novelraw Chapter 293: Hunting Showdown
Chapter 293: Hunting Showdown
When New Orleans police rushed into the burned-out theater ruins based on a mysterious anonymous tip, they found only one unidentified male corpse with a smile on its face, lying in an eerily peaceful state, and seven unrecognizable remains scattered throughout the audience seats.
The Smiling Clown serial murder case was thus declared closed in a mystery-filled manner.
No one knew how the madman who had terrorized the inner world of New Orleans over the past half year had ultimately met his curtain call.
Only the Baroness, Isabella, wore a meaningful and approving smile when she received the concise, meticulously worded action report personally written by Lin Jie.
And Lin Jie, the mastermind behind this "final performance," had long since vanished from everyone's sight.
He hid himself among the lazy Southern city crowds permeated with jazz and rum aromas.
This time, Lin Jie was not in a hurry to find a new target.
Although the confrontation with the Smiling Clown caused him no physical harm, the mental exhaustion was immense.
He needed time to digest and integrate the insights gained from that battle into his gradually forming combat system.
He even spent a considerable sum on tuition to learn some basics about "soul communication" and "Vèvè" symbols from a Voodoo priest who claimed distant kinship with the "White Sect Queen," Marie Laveau.Although he understood most of what the other taught was exaggerated superficial knowledge used to fool tourists.
The worldview, steeped in a primitive animism so different from rigorous occult theories, still broadened his horizons immensely.
Besides exploring Voodoo, Lin Jie devoted more time to a more practical and urgent goal—finding new treatment options for William.
Through the Baroness's introduction, he came to a private clinic not open to the public, located at the border between the French Quarter and the swampland.
The clinic's owner was an eccentric known by the alias "Bonesaw Doctor."
He had been a military surgeon during the Civil War. Witnessing too many horrors on the battlefield that conventional medicine couldn't save, he embarked on a biomedical path combining UMA materials with surgical techniques.
Rows of meticulously processed bone specimens and organ preservation fluids from various UMAs hung on the walls.
Here, Lin Jie met the legendary Bonesaw Doctor.
He was a gaunt figure wearing welder's goggles, his doctor's coat stained with blotches of various colored unknown liquids... a madman.
"Xenospiritual rejection reaction?"
After hearing Lin Jie's detailed description of William's condition, the Bonesaw Doctor let out a coarse, raspy laugh.
"Interesting... so very interesting!"
He led Lin Jie to his "operating room."
There was only a massive device resembling a slaughterhouse hook and a "failed specimen" chained to the wall—half human, half some arthropod UMA carapace—moaning in agony.
Lin Jie's pupils constricted sharply upon seeing the still-writhing, misshapen failure.
Simultaneously, with lightning-fast instinct, he drew [Serene Heart], aiming the muzzle at the Bonesaw Doctor's forehead.
"Doctor."
Lin Jie's voice was icy, "Before you begin your profound theoretical explanation, perhaps you should first explain what this 'thing' means?"
Lin Jie's finger rested lightly on the trigger.
If the other's answer contained even a hint of dissatisfaction, he had no doubt he'd put a hole in this madman's skull within a tenth of a second—identical to those UMA skull specimens in his clinic.
Yet, faced with this imminent death threat, the Bonesaw Doctor's expression grew even more excited.
His eyes seemed to glitter.
"Oh... oh! What magnificent killing intent!" He emitted a shrill, bizarre laugh, "Calm and restrained, yet filled with resolute determination! Young man, your soul is even more fascinating than I imagined!"
Slowly, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Don't be tense, my dear guest," he rasped with a laugh, explaining, "I admit my experiments do somewhat violate what your civilized world calls ethics, but I'm not insane enough to use an innocent civilian as raw material for my artistic endeavors."
He gestured with his chin toward the moaning failure.
"This fellow, before being delivered to me, was a death row inmate in Baton Rouge Prison awaiting execution by hanging. He brutally murdered a family of four during a drunken brawl, including two children under ten."
"According to Louisiana law, his filthy life should have ended on the gallows a week ago."
