Chapter 107: Massacre

Luo Qi stared in shock at the motionless, breathless human body on the ground. Screams pierced his eardrums. He looked up blankly to see the crowd rushing down the stairs and escalators like startled canyon animals. It was horrifying to realize that intelligent beings, when cornered and driven to madness, did not look all that different from animals. For a long moment, Luo Qi could not move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure running toward the depths of the Shang.

He quickly turned his head and caught a glimpse of Du Zhengyi's figure disappearing behind a pillar in the Shang. He snapped back to reality, finally realizing that something must have happened. He could not use Spatial Teleportation, so he turned and ran toward the upward-moving escalator.

Du Zhengyi appeared from behind a pillar on the fourth floor and released an energy shield. A girl covered in blood walked out of a restaurant to his right like a ghost. Her bloody hand clutched her abdomen; her light-colored clothes were already soaked through. Unstoppable blood flowed from beneath her hand, the crimson stain constantly spreading. Logically, such an injury should have rendered her immobile, but Du Zhengyi only had to glance at her pupils to know she was in deep shock, temporarily unable to feel pain, yet liable to collapse at any moment.

Du Zhengyi bypassed her. His heart sank as he approached the restaurant entrance; it was a dessert shop. A dessert shop meant it was likely full of girls and children. After the incident, even trying to run out would be difficult.

The dessert shop had an L-shaped layout, and the entrance area was in total disarray. Du Zhengyi used Teleportation to cover ten meters, flashing to the corner of the shop. The smell of blood assaulted his sense of smell. The first thing he saw was the huge poster hanging on the far wall, where a red velvet cake radiated an eerie sweetness amidst the carnage. In that same instant, the sound of a blade hacking into a human body and striking bone was as clear to the Mage's sensitive hearing as a ghost pulling a saw blade.

Du Zhengyi even reflexively judged that it was a dull knife; an ordinary blade was not suited for hacking and would roll its edge after hitting bone, rendering it useless.

A pair of blood-red eyes stared madly at Du Zhengyi from behind a limp human body. Du Zhengyi could even tell that the man was excitedly searching for information: gender, height, physical strength, whether he was armed... It seemed the man felt he had the advantage; the tall, thin Mage did not look like a strongman, nor did he have a weapon in his hand. But the madman hesitated for only a second, as if he hadn't seen Du Zhengyi standing in the middle of the room. He tugged at the kitchen knife stuck in the back of the woman sitting there; the blade was wedged between bone and tissue and wouldn't come out easily. He simply gave up, pulled another kitchen knife from his belt, and lunged toward the table in the very back, where a girl had her ankle caught between the table legs.

Du Zhengyi was stunned; the man was ignoring him. But in an instant, he understood: subduing the man would take time, and the madman only wanted to harvest the number of lives. Du Zhengyi was incensed. He raised a hand, and a table knife from a dining table flew into his grasp. He threw the knife; the blade was not sharp, yet it was driven into the hand holding the kitchen knife by a tremendous force.

The kitchen knife dropped onto the tabletop, and the madman began to wail, looking at his pierced palm in disbelief. The girl finally pulled her leg free, and Du Zhengyi said in a low voice, "Go, quickly!"

The girl let out a cry but immediately stifled it, summoning her courage to run out across the blood-stained floor.

Du Zhengyi walked forward, seeing fear and unwillingness in the eyes of the madman as he looked back at him.

"You actually feel fear?" Du Zhengyi said in a low voice, casually grabbing a vase from a table and smashing it against the man's head. The man had no ability to resist and slumped to the ground. The madman's show had come to an end.

Du Zhengyi pondered the situation before him. A familiar voice suddenly came from outside the door, superfluously worrying about someone else: "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Don't move, just sit down. Don't be afraid, a Doctor will be here to help you soon."

"Luo Qi!" he roared in annoyance. "Get over here, now!"

Luo Qi was trembling at the entrance, talking to a girl covered in blood. He didn't know how much the girl could understand; her eyes were unfocused, and she was stumbling at the entrance like a wandering corpse. He was frantic. Hearing Du Zhengyi roar his name, he snapped out of it and hurried into the restaurant.

He froze after taking only two steps. The blood on the floor was thick and sticky on his white Nike shoes. He slowly lowered his head and saw a white hand dangling right by his feet. The fingers were slender, the skin warm and soft, and the nails were decorated with nail art petals. He swallowed, raised his gaze slightly, and looked at at least seven or eight bodies lying limp, either dead or gasping in pain.

"Luo Qi!" Du Zhengyi shouted again.

Luo Qi answered, jumped over the slaughterhouse-like dessert shop, turned the corner, and ran to the innermost position where Du Zhengyi was standing. Along the way, he tried his best not to look at the people or the wounds cut into their bodies.

Du Zhengyi said succinctly, "This person."

"Did you kill him?" Luo Qi asked, not knowing if he was hoping for that.

"No, I knocked him out," Du Zhengyi said. "The police will be here in a few minutes. Take a look at his Yajian; check as much as you can."

Luo Qi understood. "Okay."

"Wait," Du Zhengyi said. He scanned the distance to the others; none were very far. "Be careful not to touch anyone else's Yajian, especially the dying ones, understand?"

Luo Qi nodded, looking anxiously at the person nearby wailing miserably in a chair, a knife still in her back. Du Zhengyi shifted his position, using his body to block Luo Qi's view. "Focus your attention. If this were a battlefield, there would be nothing remarkable about this at all."

Luo Qi took a deep breath, entered a state of Meditation, and soon slipped into the Consciousness World. Du Zhengyi was right beside him, as always; the Volcano of his Yajian was burning fiercely. He took a brief look and felt a sense of relief. He could safely enter the realm of the soul; Du Zhengyi would watch over his physical body. Around him were many hearth fires, some on the verge of extinguishing, overflowing and scattering sparks of fireflies, radiating sorrow and pleas for help. Only then did Luo Qi understand that at the final moment, Yajian truly would dissipate and spread. Consciousness Fragments flew past his eyes, attracting his attention like fireworks. His Consciousness World became unstable; he was drawn to those Consciousness Fragments that longed to persist. Perhaps because of their unwillingness, the Yajian at the final moment, though mere fragments, became extremely powerful, eager to cling, eager to find a vessel that could contain them.