Chapter 566 Acting (please vote for this huge chapter)
In the sight of He Ao who briefly activated his super memory, the originally clear figures of these mental patients and nurses became blurred and turned into three-dimensional shadows.
The mysterious man is a very cautious person. He basically always has a backup plan when doing things and tries to be as solid as possible down to every detail.
If it hadn't been for He Ao's appearance, Jace would have died in the siege in the alley.
Even after He Ao appeared, there were basically no problems with his layout. If the genetic medicines and weapons provided to the mercenary team that came to surround He Ao were fully prepared, they could kill any ordinary C.
Class.
It was enough to deal with the strength shown by He Ao in the alley siege.
But he was facing He Ao.
In the calculations and counter-calculations between the two people, He Ao showed one trump card after another that he had never understood, causing his layout to be destroyed repeatedly.
But this does not mean that the mysterious man's calculations have become less sophisticated.
In many cases, his designs are extremely rigorous.
For example, the layout in this mental hospital.
In this building, the fourth and fifth floors are the main body of the magic circle, and the sixth floor and above are the diagnosis and treatment rooms and the place where "mental patients" are stored.
The third floor is the instrument storage room.
What about the first and second floors?
There is a maintenance place, there is a ritual circle, and there are 'patients' who are cultivated as a price.
In theory, this array can run all the time, and it seems that there is no shortage of other elements.
But what if there are no more ‘patients’?
These patients are the 'price' paid, the sacrifices sacrificed.
They are also the energy supply that maintains the operation of the entire magic circle. Once these patients disappear and the energy supply disappears, the entire magic circle will stop running.
An important reason why the deception array on the wooden box is effective is that there is a continuously running ritual array outside, and energy is constantly flowing in to maintain the operation of the array on the box.
Theoretically speaking, once the outer magic circle stops operating, the deception magic circle cannot support it, and the power in the box will lose control and spurt out, destroying everything around it, leaving the mysterious man with nothing to gain.
Of course, the person who designed this deception circle also took this into consideration, so he added some detailed structures to the deception circle. When the outer circle stops running, it can be maintained by 'stealing' the power stored in the wooden box.
The circle operates.
Although this structure is very cleverly designed, it can continuously use the power in the box to maintain its own stability.
However, the power stored in the wooden box itself is full of crazy and violent tendencies. During operation, it will cause damage to the magic circle on the wooden box, and eventually completely destroy the structure of the magic circle.
According to He Ao's estimation, after losing the energy supplied by the large magic circle, the magic circle on the wooden box can last for up to seven to eight hours.
This can cope with the situation where the wooden box is without energy supply for a short period of time, such as moving to another place.
However, it is unable to cope with the unexpected situation where the entire magic circle suddenly loses suitable 'patients' or 'sacrifice' due to some investigations or sabotage.
After all, the 'assimilation' of patients takes time. If all the original patients disappear, it will also take time to immediately capture new ones and assimilate them.
During this period, the array did not receive any energy input.
Therefore, the mysterious man also made arrangements for possible unexpected situations. This is the role of the first and second floors.
The first and second floors of this building are connected together, forming an entrance hall.
This is the hall where He Ao entered. In this hall, the 'items' that the mysterious man used as a 'backup sacrifice' are 'stored'.
Those are the patients and nurses in front of He Ao.
In fact, these people have already died, and all that are left here are their incomplete souls.
Judging from their mental state, they may have been killed directly after the assimilation was completed, and then their souls were restrained in this hall.
It's like a reserve of 'food'.
The mysterious man has never regarded the lives of these people as life, just like the cannibals regard food.
Most of the patients in this mental hospital are prisoners or homeless and helpless wanderers.
They live in the corner of the city, no one cares about them.
The mysterious man captured the people in these corners and threw them into this seemingly glorious but actually bloody and cruel meat grinding ground, manipulating their lives and souls without any scruples.
It seems that he and these people are no longer the same species.
In a sense, the mysterious man treats Jace and Jace's family the same way. If they are useful, they will try to use them. If they are not useful or may even cause danger, they will just kill them directly.
Just like treating 'livestock'.
Perhaps in that alley, in the ending without Heao, if Jace died, his body and soul would be taken over and used as materials to support the operation of the magic circle.
Just like when livestock dies, their bodies are reused.
However, although these souls in front of He Ao have always been here, restrained by some kind of power, it seems that people whose souls are not strong enough and whose inspiration is not high enough cannot see them.
