Following the command, the three figures hanging from the ceiling lunged toward Asakura and the others.
As these monsters closed in, even if one didn't want to, one could see some details more clearly.
The headless monsters had thin and distorted torsos, their skin a deathly gray and dark brown, so thin it was almost pasted to their bones.
Their ribs were clearly visible, as if growing from within, attempting to pierce the cage of their skin.
Their limbs hung down, the positions of their joints unnaturally blurred, as if they were slowly melting, their clear outlines erased.
However, if one looked closely, one could still distinguish some strange details.
There was a faint outline on the dead-gray skin of their wrists, and similar marks around their necks; clearly, these monsters often wore accessories like watches and ties when they were 'alive'.
Considering that even though rescue efforts were underway, the authorities still stated that there were many missing persons whose 'fate remained unknown'.
Perhaps these few were also among the missing white-collar workers.
They bared their fangs and brandished their claws, pouncing toward Asakura.
Then, upon reaching a certain distance, they all turned into flying ash, scattering across the sky like gray butterflies fluttering in the narrow corridor.
"You are not an ordinary person?"
The old security guard was stunned, his face turning ashen, and he stared at Asakura and the others with vigilance.
"Guess."
Asakura slowly stepped forward.
Ruri followed closely behind.
Only Haruno sighed helplessly—after all, she was the real Muggle—and then quickly followed behind the two powerhouses.
"We don't need to be hostile."
The old security guard spread his hands and said, his expression suddenly becoming amiable: "You probably don't know, but actually, the one who died over there is the culprit behind all this. Three months ago, he suddenly approached me..."
"Save that for the police."
Asakura said.
The old security guard was choked up, looking displeased, but soon spread his hands to show he really had no hostility: "Fine, let's go to the police together."
"We will."
Asakura continued: "But before that, I have to turn you back into an ordinary person."
"Friend, there's no need to push someone into a dead end, right?"
The expression on the old security guard's face was becoming difficult to maintain.
"It's just becoming an ordinary person, how is that a dead end?"
Asakura reached out to catch a piece of falling ash: "Didn't you also not spare these people?"
"I said it already, the culprit is that guy over there! Him turning into that state is just deserts!"
The old security guard said hatefully.
"That's not necessarily true."
Asakura shook his head: "At least his notebook doesn't have records on how to extract others' blood, nor records on how to refine ordinary people into the kind of corpse puppets from just now."
After saying this, he took out the human skin book and waved it, staring at the old man: "You probably have something similar in your hands, right?"
The old security guard's Adam's apple bobbed, then quickly flattened.
He raised his hands with a dejected expression: "Fine, you win, I concede."
His cloudy old eyes stared at Asakura as he said: "Aren't you going to disable my power? Hurry up. But I still want to warn you, young man, don't be too arrogant..."
Asakura walked quickly toward the old man.
Just as he got within two meters of the other person.
A black substance like sludge suddenly pierced through the old security guard's skin, lunging out from his body, turning into a sharp blade to hack fiercely at Asakura's neck!
As a result, before it could touch Asakura's body, it was blocked by the invisible barrier [Scale].
"What the hell?!"
The old security guard cursed.
"I knew you weren't honest."
Asakura sneered.
His gaze swept over the black mud that had missed its strike and retracted back into the old security guard's body.
No, that was not black mud, but blood.
The plan of the unlucky guy on the magic circle earlier seemed to have been partially completed—indeed, some kind of supernatural creature had been summoned by him, and because of the power of black magic, it had been sewn into his body.
But this result did not make the unlucky guy gain supernatural power like a Stand; instead, his blood had 'come alive'.
After the unlucky guy suffered a backstab and backlash, his blood escaped from his body—the biggest reason the unlucky guy's corpse became so grotesque was likely this.
Then it was contained by the old security guard.
After all, no matter what that thing was before being summoned, since it chose to coexist with blood and become 'blood', it must spend a considerable amount of time in blood vessels, otherwise it would wither and disappear because it no longer met the definition of 'blood'.
