140. Psychokinesis
"This team wanted to sell me off like a piece of cargo, and in the end, I'm supposed to magnanimously forgive them and join their ranks?"
Dean couldn't swallow this humiliation, a murderous intent surging in his eyes.
Then he would leave none of them alive!
"Medium difficulty means one of the five is a psionic. Find them and deal with them first."
Besides, from the God's Eye view, there were three padlocks on the edge of the coffin lid, and he couldn't open it from the inside.
...
"Everyone, actually, Clety's idea is not without reason," the blonde man said with a solemn expression, defending his girlfriend. "For the past eighteen years... supernatural incidents after supernatural incidents have descended upon her, becoming increasingly dangerous and difficult to handle. What unimaginable peril will the next one bring?"
The red-haired woman gripped the ouija board tighter at these words, a trace of fear permeating her deep blue pupils.
"It's already hard enough for her to bear this alone. Who knows, in a few years, we might lose Clety forever, and without her, the team might as well disband right here and now!"
The blonde man said earnestly,
"For the sake of our long-term development, we should bring in another powerful supernatural being."
...
Gazes shifted around inside the carriage, falling into deep thought.
Unnoticed by anyone, an invisible shadow crawled slowly out of the ouija board like a venomous snake.
"You're right." Bradley broke the silence, tapping the coffin lightly again. "But not this time. The guy in here is uncontrollable and must be disposed of as soon as possible. Later, at the right time, we'll find a way to recruit members and expand the team."
"Are you kidding me? Do you think psionics are homeless people on the street that you can find whenever you want? If we miss this opportunity, who knows how long it will take to bump into another one?" The blonde man insisted.
"Listen to me, have I ever let you down?" Bradley narrowed his eyes at the black-haired man beside him and the female driver in the front row.
Just as the words left his mouth, his eyes suddenly widened.
A faint, piercing hiss echoed inside the carriage.
Immediately following, a bizarre and terrifying scene materialized before everyone's eyes without warning.
An ice-silver arc of light flashed.
The ouija board, previously held in the red-haired woman's hands, broke free of its own accord, its razor-sharp edge flashing coldly as it swept straight upward toward her fair, fragile neck.
Yet a soft "pop" sounded in the air. The ouija board, which should have easily sliced through flesh and bone, struck an invisible, solid barrier and bounced away instantly.
The woman remained completely unharmed.
Before anyone could react, however,
the bounced ouija board darted like lightning toward the black-haired man opposite, viciously slashing across his unprepared neck.
This time, there was no accident.
Swish!
The black-haired man's flesh tore open, revealing a gaping wound as gruesome as an infant's mouth.
Blood spurted out like a fountain, casting a gorgeous, morbid arc through midair, staining his chin and the coffin lid in the center of the carriage.
Instinctively, he pressed his hands against the wound on his neck, his face frozen in terror and bewilderment.
"Oh god!"
"FXXK, save him!"
"Clety, stop the board!"
"Donna, head to the hospital!"
The sudden turn of events plunged the carriage into a frantic uproar, bubbling like boiling porridge.
Yet this group possessed formidable tacit coordination; they were panicked but far from disorderly.
Screeech—
The tires shrieked against the asphalt as the driver Donna instantly executed a U-turn, heading back toward Las Vegas.
Bradley's hands flew into the tactical backpack at his feet, pulling out disinfectant spray and sterile bandages, which he handed to the blonde man. The blonde man applied pressure to bandage their wounded comrade, barely stemming the flow of blood, before grabbing an adrenaline syringe, ready to inject it at a moment's notice.
Meanwhile, the red-haired woman, Clety, rose from her seat, dropping into a half-crouch. She spread her hands wide, then abruptly clenched them into empty fists!
Instantly, a fierce gale whipped up, and an invisible force erupted with her body as the center, precisely locking onto the ouija board suspended in midair, pinning it firmly in place.
Yet the matter was far from over.
The Shadow of the Past, concealed in the corner of the carriage, released its psychokinetic control and, amid the chaos, wrapped around an AK-47 left near the seat.
