The mob vented their fury and hunger on the shops along the way.
They smashed open doors and swarmed inside like locusts, looting food and drinks from the shelves and shoving them into their mouths to gorge themselves.
Driven mad by hunger, these people grabbed anything they could eat, chugging soy sauce, white vinegar, and even scalding hot noodle soup directly from the bowls.
As soon as one shop was picked clean, they immediately rushed to the next. The fierce momentum of their vow for revenge quickly crumbled under the temptation of food, dissipating into a frenzy of looting.
Residents on the street screamed in terror, fleeing in all directions.
In the chaos, the one-armed man looked back, met Yue Shi's eyes, and pointed forcefully toward a dilapidated building with a dark red roof on the outskirts of Peace Alley.
"Is that the place?" Yue Shi confirmed using hypnosis.
The one-armed man nodded vigorously. "The Red House. The underground prison holding transcendents and supernatural creatures is right there!"
Yue Shi withdrew his gaze and didn't linger, turning to sprint at full speed toward the Red House. It sat on the desolate edge of Peace Alley, where few people ever ventured.
He hadn't gone far when the frustrated roars of Zeng San's subordinates echoed from behind. "Catch them! Don't let a single one get away!"
These prisoners, who had just regained their freedom, only possessed a suicidal drive at the very beginning. Unfortunately, they were distracted by food midway. Their brief burst of explosive energy was exhausted; the combination of overeating and the fading adrenaline caused them to go limp and weak, turning back into lambs for the slaughter.
A surge of spirit is followed by decline and eventually exhaustion. Except for the one-armed man and a few clever individuals who managed to hide in the chaos, the rest were quickly brought back under control.
Yue Shi was somewhat disappointed. The chaos these people created had barely bought him a moment's time.
He quickened his pace and soon arrived near the Red House.
The Red House stood alone, its walls mottled and peeling. Its dark red roof looked particularly oppressive under the gray sky, resembling a haunted abandoned house from a movie. The surroundings were deathly silent, with no guards or shadows in sight.
Yue Shi did not lower his guard. Maintaining full invisibility, he approached the Red House silently.
Strangely, the door to the Red House was quite dilapidated, not locked at all, and not even fully closed.
"Is this a deliberate misdirection?" Yue Shi thought to himself. This Red House looked just like the other abandoned buildings nearby, possessing no real presence. If they had installed a reinforced door and heavy locks, it would have attracted unwanted attention instead.
Stepping inside, he found a hollow, dust-free room containing only a few pieces of broken furniture.
Where was the prison?
Yue Shi scanned the room carefully, his gaze landing on a patch of floor in the corner that was slightly darker in color. He walked over and gave it a tentative tap, hearing a hollow echo.
It was empty underneath.
He searched the surrounding area inch by inch and soon found a hidden switch. Opening the trapdoor revealed a staircase leading downward. A gust of cold air, mixed with the smell of disinfectant, blood, and an indescribable stench of decay, immediately wafted up.
Yue Shi stepped into the secret passage and closed the trapdoor. Suddenly, a shrill, agonizing scream echoed from the depths, hitting his eardrums.
The passage wasn't long, only about twenty to thirty meters deep, leading to a spacious underground prison. The layout here was completely different from the church; sturdy cages were constructed from steel bars as thick as an arm, and the walls and ceilings were covered with various instruments flickering with indicator lights and connected by pipes.
Each cell held only a single... supernatural creature.
In the center of the first cell was a massive, writhing lump of flesh placed inside a reinforced glass container.
A dozen mouths from different organisms—human, canine, and avian—were irregularly distributed across the surface of the flesh. These mouths opened and closed incessantly, letting out a continuous, mournful wail of "So hungry... so hungry."
Several chains wrapped in electrical arcs pierced through the glass, tightly binding the flesh. The current hissed and crackled, and each shock caused the flesh to twitch violently. It seemed this method was used to suppress the creature's vitality; no matter how it struggled, it couldn't break free.
The second cell held a massive, deformed creature firmly fixed to a specialized metal chair. Four heads grew from the top of its torso: one of a five- or six-year-old child, one of a middle-aged woman, one of a young man, and one of an elderly man. Each face bore a different expression.
Dozens of arms—thick adult male arms, slender female arms, and small child hands—grew twistedly from the monster's chest, abdomen, back, and even the sides of its neck, clawing and waving in the air.
Its lower body was even more terrifying, resembling a grotesque sea anemone composed of over a dozen legs of varying thickness and skin tones, kicking out aimlessly.
At regular intervals, nozzles in the cell would spray an unknown liquid onto it. As soon as the liquid touched its skin, the four heads would shriek in unison, and all its limbs would struggle frantically.
A chill ran through Yue Shi's heart. This monster looked like it had been forced together from the heads and limbs of different humans; it was quite sanity-draining.
The third cell held a metal skeleton covered by hundreds of decaying headphones. The headphone wires pulsed like living blood vessels, and a chaotic, irritating noise played continuously through them.
Other cells held various supernatural creatures that appeared relatively weaker.
The one-armed man had said this place held both transcendents and supernatural creatures. However, after a quick search, Yue Shi saw only one imprisoned human.
The man lay slumped on the floor in a deep sleep, wearing filthy, tattered clothes. He had a signature streak of white hair dyed into his locks...
He looked so familiar.
Wait, isn't this Jiang Cifei?!
Yue Shi remembered the last time he saw this guy, he seemed to be working the streets. How did he end up here?
Could it be that the "new transcendent in Peace Alley" referred to Jiang Cifei instead of Zhu Qunqing?
...Whatever. Yue Shi wasn't losing out either way; the supernatural creatures here were all experience packs for him.
Even though they were acquaintances, Yue Shi had no intention of rescuing Jiang Cifei. Saving people was high risk with uncertain returns; it would only be an extra burden.
There were patrol teams in the underground prison. They were likely Zeng San's subordinates, armed with large-caliber firearms.
However, these people's appearances were not normal. Their bodies looked as if they had been haphazardly cut apart and then clumsily stitched back together. Some had uneven arms, some had uneven legs, and others had distorted facial features with severe asymmetry.
There were even conjoined twins whose torsos were crudely fused back-to-back, sharing a single set of limbs like two-faced Buddhas. The skin at the point of fusion looked like two melting candles stuck together.
If one didn't know better, they would think this was a horrific freak show.
This immediately made Yue Shi think of Bai Qingyu.
Among this group of grotesque patrollers, there was only one "normal" person—a woman currently sitting in a wide metal chair, wearing a well-tailored black bodysuit that outlined her perfect curves.
Rate on N.U.
