Chapter 453
“Alright, Mr. Night Owl, what turned you into this?” Aimee raised her two ice scimitars that grew out from the wooden cards at the centers of her palms and walked carefully by the side while facing the cat with black and white fur, who had grown to a size that was already way beyond the size of any normal pet felines.
The cat shook his head, the dark green goo leaking from his eyes was flung into the air and dripped on the floor. Smoke rose from the points of contact, and Aimee had to resist her urge to cover her nose.
Contrary to what Aimee expected, Mr. Night Owl hissed at her once again and ran away into the main parts of the precinct. Aimee cursed once again and rushed to follow this obviously mutated cat, presumably due to being under the influence of the limbo and not of other causes.
Aimee followed the wet footsteps of the black and white cat into the center of the first floor of the precinct, and she saw the cat standing on one of the desks belonging to an unknown detective, with his hand on a half empty vase with some lilies inside.
Aimee seemed to foresee what was about to come: “Holy - ”
Mr. Night Owl took a look at Aimee, then took a look at the vase with lilies, then looked at Aimee again, and pushed the vase right off the desk and broke it against the floor.
Aimee almost flinched when the vase crashed coming into contact with the hard floor, not because she had any attachments to the vase, but because she did not know what to expect of whatever effects this change in environment might bring about.
The lilies got into contact with the smoke that rose from different corners of the precinct and instantly started to wither. Before long, the lilies dried up and ashy like really flowers preserved for too long.
“Shit!” Aimee rushed to the side of some officers who were lying on the floor and checked on them - the fog and mist from the corners seemed to have some similar effects on them, though at a slower pace and thus a lesser degree for now. But Aimee could easily see that the skins on the officers had started to dry up just like the lilies, their hair had started to become grey and fall off. And when Aimee looked up at Mr. Night Owl, she found that the cat was halfway across the room and was looking back at her at the entrance of the aisle to the evidence room.
“Okay there.” Aimee had started to suspect that this Mr. Night Owl might not be as malicious as she thought, so she looked around and carefully followed him down the aisle, and then into the evidence room.
Inside the evidence room, AImee saw Jason, who was sitting on the ground in a meditative pose, with a passed out officer by his side inside of a silver circle on the ground. Jason’s body was coated in a layer of silver energy, which seemed to be serving some kind of protection purpose.
Mr. Night Owl walked around in the room, and then hopped onto one of the shelves and started pushing random things off of it.
In the limbo, Jason rounded up all the remaining officers in the first floor, and drew two silver circles on the floor around them while they constructed barriers to blockade themselves from hostile entities like the leech monsters.
“Alright, Mr. Lin, what else can we do?” the sergeant, who was the highest ranking officer still alive in this limbo, asked Jason: “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to find the source of power in the limbo, and I am going to find the ‘tunnels’ for you to get out. After that, I am going to shut it down as peacefully as possible.” Jason said: “You just have to stay alive.”
“Is there a way to break out directly?” the sergeant asked.
“Not that easy, I’m afraid.” Jason shook his head: “I could create a ‘hole’ for you to slip back into your bodies, but that's like open up a hole at the end of the peanut jar when your hand is stuck inside - you could technically get your hand out, but the jar is still attached to your wrist and your arm. So I will need to find the right ‘tunnel’ that you came through, break it down or enlarge it, and you can get your hands out. ”
“I volunteer. I will go with you.” one of the uniformed officers said.
“I will go as well.” a detective wearing a canvas jacket stood up and said: “Please, Mr. Lin, let us help.”
Jason sighed after a short moment of thought: “Yes, sure, I could use the help. Come with me.”
Jason closed his two palms, focused his minds for a while and conjured out two suits of body armor and three walkie talkies. He then handed these equipment to the sergeant and the two officers: “The body armors and walkie talkies are fueled by my power, so no worries about using it. And if any of you is getting weak, let me know and stop using the weapons, got it?!”
“Got it.”
When Jason and the two officers walked to the staircase, they found that there were flights of stairs leading both upwards and downwards.
“This is wrong, we don’t have stairs leading down.” the detective wearing a canvas jacket said: “We do have a basement, but we need to access it from another flight of stairs - these… just shouldn’t be here.”
“Let me do a basic test.” Jason nodded and thought for a while, then conjured a silver compass on his hand.
After Jason blew on the compass, the needle in it started spinning. After around twenty rotations, the needle stabilized and pointed at the stairs leading to places below the first floor.