It quickly flicked the safety off, pulled back the charging handle, slithered flat against the floor to the side of the coffin, and aimed the muzzle at the padlocks sealing the exterior of the coffin.
An invisible force pulled the trigger.
Bang, bang, bang!
Three consecutive shots.
The three padlocks securing the coffin lid snapped and fell to the floor!
Three ricocheting bullets pierced upward through the roof of the van, and dazzling sunlight spilled through the newly blasted holes.
The expressions of everyone inside the carriage changed drastically.
"Watch out for the gun!"
The blonde man instinctively raised the riot shield he had set aside, covering himself and his injured teammate.
The driver Donna craned her neck desperately backward.
With a flick of her right hand resembling a conductor's beat, Clety directed the invisible force to seize the AK-47 and pin it hard against the side wall of the carriage.
Inside the coffin, Dean dropped the God's Eye view and shifted his attention to the inventory space, sweeping his gaze over several lemon-shaped M26 grenades. His eyes were as sharp as blades.
"You treated me to bullets."
"I'll treat you to grenades!"
Two seconds later, two M26 grenades materialized beside Dean's shackled right wrist.
The Shadow of the Past slightly lifted the coffin lid, enveloped the grenades, pulled the pins, released the spoons, and tossed the two compact, lemon-shaped objects out of the coffin. They rolled across the floor, passing beneath the feet of FBI agent Bradley and right up to the feet of the blonde man holding the shield.
Everything happened too fast.
The blonde man noticed the anomaly at his feet, his pupils constricting as if pricked by needles.
The death knell instantly hijacked his entire mind!
"Shield!"
Roaring at the top of his lungs, his peripheral vision catching a final glimpse of Clety fiercely suppressing the ouija board and rifle, he threw himself forward, pressing the concave surface of the shield desperately over the grenades.
Boom!
A deafening explosion shattered the air.
The flat, wide interstate highway shuddered as if struck by an earthquake.
The smoothly running van violently buckled, a spiderweb of irregular cracks blooming across its smooth metallic exterior.
The immense shockwave generated from within blasted open the rear double doors of the carriage, one of them sagging and dropping off its hinges with a metallic screech.
The side windows had already shattered moments earlier, showering the ground like crystal glass rain.
Billowing white smoke billowed like a rising tide, surging frantically out from the chassis, wheel wells, and rear doors in every direction, punctuated by the brief, blinding flash of yellow-orange flames.
Finally, the deformed vehicle, like a smoking drunkard, veered unsteadily off the main road and into the barren wilderness alongside.
When the thick smoke finally cleared,
the vehicle came to a complete halt—a battered wreck riddled with craters, looking as though it had been abandoned in a junkyard for years.
Bang!
The black coffin lid, miraculously intact inside the carriage, was shoved aside and crashed to the floor.
Dean, his hands and feet still shackled, struggled to stand up from the cramped space.
For a moment, vertigo washed over him; his vision blurred, his stomach churned with nausea as if he had spent all day on a rollercoaster while someone repeatedly hammered him in the temples.
Even with the dual protection of iron plating and the ghost armor, the close-range explosive shockwave had given him a run for his money.
He stood up and looked around.
The interior of the carriage looked as though a graffiti artist had splattered it with red paint. The blonde man, who had thrown himself over the grenades, had vanished entirely.
His blood, flesh fragments, severed limbs, and internal organs were plastered across the ceiling, side walls, and floor.
A boot clad in a black combat boot hung behind the driver's seat; an arm, severed at the elbow with bare white bone protruding, rested on a seat blasted into splinters; and a charred head rolled to the right of the coffin, still steaming faintly with white smoke, revealing a tuft of light blonde hair.
Dean spotted the undamaged ouija board and, with a thought, commanded the shadow to retrieve it to his palm.
Amidst this hell on earth, four people lay scattered about.
The driver Donna was pinned unconscious against the steering wheel, her back a bloody mess embedded with shrapnel.
