Prey

Director Yingwei tossed aside his cane and rose from his seat, walking over to the head of the table. A bloody hole had opened in the skull of the board chairman, who lay slumped halfway across the desk. Blood welled and poured out steadily as his wide, staring eyes reflected utter terror. Yingwei gave a slight bow to him, then reached out and swept the corpse off the tabletop. After feeling around for a moment, he retrieved a sound source controller from a concealed opening beneath the main desk. The device emitted a special sound wave. Any one of them needed only to utter specific syllables into it to transmit simple instructions to Wu Qi. Right then, the heavy clatter of combat boots sounded outside, coming to a halt at the doorway. It was likely the security force arriving. Clearly, they did not dare barge straight in; instead, someone called out with nervous tension in their voice, "Directors, what are your orders?" Director Yingwei walked over and pressed a control. The doors of the conference hall slid slowly open. Standing in the doorway, he asked, "Captain Anguang, is something the matter?" "Director Yingwei..." The security captain hurriedly took a step back and bowed in greeting. At the same time, he cast a discreet, swift glance into the hall, only to find all the directors sitting quietly in their seats—and at that moment, every single one of them turned their heads in unison to stare at him. He hastily bowed again. "Forgive the intrusion, sir. I only came because I heard the alarm. Please excuse me." Director Yingwei smiled and said, "Someone probably bumped the alarm button by accident. It has happened before..." The security captain lowered his head even further. In truth, had it not been for that possibility, he would have breached the doors immediately. Director Yingwei said, "You arrived at just the right time, Captain Anguang. There is something you must know. The board has decided to evacuate shortly. You and your men will accompany them and oversee their escort." The security captain's expression snapped taut, and he barked, "Understood, sir!" Director Yingwei continued, "I will remain here to coordinate follow-up matters. Once I leave, you may depart." Hearing this, the captain froze for a moment, unable to stop a pang of sympathy and a swell of admiration from rising within him. He knew well that few people remained outside to hold the line, and Wu Qi might not be able to hold out much longer either; otherwise, the directors would never have decided to flee. To have the courage to stay behind at a time like this was nothing short of heroic. He bowed respectfully to Director Yingwei. "Understood, sir. If you have no further need of me, I will take my leave." Director Yingwei gave a smiling nod. The captain took a few steps backward before straightening up and leading his squad away. Once they were gone, Director Yingwei walked out of the submarine alone. He cast a glance toward the passage leading upward, a strange gleam surfacing in his eyes. Raising the sound source controller to his lips, he uttered a syllable in the Outer Ocean tongue. Within the lobby, Wu Qi once again tore through the heavy net and broke free. However, several more puncture wounds now pitted its body, and snapped pieces of the long cord remained lodged inside its flesh. Still, if this head-on clash continued, its capture was only a matter of time as the team grew more practiced with their gear. Yet all of a sudden, it performed an abnormal maneuver. Instead of holding its ground, it charged forward, catching everyone off guard. When a colossal body plunged ahead at blistering speed, the momentum behind it was immense. Several team members instinctively scattered outward. Only Xu Chan did not dodge to either side. Instead, he leaped backward in a sudden surge, retreating straight out of the skyscraper onto the plaza outside while keeping himself planted directly in front of the creature. In the next instant, radial fractures spread across the building's glass curtain wall. With a concussive boom, Wu Qi's massive bulk smashed out of the skyscraper like a bulldozer, sending a vast cascade of shattered glass clattering everywhere. It clearly knew nothing of generating martial power, or rather, its physiology differed so completely from humans that it could not invent an exclusive combat system from scratch. But it had no need to. With its colossal size and tonnage, the power it unleashed was hardly inferior to any Mind Jin. As it crashed through, it let out a screeching hiss. The deafening acoustic shockwave rattled the surroundings, rippling through the air toward distant buildings where windows spiderwebbed with cracks and numerous vehicle windshields shattered on the spot. At the same time, waves of intense psychic force surged outward. The squad members instantly felt dizzy and lightheaded, struggling to keep their footing. Further back, where the response units had retreated, another large wave of soldiers collapsed stiffly to the ground. Above, an airship hovering relatively close to the ground to transmit battlefield field observation data back to command suddenly drifted off with the wind. It seemed to lose altitude control—doubtless because the pilot and crew aboard had lost consciousness. On the plaza outside the skyscraper, only Xu Chan stood firm. Lowering his center of gravity, he sank into a forward-leaning stance. He knew he could not allow Wu Qi to run rampant in the open ground outside. If that happened, they would never be able to restrain this colossal conscious