The Coalition, 10:30 PM.
Atop the tallest skyscraper in a city with a population of one million.
Tang Yongyun stood at the edge with his hands behind his back, gazing down at the brightly lit streets.
“Boss, those specters are gathering. They could attack the city at any moment,” Jiang Nan said from behind him, holding a tablet.
Bai Yuwen shaded his eyes with his hand, peering in the direction where the specters were gathering. He asked curiously, “It’s so strange. Why are these specters suddenly gathering to massacre cities? And it’s been happening for several days in a row.”
Aside from those two, Buck and the sisters Fang Qing and Fang Shui were also present. Down below, more than a dozen other supernatural beings had assembled.
A crow flew down from the sky. Tang Yongyun extended his left hand, and the crow landed on his palm.
He said in a flat tone, “The specters have developed intelligence. An intelligent specter can command ordinary specters.”
“I didn't expect those damn things to have intelligence,” Buck said, scratching the back of his head with his dark hand, looking surprised.
“They’ve already started. Once these specters have devoured a portion of the population, we will begin the artificial miracle.” Tang Yongyun turned his gaze toward the edge of the city.
Only when people were at their most desperate would the appearance of a god leave an indelible, deep impression in their hearts.
At the edge of the city, the streetlights flickered continuously.
Several cars were parked by the roadside, their hoods caved in and doors violently ripped open.
Blood splattered the road. At the edge of the street, specters stood, staring restlessly at the city ahead.
Thud, thud, thud!
A heavy set of footsteps echoed from behind. A humanoid specter, seven meters tall and entirely purple, emerged. It was incredibly muscular, with two arms on its left side and three on its right.
Its mouth parted slightly, revealing half-meter-long fangs. “Move!”
The low voice rumbled through the air. The specters and Evil Spirits, having long grown impatient, surged toward the city.
Nearly ten thousand specters and Evil Spirits stampeded forward, terrified that they would miss out on the feast if they were a step too slow.
The purple specter watched the surging monsters around it, a greedy expression on its face. “Soon. Very soon. Once I devour two more cities, I can evolve!”
While ordinary specters ate humans, it ate specters and Evil Spirits that showed signs of evolution.
Before these specters developed intelligence, they were incapable of harboring any thoughts of resisting it. This saved it a lot of time, as it didn't have to hunt humans one by one.
In the sky above the purple specter, a crow stared down at it.
“Its aura has reached Tier 3. If left to continue devouring, this specter will eventually evolve to Tier 4.”
The speed of the specters' evolution was somewhat surprising to it. They were more numerous than human supernaturals, and they grew stronger much faster.
If not for the existence of the original supernatural beings like them, it felt that humanity wouldn't stand a chance against the specters.
“The specters are here!”
Not long after the specters entered the city, a terrified scream echoed down the street.
“Run!”
“Help!”
“Ahhh!”
Within moments, bloodcurdling screams erupted across the city.
Boom!
A specter opened its mouth and spat a ball of fire, instantly collapsing a three-story building in front of it.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions, screams, and chaos erupted throughout the city, spreading with terrifying speed.
Inside a villa near the edge of the city.
A white woman stared at the evacuation notice on her phone, rushing toward the villa's entrance in sheer terror. “Specters! The specters are actually here!”
“Darling, run! There aren't many troops stationed here. We'll die if we stay!” a young man shouted anxiously from the doorway.
The young man, Herbert, had originally wanted to drive, but when he saw the massive gridlock of cars that had suddenly filled the street, his expression changed. “No, driving is suicide!”
The white woman beside him turned her head to look down the street. When she saw a translucent figure appear, her pupils contracted. “An Evil Spirit!”
While she stood frozen at the sight of the Evil Spirit, Herbert grabbed her hand and pulled her along, running through the gaps in the gridlocked street.
“Don't look! Just run!” Herbert shouted as they ran, glancing back to see more and more Evil Spirits appearing behind them.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
On the street, traffic had ground to a complete halt, and horns blared incessantly.
“You bastards, get out of the way!” In a red sedan, a middle-aged white man leaned out of his window, slamming on his horn and roaring with a distorted face.
“Charles, maybe we should get out and run!” In the back seat, a woman holding a child trembled violently.
Just as Charles was about to say something, his car engine suddenly died.