Bradley and the black-haired man lay motionless, their faces charred pitch black, blood seeping from their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses, their breathing faint.
As for the red-haired woman propped against the base of the seat—
Dean's gaze swept over her face. Despite surviving an explosion, it remained fair and delicate.
She looked like a sleeping princess waiting for her prince's kiss.
Dean's heart pounded violently. The Shadow of the Past hoisted a submachine gun from among the severed limbs and pulled the trigger repeatedly at the woman's head.
Rat-tat-tat!
The muzzle spat fire, bullets shredding the air.
The woman suddenly opened her eyes, her gaze filled with fury and despair. The terrifying emotion brewing within her seemed to materialize, freezing the rapid-fire volley of bullets suspended mid-air.
Like a paused photograph!
She flicked her hand lightly toward Dean.
A colossal force slammed into Dean's chest, lifting him off his feet like a train charging at full speed. He flew out of the coffin and the shattered carriage, soaring over five meters away before crashing heavily onto the barren dirt, tumbling wretchedly for several yards.
His entire body ached as if falling apart, his face twisted in agony.
...
Another heart-rending scream echoed from inside the carriage.
Out on the cloudless, dusty ground, a gale-force wind seemingly materialized out of nowhere, tearing the remaining rear door completely off its hinges and hurling it far toward Dean.
The force of the wind hit him square in the face!
Dean rolled frantically; the spinning, blade-like door grazed past the top of his head and embedded itself diagonally into the earth.
It had almost taken his head off!
Ghost Armor! Morph!
Dean executed the commands in rapid succession. The Shadow of the Past transformed into armor wrapping around his entire body. Simultaneously, the skin and bones beneath his black suit crawled and bulged in a bizarre, writhing fashion. A fierce, blinding pain washed over him like a tidal wave, making his whole body tremble.
Instantly, an ice-silver handgun—an M1900—materialized right between his shackled hands.
Before him, the woman in black combat gear leaped gracefully from the vehicle, clutching the charred head of the blonde man tightly to her chest.
Strings of crystal-clear tears streamed down her smooth, sweet cheeks.
Those blood-red, deep blue eyes stared fixedly at Dean from afar, the despair within them chilling to the bone.
The woman twisted her neck.
A sharp snap echoed through the air.
Dean's wrist, holding the gun, snapped violently backward in the opposite direction, and the weapon slipped limply from his grasp to the ground.
Another wave of psychokinetic force seized his body, locking in a violent, incompatible struggle with the Shadow of the Past protecting him.
Under the conflicting influence of the two energies, a series of harsh, crackling snaps erupted in the air.
In just a blink of an eye, the psychokinesis gained the upper hand.
Dean felt as though invisible, high-tension packing tape was wrapping tightly around his body, layer upon layer. The tape constricted further and further; unable to break free, his face flushed crimson. At the same time, swept up by this force, he was forced to stand straight against his will, lifting upward into the air...
The woman slowly raised her palm, and Dean's tiptoes, stretched to their absolute limit, left the ground altogether. His entire body suspended two meters in the air, stiffened like a wooden stake, his shackled limbs pulling taut.
Because he was still in the middle of morphing, the skin on his face rippled and shifted like plasticine, slick sweat bursting frantically from his pores, gleaming brightly in the sunlight.
The scene was intensely bizarre.
Dean looked as though he had been strung up on a high-altitude scaffold, an heretic enduring the scorching heat of an invisible fire!
"Why!" Cradling the charred head, the woman took a step toward him, twisting her right hand while screaming hysterically, "Why make a move?! Why kill them?!"
"What right do you have to be angry?" Suspended in midair, Dean laughed bitterly, a sarcastic grin tearing across his rapidly shifting face as if he had just heard the most absurd joke in the world. "I never offended you in the first place. You ambushed and kidnapped me, treating me like cargo to be sold to some disgusting company for human experimentation."
"You attacked me first, and you expect me not to fight back?"
Dean demanded harshly, before groaning in agony as the telekinetic pressure squeezed his bones.
