Nightmare Despair

Chapter 88 Mutation
For Li Xiangqian, the word "mirage" was still somewhat unfamiliar.

When Ding San mentioned it a few years ago, it was just a vague code name.

Li Xiangqian only recently realized that he was being dominated by fear.

This word, and the twisted entities behind it, are creating more and more cases, and they are becoming increasingly bizarre.

He worked diligently as a policeman for half his life, but he hadn't encountered as many strange things as he had this year.

Inside a generic drug manufacturing plant in Xinhui Pharmaceutical Industrial Park.

Six police officers, including Li Xiangqian and Niu Ancheng, huddled together, surrounded by seven or eight night shift employees who had just escaped death.

The employees looked ashen-faced, like dried-up cured meat that had been drained of its blood; their eyes were unfocused, and they seemed absent-minded.

The six men, including Li Xiangqian, didn't look much better either.

His back, beneath his police uniform, was already soaked with cold sweat, but he held on tightly, trying to reassure the public.

If they all fall into chaos, then it's all over.

……

Let's go back to 1:30 a.m.

Police received a report that someone had fallen from a building at Xinhui Pharmaceutical Company.

The person reporting the incident spoke incoherently and was emotionally agitated, repeatedly rambling about labor disputes causing turmoil in the company, successfully misleading the operator.

The case was initially treated as a typical suicide of passion and was handed over to frontline police officers.

But Li Xiangqian had witnessed the scene of the mirage killing more than three times, and he had a strange feeling that something was wrong.

So, with one phone call, he dragged Niu Ancheng and the others, who should have been sleeping at home, out of bed and rushed them to the scene together.

When they arrived... what they saw before them was hell.

Beneath several tall buildings in the northwest corner of the industrial park, corpses lay scattered on the concrete ground. A little deduction would reveal that they had fallen from the upper floors, with bones and bits of flesh seeping from their torn work clothes.

With just a glance, there were more than ten victims.

All the police officers' breathing became rapid, and their hands unconsciously went to their holsters.

Just then, the sound of shattering glass came from upstairs, followed by a scream that was abruptly cut off. Another person fell from the sky, crashing to the ground with a thud, splashing a pool of dark red blood.

"Fuck your mother's mirage..." Niu Ancheng's pupils contracted sharply, and he kicked the metal door. "Old Li, let's go up and take a look!"

The existence of the mirage had already been communicated internally by higher-ups.

No matter how skeptical Niu Ancheng was, after witnessing the tragic scene with his own eyes, he was now completely convinced.

Li Xiangqian silently pulled out his pistol and released the safety.

His deep gaze swept across the distant night sky, a sense of relief flashing through his mind.

Fortunately, I had already sent Jiahao back to rest.

For Li Xiangqian, Jiahao was someone he had watched grow up, almost like his own son. It was fortunate that he wasn't on the front lines at the moment.

Then, he began to think about the recent intelligence about the mirage, and said in a deep voice, "Once inside, everyone must remain calm. No matter what kind of monsters are upstairs, prioritize getting the people to safety!"

Everyone nodded and said, "Understood!"

Six police officers formed a tactical squad and filed into the building.

The building was brightly lit, yet the light had an indescribable dimness.

It seems that the "darkness" here is a living thing, gradually devouring the light.

Upon entering, a stench of rotting flesh assaulted my senses.

Li Xiangqian glanced at the ceiling light in the corridor and saw some white dust, similar to peeling paint, slowly drifting down from the ceiling.

'Mirages can affect the environment? That's not what the information says.'

Before he could even understand it...

A figure appeared and disappeared.

The next moment, Niu Ancheng fired a shot at the figure without warning!

"boom!"

Gunshots rang out in the deathly silent stairwell.

The others were startled. What was going on with Captain Niu? They hadn't even figured out what was happening...

However, in reality, there is no need to figure it out at all.

