Chapter 155: Shikigami

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

Police boots descended the stairs, and what appeared in everyone's line of sight was a young police officer.

His expression was relaxed; in his hand he gripped an absurdly large, blood-soaked rusty machete, and he surveyed the scene.

Ignoring the 'security guard' holding the machete, ignoring the foreign laborers wearing only underwear, ignoring the packets of white powder laid out on the table, he suddenly strode to the wall, picked up a red fire extinguisher, and inspected it repeatedly.

A security guard standing against the wall secretly reached for the pistol at his waist, and demanded sharply at the same time, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I am the team leader of the Temporary Work Group for Fire Safety Inspection of the Gangnam District Gwangpyeong-dong Commercial Service Area, Seoul Metropolitan City International Modernized Global City Special Planning Large-Scale Urban Disaster Prevention Project."

Li Cheng said without turning his head: "Your portable chemical foam fire extinguishers here have already exceeded the five-year scrapping limit. Time to replace them, alright?"

Wha-wha-wha, what Seoul, what disaster prevention, what temporary work group.

The vast majority of people were left dizzy by that long string of titles, while that security guard abruptly drew the pistol at his waist and pulled the trigger on Li Cheng.

Clang!

The bullet was blocked by the rusty machete, flew straight off, ricocheting between the ceiling and the walls, and shattered a glass beaker sitting on the table.

"Oh great, you dare attack a police officer?"

Li Cheng flew into a rage, and immediately hurled the rusty machete; with a sharp crack, the blade pierced diagonally into the security guard's abdomen, pinning him to the wall.

The security guard's bewildered upper body slid down along the blade, while his lower half's legs remained propped against the wall, standing in place.

The bloody, brutal scene instantly breached the limits of everyone's sanity.

Some security guards shouted and charged forward waving their blades; the rest, together with those foreign laborers in only their underwear, wailed as they rushed up the stairs, frantically pounding on the locked iron door.

"I'll leave it to you."

Li Cheng took out the electronic pet egg and released Hui Yu; the latter cackled as he conjured a great axe and a chainsword, wantonly hacking apart those security guards, muttering all the while, "Combat feels great!"

Cries of weeping, screams, wails, the sound of limbs shattering.

Song Canhui, hiding in the secret room, listened to the clamor outside and felt every hair on his body stand on end.

He didn't rush out; instead, he carefully closed the door, took a wolf-shaped white paper cutout from his jacket pocket.

"It has to work!"

After a silent prayer, he bit his tongue tip and sprayed blood onto the paper cutout. He then quickly slipped the paper cutout through the door crack to the outside.

Hiss—

The blood slowly evaporated, sending up curling wisps of smoke.

Song Canhui turned around, opened the bathroom, covered the mouth of the Southeast Asian woman inside who had already finished bathing, signaling her to stay silent.

After a bout of frantic gesturing, the woman understood Song Canhui's meaning; she stood against the wall and let Song Canhui step on her shoulders, silently prying open the ventilation duct grate.

Song Canhui crawled into the ventilation duct first, then lowered one leg so the Southeast Asian woman could climb up as well.

The two entered the duct, barely turned around at the fork, and returned to the starting point, reinstalling the ventilation grate.

To keep the secret, the entire underground drug lab had only one exit; the end of the ventilation duct was also fitted with iron bars, making escape from there impossible.

But Song Canhui hadn't planned to escape to the surface either; he curled up in the duct, drenched in sweat, not daring to breathe heavily.

In the underground factory at this moment, the ceaseless fog emanating from the paper cutout finally coalesced into a giant gray wolf whose shoulder height rivaled a human's.

"Oh?"

Li Cheng stopped walking with keen interest; the gray wolf's body had texture, yet it did not breathe.

Its mode of existence lay between a living creature and a spirit body. Like a shikigami or a familiar—a summoned being of some sort—this scenario world also possessed supernatural forces.

The giant gray wolf made a short sprint, leapt onto the long table, knocked aside rows of drug-manufacturing tools, then plunged forward, opening its bloody maw to bite at Li Cheng's head.

Li Cheng tilted his body slightly to evade the bite, and at the same time raised both arms, precisely and swiftly wrapping them around the gray wolf's neck, swung it in a circle, and slammed it heavily onto the ground.

Amid the flying dust, Li Cheng gripped the gray wolf's upper and lower jaws in both hands, and with a tearing sound, ripped the entire skull apart.

Boom!

The gray wolf's corpse burst like a balloon; there was no flesh and blood—only a bloodstained paper cutout.

【Item Name: Shikigami Paper Cutout · Wolf】

【Type: Ritual Tool (consumable)】

【Quality: Damaged】

【Effect: Shikigami Summon. Summons an enhanced Kenai Peninsula wolf capable of understanding the most basic commands】

【Cost: No less than 5ml of human fresh blood】

【Cooldown: None】

【Usage Requirement: User has previously drunk Heart-Mind Sect holy water】

【Note: This item is a single-use consumable and is now spent】

【Note: In May 1915, the last female wolf was shot dead by a gold prospector in a valley in the northern Kenai Peninsula, Alaska; from then on, the Kenai Peninsula wolf—the largest of all wolves and canids worldwide—was utterly extinct】

The brief sounds of combat subsided once more; echoing through the factory was a flippant voice calling out, "Song Canhui, Song Canhui."

Hearing his name called, Song Canhui's heart leapt to his throat, and his panic peaked when that voice reached the secret room.

"Strange, there's no one here either."

That voice lingered in the room for a while, then left with a tone of disappointment, the door opening and closing.

Song Canhui clenched his jaw, carefully took out his phone from his pocket, and sent an SOS text message to his superior.

Buzz!!!

The phone suddenly vibrated; in Song Canhui's despairing, wide-eyed gaze, it blared out a noisy, clamorous ringtone, the caller ID showing "Jin Haoguang."

The ringtone stopped quickly, but it was already too late.

The ventilation grate was flung open; Li Cheng's head poked in, holding Jin Haoguang's phone in his hand, and grinning at Song Canhui said: "Found you."

Swoosh!

Li Cheng violently dragged the man out of the ventilation duct, threw him on the ground, and asked with a smile: "This afternoon, you drove a van and delivered a female corpse to the Jiangdong District Police Station, to the chief Jin Haoguang. Do you remember?"

"I-I remember."

Song Canhui, whose left leg had been broken in the fall, was streaming tears and snot as he spoke incoherently, "It wasn't me, it was my boss, Liu Chengzhe, the president of the Chengzhe Group, who told me to transport the corpse! There was also a prosecutor with us."

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow. Korea's political system practiced separation of powers; the Prosecutorial Bureau belonged to the executive branch among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, nominally subordinate to the Sifa Force.

The mere thousand-plus prosecutors nationwide held investigative-initiation rights over all criminal cases, police-investigation command authority, and arrest-warrant application rights. They controlled criminal information related to prominent figures, enterprises, and organizations across all sectors of society, and could summon corporate presidents, members of the National Assembly, and government officials at will.

It was regarded as an independent kingdom within Korea's political system, to the point that there was a saying: "Political power is finite, but the power of the prosecutorial authorities is infinite."

Being able to order a prosecutor to personally transport a "corpse" was strange from every angle.

Li Cheng pinched the shikigami paper-cutting between two fingers and asked, "Who gave you this Heart Spirit Cult shikigami summoning paper?"