Quick Travel to the Clouds

Chapter 456 Ghost Catcher 17

This time, even Zhang Qiang, who was the most skeptical, took a step back, his face turned pale, and his hand subconsciously pressed down on his gun.

"Not cleaning the equipment!" His voice changed.

Liu Huajun snapped back to his senses. His sense of responsibility as captain and a sense of impending danger overwhelmed his fear. "Seal off the autopsy room! Everyone, retreat to Corridor 3 immediately! Zhang Qiang, guard the entrance!" His orders came quickly and urgently, with an undeniable firmness.

The technician hurriedly closed and locked the door of the analysis room.

Yun Chu, however, remained remarkably calm in this suffocating atmosphere. She didn't glance at the paper, her gaze as sharp as a knife, fixed on the gap in the incense burner's lid and the traces of light gray smoke that still hung in the air. The silver bracelet on her wrist once again streamed with icy blue light, this time lingering longer, as if desperately detecting something.

"That thing is testing the boundaries." Yun Chu's voice was low, his tone more solemn than ever before. "The interference from the instruments, the printed threats, the movement next door, are all its 'echoes'. It's confirming the size of its cage and searching for the weakest piece of 'flesh'."

"Echo?" Liu Huajun frowned. This word had a strong surreal tone.

"It had been a prisoner in this furnace, its power drained and sealed away for too long, like a starving beast chained and maddened."

Yun Chu spoke rapidly, his eyes piercing through everything with a cold, penetrating gaze. "The furnace is both a seal and an anchor point for it. It can't truly 'go far' and can only affect things within reach of the anchor point—instruments, energy residue left behind by bloodstains."

"Even... the fear and 'smell' deep within the human heart. If it wishes to break free from these invisible chains, it needs sufficient 'nutrients' to break the final lock. Its means of prey lies within the 'echoes' of its remaining power."

As soon as the words fell, “Zizi—Pa!”

The emergency light hanging in the temporary analysis room suddenly exploded, and glass fragments fell like hail!

Immediately afterwards, all the instrument screens went out instantly, and the interior lights flickered violently before falling into complete darkness.

Only a tiny bit of light coming in from the window could barely outline the contours of people and objects.

In the darkness, the cold feeling of the metal and the smell of disinfectant seemed to become stronger, making it hard to breathe.

Panic threatened to spread. Rapid breathing could be heard in the darkness.

"Don't panic!" Liu Huajun shouted, suppressing his pounding heart and drawing his service gun. "Hold steady! Turn on the flashlight!"

Several beams of light pierced the darkness, frantically sweeping across the room, and finally focused on the incense burner on the stainless steel workbench.

At the moment when several beams of light focused on the incense burner——

The incense burner itself did not make any movement.

It still squatted there like a dead object, covered with strange blood-colored rust.

However, under the illumination of the beam, the hard and smooth polished tiles on the floor directly below the stove began to "ooze" a sticky, dark red liquid without any warning!

The liquid didn't look like water, but more like a mixture of plasma and grease, with a strong smell of rust and earth.

The range of the liquid expanded rapidly under the beam of light, and in the blink of an eye, it formed an irregular, wet pool of blood with a diameter of more than one meter.

A bubble even gurgled up on the surface of the pool of blood, and burst with a "pop" sound, emitting an even stronger stench.

laugh--!

Yun Chu reacted the fastest. Almost the moment the pool of blood appeared, she sprayed the "condensation dew" in her bottle at the strange liquid.

Where the liquid came into contact with the "condensation dew", large amounts of gray-black smoke with a burnt smell immediately rose as if it were burning, and the color was much darker than before.

The smoke rolled and rose violently, but did not completely dissipate. Instead, it condensed and twisted above the pool of blood!

Under the light, the cloud of smoke seemed to be struggling to take shape, vaguely revealing a blurry outline with strangely twisted limbs and a disproportionately enlarged head, silently roaring in the direction of Yun Chu and Liu Huajun!

Zhang Qiang was so frightened that he almost pulled the trigger!

Liu Huajun was quick-witted and quick-handed. He grabbed his wrist and pressed the muzzle of the gun to the ground.

The smoke monster roared for several seconds, but eventually it was like a sand sculpture encountering a strong wind, and was dispersed and dissipated by more "condensation dew" mist.

The pool of blood on the floor quickly evaporated and shrank, leaving only a dark red stain with a strange oily sheen on the edges, like an old scar forcibly branded on the ground.

However, after this intense energy collision, the silver bracelet on Yun Chu's wrist suddenly dimmed, the icy blue light flowing within it so faint that it was almost invisible. She quickly put away the small spray bottle—the liquid inside was already more than half gone.

"It...it's under the stove?!" Zhang Qiang's voice trembled, the muzzle of the gun still pointing at the stain, as if there was a poisonous snake lurking there.

"No," Yun Chu gently shook his numb hands and looked at Liu Huajun with a serious look, "It's coming back. Or rather, it's trying to 'anchor' a more specific target."

Yun Chu raised his hand and pointed at the gap in the furnace lid, then at Liu Huajun. "That thing's remaining 'hunger' is resonating with you. Your aura... is closest to the 'key' and 'blood food' it wants."

Liu Huajun remained silent, his grip on the gun so tight his knuckles turned white. He looked down at his police boots, stained with countless grime from the scene, and then at the dark red oil stain on the floor.

He knew that Yun Chu was not exaggerating.

Last time it was the acoustic resonance and mold in the old house in South City. What about this time?

These monster remnants can corrode floor tiles, manipulate surveillance, interfere with equipment, and even turn into smoke. The scientific explanation... seems so pale and powerless at this moment.

"How do we," Liu Huajun took a deep breath, raised his head, and looked at Yun Chu sharply, "catch this 'beast'? It wants me, and I need a chance to pull it out of nothingness!"

The fear in his tone was replaced by an almost tragic determination.

For the sake of possible victims, for the safety of his team members, and to defend the bottom line of his own worldview that was once as solid as an iron wall, he must become the bait and end this nightmare with his own hands.

He now understood that this case was inseparable from Yun Chu and her "unscientific" methods.

Outside the analysis room, in the dead silent corridor, there seemed to be an extremely slight friction sound, like nails scraping against metal.

But no one confirmed what it was.

Everyone's eyes were focused on the enamel incense burner standing quietly in the dim light, and on Liu Huajun and Yun Chu standing side by side.

A bloody prelude of hunting and counter-hunting between humans and invisible things has quietly begun in the depths of this cold physical evidence department.

In the darkness, Liu Huajun's words were like an invisible command, instantly solidifying the remaining fear in the analysis room into determination. Everyone's eyes were fixed on Yun Chu—she seemed the only hunter who could tame this invisible beast.