When Li Xiangqian looked in the direction of Niu Ancheng's gun, he also raised his gun without hesitation and pulled the trigger.

boom! boom! boom!
Three bullets accurately struck the humanoid creature's chest and head, with several muffled thuds—all hit!
But there was no joy on anyone's face.

"Damn... this thing is really not afraid of guns?" Niu Ancheng was truly dumbfounded. Li Xiangqian shook his head and said, "No... it's still somewhat useful, it's just that our firepower is insufficient."

Everyone had already followed the two people's gazes and saw a short, stout woman with a hunched back, wearing a tattered brown coat, slowly walking out of the darkness in the distance of the passage, dragging a chain. Her body was covered with festering sores and wriggling tentacles, and her face looked like stewed meat crawling with maggots, making it impossible to distinguish her features.

The bullet hit it like it was hitting over-fermented dough, splattering yellow-green pus everywhere, doing nothing but making it stagger.

"That's fucking disgusting!"

"No time to waste on it, let's get upstairs and save people!"

Seeing this, Niu Ancheng stopped wasting bullets.

His eyes sharpened, and he immediately signaled everyone to go upstairs through the fire escape; saving lives was the priority.

Li Xiangqian did not contest for command.

He nodded emphatically and caught up with the group.

Just before going upstairs, he glanced at the monster one last time, and a chill ran down his spine.

"Is this thing really a mirage? Or is it something else entirely...?"

along the way.

They encountered several more of those pustular monsters, which made them even more depressed.

Fortunately, the whole process was uneventful, as this monster did not have any particularly difficult-to-defend attack methods.

Twelve minutes after entering the building, they successfully avoided the monster and reached the factory's semi-transparent walkway.

This is a sky bridge connecting the two buildings, located on the fourth floor, and surrounded by transparent glass.

At this moment, several windows were shattered, indicating that someone had jumped from there.

"police!?"

Upon seeing the police uniforms, the trapped employees, whose nerves had been stretched to the limit, finally found an outlet and screamed for help.

Among the crowd, only two or three women remained relatively calm, their eyes half-closed.

Upon hearing the police's voice, one of them immediately shouted, "Close your eyes! Whatever you do... don't look downstairs!"

"They saw something, and then they went crazy...they all jumped down!"

Upon hearing this, Niu Ancheng's anger flared up instantly.

"Do you fucking have to find a place where you can see downstairs to hide?"

But he regretted it after he finished yelling at him.

Because as far as the eye could see, apart from this drafty, godforsaken place... the entire factory seemed to have become the territory of those bloated monsters.

"Old Li, let's report this. We need to get the legendary Bureau of Extraordinary Events involved. We can't rely on ourselves..."

His Adam's apple bobbed. "I can't handle it."

Li Xiangqian frowned.

The worst has happened; there's more than one clam here.

But is it really a mirage?

With questions in mind, Li Xiangqian dialed the special hotline of the Special Affairs Bureau within the public security system and quickly explained the situation.

But he didn't get a reply for a long time, so he immediately dialed Ding San's number again.

However, after only a few words, the phone screen began to flicker strangely, displaying odd noise, and a strange sound came from the earpiece.

Li Xiangqian looked at the phone that seemed off, and his heart sank to the bottom.

I just hope that those few words conveyed the key information.

"Your phone still works? Ours... were all ruined after we called the police..."

The woman who had reminded them to close their eyes took out her phone; the metal frame was covered in rust and was corroding at a visible rate.

Creatures in the real world are being eroded by the abnormal environment here.

Li Xiangqian glanced at the woman's name tag and said gratefully, "Probably because we just came in, the environment here hasn't yet corrupted our electronic devices... Ms. Zhou Qing, thank you for your reminder earlier, it was a great help."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Qing calmly nodded, but her slowly lowered hand trembled like a leaf.

She pressed on, "Someone will... come to save us, right?"

Li Xiangqian took a deep breath.

"Yes, I promise you."

"Most definitely!"

(End of this chapter)