Clouds collided in the distance, rumbling thunder rolled from the soles of the feet, fierce coughs came one after another, and the unknown fear drove pedestrians to run around with their heads in their hands. Only a few black figures shouting loudly could barely maintain order, one after another.
A long line of people poured into the light blue spire church, which didn't have much space.
Behind the church door, Calvin, wearing thick glasses, kept flashing his eyes, mumbling words, counting the figures running in front of him, and turned to look at the crowded hall.
"Can the underground area be opened?"
A priest with old robes helped the child who fell to the ground and said without looking back:
"The places that will not be affected by the sealed gate have been opened."
Carlson frowned, walked heavily in a circle, looked at the already saturated interior of the church, and suddenly squeezed forward, using his strong body strengthened by magic potions, he had lost his mind and was left with only his survival instinct.
The people in the Didong District found Klein with his top hat tilted and hurriedly dealing with the influx of people.
"Detective Moriarty, there is no room for people here and we will be closing soon."
Klein looked stunned. After looking around, he opened his mouth, and there was a hint of pleading in his tone.
“Can’t we accept some more refugees?”
Carlson shook his head firmly.
"The extraordinary ones in the church must always ensure that the Holy Emblem is spiritually sufficient to resist the plague outside. The sealed door underground also needs to be guarded. There is no more space for civilians."
But he quickly added:
"So I'm going to take a level 2 sealed artifact and go to the first floor of the Pier Guild on Paseo Street to open a temporary shelter."
He pointed to Klein, a square building located on another street more than thirty meters away from the church.
"With the help of you and another informant, we can barely spare two people, which is enough to avoid the negative effects of 2-0659 in a short time."
Seeing that Klein nodded without hesitation, the mechanical heart smiled and immediately ran underground quickly. About two minutes later, he returned to the church door holding a transparent glass bottle in his hand.
"Is this a sealed artifact of the 'Sailor' path?"
Klein felt the salty sea smell emanating from the glass bottle, covered his mouth and nose with a mask, and ran with Calvin to the dock guild not far away.
"It is an item that corresponds to the ability of the 'Wind Blower'. It can create wind walls and water currents. The negative effect is that it emits a harsh singing sound that affects the user's mental state."
Considering that he and Klein would take turns using this sealed artifact later, Calvin made no reservations and briefly introduced the sealed artifact.
It only affects the mental state. It is worthy of being a church with a large number of "artisans"... As he ran, Klein nodded slightly and marveled at the equipment advantage of the Church of Steam over other churches in terms of sealed objects.
They quickly moved to the door of the dock union. Klein quickly took a step forward, bent his arms and protruded his elbows, and opened the tightly locked door with a bang.
"Get out!"
In the union hall, the gangsters roared, anger and fear mixed. Klein and Calvin looked at each other, twirled their wrists, and threw out several cards of different colors.
Calvin unscrewed the bottle cap of the sealed object in his hand, and a strong hurricane surged out of it. The air flow driven by spirituality suddenly turned into several strands, separated in the air, and rushed to each air outlet, blocking the outside plague.
Spread inwards.
"No one is allowed to move."
With a snap of his fingers, the playing cards stuck in every corner burned to the ground, with streams of orange-red flames emitting. Klein pressed his revolver against the head of the gang leader, looked at the plateau people who were frightened by him, and asked aloud:
"Where are the original staff here?"
The gang leader felt the coldness on his forehead and coughed a few times due to his itchy throat.
"They all ran away...all disappeared before we came."
All ran away?
Klein frowned.
Even strong ordinary people will suffer from fatal diseases if they are active in the East District for more than ten minutes. Even if the original staff of the dock union did not understand the extraordinary, they should have noticed something wrong the moment they came into contact with the smog.
Will you take the initiative to escape from the building?
Realizing that Klein's expression was not friendly, the gang leader was frightened and hurriedly added:
"'Devil', we saw 'Devil'!"
"The people in the union also saw it, but they didn't have guns or weapons for self-defense, so they all ran away when the 'devil' first appeared."
"It's true, there really are 'demons', and we were driven all the way here by those monsters!"
Listening to the panicked but logical explanation of the strong man under the gun, Klein's face hardened. He looked back at Calvin and found that the other man was also confused.
"The 'Devil' has already come here..."
The mechanical heart murmured in ecstasy, his body swayed, and he almost lost his balance.
Although he didn't want to believe it, these gangsters were probably not lying... Klein looked around, scanning the faces of the gangsters who were standing together to avoid the flames, with invisible blood stains on their dark clothes, and lowered his head.
The left hand at his side was clenched into a fist.
Twenty minutes have passed since the "Devil" caused an explosion beside the Tasok River, and the radius of the entire Eastern District is only 8 kilometers. Twenty minutes is enough for the "Devil" to run back and forth in the Eastern District.
