Chapter 235: Rescue
There’s something behind me!?
He Jia’an turned around and elbowed with almost no hesitation, feeling his elbow touch something oily, soft, and easily rotting, followed by the sound of something flying through the air, then crashing into the wardrobe in the bedroom with a loud clang.
He didn’t want to dwell on whether that thing was Rumi Kawakami at all; the safest option was to avoid direct contact and run first—the dark environment was really not conducive to human performance.
As he was running downstairs, He Jia’an heard a series of rapid movement sounds following closely behind, extremely fast in frequency and eerily sounding as it shifted from directly behind to the right rear, then to above his head; fixing his gaze, he saw a rotten female body full of holes moving rapidly on the ceiling in a reptile’s scurrying posture, with unknown flesh worms constantly emerging from the blood holes on her body, some dropping down with black mucus onto the stairs.
It was actually Mrs. Kawakami?!
He Jia’an then realized that the thing chasing and killing him was not the Miyako he thought, but Miyako’s mother who had been hanging in the living room just moments ago; he hadn’t expected this thing to suddenly “play dead”!
His hand had just reached into his pocket and pulled out again—the power of the New Year’s red envelope couldn’t be wasted on Mrs. Kawakami; it had to be for Miyako!
Jumping down the stairs, He Jia’an turned and leaped into the living room.
The ferocious Mrs. Kawakami relentlessly pursued, nearly grabbing him several times, shaking her head and swaying her precarious body as she chased into the living room.
Bang bang!
He Jia’an crashed through the living room’s floor-to-ceiling glass window and jumped onto the outdoor lawn, rolling on the ground once before standing up and rushing toward the gate not far away.
Unexpectedly, after Mrs. Kawakami chased out, she suddenly stopped, then fiercely straightened her waist forward in place; the dense impulse holes on her body like a beehive emitted a gurgling sound, like the precursor of a water pump operating, followed by a sudden eruption of countless snarling black foul-smelling bugs and a large amount of foul-smelling liquid.
The bugs and foul liquid rained down from the sky, covering the patch of sky above He Jia’an’s head like a downpour; shadows blotted out the sky and moon; He Jia’an instinctively looked back, seeing those foul bugs like flesh maggots spewing slender sharp fangs from their mouths, their eyes bulging as if about to fall out.
Whoosh—
A gale suddenly whistled past about one centimeter above his head; the terrifying invisible wind instantly swept away and shredded everything above He Jia’an’s head.
He Jia’an was momentarily dazed, and his right foot tripped over a stone on the road, causing him to fall to the ground immediately.
He quickly turned around but couldn’t clearly see what the huge figure that instantly swept Mrs. Kawakami back into the house was; he only heard intense fighting and collision sounds coming from the Kawakami house.
Gulp gulp gulp—
He Jia’an struggled to crawl up from the ground and ran out of the Kawakami house.
The overly thrilling and stimulating experience left him unable to think for a moment, too late to express any emotion, relying only on his instinct as an investigator to escape the danger.
Perhaps that huge figure with wings had saved him, but He Jia’an didn’t know if such an anomaly was trustworthy; the other party saving him might just be dog-eat-dog, fighting over him as food.
Only after gradually running far away, no longer hearing the high-pitched bird calls and massive destruction sounds in the misty fog, did He Jia’an finally slowly relax his tense emotions, slow from a run to a normal walk, gasping heavily from his mouth, drenched in sweat.
The relaxed state of mind allowed his brain nerves to function again; he couldn’t help but look back at the overlapping peaks formed by the mist and house buildings, recalling the heart-pounding encounter just now; he was somewhat shocked that he actually felt those few bird calls had a somewhat nostalgic familiarity, but he found it absurd for a moment, unable to accept it, and his rippling heart also made him somewhat afraid to guess the certain thought that flashed through his mind.
“Time is really running out.” He Jia’an wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, suddenly feeling a burst of pain; turning his gaze, he then discovered that both his arms had been burned with two huge wounds at some point, plus several scorch marks almost connecting into a patch; thinking carefully, it seemed to be from when he accidentally touched that foul-smelling mucus while escaping.
Those liquids seemed to have strong corrosiveness; just a few drops had left such huge and ferocious wounds on his arms; at the same time, he was glad that the monster that whipped up the gale had acted in time, blowing away the foul liquid that would have corroded him clean and those bugs that could easily pierce his flesh and blood body.