entity again. Should it plunge into the troops stationed to the rear, the close-range psychic shockwaves would do far more than merely knock people unconscious—they would slaughter scores of men on the spot. Furthermore, once it broke into the urban district, not only would the casualties and destruction multiply, but the difficulty of combating it would skyrocket. Gathering his momentum for a brief instant, Xu Chan stomped down hard, blasting a web of fractures into the pavement beneath his feet. He lunged forward in a blur, a faint luminescence gleaming on one hand as he slammed his palm onto the exoskeleton of Wu Qi's head! Despite the vast disparity in their sizes, the sheer force behind his strike forcibly brought the beast to a halt, driving its massive head backward in a violent recoil. Xu Chan's feet touched down. With a thunderous roar, he drove forward once more, swinging his fists into a flurry of blurring strikes that unleashed a tempest of blows against the colossal creature. Having had its center of gravity knocked askew from the start, Wu Qi could not extricate itself from his flurry of strikes and was forced to retreat and parry. Though it had broken out into the open, Xu Chan was now forcefully driving it back, step by step. By now, the other squad members had finally regained their senses. Seeing the opening, they surged forward to join the assault. Joining forces, they pushed Wu Qi back to where it had come from until, apparently losing its footing, the creature stepped into empty air and plummeted right back down the vertical shaft it had climbed out of. In the space at the bottom of the shaft, Director Yingwei stood resting on his cane. Watching Wu Qi plummet from above and crash before him with a booming thud, a strange gleam lit in his eyes. He seemed about to reach out, and a colossal dark shadow wavered behind him, but he checked himself a moment later. He muttered, "Not yet. It's not time yet." To successfully seize this vessel, it had to be weakened to a certain threshold first; otherwise, the struggle between conscious entities would leave him vulnerable and unable to attend to the outside world for a period of time. The dark shadow behind him slowly receded. Under his watchful gaze, Wu Qi hauled itself back up and began climbing the service ladder in the shaft once more. Aboard the Airshark airship, after absorbing pure substance for over an hour, Chen Chuan noticed that the supply had thinned out once again. He judged that the second phase had likely concluded. Having completed this absorption, he had not yet been able to verify the growth in his physical potential through direct testing, but he could tangibly feel that communicating with the other side had grown progressively easier and more effortless, as though some barrier standing between them was melting away. Checking the time, he saw that the appointed hour with Commissioner Liang was drawing near. He drew the Xuejun Saber before him, sliding the blade from its scabbard and wiping it down slowly with a specialized cloth. He could sense that against conscious entities and beings from the other side, the Xuejun Saber was an ideal weapon. Although the blade was still dormant, he needed only awaken it when the moment came. It had absorbed so much since battle began; it was time for it to pull its weight. According to the operational plan, entrusting this final blow to him was primarily the result of recommendations from several departments. One of them was the Esoteric Cult Bureau. Ever since Bureau Director Lei had been attacked, the man had led daily inspections targeting the Ferris Wheel Company and had even established an inspection station on the company's premises. This had not been done without purpose. Under Director Lei's leadership and instruction, they had set up a ritual utilizing a new esoteric material obtained from the general bureau. This ritual was specifically designed to target active consciousness, capable of exerting a tremendous impact on an active conscious entity in a single instant. If that otherworldly being sought to seize Wu Qi as a vessel, it would inevitably be caught within the ritual's influence at that very moment. Director Lei believed that Chen Chuan possessed a deep understanding of esoteric rituals along with exceptional talents that allowed him to resist corruption from the other side to a certain degree, making him the ideal candidate for the mission. Almost concurrently, the State Administration Bureau had recommended him as well. The State Administration Bureau's reasoning was purely based on security: the individual delivering the final strike had to have a clean background, an unblemished record, no entanglement with other factions, and ideally prior cooperation with their bureau. Furthermore, there was another critical factor: he was still a student of Wuyi Academy, which meant... At that moment, a red glow diffused behind him, dancing and fluttering. Chen Chuan paused. Rising from the floor, he held his saber and turned to look. Amidst fluttering crimson robes, a phantom figure bearing a yanling saber appeared before him, bright, lively eyes gazing at him from above her veil. Wuyi Academy's active conscious entity: Hongfu. To ensure the mission's success, Wuyi Academy would have Hongfu transfer a portion of her power to him through the field. The greater the rapport with Hongfu, the more power could be unleashed. Across all departments under the Defense Department, there was not a single person besides him who met every one of these criteria.