novelraw Chapter 253: Crimson Eyes
Chapter 253: Crimson Eyes
Lin Jie presented his complete deduction about the Mothman to Ethan and Phineas.
Phineas, the North American native investigator who had always held science and data as his faith, adjusted his glasses, an expression of sudden realization dawning on his face.
Ethan, on the other hand, was already used to such things, having always trusted Lin Jie's deductive abilities.
"So, what you're saying is, this so-called 'Messenger of Misfortune' is just a special kind of diner that knows how to use metal fatigue to farm and harvest?"
"Exactly." Lin Jie nodded emphatically. Using a red charcoal pencil on the huge New York map, he drew a straight line between the location of Upton's car accident and his apartment.
"That car crash was the sowing."
"That freight wagon, loaded with steel, provided a sumptuous feast for the Mothman."
"That deduction is very bold." Phineas, the meticulous data analyst, couldn't help but interject. "Drawing a conclusion based solely on a few delirious words from a man like Mr. Upton, whose mind is on the verge of collapse, seems far too hasty."
"Moreover, we have no direct physical evidence proving that car crash was definitely related to the Mothman. It might really have just been an ordinary accident."
"No, it wasn't an accident." Lin Jie shook his head, his gaze turning to Phineas. "Finn, I need you to help me check two things.""First," his voice became exceptionally clear, "immediately go and review all accident reports from New York City over the past month. Not just traffic accidents, but any accidental incidents involving metal structures, including gas pipeline leaks, construction site scaffolding collapses, steam boiler explosions! Then mark the locations of these accidents on the map!"
"Second," he paused before adding, "simultaneously retrieve all maintenance records for the Fifth Avenue apartment building where Mr. Upton lives. I need to know if any unusual minor accidents also occurred in the vicinity of that building during the month following his car crash."
"For example... a gas street lamp post breaking for no reason? Or perhaps... a resident's iron fire escape suddenly detaching from the wall?"
Phineas understood Lin Jie's intent. He immediately sat down in front of the humming electrical analyzer and began rapidly typing on the keyboard.
Before the vast information network of the I.A.R.C. North American Division, these public records belonging to the Surface World were readily available for the taking.
Less than half an hour later.
Two reports, freshly printed and still smelling of ink, were placed before Lin Jie.
And when Lin Jie used red ink to mark the locations from those two reports, one by one, onto the New York map.
A scene that sent chills down the spines of everyone present was revealed!
The first report showed that over the past month, a total of seventeen major accidents related to "metal structural fatigue" and classified as accidents had occurred throughout New York City!
And on the map, the locations of these seventeen accidents perfectly formed a series of concentric circles, continuously expanding outward with Upton's Fifth Avenue apartment as the center!
The second report was even more horrifying.
Just a week ago, the support structure of the huge iron water storage tank on the roof of Upton's apartment building was found to have "severe and unexplainable corrosion" and had already been placed on the "emergency repair" list by the municipal engineering department.
If... they had been just one step later.
Once that massive water tank, weighing tens of tons, collapsed, it would have flattened the entire apartment building!
"But Upton is just a human being of flesh and blood. Why would that UMA be so fixated on using him as the center of this entire 'pasture'?"
Phineas's question struck at the very core of the entire mystery.
Yes, why?
Why specifically Upton?
"...I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with Edison."
Lin Jie shook his head. His gaze seemed to pierce through the walls of the operations room, as if seeing once again that lonely figure trembling in fear and alcohol.
"The answer to that question..."
"I'm afraid, we'll have to ask Mr. Upton himself."
"So what do we do now?" Ethan asked. "We can't just charge into the Fifth Avenue apartment and have a shootout with that monster, can we? That would cause a disaster!"
"No, on the contrary." Lin Jie extended a finger. "We won't go looking for it. We'll make it come to us."
He slowly moved his finger from the bustling commercial district of Fifth Avenue to another part of the map.
It was a desolate industrial area located by the East River, dotted with abandoned factories and warehouses.
And right in the center of that industrial area, a magnificent steel behemoth under construction, composed of countless massive steel cables and granite bridge piers, spanned the wide river surface.
The Brooklyn Bridge!
This grand structure, soon to become the "Eighth Wonder of the World," was the largest metal assemblage in all of New York, and indeed the entire world, in this era!
"If the few small metal fragments around Upton were just a dessert for the Mothman."
Lin Jie's voice carried a tempting tone.
"What kind of sumptuous feast would this bridge, constructed from tens of thousands of tons of top-grade steel, appear to be in its eyes?"
Ethan and Phineas's eyes both lit up. The plan to lure the snake out of its hole was finalized at an extremely rapid pace.
That very afternoon, the door to Upton's luxurious apartment, which had been shut tight for over a month, was finally "amicably" opened.
