The Eldritch Files

’Holy hell, he really is a dangerous man...’

Not only did the tall, thin woman’s expression change, but even Han Su, standing not far from Song Chushi, swore inwardly.

’Zhang Chiguo had repeatedly warned me that this guy was a dangerous person,’ he thought, ’but I never really got that impression.’

’After all, Old Song was so polite and well-spoken, he’d left a pretty good impression on me.’

’Only now do I realize... there’s a good reason he’s wanted by so many cities...’

While complaining internally, he hurriedly summoned the Ghost Truck.

The female assistants from the scalpel team knew only how to follow orders. Paying no mind to their surroundings, they rushed into the fog in search of Han Su. But before they could find him, they heard an earth-shattering blast from a horn.

The next moment, the massive, ferocious front of a truck came barreling toward them.

Its astonishing force was a stark contrast to their frail, slender bodies.

But the female assistants showed no hint of panic. The three facing the Ghost Truck had their own roles. Two advanced, one from the left and one from the right, pressing their hands against the truck’s body. The third swelled in size, becoming like a small giant, and kicked out at the front of the vehicle.

With a thunderous BOOM, she kicked the Ghost Truck, sending it flying.

The truck’s body crashed and tumbled through the thick fog, letting out a series of mournful groans as its headlights dimmed.

The next moment, a strange crystalline light flashed in their eyes. Their gazes pierced the thick fog, searching for Han Su’s location.

’Even the Ghost Truck is no threat to them?’

Han Su took the opportunity to escape their encirclement, but a chill went down his spine, and he remained on high alert.

”Leave these to me!”

But just then, Song Chushi had already turned and stepped into the fog, speaking in a low voice.

As he spoke, he drew his gun and cocked it with a sharp CLICK.

The crisp sound immediately alerted the female assistants, and their gazes instantly snapped to his position.

With a flicker of movement, a sharp scalpel was already slicing toward him.

But even as the sharp blade neared the artery in his neck, Song Chushi didn’t dodge or flinch. He calmly raised his gun and aimed it at the forehead of the assistant lunging at him.

As he moved, the assistant, eager to land her strike, found herself unable to push the scalpel forward another inch. It was only then that she realized the fog was filled with a strange kind of sand.

The sand appeared weightless, using the fog as cover to envelop a radius of seven or eight meters.

Wherever the sand went, everything stopped.

It was as if the sand was absorbing time itself within this space, causing everything to slow to a crawl.

The female assistants were frozen mid-pose, some agile, some nimble, as if someone had hit a pause button.

”BANG!”

Song Chushi pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the forehead of the assistant before him, sending a spray of brain matter into the air.

He then turned his gun on the others, pulling the trigger again and again without hesitation.

”BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!”

His aim was unnaturally precise—or perhaps the bullets themselves longed to find their targets.

The eyes of the female assistants affected by the Sands of Time had a crystalline sheen, and their heads were made of the same material. Ordinary bullets could never have pierced their skulls, yet now they were torn through, one by one. They erupted in clouds of blood mist, like fireworks in slow motion.

It all happened in a flash. Every member of Abyssal Studio’s strange and mysterious scalpel team was dead.

In front of the Abyssal Laboratory, only the tall, thin woman was left.

And she, too, was unable to move.

Countless Ciphertext Arrays spread out between the massive surrounding buildings.

Wherever they passed, the citizens of Qinggang, who had been descending into panic and chaos, fell to the ground in droves, unconscious.

Immediately after, white, humanoid shadows began to emerge from the Ciphertext Arrays. They wore dazed expressions, but under the influence of the arrays, they were woven together one by one, forming a bizarre, enormous chain.

And there was more than one of these massive chains; they rose from the city one after another in a bizarre yet spectacular display.

It was as if they were tentacles grown by the city itself, stretching across the massive buildings to bind both the Abyssal Laboratory and the tall, thin woman. Together, they formed a faint, ghastly pale cage, trapping her securely inside.

The tall, thin woman’s power was unfathomable. She could suppress Song Chushi with a mere glance, and her Spiritual Power was immense beyond any normal measure.

But no matter how immense her Spiritual Power, it couldn’t possibly compare to the combined power of hundreds, or even thousands, of people.

And what Song Chushi now wielded was precisely the power of Qinggang’s ordinary citizens—an alternative form of armed reserves, one might say.

He used the Ciphertext Arrays to directly activate the fear in the hearts of ordinary civilians, drawing out their Spiritual Power for his own use.

Afterward, these civilians would suffer from nightmares and mental exhaustion, but their lives would not be in danger. This was because any backlash was distributed equally among them all.

Of course, he wasn’t truly wielding the power of the thirty million he had claimed. Thirty million was the total civilian population of Qinggang, the city’s entire reserve. When Song Chushi used the Ciphertext Arrays for this Stealing, he was initially only able to draw upon tens of thousands, or at most, a little over one hundred thousand.

Even so, this was a terrifying amount of power, far beyond what any single individual could resist.

...

”Attack!”