137: Chapter 137 This isn't called Blood Escape, it's called Aerosol

Inside the morgue of the Donghai City Central Hospital, the air was bone-chillingly cold.

Su Yang stared at the corpse before him, which was twitching slightly from the injected Devilish Qi. The expression on his face shifted from anticipation to disdain, eventually settling into a look of profound disgust.

"Trash!"

He kicked the morgue drawer, sending the corpse that had just shown signs of movement back into the depths of the freezer.

"The quality of the dead these days is pathetic." Su Yang looked at his pale palms, his brow furrowed. "They all reek of medicinal dregs, and their resentment dissipates faster than a fart. Blood Puppets refined from such Materials—let alone blocking a rocket launcher—would likely fail to even withstand that Gu Changan's Taser."

He needed more potent Materials.

Fresh ones.

Warm ones.

Living human essence blood, brimming with the extreme terror and despair felt at the moment of death.

Su Yang walked out of the morgue, the cold Evil Qi clinging to him even heavier than before. Old Wang at the entrance was still busy counting money, completely oblivious to the man-eating red glint in the eyes of this "Young Master."

Back in the Rolls-Royce, Su Yang leaned back in the seat, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the armrest.

"Since the dead are useless, I'll just have to create them myself."

He glanced at the bodyguard driving the car. The man had been arranged by Attorney Zhang—a retired special forces soldier, physically strong and robust.

A cruel arc curled onto Su Yang's lips.

"Stop the car."

The bodyguard was stunned and looked out the window. "Young Master Su, we're still on the elevated highway..."

"I said, stop the car."

His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a chill that seeped into the marrow. The bodyguard subconsciously slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a halt in the emergency lane.

Su Yang leaned forward, his blood-red eyes locked onto the bodyguard's gaze.

"Look at me."

The bodyguard felt his brain buzz, as if someone had stuffed a tangled mess into his mind, and his consciousness instantly blurred.

Three seconds later, the bodyguard restarted the car, but his gaze had turned dull and vacant, like a marionette.

"Go to the west side of the city." Su Yang closed his eyes, savoring the pleasure of controlling another. "In those abandoned, unmanaged building complexes, there should be plenty of homeless people."

Three days later.

The Intelligence Analysis Center of the Donghai City Bureau of Anomalous Affairs.

Gu Changan held a cup of goji berry tea as he stood before a massive electronic map. On the map, over a dozen red warning markers were lit up across an area in the west side of the city.

"Boss, something's not right."

Chen Xiaobei, sporting dark circles under his eyes, projected a file onto the large screen. "A case just transferred from the Criminal Investigation Detachment. Over the past three days, thirteen people have gone missing in the slums and several abandoned construction sites on the west side."

"The missing are all homeless people, scavengers, or elderly individuals living alone."

"The crime scenes are pristine—no signs of a struggle, no blood, and even footprints were wiped clean. The only commonality is a faint... stench of decay lingering in the air."

Gu Changan blew on the goji berries floating on the surface of his tea and took a sip.

"A stench of decay?"

"Yes. The lab analyzed the air samples. The composition is highly complex, smelling like rotting viscera mixed with some kind of... high-concentration metallic rust."

Gu Changan set down his cup, his gaze instantly turning sharp.

"That's not the smell of rust; it's the scent of blood."

He walked to the screen and drew a line across the red dots with his finger.

"Targeting only the homeless, picking exclusively on society's marginalized. This is typical Demonic Technique thinking." Gu Changan sneered. "A thousand years ago, this was called 'taking base lives as offerings to the Heavens,' because they viewed these lives as mere blades of grass, believing that if a batch died, it wouldn't draw the government's attention."

"But this old ghost has forgotten that this is the era of big data."

Gu Changan turned around, the hem of his long coat whipping up a gust of wind.

"Did any surveillance capture suspicious vehicles at the times these thirteen people went missing?"

Chen Xiaobei tapped away at his Keyboard. "I checked. Although there's no surveillance in the slums, very few vehicles have entered or exited that area over the past three days. After cross-referencing, only one minivan with fake plates enters and leaves at exactly 2:00 AM every day."

"Track that vehicle."

"Locked on!" Chen Xiaobei slammed the Enter key. "It was last seen in the northern suburbs of Donghai City, at a chemical plant that shut down five years ago."

The screen instantly switched. The satellite map zoomed in on the abandoned chemical plant, overgrown with weeds and looking utterly lifeless.

However, when Chen Xiaobei switched to [Life Magnetic Field Detection Mode], the entire command hall fell silent.

