After the last drop of blood was absorbed, the basement returned to normal. “I should be able to hear his voice after at most 3 more sacrifices.” Han Fei had a feeling.
“Let’s go. We shouldn’t stay here for too long. The ghosts in the city are looking for the figurines too.” No. 1 and No. 2 covered the altar and exited the pharmacy. After making sure there was no one around, they drove back to the center headquarters.
“Teacher Gao, where have you been?” Tou Qi came to Han Fei. “I have social anxiety like you. I know you don’t like crowds, but we have to learn to mix in them. Everyone here is very nice.” Tou Qi was misunderstood as a spy due to his power for a long time. With Tou Qi leading the way, Han Fei met the different captains. They were the leaders of the center. They had all lived through the worst. They were very friendly to Han Fei. After all, Han Fei had achieved many impossible things. If Li Xue hadn’t insisted, Han Fei would have been kept outside the center due to his high mental corruption. Everyone thought that Li Xue had a good eye.
At the end of the celebration, the admins rewarded Han Fei with 50000 contribution points as well as a lot of ghost blood and a Lingering Spirit heart to help with his discovery. Now, everyone knew that there was a strange man within the center that ate ghosts.
With seven awakenings, Han Fei was powerful enough to be a vice-captain. The admins did offer that but Han Fei didn’t intend to leave the frontline. The investigation department that had Fu Lie, the leader of Team One, and Han Fei became the strongest department at the center. They could influence the direction of the center more.
During the latter half of the night, the celebration was cut short because the messengers the center sent to other bases suddenly appeared outside the safe zone. They stood in the shadow like zombies. Their eyes bulged like rotten fish. When light shone on the messengers, their bodies exploded. The flesh and guts wiggled to form the phrase—Revenge will be Taken.
The phrase contained the presence of Pure Hatred. Everyone felt blinding pain in their eyes. This incident caught the attention of the patrols. After reporting, the higher-ups personally came to examine this.
“The messengers were normal people. They were responsible for helping us maintain communication with other human bases. The ghosts are taunting us. They will go after the smaller bases first.” Tou Qi’s face was dark. Ghosts didn’t care about morality.
“You mean bases like the school?” Han Fei got to know many things through the center. In a few decades after the tragedy, many smaller bases found a new way to survive and that was to perform sacrifices to the ghosts in exchange for safety. They didn’t have the power to fight back, so they turned themselves into feed for ghosts. They could turn to bigger bases, but that meant that they would have to give up power. They’d rather be the king of livestock than living under another power.
“The school served multiple Black Buildings, so it was considered a large base. These bases are much smaller.” Tou Qi sighed. “Some of these bases are fully cursed. Once you leave, you’ll die. Some of them are so controlled by ghosts that they are no different from ghosts.”
“The center will accept everyone who dares to stand up against ghosts, but some of us have chosen to bow down to kiss the feet of the ghosts. They are humanity’s humiliation.” Xue Ba commented. “Do you know why you rely on normal humans as messengers? Some bases are very hostile against persona users. They are fooled by ghosts and would attack persona users on sight. We had no other solution and had to rely on normal individuals as messengers.”
“Then, why didn’t we take down these bases?”
“These bases are controlled by ghosts behind them. If we do anything, it’ll mean attacking the ghosts behind them.” Xue Ba smiled sadly, “Why did you think we went after the Third Mental Hospital? The school has fed the place for decades. Once you came here, the mental hospital would do anything to destroy us.”
“I didn’t know that.” Han Fei had no idea the center had taken such a risk. While they chatted, the patrols confirmed the identities of the messengers. They came from four different human bases—Village of Longevity, Bubble Tea Factory, New Age Residences, and White Sky Apartments.
All the bases were small, and they were all located in Zone C.
