about to rush outside and the woman who was approaching him with a Hollow Needle concealed in her hand.
Captain Wang's eyes turned red as he urgently called out to Lu Yuanming, "You... Stand User, he's going to die!"
Lu Yuanming said nothing and merely shook his head. His Soul Body pinched one Colorless Light Particle, then pressed its hand against the dying officer. Before anyone could react, a burst of White Light flashed. The officer's legs began healing at a visible speed, as though time were running backward, and the wounds on his skin disappeared too. In just one or two seconds, he had healed without a trace of injury, his complexion rosy. His eyelids fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.
All the police officers and civilians were stunned, including the woman who had been about to approach Lu Yuanming again. They stared at him blankly. In a hoarse voice, Lu Yuanming said, "Don't go outside. It's still a sheer drop. There's another ghost in this building. I'm going to kill it."
With that, Lu Yuanming turned and ran toward the stairwell. As he approached, the lights in the stairwell flickered on. In their glow, everyone could only stare blankly at his retreating figure.
Seeing Lu Yuanming leave, the woman clenched her teeth and shouted to her team, "Have you finished collecting everything? Hurry, follow him!"
She also called out to Captain Wang, "Captain, send someone after him!"
But Captain Wang ignored her and focused on checking the police officer who had just woken up. Seeing that, the woman immediately shouted, "You have to take responsibility for your officers, and I have to take responsibility for the country and the people. Do you know how many people die across the country every day now? Your officers' lives matter, but don't ours matter too?" Without waiting for Captain Wang to respond, she hurried after Lu Yuanming into the stairwell. The people who had collected the Fluorescent Particles and thread fluid followed close behind, running silently through the stairwell.
Captain Wang's face flushed red, then turned ashen. After a second or two of silence, he said to the officers around him, "Old An, Old Shen, stay here in the lobby and guard the civilians. Everyone else, come with me!"
In the end, the experts led by the woman and the police officers led by Captain Wang all followed Lu Yuanming, running up the increasingly well-lit stairwell.
As he ran, Lu Yuanming sensed something that had appeared in the consciousness of his Soul Body.
He had found it after killing the Ghost Octopus. The moment the creature died, the object had panicked and tried to flee. He sensed certain emotions in the tiny Unknown Object: hatred, rage, terror, and those indescribably dreadful auras.
With a thought, Lu Yuanming had his Soul Body capture the object and absorb it. Once inside his Soul Body, the complicated emotions and indescribable aura it carried began to fade away. By now, it had taken on the aura of his Soul Body.
Most remarkably, when Lu Yuanming concentrated, he could use the object to see the Ruined City in the Dark Matter World.
But the object was tiny—smaller than a grain of sand, smaller than dust. He could only confirm that it existed through spiritual perception.
What is this? Is it Dark Matter?
Lu Yuanming was baffled. Just then, all the emotions and indescribable aura on the object vanished completely, replaced by the aura of his Soul Body. In that instant, Lu Yuanming had an instinctive sense that he could control the object, and that its ability was...
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