“It really hurts.” He Jia’an found a law enforcement officer’s office on the street, locked the doors and windows, took a fruit knife from his pocket that he had brought from the hospital, and gently sliced off a corroded wound.
After slicing off the burned and corrupted part, seeing the normal fresh red flesh and blood at the cut wound, He Jia’an felt the pain even more intensely, but he let out a long sigh of relief; at least he could confirm that the foul liquid was not poisonous, and the amount he accidentally touched was not much.
His lips pale and trembling nonstop, teeth clenched on his clothes; after handling all the remaining corroded wounds, he found a pistol, bullets, and a medicine box in the law enforcement officer’s office, gritted his teeth, ignited the wound soaked in gunpowder with fire, and after a series of crackling loud noises and soul-shaking intense pain, He Jia’an collapsed dazedly on the floor, nearly passing out.
In the Inner World, it’s best not to get injured casually; even if injured, don’t let your blood be exposed to open air, lest those eerie Inner World creatures smell it and come; those things are attracted not only by living beings’ negative emotions but also by the scent of blood.
After barely regaining consciousness, He Jia’an groggily got up, rummaged through the medicine box to re-treat his wounds, bandaged them, rested in place gasping for a while before planning to take the pistol and leave the law enforcement officer’s office.
Just as he was about to go out, He Jia’an suddenly noticed that the fog outside the Inner World seemed to have thinned a bit, visibility improved, distant scenery became visible, and the roadside trees were blown tilting in one direction by the wild wind outside the house, like a typhoon.
Thump thump thump—
He Jia’an walked to the window to check the situation and found the office’s glass panes shaking uneasily; tilting his head to look outside the window, he immediately saw a terrifying scene he would never forget in his life.
A large swath of green muddy swamp seemed to be sucked into the sky by some force, endlessly drilling into the huge hole at the edge of the sky he had seen before; in that vast swamp body, countless figures of vengeful spirits were shrieking in despair, trapped in the glowing green swamp unable to escape, sinking and struggling in the crowded sea of souls.
The huge hole in the Inner World sky was expanding, and it was not just an enlarging eye of the wind but an ultra-large space channel accelerating in tearing; the Thousand Illusions Moon entrenched in this world was trying to squeeze its body into this space channel.
It was hard to imagine that if this terrifying abnormal god Thousand Illusions Moon truly fully descended into reality, not to mention humans, the entire Earth would suffer an unimaginable catastrophe.
“No, this place is too close to the eye of the wind; if the wind force strengthens at this rate, I’ll sooner or later be swept into the gale and ultimately devoured by It.” He Jia’an just glanced and quickly withdrew his gaze, his heart pounding; the fear emotions he had originally suppressed and controlled surged uncontrollably at this moment, his body trembling incessantly.
Suddenly spotting two bleeding dummies on the street outside the office hiding behind telephone poles, silently peeping at him with a pair of eerie glowing eyes, He Jia’an clenched his fists, continuously soothing himself in his heart, forcing himself to calm down again.
Looking again, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding the office were already plastered with all sorts of eerie dummies, dolls, and other Inner World weirdness creatures; they had smelled the thick fear emanating from He Jia’an and could no longer restrain their appetite, wanting to divide and devour him.
Run!
He Jia’an turned to escape from the office’s back door, but the moment he opened a crack, he was startled again by several fingers suddenly squeezing in through the gap; pairs of eyes emitting strange glow peered in from the opened door crack.
He Jia’an had no choice but to grit his teeth, turn, and climb the stairs to the rooftop of the office; seeing the horrific scene on the rooftop like a zombie siege, his mental defenses were inevitably shaken.
Fear is like a crack in a dam; once a seam opens and a bit of water leaks, the entire dam’s flood control system immediately crumbles uncontrollably.
Fortunately, He Jia’an did not lose his reason due to momentary panic; he carefully estimated the distance to the nearest nearby building, confirmed he could barely jump over, backed up for a running start, and before those Inner World residents sniffing the scent rushed to the rooftop, he sprinted out first, leaped with all his might toward the rooftop platform of the opposite flat building.
The dummies outside smelled the fear scent and shifted their line of sight, then quickly pursued following He Jia’an’s movements; moreover, fatally, their movement ability suddenly became no longer mechanical and slow, not only gradually showing flexibility and speed beyond normal people but becoming increasingly ferocious and swift.