“Go back to rest. It’ll be quite a busy time ahead.” Xue Ba stretched. The center was never afraid of taunting by ghosts. They represented the last hope of humanity. Han Fei found the patrol teams to get the details. They planned to go to the other bases tomorrow. Han Fei wanted to prepare sacrifices for the figurine, but he didn’t want to kill the innocent. His targets were the killers and murderers.
Han Fei returned to his ward. After greeting the guards, he started to control the endless personas in his mind. Currently, he didn’t even have the power to control 1 percent of the personas. If the personas went out of control, he would go insane, or worse, his brain would die. Compared to a normal person, Han Fei had the advantage in the sense that he had the healing persona. He didn’t need to take over another persona. He only needed to use the healing persona to cure others and stop them from fighting him. While he treated others, Han Fei would get stronger too. Han Fei looked like he was sleeping, but actually, he was cleansing the personas in his mind. He was also attempting to reconstruct the various personas. The star above the abyss glowed. Everything was moving in the right direction.
The night passed by quickly. Han Fei didn’t feel tired. If anything, his mental corruption dropped. Shang Nv and Kong Tiancheng basically had their curses removed as well.
Han Fei noticed that the ghosts trapped in his abyss started to change too. For example, the anger and hatred in the little girl started to disappear. She started to rely on Han Fei. She didn’t want to be abandoned again. The healing power was changing every ghost, and this gave Han Fei hope.
At 6 am, before the sun came up, Han Fei finished washing up and came to the canteen. After a full meal, he went to the mission room. He planned to move to the other bases to deal with these ghosts. Han Fei had just participated in the mission yesterday, but he was already ready to take on a new one. The center members took everything he did into action. The patrols and normal citizens were impressed by Han Fei. He really loved this job. He was competing with himself.
After getting the map, Han Fei left the center alone. He found a secluded place and realized the new Pure Hatred, Fear Demon.
Han Fei hadn’t forgotten Li Xue’s suggestion. He wanted to use Gao Cheng to control the Pure Hatred under Deep Sea Aquarium. He might not be able to do that before, but he wanted to try after having seven awakenings. With Brother Chou’s dominating persona, Gao Cheng’s memory as well as Tong Xin’s manipulative power, Han Fei’s success rate skyrocketed.
“It’s Gao Xing’s memory buried under the aquarium. What I’m doing is stealing God’s past in his world.” If he failed, Han Fei would be hated by the whole altar world. But if he succeeded, the reward would be amazing too. Gao Cheng and Gao Xing were twin flowers. The stronger Gao Cheng was, the weaker Gao Xing would be.
“Who knows when God will return? I need to do this as soon as possible.” Han Fei couldn’t fight God on his own. He needed cooperation from the members of the center. He needed the Top Pure Hatred weakened before he could use his power on it.
“I need to try my best to garner more support.” Han Fei took out the card given to him by Captain Zhong. “What did he mean by a vote? Also, Li Xue has been to Hope City for two days already. How come there’s no news from her at all? Is she in trouble?”
Hope City was more complicated than the center. Humans fought with ghosts above and under the table. It was hard to say who would rule Hope City in the future. Han Fei put away the card and drove to the Village of Longevity. He chose this place because this vacation villa was closest to the Strange Building, Gu Yang Tian Nian Old Folk’s Home.
When Han Fei first arrived at the altar world, he obtained Gao Cheng’s diary. It had the info on three Strange Buildings. They were Third Optometrist Hospital, Gu Yang Tian Nian Old Folk’s Home, and Deep Sea Aquarium. These three Strange Buildings were tied to Gao Cheng and Gao Xing’s fates.
Han Fei parked the car at a secluded place and switched on masterful acting. He looked like a beggar who had been starved for days. Han Fei put away the black band and walked through the overgrown path before he reached the Village of Longevity.
The village still had a rusted road sign and a giant ad poster outside. However, the elders in the ad smiled so creepily.
Han Fei remembered that all the survivors here were cursed. If they left the village, they would die from old age instantly. The strangest thing was the citizens here had to drink a lot of water daily, and they had to get the water from the old well in the village.
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