Shocking the Special Affairs Department

Ten minutes later, a Special Affairs Department team arrived.

Leading them was a middle-aged man around thirty, with stubble on his chin and an expression of perpetual laziness on his face.

He was a squad leader in the Special Affairs Department's Operations Division. His name was Zhou Jian, his codename Ghost Hand, and he was at the Awakening Ninth Stage.

With a cigarette hanging from his mouth, Zhou Jian slowly walked into the psychiatric hospital.

In the courtyard, they caught the stench of rotting flesh. Bloodstains spread all the way outside, dyeing the gravel red. The ground looked as though it had been coated in red paint, and a bloody "stream" ran through it.

Zhou Jian frowned slightly, and his lazy expression grew somewhat tense. After crushing the cigarette butt beneath his foot, he took the lead and stepped into the bloody stream.

The farther they went, the more shocked they became. Upon reaching the innermost courtyard, the scene before them suddenly changed. Other than a sea of blood-red, they could not see anything around them.

Zhou Jian pressed a hand against the saber at his waist. Just as he was about to strike, tiny gleaming points appeared within the dark-red curtain of light.

One of his subordinates pointed ahead and shouted:

"Look, quickly! What is that?!"

"Ah!"

The next second, he clutched his eyes and howled in agony. Then cries of pain erupted one after another, mixed with the wet plopping sounds of rotten flesh falling to the ground.

Zhou Jian hurriedly turned around and found every one of his subordinates kneeling on the ground, their entire bodies trembling as they clawed their faces bloody. Two streams of crimson blood flowed uncontrollably from their eye sockets.

"This..."

Even Zhou Jian felt nauseated at the sight. He abruptly drew his sword, ready to attack, when he suddenly sensed something behind him staring at him.

He spun around sharply, only to witness a scene that shattered his mind.

Within the dark-red curtain of light, those so-called little red dots were actually eyeballs without eyelashes or pupils!

They stared at Zhou Jian and the others with malice. The Special Affairs Department members had undergone their mutations because of the intimidation of those eyeballs.

Zhou Jian forcibly suppressed the blood surging up his throat and pushed down the tide-like fear rising in his heart. He felt as though countless hands around him were clutching at his throat, making it impossible to breathe.

One hand gripped the wrist of his other hand, stopping it from reaching for his own throat.

Such terrifying cursed power... could it be...

One of the dark overlords?

An existence beyond Morning Star?

Those undying old monsters? Were the legends left behind from ancient times about to revive...

Countless guesses flashed through Zhou Jian's mind, and the more he thought, the more terrified he became...

No one knew how long this phenomenon lasted. Just as Zhou Jian felt physically and mentally exhausted, the eyeballs before him vanished, and the dark-red curtain of light dispersed. The scene returned to the psychiatric hospital once more.

But the next second, he could no longer seem to hear his subordinates' screams, because the sight before him shattered the last shred of his sanity.

Not far away stood broken flesh cocoons. Blood threads scattered across the ground, along with indistinguishable, mangled chunks of corpses, formed a small tower over half a person's height. A dark-red eye filled with malice stared fixedly at him!

The blood on the ground seemed to form a word.

Zhou Jian stared blankly at that word. Its meaning surfaced in his chaotic mind, and he slowly read it aloud:

"Burial Venerable..."

"An existence that cannot be looked upon directly... highest-level alert... cancel the mission..."

Using the last of his strength, he called headquarters, then fainted.

Inside a rundown room, Su Ziyu chuckled as he gazed in the direction of the psychiatric hospital and murmured:

"I wonder how you like the gift I gave you?"

Everything Zhou Jian encountered had been arranged by Su Ziyu before he left. Using the ritual materials left behind by the Ghoul Cult at the scene, he had set up a simple trigger ritual.

Zhou Jian's arrival activated the ritual, leading to what had just happened.

However, it was only a minor diversion, a little prank Su Ziyu had played on the Special Affairs Department out of boredom. He did not take it too seriously.

He now had two main tasks. One was to return and take revenge on those relatives, while the other was to subdue the Ghoul Cult's remaining strongholds.

After thinking it over, Su Ziyu suppressed the urge to return and seek revenge from his relatives. He decided to first wipe out all the Ghoul Cult strongholds in River City, giving tonight's events a satisfying conclusion.

Who knew whether the Ghoul Cult would cause more trouble after their sacrifice failed.

Su Ziyu preferred taking the initiative. He did not like being passive.

Rather than waiting for others to come looking for him, it was better to kill his way to their doorstep now. He might even catch them off guard.

After taking a sip of tea, Su Ziyu said:

"Rage!"

"Here!"

The Rage Knight stepped forward and dropped to one knee.

"Wipe out every Ghoul Cult stronghold in River City."

"Yes!"

The flame spirit flickering in Rage's eye sockets flashed, becoming even more violent and ruthless.

He led thirty-six Evil Spirit Marionettes, disguised as humans, toward the Ghoul Cult's headquarters in full force.

The Rage Knight had been modified from Director Li's spirit body, so he naturally inherited Director Li's memories from when he was alive. Although he knew that he had once belonged to the Ghoul Cult, he would never regard it as his home.

Under the suppression of the Netherworld Contract and the Heavenly Dao Laws, he would not be corrupted by the original owner's memories. He would remain forever loyal to Su Ziyu.

The Special Affairs Department headquarters was still brightly lit. In a conference room, specialists from every department sat around a long conference table.

"Burial Venerable?"

At the head of the table, Professor Bai murmured the name before immediately saying with a grave expression:

"Everyone already knows about Zhou Jian's experience. Besides that, I would also like to show you something."

At Professor Bai's signal, the assistant standing behind him picked up a remote control and pressed a button. An image appeared on the screen across from the long table.

Although it was not very clear, they could vaguely make out what was in the image.

A gigantic eyeball!

Blood energy surrounded it like mist, and only where the blood fog was thin could they vaguely glimpse a portion of the eyeball's body.

Even though it was only part of its body, the bizarre patterns engraved upon it and its colossal size still made the specialists present gasp.

What drew even more attention was the black figure vaguely visible beneath the eyeball shrouded in blood fog. The figure stood silently under the eyeball, creating a striking visual contrast.

However, the image was blurry and obscured by blood fog, so no one could make out what that figure looked like.

Besides the Operations Division, those present included specialists from the Logistics Division, Research and Development Division, and other departments. They all considered themselves seasoned veterans, yet upon seeing that malicious gaze, they could not help but tremble.

When mortals faced these unknown monsters, they always felt a sense of helplessness.