For example, the front desk nurse.
At first He Ao thought she was ignoring these people, but when He Ao said hello to the spirit that reminded him to 'go quickly'.
She asked He Ao in confusion why he stopped. At that time, He Ao had already realized that something might be wrong.
But he didn't fully understand this at that time, so he didn't turn on his super memory to see these patients and nurses. Later, the black-stocked front desk nurse mentioned that there were no nurses in the hospital.
But as soon as He Ao walked in, there were many nurses walking around in the hall, and they looked very busy.
At that time, He Ao knew that there was something special about the nurses and patients in the hall, but he didn't know until he finally saw the magic circle in the huge space on the third and fourth floors, and saw that there was something relevant in the magic circle carved on the floor.
When you are cautious about the structure of your soul.
Only He Ao can be completely sure that these people are in a state of soul.
To be precise, they are at the interface between soul and entity. They are some kind of alienated evil spirits created by mysterious people as food reserves.
He Ao didn't know how the mysterious man did this. There might be some help from the secret being who was still sleeping behind it.
However, he knew very well that the power to restrain these spirit bodies should come from the magic circle above.
In this mental hospital, only the magic circle has a stable source of energy - through sacrifice.
So as long as the magic circle is destroyed, these spirits can be free.
Therefore, He Ao judged that he and these spiritual beings had common interests and could get help from these spiritual beings.
But the premise is that the thinking of these spiritual beings has not been completely assimilated, and some of their own emotions still exist in their alienated and incomplete souls. Only in this way can they make judgments and cooperate with He Ao.
He Ao has a little confidence in this, because since the 'patient' sitting in front of the elevator can break free from the assimilation of those thoughts to remind him to leave, then other souls may still have some self-awareness.
But he wasn't completely confident.
He stared at these spirits, raised his bracelet and glanced at the time. It had been fifteen minutes since he entered the building.
If everything goes as he expected, the FBI will arrive in at least fourteen minutes.
He returned his gaze to the spirits in front of him.
Without the help of these spirits, it would be difficult to implement his plan.
If it doesn't work, he can only try to use super memory to spread the soul power to see if he can forcibly awaken the self-awareness of these spiritual bodies.
An eerie silence spread in the hall, with only the loud sound coming from the huge television.
In the silence, a thin figure wearing a hospital gown with his head held high slowly stood up and walked towards He Ao.
His turbid eyes stared at He Ao.
He seemed to be waiting for He Ao's next words.
Immediately afterwards, the souls behind him came one by one and approached He Ao.
He Ao breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at the thin figure in the lead. This figure was the one who reminded him to leave quickly.
He seemed to have suffered some severe torture during his lifetime. His neck was broken and he could only hold his head high. His cheeks were also somewhat deformed and his original appearance could not be clearly seen.
He Ao stared at his face and tried to correct his cheeks to a normal appearance in his mind.
Then he turned his gaze to these souls. He knew that these spirits could understand what he said, "If you want to lift these constraints, you can go to the ninth floor later, you can go to the tenth floor..."
······
Following the instructions, each spirit slowly floated up, entered the elevator shaft, and floated upward along the elevator shaft.
The one who stayed at the end was the soul who held his head high and always expressed goodwill to He Ao.
He Ao stared at this scrawny figure and compared it with someone in Jace's memory. He said slowly, "You stay here. If someone wants to come in later, can you help me stop them?"
The soul looked at his cloudy eyes and seemed to have some kind of emotion flowing through him. He nodded slightly and slowly walked towards the door.
He Ao watched his back go away, breathed a sigh of relief, then jumped directly into the elevator shaft and climbed up quickly along the elevator shaft.
He first reached the sixth floor and opened all the closed doors.
Those who were completely assimilated and who should have lost their minds in theory, subconsciously walked out the moment the door opened.
Among these people, there were two extraordinary beings who had become completely crazy due to the assimilation of their minds. They wanted to attack He Ao, but they were split in half by He Ao with an axe.
After everyone left the room, several illusory souls appeared behind He Ao, and together with He Ao, they pushed and pushed these completely assimilated people into the elevator.
He Ao did not stay here forever. After sending the first wave of people to the elevator, he went straight to the ninth floor along the fire stairs. At this time, it was already the 20th minute since he entered the hospital.
"Ghost!!!"