A pale head slid down from the roof onto the windshield. Its mouth stretched open, revealing a pitch-black cavity. “Where... are you... going?”
When Charles heard the voice, his face stiffened, and his eyes turned pitch black.
Crack!
His head was violently twisted backward, accompanied by the sickening sound of snapping bones.
“Ahhh!” The woman in the back seat screamed in terror at the sight.
Evil Spirits began appearing over the cars behind them. Ordinary vehicles offered no protection against the invasion of Evil Spirits, and one person after another had their spirits drained.
Hearing the successive screams behind him, Herbert couldn't help but look back. What he saw made his pupils shrink.
A few hundred meters away, over a dozen Evil Spirits were floating in midair.
As he stared at them, an Evil Spirit with a human torso and a snake's tail suddenly turned its head toward him, a bizarre expression on its face.
“Oh no!” Herbert quickly grabbed his wife's hand and sprinted as hard as he could.
Along the way, many others joined them, running down the street.
“I can't run anymore! Someone help me!” an elderly woman cried out, falling to the ground and looking at the crowd in despair.
But no one paid her any attention. In a situation like this, falling behind meant death.
At the back of the street, a three-meter-tall specter with arms that dangled to its feet appeared. It crashed through the parked cars, charging toward the fleeing crowd.
“Food... where are you running!” The specter snatched up the elderly woman as it passed her.
“Ah!” Following her scream, the specter brought her to its mouth, crushing her into a pulp.
Blood flowed down its arm and into its mouth.
Having tasted blood, the specter's inner craving for flesh grew even stronger.
It charged rapidly toward the living humans.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Specters appeared in other parts of the city as well. The horrific carnival continued.
In just over ten minutes, nearly a hundred thousand people had died.
Buildings collapsed, power lines were severed, and many structures caught fire.
Outside the city, the mangled corpses of soldiers who had come to reinforce the area lay scattered on the ground.
Around them, over a hundred specters kept their heads down, feasting on the soldiers' remains.
In the distance, the purple specter watched the annihilated army, then turned and walked into the city.
Herbert panted heavily, having lost track of how many kilometers he had run through the city streets.
He felt as if his lungs were about to burst. The white woman behind him could no longer take another step. “Darling, I can't do it. I can't run anymore.”
Herbert scanned their surroundings. There had been too many specters and Evil Spirits just now, and they had unknowingly run into a relatively empty building.
A few others had followed them inside. Everyone was panting heavily, glancing back anxiously.
“We’re doomed. We can’t outrun the specters,” a middle-aged white man said, kneeling on the ground with bloodshot eyes.
During their escape, his entire family of over a dozen people had become food for the specters.
Watching his family get swallowed whole by specters had dealt an unimaginably devastating blow to him.
Hearing this, Herbert silently pulled his wife forward. “We can't stop. Stopping means certain death!”
“Darling, I can't walk. You go on without me,” the white woman said after a few steps, collapsing onto her knees and looking up at Herbert.
Herbert didn't say a word. He simply supported her with one arm and kept moving forward.
After a few meters, he turned to look at the people sitting on the ground behind him. “Everyone, as long as we’re alive, there’s hope. To paraphrase Jesus: do not be defeated by the grief and pain before you. If you can keep going, hope will follow despair!”
He had always been fond of the stories of Jesus. Although these weren't the exact words, the core message remained the same.
The middle-aged man kneeling on the ground burst into tears. “Is there really hope after pain? Who is going to save us now?!”
Even as he spoke, he struggled to his feet and began taking slow, heavy steps forward.
His family was dead, but he couldn't die. If he died, his family line would truly end.
“Let's go. Since we've made it this far, we might as well walk a few more steps to survive a few seconds longer,” a young Black man said, standing up and following Herbert.
Out of the crowd of hundreds that had fled, only the five of them remained.
Thud!
As Herbert supported his wife past a metal door, the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor echoed from inside.
He instinctively turned to look. It was just an ordinary garage door, but a bizarre sensation washed over him.
Bam!
A loud bang shook the metal door from the inside. The center of the door bulged and ruptured as a hideous, half-meter-wide black mouth stretched open to its limit, lunging to bite Herbert.
Herbert’s pupils dilated. “I won't make it!”
Just as he tried to push his wife away, a sudden force shoved him from the side. His wife slammed into him, knocking him aside.