With a崩溃ing, tearful sob, the red-haired woman cried out,
"I never wanted to kill you! I was already convincing them to let you join! Why make a move so suddenly? Why couldn't you just wait a little longer?"
"Such a benevolent goddess, insulting me first and then tossing me a bone... hss... do I need to get on my knees right now and thank you for sparing my life? To thank you for looking favorably upon me and letting me join this great team?" Dean's words were scathing, pushing her anger to its absolute limit while the Shadow of the Past silently manipulated the blood and souls scattered on the ground, drawing them up toward his back.
In a fraction of a second, Dean's Asian features magically morphed into the entirely unfamiliar face of a Black man.
The woman suddenly took two steps back, her cheeks flushing a sickly crimson, murder blazing in her eyes. "No matter who you turn into, you're going to die!"
"Go down and bury them!"
"Perish!"
She roared madly, twisting her palm with renewed violence.
In an instant, overwhelming psychokinesis erupted from her petite frame. A fierce gale whipped up, her red hair streaming behind her as the yellow sand beneath her feet surged into the air, transforming into earthen-yellow ribbons that swirled around her.
She looked every bit a goddess wielding the forces of nature.
The tidal wave of telekinesis completely shattered the Shadow of the Past protecting Dean.
Crack, crack, crack...
Amidst scalp-tingling bone fractures and agonizing groans, the wrists and ankles of the man suspended in midair snapped backward a full 180 degrees. His elbows and knees twisted half a circle like wrung-out taffy, tearing the flesh open to expose gleaming shards of white bone.
Atmospheric pressure seemed to multiply tenfold instantaneously. The pervasive force caused beads of blood to ooze from his cheeks, the back of his hands, and every inch of his exposed skin.
"Perish!"
Screaming, the woman closed in on him, her expression as deliriously unhinged as a psychiatric patient.
This invisible force penetrated further through his skin into Dean's blood vessels and internal organs, compressing his body inward, displacing his viscera, and causing blood to leak from his facial orifices.
Dean looked like a broken ragdoll held aloft and torn apart at whim.
The sheer extremity of the pain completely twisted his features. Drenched in sweat and blood, his black suit and white shirt were soaked through, droplets dripping from his suspended tiptoes down onto the withered earth.
"Die!"
The woman twisted her palm further, as if slowly turning a valve.
Dean's neck began to turn backward as well, his cervical vertebrae emitting a faint, ominous creak!
But the opportunity had arrived!
Trembling violently, he thrust both hands out to the side. The M1900 silently levitated right into position.
In that fraction of a second,
the Shadow of the Past abandoned all defensive layers except those covering Dean's vital areas, pouring its full might into his shackled, twisted-rope hands, forcing his fingers to grip the handle firmly.
At this very moment,
gun, body, and soul fused into one, as if he were grasping destiny itself!
In Dean's painfully distorted eyes, a brilliant, life-burning radiance erupted.
His spirit flowed along with his hands into the blood and soul!
The pistol grew piping hot, its muzzle tilting upward to aim squarely at the red-haired woman.
Spirit Bullet Mode!
Bang, bang!
He emptied the magazine.
A barrage of .44 Magnum rounds crossed the ten-meter distance in an instant, striking the barrier in front of the woman. The delirious look of vengeance frozen on her face stiffened.
The spirit bullets radiated visible ripples and concentric shockwaves across the barrier.
Violent tremors!
A breath later, they acted like razor-sharp needles puncturing a balloon!
Pop!
A thunderous sound rang out.
A spherical flash of light vanished in midair as the telekinetic barrier dissipated entirely.
The forward-surging volley of bullets pierced straight into the woman's abdomen, shattering half her torso and sending the blood-soaked figure crashing backward onto the ground.
In the blink of an eye, the tables had turned.
The woman felt an infinite wave of exhaustion and a splitting headache.
With a resigned, bitter smile, she peacefully accepted her fate, using her last bit of strength to reach out a trembling, bloody hand toward her lover's charred head, a deep yearning burning in her eyes.
