Chapter 128: Death Gathering (2)

At the gathering site, everything was in chaos.

The young man who, having looked back, was forced to meet the demon's gaze on stage, stopped his fleeing steps.

Then he charged straight into a car that had lost control while trying to dodge the crowd.

"Bang!"

A tremendous boom.

The young man's body was hit into the air, tracing a parabola before crashing heavily to the ground.

The driver, terrified out of his wits, slammed on the brakes and lay over the steering wheel, gasping violently.

After several seconds, he trembling lifted his head and looked toward the figure lying in a pool of blood outside the window.

Then he saw it.

Even with blood and dust covering his face, the young man still wore that eerie, lifeless smile.

The driver's pupils shrank sharply.

A chill shot from his tailbone straight to his Heavenly Spirit Cover.

Just as he was at a loss, his peripheral vision caught Lingmu Jianer on the podium.

Soon, the muscles on his face began to twitch uncontrollably, his mouth slowly splitting open.

The next second.

He shifted into reverse, floored the accelerator, and the car let out a piercing roar as it sped backward into the crowd!

"Ahhh!"

Screams rose and fell.

This originally fervent gathering square turned into a hell on earth in just a few minutes.

In the panic and chaos, more and more people, out of fear, curiosity, or pure instinct, turned their heads to look at the figure standing in the center of the stage, like an Asura returned from hell.

Then they stopped.

On their faces appeared the same eerie smile.

A middle-aged man in a suit laughed as he charged into the nearby wall, headfirst.

A stylishly dressed young girl laughed as she vaulted over the overpass railing, arms wide toward the terrified crowd below, and leapt down.

A group of right-wing youths who had just been shouting 'Heaven's Punishment to Traitors' laughed as they grappled together, attacking each other with teeth, nails, and any means available, until they were bloody pulp and could no longer move.

Wails, cries, the crisp sound of breaking bones, all mixed with that eerie, silent smile.

Together they formed a bizarre, apocalyptic panorama.

And the instigator, Lingmu Jianer, seemed oblivious to the purgatory he himself had wrought.

He didn't even glance back.

Instead, he turned, gauged his direction, and began walking stiffly, like a puppet, step by step toward the distant, brightly lit, skyscraper-filled City Center CBD.

No one knew how long had passed.

A delivery worker on an electric scooter, wanting to take a shortcut, hummed a tune as he turned onto this usually quiet lane.

As he passed the alley entrance, the sight before him made him clutch the brakes.

The electric scooter squeaked to a halt.

The delivery worker's relaxed ease instantly froze.

Corpses.

The ground was littered with corpses.

They lay in various unimaginable poses amid pools of blood.

The entire square was eerily silent.

What chilled him most was that every corpse, no matter how gruesome, bore the exact same eerie smile.

"Ugh—"

His stomach churned; he leaned against the wall and vomited on the spot.

After a few seconds, he fumbled for his phone and dialed emergency services in a panic.

"Hello! Police?! Come quick! Please come!"

"This place... this place is full of dead people! They're all smiling!"

At the same time, Metropolitan Police Command Center.

Sharp phone rings rang out one after another, turning the whole hall into a chaotic mess.

"Report! A massive stampede has occurred in Xinsu San Dingjie!"

"No! It's a terrorist attack! Someone is indiscriminately assaulting passersby on the street!"

"Command Center! I've received reports of a possible gas leak! Many are hallucinating and harming themselves!"

Countless contradictory, chaotic alarm calls all pointing to the same disaster flooded in at once.

The duty commander, an old police officer with white‑tinged hair, listened to one shocking report after another over the headset, his face growing graver.

He slammed his hand on the table.

"Attention all! Define this incident as the highest‑level terrorist attack! Block all major intersections in Xinsu! All patrol units, converge immediately on the central square!"

Police wails echoed instantly across the city's night sky.

A patrol car nearby received the order and immediately turned around.

In the car were two veteran officers, Tianzhong and Zuoteng, with solemn expressions.

"What's going on? Such a big deployment?" the younger Zuoteng frowned.

