“These are my antique s! My god! I’ve spent so mu these! I’m ting on their resale value to buy a neartment!” The owner of the i cafe cried and whined holding the string of s in his hand. After what happehe s had a few cracks on them and from the looks of them they were on the brink of falling apart.

  “I’m sorry, Boss. But you should feel fortunate, if it weren’t for these s you might not have been able to make it out alive.” The chubby man patted the owner on his shoulder.

  “What did you see when you were in the illusion?” Gloria looked around the windows to che the status outside - it seemed there was nothing eerie outside, and the Blood Rainbow had all but disappeared.

  “I - I don’t remember.” The owner of the i cafe shook his head, then looked to the other two who also fell into illusion earlier. They also shook their heads and shrugged. All three of them were sweating through their clothes. The sickly middle aged man was coughing, and before anyone could ask, he stood up and rushed to the bathroom and started makig sounds.

  “Now, stay inside, don’t move. And light up some more inse if you o.” Gloria checked the windows once again, grabbed her things ao the door.

  “Wait!? Are you getting out?” The young man with a blue strip in his hair asked: “Isn’t this a little dangerous?”

  “It should be good now.” Gloria nodded and cracked the door open by a hair. A bit of cold night wind blew in and through her fingers, she used her Qi to sehe energy in the air, and she could not feel anything. “Yeah, I’ll be out quickly. You hang in there. If you’re worried, call the collective watd patrol team.”

  “No! That’s not safe!! You ’t leave!” The young man cried out: “What if we have something ing at us again? What if they e in again?”

  “Yeah, use the s again.” Gloria shrugged: “I think you still use them a few more times. They’re cracked and won’t see a good priyway.”

  There was an unmissable smell of salty water, wet dirt and rotten aqua weeds in the air outside. And even from afar, she could see the slowly fading foot and hand prints on the ground. They seemed to be made of mainly dirty water, and there was not anything or anyone around that would indicate where they came from, other thaer itself.

  “Shit.” Gloria looked around again, there were a few older warehouses that had colpsed. It seemed there was a fight in the area, with some discarded makeshift ons lying on the ground. And most important of all, was that there were a few bodies lying around as well, in the rubbles.

  She hesitated for a moment, then decided to go in to take a closer look, with her phoaken out ready to call Gyuu Park and Sue. There was no signal on her pho all

  The closest body to her was that of a young shirtless man lying on his chest with his arms grabbing the crevices and bumps on the ground. His face was frozen in a twisted state of horror, his tongue fell on the t floor, decayed and bed. The tips of his fingers were bloodied and torn, as if something or someone was trying to pull him away while he was sliding on the hard surface of the docks area.

  The closest body was clearly that of a local gangster, as his body was covered in tattoos mostly ong high tier gang members. There was a broken sword o his hand, and his chest was pletely torn open, exposing the bloody, empty messes of chest and stomach cavities. She averted her eyes, for she doubted she could find anything useful without incriminating herself by iigating this body that had his spine revealed through the front.

  Between this body and the ohat was further away, one seemed to be mostly intact, there was a trail of blood and some bloody footprints, leading up to a side area on the docks. Gloria immediately stamped forward and checked the edge of the docks ptform.

  This tform that was elevated from the surface of the water, and the trail of blood and bloody footprints led up right into a tunnel on the side. When she looked around making sure that there was no one around her, a figure standing over mostly intact body almost made her jump and throw fists.

  The figure did not do anything threatening, though, he just poi the dire of the tunnel, before something dragged him into the water.

  “Fug hell.” Gloria checked her phone again - there was still no signal. So she crafted a message and clicked “Sent” to both Sue and Gyuu Park, so that whehe signal was back the message would go out befoing in.

  The tunnel was dark, and the smell of blood somehow got stronger from ihere was another foul smell that stood out even more, a smell of what she could assume was exposed innards of humans. She infused her Qi ints a so that she could lighten her footsteps. She did the same with her fingers and eyes, so that she could see more clearly in the dark tunnel and grab the slippery wall to maintain bance.

  The smell of blood and human insides grew stronger. Something was close, and she could feel it.

  Ing inside and past a turn, Gloria saw a man in a ragged jacket and with blood all over his waist area and pants. Strangely, this man was still standing, even though his eyes were closed, and his breathing pattern indicated that he had probably passed out already.

  There was a messy torn hand on the far side of the tunnel in front of her, and there were strips of flesh floating ier. She snuck over, and the se made her stomach rumble - though she had seey of gruesome bodies, this was still the first time she saw people being torn up and shredded like this. pared to the two or three or maybe four individuals that perished here, the man with his torso hollowed out got a fortunate a death.

  Without a moment of doubt, Gloria doubled bad held onto the man that was still alive. Hopefully he could provide ao her questions. Or at least, he could tell Gloria what happened.