Chapter 167: 164. Soul Snatching

164. Soul Snatching

When everything calmed down, and the cautious Yu Lianyun "slowly" informed everyone they could stand up, even though they were mentally prepared, they were still shocked by the mess before their eyes.

In the devastated interrogation room, a massive crater nine meters in diameter had appeared, with the bottom of the pit about five meters below ground level. Wang Zijing's twisted and deformed corpse had long since vanished—or rather, in a short span of time, she had been unimaginably torn to shreds, diffusing into a shocking blood mist that was slowly settling within the shattered interrogation room.

The rooms connected to the interrogation room were all destroyed, a continuous fissure snaking around the perimeter. Black slime covered the surroundings, gray fluff rained down upon the people, and the foul stench and bloody odor grew increasingly pungent.

"Cough, cough." Someone carelessly inhaled air containing the floating fluff particles, and their complexion instantly turned purple-black. A flush then spread across their entire body, their eyes bulged, and animalistic desire crawled into their gaze as their pupils swept over the people around them.

Yu Lianyun saw that those who had accidentally ingested the contaminated air and come into contact with the black slime were showing extremely obvious abnormalities. Her heart skipped a beat, and she immediately ordered, "Hold your breath and retreat."

The group withdrew. Only a portion of those affected by the unknown influence could maintain a degree of sanity and escape the room with the others, while the rest seemed to have transformed into impulsive yet low-functioning beasts, their bodies undergoing a certain degree of swelling and deformity.

Seeing this, Yu Lianyun could easily guess what had just happened, and she immediately grabbed the stiff, motionless Li Duojin and ran toward the outside of the room.

The moment she grabbed his hand, Yu Lianyun was shocked to find that Li Duojin's body temperature was terrifyingly low and his frame was extremely rigid. She couldn't help but glance back, and with just one look, she was terrified by Li Duojin's appearance.

Li Duojin's mouth was wide open, his eyes were rolled back and bulging, and his entire nose had been cleanly sliced off, with blood gushing out from the wound incessantly.

Li Duojin was dying...

The sudden, chaotic riot filled with lustful evil was resolved half an hour later. Those who had inadvertently inhaled the spores released by the Creator of Inversion or whose skin had absorbed the unknown black slime—which organisms could absorb rapidly—were carried out looking almost withered, though fortunately, their lives were not in danger.

The Mysterious Investigators, having escaped death, were immersed in the fear of the unknown. Perhaps none of them had caught a glimpse of the Creator of Inversion, but they all knew by now that the terrifying existence residing in the Different Dimensional Space had truly descended for a brief moment.

Even without any ritual being performed, that arrogant perfectionist, the Creator of Inversion, had suddenly descended without warning, showing abnormal anger and causing extreme destruction.

"What on earth happened?" Some Mysterious Investigators who had noticed Li Duojin's abnormal behavior before the incident now turned their gazes toward Li Duojin, who was being resuscitated while being loaded into an ambulance. Their Captain, Yu Lianyun, also boarded the ambulance and left, leaving the on-site command and evacuation work to an A-Rank Mystic Investigator.

After much effort in resuscitation, Li Duojin was finally admitted to the ICU. His vital signs are currently stable, and the doctor said that as long as he can safely make it through tonight, he will be able to survive.

No one knows what Li Duojin experienced in those short two minutes, but those who saw his miserable state could all imagine what a hellish scene it must have been.

Yu Lianyun stood outside the ICU ward, looked at Li Duojin lying on the bed through the small glass window on the door, and sighed in her heart. She then lowered her head and opened her right hand, holding a withered straw broken into two pieces.

"Is this Lin Laoban's item?" Yu Lianyun speculated to herself, "If not for this, perhaps he would already be dead."

While lamenting, her mind recalled what had happened in the ambulance just moments ago.

Li Duojin, who had been in critical condition with his heartbeat stopping several times, had actually regained consciousness briefly a few times and said a few sentences and words to her intermittently.

"Woman... red rose... you must be careful of her."

"House of Cards..."

"Rat! Bug... indescribable..."

"Die!"

"..."

Pondering the meaning of what Li Duojin had said, Yu Lianyun stood in the cold hospital corridor for a moment, then scratched the scar on her face. Suddenly, as if she had thought of something, she turned and left.

Chen Xiaolin woke up with a start at 3:13:26 AM, feeling a splitting headache and a muddled brain. She hadn't been woken by a nightmare, nor had she been disturbed by any external force; she had simply felt an urgent call from her subconscious, urging her to wake up, so she did.

The first thing she did after waking was to look for her phone. When she fished it out of her bag, she found that the smartphone, which had been on standby for a day and a night, hadn't withstood the battery drain and was completely dead. Helpless, she had to plug it in to charge immediately.

Once the phone rebooted, Chen Xiaolin was shocked to discover that several calls had come in while she was asleep. Most were from Li Duojin, but the two most recent calls were from Yu Lianyun.

The most recent call from Yu Lianyun had gone to voicemail.

Chen Xiaolin felt a sense of foreboding, sensing that something major might have happened. She hurriedly opened the voicemail to listen. Upon learning that Li Duojin was critically injured and in the ICU, she immediately pulled out her backup phone—an old-fashioned button phone. Although it was an older model, its standby time was dozens of times better than a smartphone.

After swapping in her SIM card, she headed out without a moment's delay, calling Yu Lianyun as she went downstairs.

Yu Lianyun answered the phone quickly.

"What on earth happened while I was away?" Chen Xiaolin asked impatiently.

"We encountered the cross-dimensional Creator of Inversion. She was very angry because Li Duojin had snatched Wang Zijing's soul a step ahead of her."

Yu Lianyun's words left Chen Xiaolin stunned. That simple sentence, packed with a massive amount of information, made Chen Xiaolin think of many things.

Before Chen Xiaolin could recover from her chaotic thoughts, Yu Lianyun continued to explain why Li Duojin had done this: "Wang Zijing's memory contained some key information. The Xuanmi Group hadn't been able to extract the most critical information before her body gave out, and Li Duojin probably didn't want to see more people get hurt, so at the critical moment, he had to act. Fortunately, the sacrifice was worth it."

Hearing this, Chen Xiaolin hurriedly said, "I've also uncovered some clues here."

"Don't be in such a rush to say it, I've arrived..." Just as Yu Lianyun was speaking, a black sedan pulled up in front of Chen Xiaolin.

The window rolled down, and Yu Lianyun said to Chen Xiaolin with a calm expression, "Get in."