The ninth floor was in chaos, and those illusory souls were shuttled from room to room, opening the locked wards.
And those mental patients who were imprisoned in the ward, either real or fake, subconsciously rushed out of the ward.
The people here are ordinary people and cannot see those spiritual beings.
But He Ao asked those spirits to interfere with the outside world as much as possible and show their presence, such as shaking the bed, knocking over the vase, and shaking the lamp.
In order to cooperate with the actions of these souls, He Ao asked Eve to control the central air conditioning of this building and change the mode to rapid cooling.
Then the whole hospital echoed with the cool wind.
The corridors were filled with panicked people rushing toward the elevators and fire escapes.
There are also some nurses working the night shift to look after these 'patients', but the number is very small.
These nurses do not necessarily know the real situation of this hospital, because they themselves are also the "livestock" of this hospital.
Little did they know that this job might lead them to death.
In the lobby on the first floor, there are many souls who are nurses.
The chaotic situation was brought under control after the arrival of Ho Ao.
After a series of killings, the fear exuded by He Ao's 'terrorist' has become extremely strong. Powerful extraordinary beings may not feel it, but for ordinary people, this fear is similar to a tiger spreading above their heads.
A huge mouth full of sticky saliva.
Some patients were frightened to death.
The remaining people ran frantically towards places where they could leave this floor.
Seeing that the situation was developing in the direction he expected, He Ao breathed a sigh of relief.
After probably driving these people away, He Ao went to the next floor, going up layer by layer, and in the process, he sowed the seeds of fear in the same way.
In the process, he felt that his mastery of the talent sequence of 'Terrorist' was rapidly improving, and he could even control which target was given stronger or weaker fear.
Sure enough, the core of what terrorists master is still 'giving fear'.
After 'threats' drove away the patients on the thirteenth floor.
He Ao glanced at the time.
Twenty-seven minutes have passed since he entered this hospital.
The thirteenth floor is the last occupied floor.
He leaned against the window facing outside on the thirteenth floor and took a look outside. A black and white vehicle with the FBI emblem was slowly parked in front of the dilapidated iron gate outside the hospital.
The FBI arrived two minutes earlier than he expected.
He was probably on duty nearby and was sent here directly.
Two agents in FBI uniforms got out of the car, pushed open the iron door, and quickly walked towards the building.
At this time, He Ao had already retracted his gaze, jumped into the elevator shaft, and slid into the void on the fourth and fifth floors again.
He crossed over Erent's huge corpse and entered the space that shone with purple light again.
As the assimilated 'sacrifice' on the sixth floor were quickly transported away, the purple circle had become unstable.
He Ao walked to the end of the space and placed his hand on the wooden box.
Noisy sounds could be heard faintly from upstairs. They were the sounds of people being driven away from the hospital by spirits.
······
"Ghost! There is a ghost!"
As soon as the two FBI agents walked to the door, they saw a large group of patients and nurses running frantically out of the door of the mental hospital and fleeing.
The two agents looked at each other, pulled out the pistols from their waists, squeezed through the crowd and moved forward quickly, going against the flow of people and reaching the elevator door.
And the moment they crossed the gate, the bright lights in their field of vision suddenly turned into blood.
Various twisted instruments of torture continued to appear along the bloody walls.
Shadows spread out from under the torture instruments.
The young FBI agent subconsciously raised his gun and was about to shoot, but was stopped by the older agent next to him. "Don't be impulsive. It's just an illusion. There are evil spirits in this building."
After saying that, he took out a silver cross from his clothes, held a gun in one hand and a cross in the other, and slowly moved forward, "Follow me, be careful not to be scattered by the crowd."
The young agent nodded and followed the old agent.
A faint, hazy light spread from the cross, covering the old agent and the space around him, and those bloody shadows could not get close for a while.
"Strange, this evil spirit is not strong," the old detective frowned, looking at the people who ran out in a panic, "Are there other evil spirits?"
"There seem to be fewer people running out."
The young detective following him said with some confusion.
"Well," the old detective nodded, "these evil spirits seem to be deliberately driving away the people in this hospital."
He frowned, "What do these evil spirits want to do?"
The order he got from above was that there were powerful supernatural thugs mixed into this building, and there might be evil spirits mixed in to cause harm to people, and he wanted him to investigate.
But what he sees now seems to be different from what he ordered.
He saw the evil spirit, but it didn't seem to hurt anyone.
