Chapter 909: City of Hope
“I wonder how long I’ve been asleep. Hopefully, the kids haven’t done anything stupid.” The kids were not monsters but Han Fei’s best friends. Han Fei resisted the pain and climbed up from the ground. He looked around. He was lying in the ruins of the fleshy underworld. Broken flesh covered his body.
“Where’s Ah Nian?” Ah Nian was gone. Han Fei tried to use the black band to contact him, but his band was too severely broken. Han Fei took a deep breath and was about to take a step forward when the ground shook. The fleshy ground collapsed as Big Sin crawled out. While Han Fei was unconscious, it had been protecting Han Fei. The giant body stomped around Han Fei. The whole world shook, but Big Sin didn’t care. Even though it looked scary, it thought it was just a cutie around Han Fei.
“Have you seen the man who came with me?” Han Fei rubbed Big Sin’s head. After his latest awakening, he finally felt more like Big Sin’s master. Big Sin pointed down the horizon. It was where Hope City was. Han Fei had a bad feeling. He sat on Big Sin and flew towards Sky Garden.
“Hopefully, there’s still time…” No ghost dared to stop him. 40 minutes later, he appeared at the door to Sky Garden. Compared to when he left, this place had changed tremendously. All the numbers on the doors were gone. Gao Xing’s wife sensed Han Fei’s presence and expanded her ghost territory. Red ropes intertwined around the building. Endless dead bodies were tied to them. It was hard to associate Gao Xing’s wife with gentleness.
“I can’t believe you manage to find my humanity. It looks like Gao Xing is really in big trouble, or else he wouldn’t have allowed the things he used to threaten his wife and mother to go.” The woman said. Gao Xing’s wife walked out of a bloodred door. She was clearly different from the Pure Hatred in this world. Her black flame burned with hatred against Gao Xing.
“Has Ah Nian given the flower of humanity to you?” Han Fei was happy to see that Gao Xing’s wife had regained her humanity. This meant that he had another powerful ally.
Gao Xing’s wife nodded and cut open her chest. At the spot where the heart should be was a small rose. The rose was enveloped by black flame. The thorny roots crawled into her soul. “You’ve completed our deal. The souls representing Gao Xing’s past and present have been killed. I’ll tell you where his future is hiding.”
“The kid representing his past is dead too?!” Han Fei was highly focused. This was the last step.
“The soul representing Gao Xing’s future is hidden deep inside Zone A. There’s a building there called Immortal Skyscraper. Gao Xing’s key altar is there as well.” The bodies on the red rope tried to struggle, to stop Gao Xing’s wife from talking. However, she was not afraid of them anymore. “What I need to tell you is that to enter that building, you need to go to another building to find Gao Xing’s weakness.”
“Even God has weaknesses?”
“Of course. That building is the start of Gao Xing’s nightmare. It is Third Optometrist Hospital.” Gao Xing’s wife said. “Remember. Only by finding out Gao Xing’s weakness that you can kill his future.”
“Understood.” Han Fei memorized the woman’s words. “I still need to trouble you to look after the survivors of Zone A. I need their support. It’s crucial to help us take down the altar.”
“Haven’t you realized that the number of survivors at my home has increased?” Gao Xing’s wife said impatiently. “The Pure Hatreds from Zone A are moving to Hope City. I am collecting the survivors they’ve trapped. The final number will be more than 20,000.”
“There are so many living humans in Zone A?!” Han Fei was shocked.
“You have an overly optimistic view of the goodness of humanity. Once a person’s mental corruption gets over 30 percent, they will be kicked out of the humanity bases. Zone A has a lot of crazy stragglers. Some of them became Pure Hatred’s toys, and others were turned into new ghosts.” Gao Xing’s wife pulled on the blood rope. Some of the survivors bumped against the doors. They acted less and less like humans. “When humans want to be cruel, they can be a lot more heartless to their own kind than the ghosts.”
“I’ll leave the survivors with you. I need to go to Hope City. When I deal with the situation there, we’ll hunt Gao Xing’s future together.” Han Fei still hadn’t contacted his teammates because his band had broken. He didn’t know the situation at Hope City.”
“I’d advise you not to go.” Gao Xing’s wife said. “It had been 3 days since you left for Gu Yang Tian Nian home. While you were gone, Hope City sunk into complete chaos. Pure Hatreds from Zone A and B are attacking the city. The Tragedy Investigation Center and Freedom Port have sent reinforcements. The war is getting bigger. It has gone fully out of control.”
“Isn’t the sacrifice supposed to happen on God’s birthday? Why is it happening earlier?” Han Fei was confused.
“There was a group of courageous people who slaughtered Gao Xing’s past and took over the figurines and sacrificed the Pure Hatreds prepared for Gao Xing. I heard from the survivors that they are of an unknown origin. No one has claimed them, but one thing’s for sure. They are still inside Hope City.” Gao Xing’s wife walked towards Han Fei. “Your friend also left for Hope City after he returned me my flower of humanity. He and the black merchants wanted to save more people during the chaos.”
Hope City was basically a meat grinder. Han Fei knew the severity of the situation. After he bade farewell to Gao Xing’s wife, he hurried to Hope City. After the tragedy, major cities were taken over by ghosts. Humans could barely defend themselves, much less take back their homes. Han Fei arrived near Hope City around noon. Even from afar, he could smell the blood in the air. The sky was covered by ghost territory. Not a bit of light could shine through the city. The temperature was much lower here than anywhere else.
As he walked further, the ground was dyed red in blood. With every step came the wails of spirits.
“I’ve come too late…”
The buffer zone had been taken over by ghosts. Not a single living soul could be seen. The end of the buffer zone was an unimaginably large ghost territory. He wondered how many Pure Hatreds cooperated in covering Hope City in ghost territory.
“They plan to go all in.”
There were abandoned cars everywhere in the buffer zone. The center and Freedom Port came to support at first notice, but even they couldn’t stop the tragedy and retreated behind the city.
Currently, around 80 percent of humanity’s persona users were gathered at Hope City. If the blood sacrifice were successful, then humanity had no chance at all. Humans would always be ghosts’ food, toys, and reproduction tools.
Han Fei walked towards the ghost territory. There were more than ghosts here. There were a lot of abandoned humans. After they were abandoned, they became the helpers of ghosts.
Stepping on the road paved with meat, Han Fei paused at the edge of the city. He couldn’t contact anyone, but he didn’t mean to retreat.
“The students are in there. I need to help them.”