Chapter 5
What happened next was even more frightening. Three soldiers armed with assault rifles were shooting at the monster. Through the binoculars, Chu Yunsheng could barely see that there seemed to be dim red lights flickering around the monster every time the bullets hit it.
Only a few bullets hit its legs, but the bullets did not hurt the monster. The bullets only provoked the monster to become even more aggressive.
After a loud, shrill roar, the monster ran towards the soldiers who were still shooting. It was fast, faster than Chu Yunsheng could ever imagine. Its speed could almost be described as teleportation.
Just after it ran towards the soldiers, Chu Yunsheng noticed that where the monster was previously standing, there was a body. The body looked human, but dismembered into three pieces, with all of the red and white internal organs spreading on top of the destroyed car. Chu Yunsheng felt a bout of sudden sickness, and almost threw up.
The monster caught two soldiers who did not have time to run away, one on each claw. The soldiers that were caught were struggling desperately, but their struggles did not help them. The monster slowly closed the claws shut, cutting them in half.
The two soldiers did not die immediately. One of them used his hands to crawl on the ground, trying to get away with his half-body. Blood was everywhere, but the monster was not satisfied. It put one of its feet on the back of the crawling soldier. The razor-sharp foot easily pierced through, and stuck the soldier to the ground. Then Chu Yunsheng heard another roar from the monster. The roar this time was different, full of pleasure, instead of aggression. The monster moved its claws back and forth, like a celebration of victory.
‘Is this hell or Earth? Am I crazy now? Am I hallucinating, now? Is this what the book says about how “we will be doomed”?’ Chu Yunsheng could not stop shaking, and could not stop his panicked thoughts.
Then he suddenly stopped, and held his breath. His face turned pale, and sweat ran down his head. He was too scared to make a sound. All he could hear was his heartbeat.
It was the bloody monster. Instead of chasing the last soldier, who had run away, it was staring at his building.
‘What the fuck! Why is it looking here? Is it looking at me? Go chase that guy who shot you! I didn’t do anything to you…’ Chu Yunsheng’s head was filled with these thoughts, as he silently begged the monster to leave.
Then he heard a noise coming from downstairs. He took a quick peek through the window. A woman wearing a white down jacket was trying to climb up the building. The neighbors, who lived at the lower level of the building, already had their windows and balcony blocked with metal reinforcement bars. These metal bars became the ladder for this woman to climb upward.
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Although Chu Yunsheng was living on the 6th floor, and the woman had just reached the second floor, he did not doubt that this woman could climb to the top. Under extreme situations, a human would often reveal some crazy power to do some crazy things.
Chu Yunsheng was alarmed. He knew the monster wanted to come to get this woman. He also knew that vicious animals would not easily give up on their prey. With its powerful claws, and corrosive ability, the monster could easily climb up twelve floors. If it climbed up to the sixth floor, or got into the building from another floor, no matter which scenario, it would not be difficult for the monster to break into his flat.
While Chu Yunsheng was thinking of solutions in panic, the monster began to slowly approach the building. Four razor-sharp legs easily pierced into the building’s wall, and it started to climb up steadily. Chu Yunsheng guessed that all of the people in this building were scared to death right now – including the upstairs neighbor, who he met quite often.
The whole world suddenly became silent. The woman was desperately trying to climb up, higher and higher. She did not have time to call for help, the monster was just one floor below her. Chu Yunsheng believed that if the monster jumped, it could easily catch this woman in its claws. She was dead for sure.
The monster opened its claws. It probably ran out of patience, and wanted to end this boring hunting game as soon as possible. When it was just about to grab the woman, the book, which quietly sat on the bed this whole time, suddenly glowed with a dazzling, colorful light. Chu Yunsheng’s spirit in the fourth dimension instantly experienced an unprecedented power coming from seemingly everywhere. The Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi in the entire three-dimensional space seemed to be disturbed.
The monster must have felt the power from the book, too. It made a loud scream, and in its scream, Chu Yunsheng could sense sadness, and fear. And in the next second Chu Yunsheng was shocked to see that the monster quickly climbed down the building and fled into the darkness, disappearing from everyone’s sight. It only took it a few seconds, fleeing faster than when it had attacked the soldiers.
Chu Yunsheng quickly grabbed the book and held it tightly. The book had returned to normal, but it left Chu Yunsheng feeling surprised, and with so many questions.
The woman who was climbing was saved by the people, who lived on the third floor. When the danger was gone, she was stuck on the third floor. She was exhausted, and could not climb up, nor get down. When she was finally saved, and got into the building, she started to cry loudly that everyone in the building could hear her.
Chu Yunsheng put back the metal plate, and sealed the windows. He noticed that his back was wet. Death was very close to him. If the book did not glow in the dark, not only would the woman have died, everyone in this building, including him, would have died as well.
It was at that moment that he made up his mind. From now on, no matter where he went, the book would stay with him. Even when he went to the toilet, he would still carry the book.
The neighbor, who lived upstairs, told him that someone shit themselves on that day, but it definitely was not him. According to the upstairs neighbor, the woman, who the third-floor neighbor saved, came from a rich family.
On that day, her boyfriend got permission from the army to go outside of the protection zone. So she came out with her boyfriend to have some fun. But when they were on the way back, the monster appeared, and her boyfriend died on the scene immediately. She was left traumatized.
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After that incident, the whole housing estate became quieter. The army came and took the destroyed car away, along with the corrosive liquid the monster left behind. Some people were asked to give a description of the monster. Later on, another tank and an armored vehicle were deployed and stationed on the street where the incident happened.
The next few days did not proceed as Chu Yunsheng had feared, or in the manner the book predicted. Monsters did not flood into the world, but what happened was just like a nightmare. The red monster did not come back. However, the neighbor upstairs said that the military has discovered monsters in other areas. The military had used heavy machine guns on those monsters but it took the sacrifice of a dozen soldiers before they could kill one.
Chu Yunsheng was very nervous right now. A sense of powerlessness had overwhelmed him. If it were not for his book, he would have already gone crazy.
‘Practice! Practice! I have to make a storage talisman, then make a Liu Jia energy shield talisman talisman. Chu Yunsheng constantly practiced day and night, although there was no such thing as daylight after the sun disappeared.
He spent eight days restoring all of his Yuan Qi, and finally succeeded in making one after eight days. When Chu Yunsheng saw the talisman glowing in the golden light, he almost wanted to shout out loud.
He had spent thirty days preparing for this moment, and he could not bear another failure.
It was a wonderful and somewhat bizarre experience; Chu Yunsheng recited incantations with his mouth and made “Sword Hand Gestures” with his hands and fingers. Then Yuan Qi started to circulate inside the talisman, and the storage talisman immediately shot out an orange light beam. Whatever the light beam touched, as long as it was not attached to the ground or wall, it would be lifted in the air. If Chu Yunsheng recited the incantation to store the items, the item would instantly shrink, fly towards the talisman, and become a strange symbol on the storage talisman.
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After storing everything he had, he then changed his incantations. The storage talisman became a beam of the light that projected towards Chu Yunsheng’s arm, transforming into a pattern on his arm.
Through his spirit in the fourth dimension, he clearly sensed that Yuan Qi was very active around the pattern on his arm. He could also sense all of the stuff in the storage talisman. Chu Yunsheng was excited for several days, and played around with it to test its abilities.
A few days later, there was another wave of gunshots.