Wu Xiaoming sidestepped at the very last second and turned his body to the right. The crooked blade still tore a long gash on his right lower chest, a familiar cold and numbing sensation began creeping into his body.
“Fuck your mom!” Wu Xiaoming cursed in Mandarin and swung his already raised tempered steel baton at the blade.
“
Clunk!
” The blade was about to retract but still got hit by the baton at around one finger’s length behind the tip. The physical clash and the explosion of dark red energy bent the blade and got it stuck on the hole. The one behind the door still tried to pull the blade back, but a tooth on the blade stopped its attempt.
Wu Xiaoming launched a heavy kick against the door. It almost flew off its hinges, hitting a human-shaped shadow in the chest. But the shadow was in a suit of shadow armor, and thus the door did not seem to have made any serious damage.
“Get the fuck over here!” Wu Xiaoming charged at the shadow, while the shadow’s hands were still on the handle of the blade, which was still stuck. He swung the soapberry wood staff sideways. With a loud clunk, the handle of the blade was knocked out of the shadow’s hands. The very next moment, the tempered steel baton landed a full force blow on the shadow’s head, caving its helmet along its skull in, the subsequent explosion blasted its head and a large chunk of its shoulders into smithereens.
Babbling cries and throaty screams came from behind, two slender human-shaped creatures charged into the hallway. Both of them were similar to the first creature in the staircase: pale slender limbs and empty faces as the “base”, and with strips and pieces of normal, scarred skin on their bodies and “glued on” faces made of broken human facial skin on their actual faces. One had spikes coming out of its neck area, elbows and spine, the other had a giant bloody cleaver in its right hand and a baseball bat with protruding nails in its left hand.
Wu Xiaoming jumped forward and over the headless shadow whose body was crumbling, and kicked the handle of the blade at the two creatures lunging at him. The first creature, the one with the spikes coming out of its body jumped up and dodged the blade that was sent sweeping at their legs, just in time to catch a strike from the soapberry wood staff with its chest. As the first creature’s body was thrown into a room on the side, the second creature’s left leg was caught by the crooked, sweeping blade and tripped forward, which led to its face having a close contact with the tempered steel baton.
Both creatures’ bodies crumbled and dark threads shot from the surroundings into their bodies.
“No you don’t!” Wu Xiaoming roared and swung his soapberry wood staff at a batch of the threads close to him. The hairs were much sturdier and sharper than he had previously expected, and a few locks of them even dug into the body of his wooden staff slightly. His staff bounced back, with at least a dozen notches on his staff. But at the same time, the hairs struck by the staff were torn, and the “hotel” lost much of its pull on the body.
“
Crack
!” “
Rrrrripppp
!” The other hairs still pulled on the body, tearing it apart and consuming them like the first one, leaving only a left shoulder and a small stump of a left arm on the ground - the part that was connected to the hairs Wu Xiaoming had just torn.
Wu Xiaoming took a deep breath in and focused - memories began flashing before his eyes, but he immediately pushed it down - he was in the middle of a fight, any distraction, not to mention a prolonged one to “watch a brain movie”, could be fatal.
He turned back, just to check and see if any of the lingering shadows in the hallway would try to take advantage of his temporary moment of weakness. None of them did - most of them just stood there, with their eyes fixed on Wu Xiaoming.
Men in suits, men in pajamas, men in rags, women in suits, women in dresses, women in rags - people of all kinds, just stared at him. And as he fixed his sight on them, it became clear now that these shadows were shadowless, and were mere projections in the air and space, like holograms.
He took another quick look at the door leading to the staircase before taking slow steps forward and was almost ready to move through the shadows. He tried focusing on these shadows, and hairs appeared, on their heads, on their shoulders and backs, connecting them to the surrounding environment.
“Motherfu - ” Wu Xiaoming almost wanted to curse, the “mechanism” of these shadows just became somewhat clear.
The creatures that tried to attack him - their slender bodies, their faceless heads, they were practically miniature clones of the giant humanoid creatures that had their lower bodies buried in the hotel building. This hotel had long been infested with enough negative energy - the energy that was present in both realms, and with all of its deaths, it would be a surprise to him if it did NOT manifest this kind of “controlled shadow/manifested spirit” relationship.
Just as his sight shifted for a moment, a stream of energy shot down from the ceiling through a lock of hair, into the shadow of a woman in a suit of hotel staff uniform and an apron. The shadow grew taller, armors made of smoke and shadow manifested around her body. Her face had mutated as well, into that of Nicolas Sproutlinger’s.
Another crooked blade manifested in his arms. He shot forward at Wu Xiaoming, with almost super human speed, with the blade’s tip pointing right at Wu Xiaoming’s abdomen.
Wu Xiaoming sidestepped just in time, as the downpour of energy had already warned him. He swung the soapberry wood staff at the blade, parrying it to the side while charging at the shadow.
The shadow roared and let go of the long blade, backstepped and pulled out two crooked daggers from behind him and readied to counter Wu Xiaoming’s attack.
Wu Xiaoming pointed his left hand forward while still holding the baton - a beam of golden light shot from the tip of his index finger. The shadow’s forehead was shone upon and flames burst out in an instant.
While the shadow was distracted by the flames, Wu Xiaomin’s right foot made its way in the space between the shadow’s legs. A horizontal swing of the baton followed - Wu Xiaoming was not able to pull off a full swing, but the dark red energy exploded from his burning fury made up for its lack of momentum and physical attack power.
“
Boom!
” Half of the shadow’s upper body was blown to dozens of pieces. The lower body did not catch a break either, as Wu Xiaoming’s soapberry wood staff landed on its lower abdomen following a full upward swing. Glowing cracks shot through its lower body in an instant as it fell backwards, crumbling during its fall, then completely shattered on the ground.
Dark bristles sprouted from the ground, puncturing and sticking to the shattered pieces and began pulling them into the ground.
“Don’t you dare!” Wu Xiaoming barked and lunged forward, swinging both weapons down at the ground, targeting the area with the most bristles.
“
Boom
!” Wu Xiaoming backed off a few steps from the reaction force and to evade the bursting debris. A fiery crater appeared on the ground. Braids and ropes of dark hair were revealed, burning and smoking, as if they were steel bars or fiber optics buried underground.
“Now that’s interesting.” Wu Xiaoming took a deep breath before shaking both arms and readied himself with a bride grin.
Aiming at a wall to his left, with a lot of hair sticking out and connecting to the shadows in the hallway, Wu Xiaoming swung his tempered steel baton. The explosion tore the surface off the wall, exposing the treeroot-like hairs buried beneath. He put his soapberry wood staff in his left hand, concentrated his spirit in his right palm, and struck the hair with one shot of Palm Lightning.
“
Crack
!” The hairs in the hole were instantly charred, dark, lightning-shaped burn marks shot outward and spread across several door spaces, the entire floor around Wu Xiaoming and the ceiling above him.
Seeing that this had worked, Wu Xiaoming decided to repeat this combo a few times and not rush to the Queen’s Suite just yet. He had a hunch, that luring the spirit of Nicolas Sproutlinger out of the room would be a better fight for him.
“
Boom
!” “
Crack
!” “
Boom
!” “
Crack
!” Two more holes appeared on the wall, with charred lightning marks shooting out from them.
Wu Xiaoming took a look back, just in time to catch another human-shaped creature with a young man’s face floating into the hallway. Its body was soaking wet, with a full head of long hair falling down from the top of its head, covering the side of its ears and parts of its face.