"I don't know," Tianzhong gripped the wheel, "it just feels off."

Just then, Zuoteng's pupils contracted; he pointed to the sidewalk not far ahead.

"Tianzhong! Look at that person!"

Tianzhong followed the direction he pointed and saw a gaunt man, covered in blood, staggering down the street like a soulless corpse.

"Stop!"

The police car braked sharply and stopped at the roadside.

Two officers immediately got out, drew their sidearms, and flanked the suspect from front and back.

"Freeze! Police!"

Tianzhong shouted loudly, aiming his gun steadily at that figure.

"Put your hands up! Let us see!"

Lingmu Jianer stopped in his tracks.

He slowly turned around.

The neon lights from the street illuminated his face, covered in blood and grime.

Tianzhong and Zuoteng, upon seeing his appearance, simultaneously sucked in a breath of cold air.

That did not look like a living person's face.

On that face hung an enormous, unbelievably stiff smile.

An inexplicable chill crawled up the spines of the two veteran officers.

"You... who are you?!" Tianzhong felt his throat dry, "What were you doing just now?"

Lingmu Jianer did not answer.

The smile on his face widened even further.

The next second.

The vigilance and ferocity on Tianzhong's and Zuoteng's faces froze abruptly.

Their facial muscles began to twitch uncontrollably, the corners of their mouths slowly pulling upward.

One, two.

Identical, lifeless Weird smiles appeared on their faces.

From the command center's radio came the dispatcher's urgent call.

"Patrol Unit 7, report your position and status! Please respond if you hear this!"

Tianzhong's walkie-talkie slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.

He did not respond.

He merely smiled and slowly raised his service pistol.

Zuoteng opposite him made the exact same motion.

The two, separated by several meters, wore the same smile as they stared at each other.

Then, in unison, they aimed the cold barrels of their guns at their own temples.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The two gunshots rang out, especially jarring in the silent street.

"Patrol Unit 7 lost contact! Repeat, Patrol Unit 7 lost contact!"

In the command center, watching the two signal points vanish instantly on the screen, the commander's heart sank to the bottom.

"Immediately retrieve the dashcam from their police car! And all street surveillance! Now!"

A few seconds later, segments of footage were transmitted back to the command center's large screen.

They saw the final moments of those two officers.

They saw the Weird smiles on their faces.

They saw them pull the trigger on themselves without hesitation.

The entire command hall fell dead silent.

Everyone was stunned by this incomprehensible horror.

"Investigate! Find out who this blood-covered man is!" the commander's roar broke the silence.

Soon, Lingmu Jianer's records were pulled up.

His recent ordeal, truly tragic, was displayed clearly on the screen—his girlfriend had been assaulted and then committed suicide, his mother died from illness due to unpaid bills, and the perpetrators were precisely those right-wing Thugs at tonight's rally.

"This is revenge..." an analyst muttered.

There is no doubt that the terror attack in Xinsu San Dingjie was caused by this person.

Moreover, the surveillance and live broadcast footage retrieved by other technical staff also corroborated this.

The commander stared intently at the screen at that slowly receding, blood-streaked silhouette, and then glanced again at the replay of the officers' suicides.

A crazy but only plausible explanation formed in his mind.

"Very likely..." his voice cold and trembling, "He is carrying a novel neurotoxin, a biochemical weapon we have never heard of!"

He slammed his fist onto the control panel.

"This is not a person! This is a walking plague!"

The commander seized the red microphone for the city-wide police channel; his voice, carrying undeniable resolve, rang out to every police car and every officer's ears.

"All units, attention! Latest orders regarding the Xinsu incident!"

"Suspect, Lingmu Jianer, confirmed to be carrying lethal, unconventional weapons of mass destruction!"

"Now I authorize all personnel to use lethal force without warning upon encountering the target! Repeat, no warning, shoot to kill!"

On the screen, the dot representing Lingmu Jianer was moving straight toward the heart of Dongdao's most prosperous and densely populated area.

"At any cost!" the commander bellowed into the microphone.

We absolutely cannot let him go into the CBD!