Dark smoke gathered around the figure’s body, wrapping the shoulders, the chest and the upper arms like a layer of armor. No - it actually became the armor on its body, covering up its weak points, especially the glowing cracks on its chest.
“Die!” Wu Xiaoming lunged forward again before the figure could fully construct its armor set or pick up its sword. Both his weapons shot down at it, starting off wider apart and closing in on its shoulders.
“
Boom!
” “
Crack
!” The smoke armor shattered, the residual force and momentum on the weapons almost completely broke the upper body of the figure.
Cold, sharp pain came from his lower left abdomen. Wu Xiaoming looked down - it was a dagger made of shadow, on whose handle was the shadow's right hand. With gritted teeth, he pulled back and delivered another kick on the figure’s head, pushing it back into the same hole on the wall.
“
Crack
!” A full powered strike of palm lightning struck the figure on its chest. The lightning energy shot into the figure’s dried up body, bursting it open and igniting it from inside.
Smoke, dark liquid and treeroot-like debris shot from the figure’s body - through open wounds, eye sockets, nostrils and even earholes. More smoke arose as the filth excreted from the figure’s wounds.
Just to be safe, Wu Xiaoming raised the soapberry wood staff and struck the figure’s head again. Glowing cracks shot downward from the top of its head, covering its neck and shoulders, connecting with the existing cracks on its right shoulder and chest.
With foul smoke and crumbling pieces scattering all over the ground, the figure finally looked like it was no longer a threat.
Wu Xiaoming backed off a few steps to catch his breath. The smoke dagger had already begun dissipating, so he just pulled it out and used the last few drops of his spirit to conjure golden light on his palms to cleanse his wounds.
The slogan board was completely shattered in the fight - no longer usable. Still, it having an effect on himself was a terrifying reminder that him, either from being in this realm or being in this place with evil energy, had become “unclean”.
Just as he let out a long breath of relief, new memory flashbacks assaulted his mind and senses. This time it seemed to be coming from none other than the figure itself.
“Give it a rest, Nicolas, you’re too old for that already.” A man stood in front of Wu Xiaoming, speaking a different language, maybe German, but Wu Xiaoming understood it perfectly. “Someday, you are expected to help run this hotel, and my other ventures. ”
“Oh yeah, brother, you are TOTALLY going to find someone - maybe someone who can see them just like you did?” A young woman giggled: “You know, just don’t tell her like you told us, because she’ll find out too soon.”
“Nicolas, you have some talent, and you sure have the right potential and connections, but you are not ready.” This time it was a man in a hood: “You need more time and practice. You are not ready to make contact - in fact, you are far from ready.”
“What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me?” A familiar crying woman’s face appeared in front of Wu Xiaoming, bleeding from her eyes, as her eyeballs gradually glowing brighter with an unsettling orange and red light: “Help me - I don’t - I don’t want to see this… HELP ME!” She screamed, before blinding red light blinded Wu Xiaoming.
“What are you doing to her! ” “What have you done!?” “What the hell! This is not what we signed up for!” “What is this medicine made of!? Don’t you dare tell another lie! ” Several voices surrounded Wu Xiaoming, different faces, pale and cracked. He recognized two out of the several - in fact he just had an actual encounter with them, only that they were stuck onto those pale humanoid creatures.
The ground shook, the faces retreated in a momentary panic. A red and orange orb of light flashed above their heads. In but a moment, the entire world darkened.
Around three seconds later, several pairs of eyes glowing orange and red appeared in front of him. Those people who had been swarming him earlier, now showing the same symptom of the woman earlier. But the only difference was that glowing cracks began crawling from their eyes through their faces.
The next moment, their faces opened up like paper boxes with irregular lids, each producing a glowing ball of orange and red light - the ghost flames that exploded in one of his previous visits.
The next moment, Wu Xiaoming’s own body began glowing as well. The blood in his veins began burning, the hairs on his entire body stood up, and his eyes, they began to open uncontrollably. Not in the literal sense, because they were already open. But the sight of the suite, they began to flash between its normal look, and a dark, gray and empty version of it.
The ethereal realm. Wu Xiaoming was more than familiar with it right now, but inside this memory, “Wu Xiaoming” was shocked and horrified beyond belief, all while being filled with ecstasy, of finally seeing, and finally “making contact”.
He turned his eyes on the nightstand on which the phonograph was placed. Inside a hidden compartment between the drawers was a book with a thick cover - a cover with a touch that felt like some kind of raw animal hide, or worst case scenario, human skin. And strangely, it seemed to be present both in the physical realm and the ethereal realm, in the same spot.
“Poof!” The entire book burst into orange and red flames, in both realms. The flames burned brighter and fiercer, within a frame of just a few seconds, it became a bright ball of energy, with beams of light shooting out from it and into the space outside the window.
The interior of the room flashed to the ethereal realm version of it for a prolonged moment, then an overwhelming shadow was cast over the entire hotel building. The next thing Wu Xiaoming saw, was a giant hand with fingers the size of train carriages closing in on the suite, its palm and fingertips passing cleanly through the building as if it was only a hologram.
The flashbacks finally stopped. Wu Xiaoming regained his focus, and pushed down the attempts of the other flashbacks to take over his attention - it was simply not the time for it. How long they could be “buffered” or “cached” in his mind, he did not know. But right now he’d rather lose the flashbacks than the fight.
The real life interior of the Queen’s Suite was covered in glowing cracks the moment Wu Xiaoming laid eyes on it. The very next moment, the facade crumbled, collapsed and drifted off by wind - wind he could not feel.
The door to the suite lit up and expanded like a gaping mouth. The next moment, before Wu Xiaoming could do anything, an invisible force snatched him into the suite. Just as he made it through the door, the space opened up - the ceiling and walls around him disappeared, and he was exposed directly to the chilling and gray night sky. For a moment he thought he was standing on the top of the hotel building. But the lone building he was standing on, and the complete absence of other buildings around him just reminded him that he was not.
A human-shaped pale creature manifested in front of Wu Xiaoming at an intangible distance. From where he stood, as tall as the building itself and as far as the creature was from him, he needed to look up to see the creature’s face.
Sickly pale, smooth eyeless face with a vertical slit in the middle. Its body was of the same color, smooth, slender, taller than the highest skyscraper or mountain he had ever seen. Part of the creature’s body was in the veil of darkness, obscuring the creature’s back and most of its lower body.
It was an eyeless creature, but a sight locked onto Wu Xiaoming. Cold, emotionless, uncaring and full of indifference and disregard, but freezing Wu Xiaoming in his place.
Should it make a move, the darkness would rumble, the world would break, and the most miniscule whisper of the fallout would spell his death.