Suddenly, as if he had decided something, he shouted to Calvin:
"Can you control these gangsters on your own?"
Calvin, who was awakened by Klein's roar, nodded blankly at first, then reluctantly returned to thinking, carefully considered Klein's question, and said carefully:
"You want to go outside?"
He thought for a while, "If these guys' guns are confiscated, and the spirituality consumed by 2-0659 and the time for the negative effects to occur are excluded, I can probably hold on for about ten minutes."
After careful calculation, Klein nodded slightly.
"That's enough. You control the sealed artifact here while I go outside to look for other survivors."
After saying that, Klein raised his wrist and forced the gangsters to hand over their guns. Then he extinguished the flames and turned towards the door.
"Wait a minute." Calvin suddenly stopped Klein, took out a hand, touched his arms, and threw a bottle of dark green potion to Klein.
"Come back as soon as possible, I won't be able to hold on for long."
He raised a smile with difficulty at the corner of his mouth and said with inappropriate humor.
Klein also smiled back and rushed out of the union door.
...
The black feathers blended into the night behind them, and the crows with blood-red eyes and dull eyes quietly crossed the sky, looking at the streets and houses below that were obscured by the thick haze, as if they were looking for something.
The "Witch" plague and strange twisted power lurk in this natural carrier. Not only from the physical level, but also from the mixed spirituality, it covers the entire East District from an extraordinary angle, blocking the outside world from understanding the situation in the East District.
The crow flapped its wings calmly, and behind it was the terrifying scene of thunder, brilliance and purple-red flames.
It slowly lowered its height. It lacked consciousness but its eyeballs were as transparent as glass beads, reflecting the outline of the creature vaguely visible behind the haze below, and its gray-white hind paws gently closed.
On the streets of the East District, the "devil" who was chasing his prey with a severed arm in his mouth suddenly stopped, and his huge body kept shaking, as if he wanted to fight against something invisible.
But the next moment, this creature with purple-black skin and a body comparable to a wild bear was lifted up out of thin air. Its fangs released the severed arm in its mouth, and its blood-red eyes were numb and dull.
On the entire street, not only the arrogant "devil" just now, but also the residents of the East District who were being chased as prey were also dropped in the air, muttering unexplained nonsense.
boom.
A stream of flames rose up, and the crows fluttered their wings and flew out, diving into the thick haze. The creatures on the street who had been hoisted out of thin air also landed one after another, walking in all directions in unison.
The crow standing on the rusty street lamp ignored all this, and his dull blood-red eyes suddenly turned to the west, wanting to see the scene outside the East District.
A huge information flow came from the west, and the illusive blue-purple butterflies leaped and dived in the flow, washing away the filth along the way and breaking the black filaments that tied the heads of each secret couple.
Feeling that the control of the thread of the spirit body was interrupted, the crow calmly raised one wing and penetrated into the wind. The front curled and pulled back, dragging out a dark red coat embroidered with gold thread, leaving a maroon
A tall figure with slightly curly long hair and a crown on his head.
This middle-aged gentleman in luxurious clothing had a dull face, but the moment he saw the seemingly unstoppable flow of information in front of him, the remaining spiritual instincts in his body took action, and his body suddenly disintegrated into a larger "wave".
A high wall of knowledge was built in front of the crow.
Two completely different "tides" collided together, and the blue-purple butterfly flew towards the thicker wall without fear, igniting itself and dodging green and black, barely making a tie.
The repulsed information flow retreated a certain distance until it reached the street entrance, before shrinking and solidifying into a human-shaped silhouette.
The mud on the body surface slowly slid down, and the blue-purple phantom butterfly reborn from the mud under his feet. Edmund Yin Asong, who was wearing an exaggerated robe, looked at the figure standing under the street lamp, and then looked at the figure that had flown away.
The crow sighed:
"Russell Gustave."
...
“The plague of ‘witches’?”
At the edge of the East District, a huge wing that could not be seen by the living covered the brick-red building that was constantly screaming and wailing, and various invisible spirits flew towards the residents who had been infected with the disease.
Azik Eggers stood up from the desk, his eyes were instantly dyed with a layer of dark gold, a small number of dark green scales appeared on the surface of his bronze skin, and pieces of milky white feathers swirled and fell to the floor.
The "Death Archon" stared at the mist dominated by the pale, and the coldness suddenly enveloped the edge of the East District. The wind of the underworld turned into an invisible barrier and collided with the breeze set off by the "twisted" authority.
After doing all this, Azik, who had temporarily ensured that the plague would not spread further, took a step behind him, stepped into the spiritual world, and after a little discernment of the direction, he was driven by a cold wind and flew towards a flashing light.
A dark purple photoelectric area with superimposed color blocks in the spiritual world.
There are streets densely populated by "devils", which is the direction where the plague is most serious.
