He saw the shadow, and the shadow saw him as well. The shadow's glowing eyes fixed on Wu Xiaoming, a wide and menacing smile appeared on his face. It stepped forward, just as black smoke intensified around its body, as well as seeping from its eyes, nostrils and ears.
Wu Xiaoming immediately ran against the shadow with the baton in hand.
The aura around the house burned off some of the black smoke coming off the shadow's body as well as some surface area of the shadow's body. But before it could encroach any further, Wu Xiaoming's baton already reached its face, imbued with his rage, as well as fear.
"Poof!" The fiery dark red energy disintegrated the shadow, turning it into traces of smoke in the air.
Wu Xiaoming looked around, then ran along the road from the gate of the community to his father's house, just to make sure nothing followed the dark shadow of Nicolas Sproutlinger.
"Fuck! FUCK!" Wu Xiaoming could only stomp the ground and curse. The shadow was here, which meant that whatever unclean being was inside of the hotel had followed him home. Did he bring it home? He could not put his mind into thinking what the implications were, or what had put everything into motion. Things had happened already, and he needed to find a way to resolve it. He simply must.
The aura protecting the house already proved that it might not be as effective as he had thought. So the only option he had for now would be - either fortify the protection of the house, or to resolve the curse, the mark, or whatever it was that was tracking them.
He COULD potentially convince his father and brothers to stay put in the house, or ask for help. But he did not even know how to start the conversation, not to mention the very real possibility that they might realize he was not actually the Wu Xiaoming they knew and remembered, and thus making them less safe.
Run? This idea flashed through his head but was quickly killed. He even felt a burning shame just by simply realizing it popped up.
After sitting by the road and taking a few deep breaths, a silver lining came to his mind: at least for now, the deaths from the Sproutlinger Hotel all happened inside it. And according to the history he knew of it, no strange outside deaths were linked to it - aside from those unfortunate incidents connected to the Room of Wandering Dream.
Strength and power. He needed strength and power. And right now, the path to both laid right in front of him. He just needed to be a gamer, a grinder, more skill points which meant more powerful skills, which meant more able to handle and deal with whatever unclean being inside the Sproutlinger Hotel.
With the last deep breath out of his lungs, he rushed towards the house with the jump point on top, this time with much more intent and determination.
Two groups of imps tried to ambush him, only to get obliterated right away. Two human shadows inside of faux bear suits also tried, and got destroyed as well. He jumped to the top of the Woodside Hotel again and defeated the two skeletons guarding the roof - he picked up only the bone arrows because the bow and the spare morningstars from the skeletons all fell down the building as he blasted both of them off the edge of the roof.
He jumped back to the roof of the office building and did a sweep of the two similarly designed buildings - the zombies respawned, but the spider creature did not, and neither did the crooked woman with arms of different lengths on the street.
He ran back to the residential area and swept all the houses - only to find a few harmless ghostly shadows of past residents and pets.
The tree creature in the illusion inside the Emerson house was almost completely incapacitated by an angry strike from the baton. With a little bit more than half of its body left, it attempted to mount a final, desperate strike at Wu Xiaoming, but was simply blasted into smithereens by a second strike, while the furnace did not even explode yet. Disappointingly, killing it earlier did not yield better rewards.
Never did he realize how empty the ethereal realm was until he began grinding. It had been only a few hours at most, and it seemed he still had time. So he just continued on his mission to explore the path to the Sproutlinger Hotel in this realm - the more he could learn about that place, the better prepared he would be.
Current currencies: 20865 Spirit Fragments, 103 Vision Slivers. Not bad numbers after some grinding "trash mobs" without any "elites" or "bosses" - maybe aside from the tree creature.
Experience wise, he was maybe around 40 percent of the bar from level 10. If he gained another level, he could actually get another skill.
He ran, instead of walking, along the same path he was on the previous day. He checked the lounge where he had found the Tempered Steel Baton - the item was not refreshed.