"Vance, Sister Donna, Miller... wait for me... I'm coming right now... we won't be separated."
So close, yet her weary fingers could never quite reach her lover's head.
Stumbling over, Dean complied with her final wish, placing the head into her embrace.
Then, he pressed an aura of soul-freezing coldness against her forehead.
"I'll bury you all together and burn you to ashes," Dean said.
Bang!
A gaping hole burst open in the woman's forehead as she collapsed into a pool of blood with a relieved smile.
The ouija board grew warm, and a prompt flashed before Dean's eyes.
You killed Clety Monroe. Proficiency +2, Marksmanship Lv3 (110/400). Perk [Supernatural Hunter] triggered, you absorbed 1.5 Spirit.
Spirit: 16.1 → 17.6.
With this increase in Spirit, the gap between his 13.5 Willpower and Spirit widened to an unprecedented 4 points, breaking the equilibrium.
Before he could catch his breath, Dean heard a sound resembling a cracked earthenware jar.
...
"Vance... Vance..."
Visions of spurting blood flashed across Dean's eyes as the red-haired woman screamed furiously,
"Perish... perish!"
"Go down and bury them!"
"Haha."
The night-spawn sneered, its crown of serpents baring sharp, venomous fangs,
"We kill whoever we want!"
A voice of indeterminate gender whispered seductively in his mind,
"North!"
"Head north!"
Illusions and terrifying screams drilled into his skull, echoing wildly like sharp blades relentlessly piercing Dean's brain!
With a distorted expression, he hammered his throbbing temples frantically.
Yet it was utterly useless.
He soon froze in place, his expressions shifting back and forth as if trapped in a nightmare.
Time unknown.
Drenched in cold sweat and breathing heavily, Dean snapped out of the chaotic hallucinations, his lips moving, his expression vacant with a lingering trace of distortion.
He patted his stinging temples.
Taking a deep breath...
Calming his churning emotions, he released the morphing state.
Searching Clety's corpse, he found the keys and unlocked his handcuffs and leg irons.
Then, pulling several energy bars from his inventory, he unwrapped them and shoved them into his mouth, satisfying the bottomless pit of his hunger.
His broken limbs began to snap back into place, and the injuries sustained in the morphed state rapidly vanished alongside the sweat and shed skin flakes.
Half a minute later,
the previously crippled "Black Dean" had fully recovered. Aside from a slight dizziness, not a single injury remained on his body.
He carried the red-haired woman's corpse and the head back into the ruined carriage.
Then he sought out the surviving remnants of this team, who were clinging to their last breaths.
Bang, bang!
Two gunshots rang out.
You killed Donna and Miller. Proficiency +20, Marksmanship Lv3 (130/400).
"Spare me." As Dean aimed his barrel at the FBI agent's forehead, the man suddenly regained consciousness, pleading through narrowed slits of his eyes, his voice weak and halting, "I'll tell you a secret about the company..."
"I can ask myself. You picked the wrong target..." Dean narrowed his eyes, looking down at him and shaking his head. "You shouldn't have messed with me."
"Shouldn't have."
Bang!
You killed Bradley Lincoln. Proficiency +5, Marksmanship Lv3 (135/400).
...
A blood-red prompt flashed across Dean's field of vision.
Event—Contact, completion rate 100%.
You abandoned gentle negotiation and chose the most brutal and explosive method, wiping out all five ambushers.
You may claim your reward at any time.
...
Now was not the time.
Dean extracted blood samples from the corpses and stored them in his inventory, then doused them all in gasoline before backing away from the vehicle.
He fired a tracer round.
Boom!
The flames ignited the gasoline, a pillar of crimson fire soaring skyward to engulf the shattered steel, casting a ruddy glow across Dean's cheek and masking the traces of the fierce battle that had just transpired.
Dean pulled out a set of fresh clothes to replace his tattered suit, staggered as he turned around, and walked toward the road.
"Three-thirty. Change my clothes, hitch a ride, and I'll still make it to the prom."
(End of this chapter)