Free Web NovelChapter 663: Chapter 613: The Most Dangerous Existence
Before Feng Ju could even respond, that sallow old face drifted into the darkness behind him, as if it had never appeared, leaving only those eerie words echoing in his ears.
Fast! Too fast! So fast that the mind couldn’t keep up!
Feng Ju felt an extremely slight sensation on the side of his neck, as if bitten by an insect.
In the next moment—
"Ugh... heh heh..."
A broken, breezy sound uncontrollably squeezed from the depths of his throat.
Thick black blood instantly spurted from his neck, splattering his face.
He suddenly widened his eyes, his fingers clutching his throat desperately.
He then realized his windpipe had been cut, and a sinister, venomous power surged into his bloodstream through the wound, sweeping through his body with each breath.
Veins bulged like earthworms on his face, and his lips oozed black and purple.
"Thud!"
Feng Ju’s legs gave way, and he stumbled forward, face down, crashing heavily onto the ground, twitching a couple of times before going still.
Thick black blood slowly seeped from beneath him, exuding a nauseating putrid stench.
The figure that struck was evidently extremely confident in their killing method, not even bothering to glance back at Feng Ju’s corpse as they swiftly drifted toward the direction of the explosion and the special investigator, leaving behind only two cold streams of air.
Feng Ju lay quietly in the pool of blood like a real corpse, with not even the slightest twitch of any muscle remaining.
But he was already a living corpse to begin with~
After lying there for a full ten seconds, the fingers of the "corpse" on the ground suddenly twitched lightly.
Following that, Feng Ju sprung up like a resurrected cadaver, stumbling wildly forward in a desperate sprint!
The wound on his neck still bled, and his lips remained frighteningly black and purple.
Feng Ju wasn’t completely faking death just now; he had genuinely died once more.
"That was close, almost got my head cut clean off, in which case, I wouldn’t be here.
Feng Ju shuddered with lingering fear, his head still dizzy.
Of course, the cost of being ’half-dead’ was also horrifically steep. His pitifully short remaining lifespan had been sharply reduced again, leaving him with less than 15 hours.
On his retinas, the black countdown:
[14:44:44]
[14:44:42]
[14:44:40]
[...]
The most terrifying part was that the seconds hand of the countdown didn’t decrease second by second but dropped in jumps.
...
The aftermath of the explosion still echoed within the sewer conduits as the special investigator, moving like lightning, rushed toward the direction of the blast.
Rounding the last corner, the scene before him made him halt sharply.
A long section of the conduit had been blown away, literally "blown away."
Over a dozen meters of conduit ceiling had been ripped open in a hideous gash, exposing the mottled concrete floor of the abandoned factory above.
Like a skull with the skull cap violently lifted off, steel bars jutted unevenly like jagged bone shards.
Fragments of rock and metal from the explosion shot upward like a torrential rain, with some pieces piercing through the ground and scattering like blossoms around the factory; others reached the peak of their trajectory and crashed back into the conduit amid booming echoes like drumbeats.
The base of the sewer conduit had a large pit nearly three meters in diameter blasted into it, the shockwave tearing the surrounding pipe walls to shreds.
Web-like cracks crazily spread over the metal surfaces, as large sections of the pipes groaned under the strain, collapsing with a crash into a heap of twisted scrap metal.
The special investigator stood at the pit’s edge, eyes scanning around without spotting any sign of Li Shang or [Mask].
He curiously squatted down, reaching out a finger to move a few rocks aside.
The surfaces were smeared with a bizarre black stain, like dried blood re-melted by the explosion’s heat, slowly dripping downward.
"Blood?"
Song Kuangyan’s pupils contracted, his fingers rubbing the darkened liquid.
"Whose blood?"
"Li Shang’s? Or [Mask]’s? Or someone else’s?"
A myriad of doubts sprang up in the special investigator’s mind, furrowing his brows tightly.
"This should have been the meeting point [Mask] notified Li Shang about on the forum... but why the explosion?"
"Did Li Shang want to blow [Mask] up, kill the monster to silence it?"
The special investigator evaluated based on his understanding, but in the next second overturned his hypothesis,
"Not possible, the location was chosen by [Mask], Li Shang only came because he received the notice; at most, he arrived slightly earlier than me, there wasn’t enough time to set up a trap, especially not with explosives of such power."
"Then does [Mask] want to blow Li Shang up?"
Song Kuangyan furrowed his brows even deeper,
"That doesn’t make sense! With [Mask]’s capabilities, killing Li Shang would be too simple, no need to use explosives."
"So... the purpose of this explosion was something else?"
The special investigator racked his brain, his eyes suddenly brightening,
"Could it be that... [Mask] was conducting some kind of [Evil Sacrificial Ceremony] here just now? The explosion was an indispensable part of the ritual?
Evil Sacrifice, it likes ’cooked’ food?"
From the investigator’s gathered clues, this deduction wasn’t entirely unfounded.
After all, he could never have guessed—the actual target of this explosion was himself, a hundred meters away.
The most crucial part is, in an evil sacrificial ceremony, drunken offerings, bleeding, and explosions sound just perfectly fitting.
If the [Evil Sacrificial Ceremony] were considered a cooking session, then bleeding would equal cleaning the ingredients, while drunken offerings would be special marination, and the explosion is the frying and cooking of ingredients.
It all connects seamlessly!
So... the meaning of life is explosion?!!
A sudden inspiration struck the special investigator’s mind, as if he had caught a corner of the truth, though still unsure.