He tried firing a few shots at those dummies, and as he thought, even with heads pierced by bullets, they could still move nimbly; he immediately felt the firearms in his hand were so vulnerable.
“Where the hell is the nearest space channel!?” He Jia’an jumped from the flat house to the wall, then back to the street, sprinting madly onward; behind him, countless dummies suddenly opened their mouths, revealing intricate internal structures like flesh and blood creatures, madly opening and closing their mouths while chasing at high speed.
“He-kun, duck your head!” Just as He Jia’an’s brain was racing, thinking of strategies to escape alive, a voice abruptly entered his ears; looking up, he saw a grinning white-haired man at the end of this street, holding a tachi single-handedly, standing straight, shouting at him while slowly extending his sword arm, blade level with his shoulder.
He Jia’an’s gaze sharpened; he crouched into a sliding step, dodging behind a roadside telephone pole.
“Thanks for cooperating so well this time.” Matsumoto Gin said with a light laugh, the blade of the tachi in his hand flashing purple demon light; the hilt suddenly sprouted purple tubing, following his arm, fiercely stabbing into his body, madly invading beneath his skin and within his body.
Matsumoto Gin’s whole body convulsed wildly; then his previously composed smiling expression became abnormally ferocious and distorted, his body expanding several times, looking like a monster dominated by the demon blade.
The next moment, Matsumoto Gin lunged forward, shattering the ground in place, charging ferociously at the dummy army ahead, swinging the long sharp tachi in a frenzy of slashes; those dummies were like thin paper before the demon blade, severing everything, while the monster incarnated by Matsumoto Gin slashed and killed tirelessly.
At the same time, Chosen Alliance members suddenly emerged from all directions, holding firearms as they appeared, cooperating with Matsumoto Gin’s slashing attacks to clear enemies from his back.
“Investigator He, are you okay?” Several Chosen Alliance investigators, each injured and disheveled in clothes, found the hiding He Jia’an and escorted him in a slow retreat.
He Jia’an glanced at them and immediately guessed these people had followed him into the Inner World all the way, and must have encountered quite a few unexpected troubles before finding him; he reminded aloud: “Firearms to the head are useless; probably need to chop off or destroy the entire head.” He looked at the frenzied battling figure ahead and found that all dummies and dolls with heads chopped off or thoroughly destroyed could no longer get up without exception.
“Thanks for the reminder, switch to explosive rounds!” Hearing this, an investigator who seemed to be the team deputy quickly thanked, then shouted loudly to the other team members.
Hearing the order, the other investigators quickly discarded their original magazines, then took out bullet magazines filled with red-marked bullets from themselves, loading them into their respective firearms.
Bang bang bang!
The gunfire immediately became louder and more intense, the recoil of the firearms stronger, stability out of control, but the power and effect of the bullets were beyond doubt; each bullet landing on those Inner World creatures exploded into a huge gap, and if hitting the head or neck, the entire head almost ceased to exist, either mangled beyond any connection to the body.
With the cooperation of explosive rounds, the efficiency of clearing these Inner World creatures significantly increased.
But this didn’t mean they had to completely clear all these monsters; after all, compared to them, the number of humans was far too few.
So after successfully rescuing He Jia’an, the Chosen Alliance people began fighting and retreating while escorting people, eventually gathering inside a department store.
Inside the department store, there were two Chosen Alliance members waiting; unexpectedly, there was also a space channel leading to reality in this department store.
“Go!” The deputy ordered, and He Jia’an and the others safely withdrew from the Inner World through the space channel.
Back in reality, after waiting quietly in place for a while, Matsumoto Gin, like an evil spirit, also returned to reality; while those Inner World creatures mostly stopped at the channel entrance, only a few chased out, but the moment they passed through the space channel, they seemed to lose some life bounty, their eyes suddenly lifeless, as if turning into real dummies, falling to the ground and shattering into pieces.
Chosen Alliance members activated some scientific instrument, instantly closing this temporary space channel that seemed to have been opened by their own other means.
“Sorry… still… two short…” Matsumoto Gin stood at the space channel entrance, turning to look at everyone.
Hearing this, He Jia’an was somewhat stunned, while the other investigators remained silent; then two investigators voluntarily walked to Matsumoto Gin’s side.
Under He Jia’an’s shocked gaze, Matsumoto Gin swung his blade, chopping off their heads.