As he traveled through the spirit world, a trace of confusion flashed in Azik's eyes.
The divinity belonging to the "Death Archon" was angrily scolding him. He should take advantage of this perfect opportunity to cooperate with the "witch"'s plague to recreate the past pale disaster in the country blessed by the "dark night" and make up for his weak state.
But countless lives named Azik Eggers, especially those with beautiful memories, quickly flashed before his eyes, reminding him not to be assimilated by the call from afar.
"I don't know where Klein is now, I don't know if he will be in the East District..."
Two completely different thoughts collided. Azik closed his eyes. The color blocks around him suddenly became richer. The red ones became redder and the white ones became whiter. Countless dead souls woke up from the underworld and attached themselves to this god of death.
beside his son.
His feet felt the solid sensation coming from the ground. Azik slowly opened his eyes and was covered in dark gold, but he could still see a hint of brown eyes. His cold eyes swept towards those who were clinging to the roof and running across the streets.
The "demon" that bites humans, just by looking at it, makes these false projections created through rituals break into pieces of carrion.
He gently picked up a little girl who was paralyzed on the ground due to fright, and smoothed her messy hair with a gentle smile. The dead souls beside him moved silently, and the pale flames that acted as eyes looked into the distance.
"I can only be sure of one thing now," Azik helped the little girl up and watched her run towards the direction of the church accompanied by an undead spirit. "At least what I want to do now should be...
What a university lecturer should do.”
...
Klein controlled his pace as he rushed out of the church, constantly looking around as he ran, looking for survivors who could still move.
Relying on the influence of his memory, he ran towards several settlements that Old Kohler had led him to. He didn't even dare to use "Flame Jump" to rush on. He just threw a lot of playing cards along the way for fear of falling behind during the rapid movement.
Which survivor.
There was a dim light on the back of his right hand, and with the help of the spiritual thread to expand his field of vision, Klein's eyes suddenly lit up. In the monotonous black and white in his eyes, he discovered a rather tenacious "fire".
Not caring about anything else, Klein snapped his fingers with his right hand and struck. Immediately, the paper bag that fell next to the "fire" was engulfed by the flames. Klein stepped out of the flames and grabbed the hand of the man on the ground.
But before he had time to take out the potion from his arms, Klein saw a quickly drawn mold lake coming towards him. He could only rely on his "clown" instinct to kick his feet and jump away from the man.
.
Immediately afterwards, Klein, who had just landed, suddenly felt a chill on his ankles. The shadows crawling on the ground surged like life, and a shadow spear flew out from it, pointing directly at Klein's throat.
"etc."
The attack stopped, and Klein felt the deadly coolness next to the skin of his neck. He looked in the direction where he had just stopped the attack, and his eyelids twitched imperceptibly.
The person who collapsed on the ground and kept coughing turned out to be an acquaintance—Old Kohler!
Klein also knew the two people who attacked him just now... but because of the sealed objects on their bodies, he couldn't find them at the first time.
"Long time no see Mr. Evan and Miss Helen."
Klein carefully looked at the "Rose Bishop" and her nanny who had killed Zerrell and almost killed him, and nodded slightly stiffly.
Hearing her name, Helen tilted her head, and then looked at Evan Ston, who was covering his mouth and nose with masks layer by layer, as if asking who he was?
"It's been a long time indeed, Mr. Leonard."
Evan waved to Klein and quickly poured a tube of liquid with a strong herbal flavor into Lao Kohler's mouth.
Then he carried the dying old man on his back, glanced at the potion in Klein's hand, and said straight to the point:
"Are you an official Beyonder?"
"Informant, but now we are working with the Church of Steam to gather the survivors." Klein nodded slightly, spread his arms, indicating that he was not hostile, and slowly approached "Rose Bishop" and "Provocateur".
"It turns out those gentlemen knew that everyone in the East End was going to die."
Evan groaned, but his movements were not slow at all, and he leaned close to Klein.
"Your ability to move with the help of fire is limited to you alone?"
Knowingly, Klein put his arm on Evan's shoulder, glanced at his eyes and barely managed to get away. Old Kohler, who had regained some consciousness, quickly said:
"I can move with you, but it will be slower, and..."
Klein glanced at Helen, who looked confused, "And my current spirituality can only support the consumption of three people."
Evan didn't hesitate, "No, Helen can use the shadow to leave, and the speed won't be much slower."
Speaking of this, Klein did not hesitate. The flames under his feet suddenly expanded and swallowed the three of them. Helen, who was standing aside and did not understand the situation, also fell backwards, merged into the shadows, and moved at high speed following the flickering flames.
.
As the flames flickered on and off, on a street lamp across two streets, a crow suddenly turned its head, its blood-red eyeballs shaped like glass reflected the sparks that broke the haze.