Chapter 1658: A Suffocating Night
It was already late at night. Because of the repeated notices from the Special Defense Department, ordinary residents of Nan City generally did not go outside at this hour. Occasionally, two or three people who really needed to go out would either hurry along or gather enough companions to travel together. This was especially true for the residential buildings in the old city district.
The old city district had a complex mix of people, and the community security facilities were inadequate. So, once night fell, everyone would turn off the lights and go to bed early, afraid that light or any sound might attract cannibal players. However, there were exceptions—infants.
From a certain residence on the tenth floor of the Camphor Community, a violent crying sound first emerged, but it didn’t last long before it stopped. This was followed by the cautious sound of a door opening.
The neighbors on the same floor, as well as those above and below, heard the noise. Though surprised, no one came out to check.
The person who sneaked out was a middle-aged woman. She tightly hugged her child, moving quickly but quietly into the elevator. When the elevator reached the first floor, she pulled her coat tighter, as if that could conceal her tracks. Then she rushed to the security booth and gently knocked on the door.
“Brother Zhang, my child has a high fever. Could you please drive us to the hospital?” the woman whispered her request.
There was no sound from the security booth with its tightly closed iron door. The woman didn’t give up. She knocked harder, making the door bang loudly. “Brother Zhang, I’m begging you. If we don’t get to the hospital, my child will die!”
This time, a voice came from inside the small room, but it wasn’t out of goodwill—it was out of fear that she would attract attention.
“Who dares to go out this late at night? The nearby hospital can’t even send an ambulance. Why don’t you call the police or the Special Defense Department and see if they can send someone?” the security guard said in a low voice.
“The police and the Special Defense Department lines are both busy,” the woman said, her voice choked with tears. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come downstairs. Brother Zhang, I’m begging you.”
“Sister, it’s not that I’m heartless. Don’t you know about the shop owner who was killed a few days ago? He was kind-hearted, heard someone calling for help outside, ran out, and was killed on the spot.” The security guard sighed and then added, “If you really can’t get through to the Special Defense Department, don’t go to the hospital. Go to the pharmacy at the street corner. I know the owner. I’ll call him and ask him to throw some medicine out for you.”
The woman looked at the street outside, hesitating. Even though the Special Defense Department had urgently added more streetlights, the roadside greenery, trash cans piled in corners, and signs placed outside still created many blind spots. The shadows seemed capable of spawning monsters, making people shrink back.
But the child in her arms was breathing more and more faintly. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman left the community, lowered her head, and ran toward the end of the street.
From the community entrance to the street corner was only about two hundred meters, but for her, it felt like crossing a long river. When she finally reached the pharmacy door and knocked, she found there was no sound from inside.
She didn’t know if the owner was too afraid to answer or wasn’t there, but running down this street had already used up all her courage. The hospital was still far away, and there were no cars on the road. This pharmacy was her only hope. So she kept pounding on the door, over and over, hoping for a miracle.
However, for several minutes, there was no movement from the pharmacy. Tears streamed down the woman’s face, but she had no choice. She turned around to head for the next pharmacy.
The change happened just as she turned into the next street. The streetlight beside her suddenly went out for a moment. Although it quickly came back on, where the light had illuminated was now empty—the woman was gone.
Half a minute after her disappearance, Special Defense Department players patrolling nearby arrived. One tall man listened to the surroundings and said, “No one.”
The female player who came with him frowned. “The security guard at Camphor Community said she came here. Could it be that no one opened the door, and she went somewhere else?”
The group had already contacted the pharmacy owner on the way. The owner had closed up and gone back to his hometown the day before.
The tall man contacted the Special Defense Department for authorization and immediately checked the surrounding surveillance cameras. When he saw the woman disappear as the streetlight went out, his face darkened. “These bastards really aren’t human!”
The female player had already notified colleagues in the nearby area and said, “If they dare to come out during the lockdown, they must be quite strong. It’s best to have one D-level paired with three E-levels for joint operations.”
The large number of high-level players cultivated by the Special Defense Department headquarters in Jing City and the military might give ordinary people the illusion that C-level players are everywhere in X Country now. But in reality, not only C-level players, but even D-level players are concentrated in large or medium-sized cities. In a small city like Nan City, having a few D-level players on duty is already considered good. So the lack of progress in the Nan City disappearance cases is also related to the Special Defense Department’s limited strength.
Originally, the Special Defense Department’s work model was to support wherever trouble arose, with limited resources. Moreover, priority had to be given to the headquarters and the military. So, usually, when an incident occurred in one place, the local branch could request reinforcements from cities with more players. But recently, there had been many incidents, and the Nan City matter had been buried deep in the early stages, so no one had come yet.
The players of the Nan City Special Defense Department branch were basically on rotating shifts day and night. Anyone not in the game was pulled out onto the streets. Even so, it was hard to guard against those who struck and then moved on.
At first, the Special Defense Department worried that openly searching for these cannibal players might cause them to flee to other cities. But the events of the past two days made them realize they were overthinking it. These people, relying on their stealth skills, had begun openly abducting and killing people, almost as if provoking the Special Defense Department.
“Work in pairs,” the tall man said. “I don’t believe these beasts won’t leave a single trace!”
The four accompanying players immediately split up and chased in different directions. Following the location where the streetlight had gone out in the surveillance footage, the female player’s group heard the woman’s crying a minute later.
The two hurried over. When they rushed to the street corner, they came face to face with a figure. The person was wearing a black protective suit, making their face completely unidentifiable. But as they passed by, the smell of blood on them alerted the players.
The female player’s companion stopped her. “I’ll chase them. You check if the person is okay and contact Old Gao and the others for backup!”
The female player didn’t hesitate. She turned and entered the alley. Using a lighting item, she saw a woman with disheveled hair and a bloody neck huddled in a corner. When the woman saw her, she was so frightened that she immediately stifled her crying.
The female player showed her credentials. “I’m a member of the Special Defense Department, number 2483. Are you Wang Huiqin? What happened just now?”
The woman nodded frantically, holding her child, and spoke incoherently. She said she had been grabbed and taken into the alley. The person who grabbed her said they would eat her first, then the child, and bit her neck. But suddenly, someone intervened and drove away the cannibal player, and then the Special Defense Department showed up.
(Chapter End)