Of course, maybe it could survive if made into something like blood tofu, but this supernatural creature clearly didn't have such knowledge.
The corpse puppet he had just created was instantly killed, and the old man's sneak attack on the young man, lacking martial ethics, was also easily blocked; the old security guard finally realized that he seemed to have no way to deal with Asakura.
Two black blood tentacles protruded from his back, replacing his aged legs to run rapidly toward the stairwell.
Then he slammed hard into the air wall at the stairwell, his head bloody.
"What is this?!"
The old security guard, who had never played games, stared dumbfounded at the stairs just a step away, and somewhat brokenly hammered the invisible wall in front of him with his hand.
"Didn't I say it,"
Asakura walked over leisurely: "I knew you weren't honest."
With Future Sight active, how could he let the other party escape? He had already laid the Magic Spell [Scale] in the stairwell and all the places the other party would flee to in several futures, including the ventilation ducts.
In fact, if not for Asakura being somewhat curious about the human skin book in the old man's hand, he could have burned him to ashes the moment the other party showed hostility.
There is also a gap between supernatural and supernatural.
"I... surrender..."
The moment he realized this, the old security guard slumped down.
Asakura amusedly watched a small piece of blood that the other party had secretly separated, crawling rapidly like a cockroach toward the ventilation duct to see if it could go that way, but after discovering the ventilation duct was also blocked, it could only sneakily crawl back to the main body.
"But please believe me, I am truly innocent, everything was done by that guy! I was just forced..."
The old man began to mutter: "Five years ago, I was still a big company employee, it was clearly said that I could stay in the big company for a lifetime, but just because the client was slightly dissatisfied, the management turned their backs on us and fired us old things... We lost our income at home and could only come to this kind of place to be a security guard. If that was all, it would be fine, but..."
"I have no interest in these."
Asakura chose to skip the villain's whitewashing sob story, "Hand over the book you have."
The old man was choked up, then somewhat reluctantly spread his hands, and black sludge-like blood protruded from his body, then spat out a small booklet wrapped in a plastic bag and handed it to Asakura.
Compared to the unlucky guy's human skin book, the old security guard's book looked much smaller, and the material of the cover looked much more normal.
But as soon as Asakura got his hands on it, he had a feeling that 'these two books are from the same source'.
Not only that, he also realized that there were probably more than two such books...
His own Nameless Magic Book agreed with his intuition and issued a mission.
[Find the complete set of "Artemia Advent Scripture" (2/3)]
In other words, there are a total of three of these damn things, and after collecting them all, one can summon that supernatural entity called 'Artemia'?
Then what exactly was the thing the unlucky guy summoned? And how did things like Siren Head come to this world?
Asakura pondered for a moment, then waved the small booklet in his hand toward the old security guard and asked: "There should be one more of these, right?"
"It's really gone."
The old man answered with a bitter face: "I stole this one from that guy too."
"Do you know where this guy's laboratory? Research institute?...In short, where his base is?"
Asakura asked again.
"It's right here."
The old man answered.
"..."
Only then did Asakura realize that among the miscellaneous items placed in the hallway to obstruct the view earlier, there were indeed many daily necessities and household trash.
Thinking about it, the old security guard didn't look like a rich man, so the place he could sponsor definitely wouldn't be very good.
So, should he try rummaging through the trash to see if there are any clues? Asakura weighed it in his mind.
Just at this moment, a burst of urgent phone ringing sounded.
Everyone was startled.
Immediately after, they all looked toward the source of the sound.
It was Haruno's phone.
She hurriedly answered the phone: "Hello?"
[Eldest Miss, the property rights of the building you asked us to investigate have been cleared up, it belongs to the Shinomiya family—]
Her bodyguard's voice came from the other side.
"No, there is no need anymore."
Haruno said.
After all, both the superficial culprit and the real culprit had been caught.
[Eh?]
The miserable voice of a working wage slave facing a client came from the other side.
Haruno, very much like a capitalist, ignored the other party's wailing, hung up the phone directly, and then nodded at Asakura.
"Don't mind me, Mr. Asakura can continue."