In the center of the gray factory building, a glaring, dark-red spot of light was pulsing violently. It wasn't the magnetic field of just one or two people; it was the incredibly faint life signals of over a dozen individuals, forced together by a massive, evil energy field.

Even more terrifying was the red light shooting straight into the sky above the factory—invisible to the naked eye, yet looking like a colossal pillar of blood.

"These readings..." Chen Xiaobei gulped. "The radiation levels are five hundred times over the limit. Is he conducting a nuclear test in there?"

"No." Gu Changan pulled his peaked cap down over his head, his eyes as cold as ice. "He's performing a blood sacrifice."

"Using the essence blood of thirteen living people to forcibly break through the suppression of the rules of Heaven and Earth and restore his cultivation."

Gu Changan grabbed the radio off the table, his voice steady and forceful as it echoed throughout the entire station.

"All Special Task Force units, Level One combat readiness."

"Target: Abandoned chemical plant in the northern suburbs."

"Bring heavy weapons. No Tasers this time; pull the man-portable thermobaric bombs and flamethrowers out of the warehouse for me."

"To think he'd dare to conduct such an anti-human ritual on my turf." Gu Changan strode out of the command hall. "I'll show him what 'environmental law enforcement' really means."

Northern suburbs, abandoned chemical plant. This place was once a dye production workshop, the floor covered in dried, colorful stains. But today, those stains were covered by a much more vibrant red.

A massive reactor had been hollowed out and converted into a blood pool five meters in diameter. Viscous liquid churned within the pool, emitting a nauseating, cloying, fishy stench. Directly above the pool, thirteen figures hung from iron hooks on the overhead beams, like a row of livestock waiting to be slaughtered.

Their wrists had been sliced open, and fresh blood dripped from their fingertips, pitter-pattering into the pool below.

Su Yang sat cross-legged on a floating board in the center of the blood pool. He was no longer wearing his tattered suit, but was instead draped in a robe pieced together from the clothes of the dead. With every drop of blood from above, his previously pale complexion was becoming flush with color at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Wonderful..." Su Yang took a deep breath, an expression of intoxication on his face. "This is the taste of the living. Fear, despair, pain... these emotions mixed into the blood are the best catalysts for a Demonic Technique."

He opened his eyes. They were no longer the dark red from before, but had shifted to an eerie, vibrant crimson, as if they could suck a person's soul right in.

The bodyguard stood by the pool, guarding the door with a vacant gaze, still holding a newly captured homeless person.

"Hang him up, too." Su Yang pointed casually. "This makes it a round number: fourteen. It fits the Tiangang number of Evil perfectly."

The bodyguard numbly dragged the still-struggling homeless man toward the ladder.

The homeless man was so terrified he lost control of his bladder and bowels, crying and begging for mercy. "Boss! Don't kill me! I'm just a beggar! My meat doesn't taste good!"

"Shut up." Su Yang frowned and flicked his finger, a streak of blood-colored Qi sealing the homeless man's mouth.

"To become the resources for my restored cultivation is a blessing you've cultivated over eight lifetimes. When I return to my Peak, all the common people in this world shall kneel at my feet. You ants are dying for a worthy cause."

He stood up and spread his arms, feeling the power gradually awakening within his body.

Foundation Establishment... he was only one step away from returning to the Foundation Establishment Stage! When that time came, Gu Changan, the Bureau of Anomalies—all of them would become nutrients in this blood pool!

"A blessing?" Suddenly, a cold voice rang out through the air.

This voice didn't come from the door or the window; instead, it boomed directly into Su Yang's ears via dozens of miniature bugs that had long since been planted on the factory ceiling.

Su Yang looked up abruptly, his pupils constricting.

"Su Yang, what you call a 'blessing' is legally classified as attempted murder."

Gu Changan's voice boomed through a loudspeaker, carrying a massive echo that sent dust from the factory ceiling raining down.

"Furthermore, you've engaged in illegal construction on state-owned industrial land and are operating a slaughterhouse without a wastewater discharge permit—all of which are serious violations of the Environmental Protection Act."

Rumble— The roar of massive helicopter propellers drowned out everything else.

Su Yang looked up abruptly. Countless beams of blinding light suddenly pierced through the holes in the factory roof. Three armed helicopters hovered at low altitude, their massive searchlights illuminating the entire workshop as if it were broad daylight.

"Snipers, in position." Gu Changan's voice was cold and ruthless.

"As long as those victims are still breathing, rescue them at all costs."

"As for that charlatan..."

"Authorization to use heavy firepower granted."