Ethan utilized his "power of money," which, though ostracized in New York's high society, still flowed freely in the gray areas.
He hired at a high price several enforcers from New York's most notorious gang, the "Five Points Gang."
Then, in a particularly rough but also particularly efficient manner, Ethan "invited" out this genius engineer who had locked himself, along with piles of liquor bottles, into his apartment and become a shadow of his former self.
Facing those burly Irish thugs with revolvers and brass knuckles in hand, Upton's intellectual resistance was clearly useless.
He was dragged and stuffed into an unmarked, enclosed carriage.
Then, under the cover of night, he was secretly transported to the abandoned industrial area of Brooklyn.
They ultimately chose an abandoned steel warehouse right next to the approach bridge pier of the Brooklyn Bridge as the stage for their hunt.
This warehouse was once used to store spare steel cables and rivets for building the bridge. The air was still thick with the smell of rust and machine oil.
And this scent was undoubtedly the deadliest temptation for that UMA that targeted metal.
"...Devils... you're all devils..."
Upton, forcibly brought to this unfamiliar environment, was now teetering on the brink of complete mental collapse.
He curled up in a corner of the warehouse, staring with terrified eyes at the deep darkness outside the warehouse, his mouth constantly repeating incoherent, delirious mutterings.
"...It will come... it will definitely come... those red eyes... it's been... it's been watching me all along..."
"Yes, it will come." Lin Jie's calm voice sounded beside him. "And we are here waiting for it."
He handed a cup of steaming hot black tea, heavily sweetened with sugar, into Upton's slightly trembling hands.
"Drink, Mr. Upton." He patted Upton's shoulder. "Trust me, after tonight, you will regain your freedom."
While Lin Jie was comforting this key figure who had become a frightened bird, Ethan, with Phineas's assistance, was rapidly making the final preparations within the warehouse.
They didn't set up lethal traps like those at the Lisbon estate.
Lin Jie understood clearly that facing a UMA with flight capability and whose main method of attack was likely area-of-effect corrosion, any fixed, physical trap would be meaningless.
They only needed to do one thing.
Confirm its arrival, and terminate it before it caused irreparable damage!
The night grew deeper and deeper.
No lights were lit inside the warehouse. Only strands of cold moonlight filtered in quietly through the broken glass windows in the domed ceiling.
The moonlight cast the piled-high metal shelves and steel beam structures inside the warehouse into eerie, tombstone-like silhouettes.
Lin Jie and Ethan hid behind two massive steel load-bearing columns respectively, their weapons already loaded and ready to fire at any moment.
The entire warehouse fell into the dead silence before a storm.
No one knew how much time passed.
When the distant chime of the midnight bell drifted over from a church on Manhattan Island.
A faint "flapping" sound, difficult for human ears to catch, suddenly arose from the deep night sky outside the warehouse.
Then, two glowing points, like burning coals emitting an ominous red light, silently appeared outside the largest gap in the warehouse's domed roof.
It, had arrived!
Lin Jie focused all his senses, his [Serene Heart] already aimed at that gap.
The brand on the back of his hand was faintly warm. A powerful spiritual frequency was scanning the entire warehouse over and over again!
And the focus of that frequency ultimately locked precisely onto Francis Upton, curled up in the corner and trembling violently from extreme fear!
The next second, a huge black figure slowly descended from that gap.
It made no sound, nor did it stir any air currents.
As if it itself was merely a shadow given life by the night.
Its size was comparable to a human's, its entire body covered in a layer of fine, velvety, gray-black down that seemed to absorb all light.
On its back, a pair of wings, enormous enough to blot out the moonlight, were flapping silently.
But what was most terrifying was its face.
It had nothing that could be called facial features.
Where its head should have been, there was only a smooth carapace.
And beneath that carapace, on its chest, two enormous "compound eyes," occupying half the area of its torso, glowed with a heart-stopping deep red light!
It, was the Mothman!
An embodiment of misfortune only sighted before disasters!
It slowly landed on a steel crossbeam at the highest point of the warehouse.
Its huge red compound eyes gazed down from above at the prey trembling below.
The Mothman did not attack directly like the Tongue-Ripper.
It first flapped its wings.
"Whoosh—"
A faint current of air rippled through the warehouse.
Soon, countless dust-like pheromone particles transformed into dandelion seeds, drifting down in a flurry.
The dust covered every corner of the warehouse.
And then...
The change began.
"Creak— Screech—"
Piercing shrieks of metal began to sound from all directions.
The rust on the already rust-covered metal shelves began to deepen and spread wildly!
Fine cracks began to appear on the solid surfaces of the massive steel beams supporting the entire warehouse structure!
The entire warehouse, this sturdy fortress constructed of steel, was rapidly aging and dying in this silent rain of dust!
In five minutes at most.
This steel structure would completely collapse, unable to bear its own weight.