No, the slightly tense atmosphere from just now was ruined all at once! Now it was completely impossible to be serious.
As for the old security guard, perhaps Haruno's tone and demeanor reminded him of his experience when he was still working at a big company, his expression looked subtly unpleasant.
"In any case, let me turn you back into an ordinary person first."
Asakura thought for a moment, and still said to the old security guard first.
After all, many bosses in games and anime are always able to quietly escape punishment at the end due to various chaotic situations, facilitating the story for a sequel.
But Asakura had no interest in making a sequel, so ensuring that the other party had no ability to resist was a higher priority.
The old security guard's expression became even uglier.
"Is that one over there the Eldest Miss of the Yukinoshita Family?"
He suddenly asked.
"That has nothing to do with you, right."
Ruri blocked in front of Haruno—only because of her height, she couldn't block her at all, and even exposed half of her head.
"My previous company also collaborated with the Yukinoshita Family's industries."
The old man said loudly as if he could reminisce about the past.
Suddenly, Asakura took a fierce step forward, stomping heavily on the ground!
The next instant, the concrete laid on the ground was melted and burst open, revealing the electrical conduits inside.
Only, at this moment, the pipes inside were filled with strange, black sludge-like blood.
"At this point, are you still not going to come clean?"
"I'm not resigned to this! Why should brats from backgrounds like yours be able to ride on our heads and boss us around! I've worked at this company for forty years! When you were ordering me about, you hadn't even graduated yet!"
The old security guard looked at Haruno with a ferocious expression: "You caused me to fall to this state! I shouldn't have let him place the sacrifice here; I should have thrown it into the Yukinoshita Corporation building! I should have turned your whole family into food for the Evil God!"
"Your aggro is really high; that's so outdated."
Asakura turned his head to look at Haruno: "What did you do to this guy?"
"Sorry, I've offended too many small fries to remember them all. If I had to say,"
Haruno bowed to Asakura in apology, fully cooperating: "It was a mistake made when I was too young."
Seeing that Haruno didn't even glance at him, the old security guard was beyond furious.
"Don't forget what you've done! How could a willful, reckless young lady like you ever understand our pain!"
Haruno finally looked at him, and then…
"Pfft."
She flashed a smug, bratty grin.
"You b*tch, I'm going to kill you!"
The old security guard charged at her.
The next instant, he turned into a snake, able only to wriggle on the ground.
The next instant, the snake's body exploded, and black, mud-like strange blood rained down onto the ground, then scattered and fled like cockroaches.
Even Tsugikuni Yoriichi probably couldn't wipe out so many cockroaches in an instant.
But Asakura could.
He snapped his fingers gently, and almost all the black mud ignited.
In the end, only one lump remained, which he stepped under his foot.
Asakura looked around, then picked up the old security guard's security cap from the ground. Using the properties of the sword hidden within the cap, he pulled out a metal bottle, stuffed the last lump of strange blood from under his foot into it, and then applied the Magic Spell [Scale] to prevent it from escaping.
"Is this guy dead just like that?"
Haruno looked at the tattered snake corpse on the ground and frowned.
"Isn't this what you wanted?"
Asakura said casually.
"I… sorry." Haruno had just wanted to say something to argue her case, but immediately realized there was no point in arguing in this situation, so she decisively admitted her fault.
"It's fine, I didn't intend to let him live anyway," Asakura said.
Although Japan hasn't abolished the death penalty in the true sense, it is actually quite difficult to get a death sentence.
And in cases where someone causes death through supernatural means, it's impossible to be sentenced to any punishment due to a lack of evidence—this old guy might even walk out after staying in the police station for two days.
Asakura couldn't let a guy like this get away with it.
"However, there is still punishment," he continued.
"Please go easy on me," Haruno said with a charming smile.
Asakura kicked over the household trash nearby.
"Find out if there are any other books like this in there for me," Asakura said.
Haruno looked at the pile of garbage that had burst out of its bag and was beginning to emit a foul odor, her face filled with an expression like a female knight.
"Guh, just kill me."