"But, I gave him a new opportunity." A self-satisfied expression appeared on the Bonesaw Doctor's face.
"An opportunity for his lowly, sinful flesh to make a final contribution to a grand scientific endeavor that could change the entire history of medicine. Don't you think that's a nobler form of redemption?"
Lin Jie's gun hand didn't waver; he certainly didn't fully believe this madman's nonsense.
But he could at least ascertain that this pitiful stitched-together monster, in its human stage, had not been innocent.
This calmed him slightly.
"Excellent, it seems we've reached an understanding." The Bonesaw Doctor, pleased with Lin Jie's rationality, lowered his hands.
"I've studied my whole life how to perfectly stitch different components together." The Bonesaw Doctor pointed at the failure, "But I never imagined true fusion isn't about form, but about concepts!"
Instead of directly offering a treatment plan, he produced a medical record bound in human skin.
"According to my research," he flipped through the blood-scented book, "...there are only two ways to resolve this 'conceptual conflict.'"
"The first, and simplest method, is overwriting. Use a higher-order concept to forcibly overwrite and erase the weaker foreign concept."
"Like the Tai Sui you previously sought. The life it represents is itself a supreme-level rule. A pity you failed."
"And the second..." His face showed a smile that sent a chill down even Lin Jie's spine, "...is balance."
"Since two concepts cannot coexist, then... introduce a third, fourth, even fifth completely different concept! Turn his body into a battlefield converging various forces!"
"When all forces reach an extremely fragile dynamic equilibrium through mutual restraint and consumption, your friend can survive."
He pointed to a glass jar in the corner.
Inside floated a still faintly pulsating heart covered in compound eyes.
"For example, this heart from the 'Thousand-Eyed Abomination Lizard.' It embodies the concepts of petrification and gaze."
"If transplanted into your friend's body, perhaps its solidifying power could temporarily freeze that flowing spirituality."
"Of course, the cost would be your friend's blood flow potentially slowing to a mud-like pace, eventually becoming a... living statue."
Although the Bonesaw Doctor's theory was insane and touched ethical taboos, it provided Lin Jie with a new perspective he hadn't previously considered.
He ultimately politely declined the Bonesaw Doctor's tempting "collaborative research" proposal.
Turning William into a "living statue" capable only of thought but not movement might be crueler than death.
This rare period of learning lasted less than five days.
On the dawn of the sixth day, a sudden plague shattered New Orleans's false, lazy peace.
...
"Emergency intelligence! Repeat! Highest priority! Kingdom-class disaster alert!"
The atmosphere in the office on the second floor of the cotton transit warehouse was extremely oppressive.
The Baroness, Isabella, lacked her usual laziness and composure. Dressed in a practical black leather bodysuit, her playful smile had turned grave.
Before her, the terminal of the "Hermes Ether Communication Array" connected to I.A.R.C.'s global intelligence network flashed incessantly with the piercing red light indicating high alert status.
Lin Jie stood beside her, his expression equally grave.
In his hand was an emergency intelligence briefing freshly printed from the terminal, still warm with ink.
"Plaquemines Parish in southern Louisiana, a remote river-mouth county town named 'Delacroix,' lost all contact with the outside world at midnight yesterday."
Isabella's voice was slightly hoarse from staying up all night.
"All telephone and telegraph lines severed. State police dispatched a twelve-person advance team to investigate early this morning, but they lost all contact less than ten minutes after crossing the county border, vanishing without a trace."
"Subsequently, the Association also sent an external reconnaissance team of three seventh-level Investigators," she paused, "Their fate was the same as the state police. We only received a final three-second audio signal mixed with panicked screams and bestial roars."
Lin Jie's gaze fell on the briefing's second page.
Attached were several blurry aerial photographs taken by a Picayune reporter using a simple steam-powered aerial photography device mounted on a hot-air balloon.
The photo quality was poor, grainy and shaky.
But it was still possible to discern that the entire Delacroix river-mouth area was shrouded in a thick, eerie green miasma resembling swamp poison gas.
Beneath that green miasma, faint ant-like, swaying "human figures" could be seen wandering aimlessly through the town's streets.