“No...” Herbert's face paled in horror as he looked at his wife, who had taken his place.
She looked at him, her eyes filled with the fear of death, but even more so with reluctance to part. “Run...”
Splat!
In the next instant, the black mouth clamped down hard on her upper body.
Thud!
With a single bite, blood splattered everywhere. The woman collapsed to the ground, severed below the navel, her blood and organs spilling across the floor.
“Run!” The Black man behind him grabbed Herbert in terror, pulling him forward.
Behind them, the seven-meter-tall, muscular purple specter appeared. Its towering, two-story height exerted an immense pressure on everyone.
“Hehehe, hehehe...” At the very back, a slow-running young white man heard a bizarre laugh behind him.
He froze in his tracks, and a bizarre smile crept onto his face. “Hehehe, hehehe...”
“Ah! I don't want to die! I'm the only one left in my family! I don't want our line to end!” The middle-aged white man suddenly burst forward with a desperate surge of strength, overtaking Herbert and the other man while wailing.
The purple specter looked at the fleeing middle-aged man, a mocking grin on its face. “What a beautiful wail.”
Boom!
It suddenly punched the air toward the middle-aged man, creating a sonic boom in front of it.
A translucent shockwave surged forward at nearly five hundred meters per second, overtaking the man.
Bang!
The man's body was instantly blown apart by the shockwave, splattering blood and flesh over a radius of more than ten meters.
The sonic boom left Herbert and the young Black man with ringing ears, their bodies drenched in the splattered flesh and blood.
Of the five survivors, only two remained in an instant.
“Looks like we're going to die. It’s a pity the Lord I’ve believed in for so many years is completely useless,” the Black man said, a miserable smile on his face as he stared at the bloodstains ahead.
The gap was simply too vast—so vast that running felt entirely pointless.
Facing this hopeless situation, Herbert still pulled him forward. “Never give up! Even if these specters are powerful, if we can survive just one more second, we might still have a slim chance of living!”
“Run! Let your wails and despair entertain me!” the purple specter roared at their retreating backs.
Specters and Evil Spirits were born from negative energy. Watching other living beings despair and panic was their deepest instinct.
In the sky, several crows circled, keeping their eyes locked on the purple specter.
At the same time, atop the city's tallest skyscraper.
Tang Yongyun looked at the vast sea of flames consuming the buildings ahead and said calmly, “We have reached our target. Begin.”
Laying the groundwork with millions of lives and a global wave of terror was all for this single moment—to make a god a reality.
Hearing this, Jiang Nan nodded and looked toward a young Asian man standing near the entrance. “Begin!”
“Yes, ma'am!” Placing his left index and middle fingers against his temple, he pulled out a picture of Jesus with his right hand. His eyes flared with a bright white light.
Buzz!
A peculiar ripple instantly rippled outward.
Sensory Adaptation Expansion: Allow everyone within the range of the ability to see the illusions you want them to see!
As a supernatural being brought from Goro Island by Tang Yongyun, his strength had already reached Tier 2.
Not only him, but the dozen or so supernatural beings below were also Tier 2.
Along the street in front of the building, eleven supernatural beings stood spaced about a dozen meters apart. All of them possessed abilities related to the mind, illusions, or projections.
Once the white light swept over them, they unleashed their powers in unison. Their spiritual power surged forth, merging with the white light.
Merging the powers of twelve Tier 2 supernatural beings to achieve a greater effect was impossible without a core to anchor them.
A massive amount of spiritual power swirled above the street, and multicolored lights materialized out of thin air.
On the streets below, the fleeing people suddenly felt a buzzing sensation in their heads.
“What is that?” a young white man asked, staring at the multicolored lights above.
With just a glance, a wave of nausea and discomfort washed over them. Those with weaker minds rolled their eyes back and collapsed on the spot.
Atop the skyscraper, Tang Yongyun watched the spiritual powers struggle to merge. The crow in his hand took flight.
With a sharp caw, the crow's body dissolved into the force of doom, plunging into the gathering spiritual power below.
As the Harbinger of Doom, his growth was comprehensive.
Be it physical, spiritual, or energetic, everything advanced in lockstep.
Thus, acting as the spiritual anchor for a group of Tier 2 supernatural beings posed absolutely no challenge for him.
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