Chapter 152: Entering the Exhibition Hall

“Stop him! Stop that madman—now!”
“No good, Brother Niu! We can’t stop him at all!
This isn’t a human—this is a f*cking bulldozer!”
“All of you, together! Get him!
We’ve got over thirty men—can’t we hold down one guy?!
Useless! All of you are useless!”

Brother Niu, clutching his bleeding forehead, staggered backward while screaming himself hoarse.

“…Damn it.
If I had those real toys on me, I’d have already riddled him full of holes!”

“Brother Niu, we’ve got no choice! This is downtown!
Boss said during the strict inspection period we absolutely can’t bring anything that makes noise—
or we’ll draw the cops and ruin the whole plan!”

“F*ck!”

The shrill screams sounded especially broken in the torrential rain, threaded with trembling fear.

At this moment, the outer members of the Chicheng Gang were regretting their choices to the core.

To avoid attracting attention, everyone had only brought batons and daggers—cold weapons.

They’d thought dozens of people against one unarmed passerby would be more than enough.

Who could’ve imagined…

Bang—

A dull impact rang out.

Brother Niu, who had been shouting the loudest, was sent flying backward, slamming hard into a sheet-metal barricade.

He went silent.

“F*ck… this guy… is he Ip Man or something?!”

Seeing this, the remaining lackeys were scared out of their wits.
Even the hands gripping steel pipes were shaking violently.

By now, the area outside the convention center had become a muddy Asura battlefield.

Dozens of bodies in black raincoats lay strewn across the pooled water—
some groaning in pain, others already unconscious.

Rainwater mixed with blood spilling from their mouths and noses, gathering into dark red streams in the low-lying ground.

Luo Shaotian slowly straightened his back.
That thick, powerful hand of his clamped like an iron vise around the throat of the last lackey.

“Urk… cough… p-please… let me—”

The man’s feet dangled off the ground as he kicked desperately,
his eyes bulging and bloodshot from suffocation.

Luo Shaotian looked at him expressionlessly.
Then his wrist gave a slight twist.

A faint cracking sound followed.

He tossed the body aside like garbage.

“Plop.”

The last outer member of the Chicheng Gang collapsed limply into the muddy water.

At last, the world grew quiet.

Only the torrential rain continued to scour the battlefield, leaving utter ruin behind.

“Huff… huff…”

Luo Shaotian stood in the rain, his chest heaving violently.

His white shirt was completely soaked through with rain and blood, clinging tightly to his lean, muscular frame.

He slowly lowered his head and stared at his hands.

Those hands were trembling slightly, slick with fresh blood.

‘(Yes… that’s it…)’

That voice—
that demonic whisper—
once again crawled into his mind along with the heat surging through his veins.

‘(Do you feel it?
The sensation of bones shattering… the sweetness of those screams.)’

‘(…)’

‘(This is power!
This is justice…)’

‘(Let this fire burn even hotter!
Charge in!
Kill everyone inside as well!)’

Luo Shaotian violently shook his head, rain spraying from his hair.

“Shut up…”

He ground the words out through clenched teeth, forcibly suppressing the violent urge to destroy everything.

Reason told him that the situation was extremely dangerous.

Against an organized violent gang, the standard police procedure would be to immediately withdraw to a safe area, call for SWAT support, and then conduct a fully armed assault.

Charging in alone was something that only happened in movies.

He pulled out his phone.
The screen still displayed the despair-inducing words: No Signal.

“Damn it…”

Luo Shaotian looked at the massive building before him, his heartbeat growing faster and faster.

Shrouded in the gray curtain of rain, the convention center looked like a man-eating beast, silently watching him.

Leave?

But Xiaohu was still inside…

And besides—

For some reason, ever since he’d gotten close to this place,
a nameless sense of dread had been swelling in his heart.

As if some unseen voice were urging him—

Go in.
Hurry.
Don’t leave.

Luo Shaotian clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms.

He picked up a solid steel pipe from the ground, tested its weight.

Then he strode forward and kicked open the tightly shut door!

*************

Xinhai City International Convention and Exhibition Center—
this landmark structure built at a cost of tens of billions—
when viewed from above, resembled a massive silver four-leaf clover, its four grand leaves fully unfurled.

Exhibition Halls A, B, C, and D encircled the central plaza, symbolizing luck and prosperity.

Yet now, under the relentless downpour,
this “lucky clover” looked more like a greedy man-eating flower,
opening its steel-forged maw, ready to digest the thousands of “sacrifices” within.

A thunderous crash followed as the heavy fire door of Hall A was violently kicked open.

Luo Shaotian entered with long strides, steel pipe still dripping rainwater in his hand.

“This… this is…”

Even a seasoned criminal investigator accustomed to scenes of slaughter would have their pupils violently constrict upon seeing what lay before them.

Inside the vast exhibition hall,
the anime booths that should have been bustling with noise were now deathly silent.

Colorful wigs and delicate props littered the floor,
and among this scattered clutter lay dense clusters of unconscious visitors.

Like puppets with their souls ripped out,
they were piled together haphazardly, their chests still rising and falling—
yet strange smiles were frozen on their faces.

The air was filled with a nauseatingly sweet fragrance, mixed with a faint scent of blood.

Suppressing the churn in his stomach, Luo Shaotian lowered his gaze.

On the floor and the glass curtain walls,
countless dark red lines writhed and spread.

They were blood-drawn runes—
pulsing faintly like living veins—
all converging toward the very center of the hall,

toward the spot that should have been the main stage!

There, six figures clad in black robes stood in a circle,
conducting some sort of blasphemous ritual.

They raised their withered arms high.
Their wide sleeves slipped back, revealing skin pale as paper.

Beneath that skin, black veins bulged like tangled tree roots.

Bone-polished necklaces hung around their necks as they muttered ceaselessly.

The wet, slithering whispers stabbed at the eardrums, leaving the mind restless and uneasy.

“Police!
Don’t move!!!”

Luo Shaotian roared, trying to shatter the evil-choked atmosphere.

At the same time, his right hand instinctively reached toward his waist—
only for his fingers to touch empty air.

“Tch…”

Only then did he remember that damned Firearm Management Regulation—

—outside of active duty, service weapons were locked away in storage.

…

No one paid him any attention.

The chanting continued unabated.

A few seconds later, several robed figures at the edge of the stage slowly turned their heads.

Beneath their hoods were eyes black as ink.

“…What’s going on?”
One of them spoke, voice hoarse like sandpaper grinding against bone.
“…How did an outsider get in?”

“What were those useless Chicheng Gang trash doing?
They couldn’t even stop a mere mortal?”

“Probably a stray fish that slipped through the net…
How noisy.
Disrupting such a sacred moment of offering to the Abyss.”

Their tones were contemptuous and indifferent,
they couldn’t even be bothered to properly look at the man holding the steel pipe.

“Should we deal with him?”

“No need.”

The robed leader didn’t even stop what he was doing.
He merely cast Luo Shaotian a cold glance, the corner of his mouth lifting in mockery.

“A mere mortal isn’t worth our hands.”

He turned back toward the void, continuing his worship, leaving behind a spine-chilling whisper:

“The air here has long been saturated with the spores of the [Siren Jellyfish].
Add to that those starving [Followers]…”

“…He won’t last sixty seconds.”