"Based on the photos and background noise analyzed from the audio signal, preliminary judgment," Isabella took a deep breath, stating the likely conclusion, "all residents and creatures in the Delacroix region have likely been transformed into 'living corpses'—devoid of self-awareness, retaining only primitive aggressive instincts."
Living corpses.
A term existing only in Gothic novels and folk legends.
But Lin Jie knew this wasn't baseless. Within I.A.R.C.'s vast UMA archives, several rare, terrifying UMAs were indeed recorded that could cause mass infection through spore viruses or psychic plagues, transforming other creatures into their "puppets."
For example, the thousand-year-old Tai Sui.
"What's the source of the disaster?" Lin Jie asked.
"Still undetermined," Isabella shook her head, a bitter smile appearing, "Delacroix is Swamp Spawn territory. That place holds many secrets and ancient legends unknown to us. Our branch's intelligence network there is a complete blank."
"But based on the spiritual fluctuations of decay and plague emanating from that miasma, we preliminarily infer that some ancient Kingdom-class UMA related to these two concepts, dormant in that region, was accidentally awakened for unknown reasons."
She glanced out the window at the calmly flowing, turbid Mississippi River, a trace of worry in her eyes.
"Delacroix sits at the Mississippi River's estuary. Once that plague-carrying miasma spreads along the river, or infected creatures enter this vital American artery, the entire state of Louisiana and even the mid-southern US could become a living hell within a short time."
This was a catastrophic consequence that could shake the peace of the Surface World.
"So..." Lin Jie looked at Isabella, "the Association's decision is?"
"No time," Isabella's reply was decisive, "We don't have time for step-by-step investigation, assessment, and meticulous planning. We must find and purify it at all costs, in the shortest time possible, before the UMA fully forms and spreads contamination!"
She turned, slapping a highest-level action order bearing the dual seals of the Geneva Headquarters and the North American branch before Lin Jie.
"I.A.R.C. Headquarters and the North American branch jointly issued a red-alert-level Free Hunt bounty half an hour ago."
"Free Hunt?" Lin Jie felt unfamiliar with this term.
"An extreme, highly efficient response mechanism activated only when dealing with Kingdom-class or higher disasters in dire emergencies," Isabella explained, "Simply put, regardless of background or methods, any capable hunter, secret society member, or lone bounty fanatic can participate."
"The one who ultimately completes the hunt and returns with the UMA's core material to any I.A.R.C. branch becomes the sole victor."
"They will receive a massive bounty, a huge amount of points sufficient for two consecutive internal promotions within the Association, and that priceless material that would drive any blacksmith mad."
Lin Jie nodded thoughtfully, instantly understanding the simple, brutal logic behind this order, "This is raising gu!"
The Association abandoned the traditional, orderly purge model it usually led, instead proactively throwing this not-yet-fully-formed UMA as a tempting "piece of cake" into the dark jungle of the inner world!
They would use greed to ignite the desires of all the hungry beasts lurking in this jungle!
They would make these usually mutually wary, even hostile bounty hunters, secret society members, and lone fanatics from various places compete for the sole prize, launching an efficient hunt within this plague-shrouded land of death!
"Correct," Isabella seemed to see through Lin Jie's inner shock. She lit a new cigar, blowing a smoke ring.
"The information was leaked through various semi-public channels half an hour ago. I believe right now, countless sharks smelling blood are converging toward New Orleans from Europe, Asia, and deep within the South American rainforests."
"This," her voice carried a hint of mockery, "is the final decision made by Morgan and those old foxes in Geneva. Using a controllable inner world 'gang war' to solve a potentially uncontrollable disaster that could affect the entire 'Surface World'—quite clever, isn't it?"
Lin Jie fell silent.
He had to admit, from an efficiency and outcome perspective, this was indeed the optimal solution.
"And you?" Lin Jie looked at Isabella, "What role do you want me to play in this feast?"
"I hope you, Mr. Lin," Isabella locked her captivating brown eyes on Lin Jie's face.
"I naturally hope you become that powerful beast who gets the last piece of cake."