The only one who showed aggression towards him was the evil spirit who came in and created hallucinations, but the other party only wanted to prevent them from entering, not harm them.
"Shall we go in and take a closer look?"
The young agent at the back asked in a low voice. He was not very experienced and it was his first time dealing with such a mission involving evil spirits.
If he and the old detective hadn't been handling another case nearby, and this case was very urgent, they would never have been called.
"Don't be anxious." The older agent did not move forward. Instead, he held the cross and stopped the young agent from taking a few steps back and returned to the door. "These evil spirits want to drive out all the living people. There must be something."
The reason is that we are not strong enough, so we will wait for the support from behind and wait and see what happens."
It was during this process that the last few patients ran out of the hospital.
boom--
A roaring sound suddenly sounded in the hall on the first floor.
The two FBI agents looked up at the same time. The younger agent looked confused, while the older agent was stunned. Then he immediately grabbed the younger agent and rushed out, "Run, this is
The building is going to collapse."
The two people suddenly rushed out of the door.
······
He Ao, who was on the third floor, looked at the wooden box in his hand, with purple light still flickering on it.
The earth was trembling violently, and the magic circle in the entire space began to flicker violently.
With the core of the ritual taken away, the magic circle that could barely be maintained by inertia without the sacrifices could no longer be maintained.
In this building, the fourth and fifth floors do not have any load-bearing pillars. Theoretically, it is impossible for this building to maintain stability.
But because of the existence of this magic circle, by solidifying the walls, floor and ceiling, the building above was forcibly maintained.
But this can only be achieved when the wooden box exists and the magic circle is operating normally.
Once the wooden box is taken away, the magic circle collapses, and there is no longer any strength to support the tall building above, then the building will naturally collapse.
This is the last insurance prepared by the mysterious man for the wooden box. If someone really enters this space, but is not careful enough and takes away the wooden box rashly, the whole building will collapse and he will be buried here.
Of course, everyone in this hospital will also be buried with him.
The entire building collapsed very quickly. The mysterious person may have made other arrangements in the structure of the building so that the building could bury the person who took the wooden box as quickly as possible.
But He Ao, who was well prepared, immediately swung the ax and hit it on the opposite wall.
The sharp ax cut off the purple lines that were still flashing on the wall, and directly smashed a big hole in the wall.
These purple lines themselves still have some strength and will maintain the hardness of the surrounding walls, ensuring that when the building collapses, the walls will not be destroyed by those who take away the wooden box.
But this cannot stop He Ao, he can now be regarded as one of the people in the world who best understands the principles of the formation of this magic circle.
In the crazy state just now, He Ao analyzed almost all the basic principles of these magic formations.
And unlike Jess, whose memory was incomplete every time he went crazy, Ho Ao maintained his basic sanity during the madness, and these memories also remained after he returned to sanity.
Although many of the truths he realized have become incomprehensible again, He Ao still mastered a large amount of knowledge related to this magic circle.
Theoretically speaking, after the crazy state of 'enlightenment', He Ao's mastery of this magic circle should now be second only to Jess's father who created this magic circle.
But Jess's father had passed away long ago.
As the wall shattered, the dark night sky and the bright city under the night sky appeared in front of He Ao.
He Ao jumped down without hesitation.
This is the fourth floor, about ten meters high, which is not too high for his physical fitness at this moment.
With a roaring sound that was masked by the sound of the building collapsing, his body hit the ground, creating a depression on the cement floor surrounded by spiderweb-like cracks.
Then he squatted down, relieved his strength, and looked back at the half-collapsed building behind him, disappearing into the darkness ahead.
At the same time, a shadow broke free from the shackles of the building, chased his back, and also disappeared into the night.
——
The other side of the building.
"what sound?"
The old detective raised his head and looked at the huge tall building.
"This building really collapsed, and there were strange noises everywhere."
The young detective behind scratched his head and looked at the rapidly collapsing building, "But this building collapsed too fast, right? Buildings made of sand are stronger than this building."
"There's someone behind the building."
The old detective whispered.
"Is he that dangerous transcendent? Should we go and see?"
Hearing these words, the young agent instantly became alert.
The old detective turned back and looked at the people behind him who were still in shock and surviving the disaster.
If they had not escaped, they would have been buried in this building forever.
Huge plumes of smoke spattered from the collapsed building in front of him,
He shook his head and looked back at the young agent,