He hesitated for a brief moment before going up the stairs - he did not do this last time, but since he was in a farming and grinding mood today, there was no harm in checking things out for a couple of floors.
The second floor was yet another open office space. This time, there weren't even cubicles. He walked around the space, and found one thing that stood out - a long lunch table. He recognized it because his previous company had one of those. It was meant for people to have lunch and socialize, but a lot of times it just ended up being all kinds of waste of space.
He put his hand on the table - it did not reveal any item information to him. He raised the table by a bit, and found nothing of value at all - the table itself included.
He circled to one end of the entire floor - where there were a few meeting rooms with glass walls. And in two of those meeting rooms, there were meeting tables in there. Yet still, nothing of value.
He continued circling in the room. As he walked around a corner, something off caught his attention. That something was on the wall - it was a colorful board with the symbol of a company and some slogans printed on it.
"Be kind." "Be bold." "Be disrupting." Wu Xiaoming frowned as he read the board - for some reason this thing was here. He could not think of any reason it would be here. He hovered his hand on it, and surprise surprise, item information popped up.
"Slogan Board of Untruths: a board with slogans, once the symbol of the ambition to innovate, but had become a cruel representation of irony. It took in spits, scoffs and mockery, and it gave nothing in return. Absorbs moderate amounts of negative energy; Irritates unclean beings."
"Whatever." Wu Xiaoming chuckled and took it off the wall. Apparently it fitted in his inventory as well.
There were not many good reasons to explore anywhere higher, so he just came back down and went to the next building - the building with the creepy office people.
But the people were not there this time. The first two floors were completely empty, only cubicles and desks remained.
Last time, those creepy office people had only appeared after that strange explosion of chilling energy. Maybe those figures would not manifest without that additional supply of energy, or maybe that explosion triggered some kind of manifest mechanism. Come to think of it, it was also possible that there were other shadows or creepy office people in the other building he could farm if the explosion were to happen again.
He exited the building without exploring further. The street where the glowing mushroom had been marching along would lead him right to the Sproutlinger Hotel - if he kept heading straight down, he would reach the main street on the side of the hotel, beside the parking lot. It was a very long way, but it was the shortest path.
Wu Xiaoming considered for a few moments, then decided to move forward one more street before making a turn and heading for the hotel. This way he would still be going in the right direction but would not be running into that glowing mushroom if it appeared again.
The current street he was on was narrower and had a wall on his left, while on his right were a row of relatively low rise buildings that ranged from one-storey to four-storeys high. Unlike other walls in this realm, the long wall on the left was covered in stains, markings and scratches. A foul stench grew more and more intense as he continued heading down.
Wu Xiaoming frowned as the stench grew to an extent where he felt like covering his nose - he had definitely smelled worse, but not for this long, and not when there was the heavy smell of aged urine and weed mixed in. He had no idea if the physical realm counterpart of this place was the same, and he had even less desire to explore the area around the Sproutlinger Hotel now.
He stopped just as he passed by a three-storey house. Something shiny was inside. He looked around, before getting closer to the door of the house. The shiny object was just in the back of the first room right behind the door.
He checked the interior of the room a few times before actually getting inside. The room was dark, but he was able to navigate around. He kept an eye on the staircase as he approached the object.
It was a mask - a zombie mask, made of rubber or silicone. The shiny part came from its left eye - an eye deliberately made bulging, bloody and dilated so that the zombie face would look more menacing.
He reached his hand over.
"Zombie Mask of Truthfulness and Regret: a kid's words were imaginative and honest to a fault. Fault is no reward. The reward is change. He left for a new life, leaving his imagination and naivety behind. It would not leave this place."
Confused, he tried to pick up the mask.
Everything blurred and flashed around him just as the tip of his finger touched the mask.
The room was lit up by some kind of yellow light. Faint gunshot sounds in the background.
Gurgling snarls came from the street outside. Zombies - three of them were squatting on the street outside, munching on a blurred corpse.