The humanoid creature shot at Wu Xiaoming in midair just as Wu Xiaoming saw it. Its long hair flailed in the air, its two slender arms reaching out with pale, veiny fingers and arms, just like a floating ghost from horror movies.
Wu Xiaoming backed off and lowered his body just while the creature was about to grab him, barely evading the attack and grazed by the creature’s cold feet with sharp, dirty nails. He turned around and swung his soapberry wood staff, but hit nothing but air.
Several locks of thick hair shot out from the ceiling and the walls at the human-shaped creature, penetrating its arms, chest, shoulders and the top of its head. Grim energy began pouring through the hair and into the creature’s body.
Wu Xiaoming roared and lunged forward, there was simply no reason to hesitate or wait for whatever was happening in front of him to complete, and he had absolutely no interest in seeing how menacing or menacingly cool the shadow could be.
“
Bang
!” “
Boom
!” The strike shattered the human-shaped creature’s body, sending the broken pieces flying down the hallway. The hairs cracked, burst and flail around like ripped garden hoses, chilling light green energy shot from them and basically sprayed into all directions possible. Light green and blue fog formed in the air, with light purple sparks glistening inside.
Wu Xiaoming waved his hands in the air, with his palms glowing in golden light. The fog and the grim energy was pushed back, and before long, the locks of hair shriveled like wilted grass and tree branches and began pulling back into the walls and ceiling
Wasting no time, Wu Xiaoming shot at the wall closest to him with a thick lock of hair protruding. He swung both weapons at the wall, exploding a giant hole in it and breaking the hair before it could fully retreat into the wall.
He shot at another wall, swinging both weapons into it and exploding another hole just when a lock of hair almost disappeared into the wall. In the hole, the treeroot-like hairs were squirming and moving away like escaping worms, but not fast enough to not catch a shot of palm lightning.
“
Crack
!” “
Crack
!” This time the lightning burn marks shot out wider, and the color was darker. More importantly, more of the surface cracked up, with the smell of burned hairs permeating through the air.
Right this moment, the hairs connecting to these the bodies of the lingering shadows began to retract as well. Many of these shadows started to dissipate the moment the hairs disconnected, and the others just simply scattered, as if they were escaping.
But they couldn’t go far - many of them were thrown back into the hallway when they tried to go through the walls and through the rooms on the side. So they changed course and flooded towards the door to the fire escape stairs.
“Fucking hotel! You fucking filthy shithole!” Wu Xiaoming marched forward and swung his weapons at the “roots” of some of the hairs closest to him. An even bigger hole appeared on the wall, and three heavy cracks expanded from the edge of the hole, revealing more area under the surface.
Another shot of palm lightning struck the center of the hole, right at a knot of hair underneath. Electric sparks shot out from the initial spot of contact, and right after, lightning marks tore through the entire wall and the entire ceiling above him. A few pieces of drywall, brick and wood fell down and almost hit him.
Wu Xiaoming swung his weapons two more times, delivered two more palm lightning strikes and ruined almost an entire section of the hallway before he stopped before the spot where he found the Queen’s Suite.
“Come out here, Nicolas Sproutlinger.” Wu Xiaoming raised his voice at the Queen’s Suite, which was not blocked behind the facade, but had its door open, with all the right interior decorations almost unchanged. The carpet, the sofa, the bed with all of its luxurious, expensive looking bedding, even the phonograph. A contrast that could not be more stark. And another clear indication that it would be a very bad idea to go in there.
But, no answer. Even after he tore another hole on the wall behind him and obliterated the hairs buried under.
“Nicolas? Nico? Nick? Sproutlinger? Sproutling? Linger? Sprout?” Wu Xiaoming tried a wide variety of names: “Mr. Sproutlinger? Norman Sproutlinger’s son?”
No answer.
“Spirit? Fucking liar?” Wu Xiaoming barked again: “I’m here for your eyeball medicines!”
Still no answer.
He could in theory try to shoot some Golden Light spells into the room. But too bad, every drop of “mana” he had was important, and after that many shots of Palm Lightning, he was pretty certain he was almost completely out without checking his character panel, and he needed to save the juice for more of his fights.
He needed to do something that would lure the spirit of Nicolas Sproutlinger out of there. Or, if he could do so, anger it out of there.
He thought for a brief moment and tried a few other derogatory names to call Nicolas Sproutlinger - none of which worked. Then there was only one choice - an item he had in his inventory for a while, whose effect was particularly strange but might just be the right fit now.
“Slogan Board of Untruths: a board with slogans, once the symbol of the ambition to innovate, but had become a cruel representation of irony. It took in spits, scoffs and mockery, and it gave nothing in return. Absorbs moderate amounts of negative energy; Irritates unclean beings.”
He flashed his item panel in front of him within the shortest amount of time he could pull off, and held the slogan board that was quite common in the physical realm’s office spaces in his hand.
“Be kind.” “Be bold.” “Be disrupting.” Three lines of text written with different mixes of color-changing paint. The moment this board with a thin wooden frame and a glass panel appeared, voices with what sounded like forced motivation and passion.
With his eyes fixed on the door and interior of the Queen’s Suite, Wu Xiaoming walked forward a few steps and placed the board in front of the door.
In just a moment, more voices began resounding in the hallway. It was as if at least a dozen big meetings were happening all at once.
“Remember, in our company, we are a big family! And family support and take care of each other!”
“I would like to simply re-iterate, though this is a very challenging time for all of us, but we will not give up on anyone.”
“And following the great news that the company has wrapped up the best year since we have been in business, it would be a good chance to announce to everyone, that we are going to take our innovation to the next level!”
“... it is one of our core missions as the office operations department to make sure that this is a harmonious, positive and toxicity-free working environment …”
Wu Xiaoming shook his head and smacked himself in the face a few times just to regain his focus and to push out the frustration and anger aroused by these voices - it was as if they came directly from his past memories, from the company executives and department heads.
A breath of cold, foul air gushed from the entrance to the Queen’s Suite. Shortly, the figure of a man with shriveled skin, dried muscles and two eyeless sockets on his face shot out from the suite and slammed his fist down at the slogan board. “You shut your mouth, Norman!” A hoarse, slightly distorted voice barked.
Wu Xiaoming’s soapberry wood staff closed in on the figure’s left ear just as its fist cracked the glass and punctured the paper with slogans inside. After a loud crack, the figure was thrown into the air towards Wu Xiaoming’s left.
Wu Xiaoming lunged forward for another attack. But the figure just turned into smoke in the air and shot upwards, in an attempt to pass over him and fly back into the suite. Wu Xiaoming stomped on the ground and leapt up and slightly backwards, his left hand swinging upwards and landing a hit right in the middle of the stream of smoke.
“
Boom
!” Wu Xiaoming was pushed onto the ground by the shockwave, while the figure was forced out of its smoke state and slammed against the wall on the side.
Wu Xiaoming shot up just as the figure slid down on the wall. Smoke gathered in the figure’s hands, a long two-handed long sword manifested and thrust at Wu Xiaoming’s chest. Alarms blared in Wu Xiaoming’s mind the moment the smoke appeared, he sidestepped to the best of his abilities.
The tip and blade of the sword slashed a long but shallow wound on Wu Xiaoming’s left waist before the tempered steel baton slapped it away. The next moment, the sole of Wu Xiaoming’s right foot collided with the face of the figure and pushed its head into the wall.
Wu Xiaoming swung his soapberry wood staff down at the figure’s chest, then he stomped on the figure’s chest with all his might.
“Boom!”
A shockwave exploded from the creature’s body and threw Wu Xiaoming into the wall on the opposite side.