The little girl shrilled as she was thrown into the air from this swing. Wu Xiaoming wasted no time to charge forth, unleashing another swing at the enemy. This cunning creature did not simply wait for the attack to land, of course. It turned into a puff of black smoke trying to flow away.
"Freeze! Immobilize! Stop! " Wu Xiaoming roared his commands while focusing on the smoke as much as possible - he had no idea if any of them would work, but he had to try. If this creature escaped, he would probably have no chance of encountering it again.
At least one command worked, the puff of smoke paused a little bit in the midair, and half of its figure re-emerged from the smoke, just in time for the spiked mace head to reach its face.
"Crack!" The little girl's face almost got entirely obliterated by a single full force downward strike. What was left of its body shot at the ground below, pieces of wood, rags and paper were ripped from its body and scattered in the chilling wind.
This Mo-sin-a turned into smoke again when it was just about to hit the ground and tried to escape. But right this moment walls shot up all around it and Wu Xiaoming, seemingly in an attempt to box them in.
The Mo-sin-a jetted at one corner where the walls were closest to it, its smoke body pulling into a long string.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming lunged upward and roared, a ray of golden light shot from his left hand. The energy blast exploded at the middle of the smoke string, while the ray of golden light brushed through the tail half.
An ear-piercing scream exploded in the air, but still, a very small cloud of smoke made it out of the enclosure of the wall through a small gap.
"Fuck!" Wu Xiaoming cursed as he reached the gap and tried to pull it apart so he could rush through. But before he could exert any force, the enclosing walls in front of him crumbled into bricks, and the shadow of a man whose body was fully covered in blood, tree roots and charred burn marks manifested from them and shot right at the smoke.
As the man's burned and contorted hands grabbed onto the smoke, the Mo-sin-a turned back into its former shape of a little girl, but grievously wounded and had barely half of its body left. The man pulled it to the ground, his right foot firmly on its broken torso as he ripped the creature apart. All the pieces he tore away went into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
Wu Xiaoming held the morningstar in hand as he watched the man's figure - his body was also shrouded in smoke, not black, but a mix of gray, green and blue. His overall energy level did not increase from his eating the creature, but actually decreased a bit - he was eating it not for consumption, but for annihilation, full of fury, hate and thirst for revenge.
When he was done, he turned back to look at Liang. He had no eye balls in his eye sockets, no ears. But he saw Wu Xiaoming, and he limped towards him.
Wu Xiaoming clutched his morningstar tighter and ready for a strike if he needed to.
"Are you - are you a buddhist monk?" The man asked with a hoarse and gurgling voice: "Are you from the Shenmue Temple?"
"No, I'm sorry." Wu Xiaoming sighed and shook his head.
"But - but you wield the golden light." The man asked, his voice grew shakier: "Are you - are you a Taoist exorcist?"
"Not much either." Wu Xiaoming sighed again: "But - I can help you to the best of my ability, if you need."
"If - if that is the case, can you bring me - to the Shenmue Temple?" The man knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Wu Xiaoming: "Please. I beg of you."
"I - I don't know how to bring you. " Wu Xiaoming shook his head: "I'd love to help you, so can you tell me - "
"Take - take this with you." The man picked up a brick on the ground and handed it to Wu Xiaoming: "You can do it, as long as you keep it with you."
Wu Xiaoming nodded and accepted the brick. The man smiled, though his face was full of scars, yet it was obvious that this smile was of genuine relief.
"Stained Brick (Construct of Will): from this very brick, stained with his own blood, he saw through the strengths and weaknesses."
"Construct of Will", this was itself a setting in the game Wu Xiaoming was developing, as a matter of fact, it was an idea he and some two other designers came up with - to put it simply, it was an "ethereal" weapon, that could be used on its own or bound to a weapon and buff said weapon. Weapons and armors that were constructs of will could have its durability reduced to zero and rendered unusable for a period, but it could never be broken and its durability was self-healing. There were other weapons and armors that had self-healing durability or indestructibility, and this kind of binding could create a pretty powerful "endgame" gear.
The world around Wu Xiaoming collapsed, all the walls, lanterns and candles disappeared. He woke up in the "usual" ethereal realm, though this very room appeared to be slightly brighter than before. He checked his inventory, the lantern was indeed gone, but the brick itself remained.
He did not want to stay in the ethereal any longer right now, and just exited right there and then.
In the control room, the director, the cameraman, the sound guy and the director's assistant were all bored just watching at the screens. It had been at least an hour since they sat in this room. The guy on their screen - their "star" of the show, Wu Xiaoming, was still deep asleep, seemingly having a rough dream, for that frown never left his face even until now - it only lightened up from time to time, and every time they thought it was going to disappear, it deepened again.
"I hate to ask this, but - " Jake the sound guy asked: "If he really went into that dream, and IF he really suffered back luck or sickness like the other victims, should we - should he be compensated?"
"Well - uh - " Leslie McKinsey hesitated with a deep frown: "I - I guess that would be fair. But as you know, we don't have that much funding - and I don't believe our insurance will cover bad luck - "
"Wait, he moved." Tammy interrupted the awkward discussion.
Everyone fixed their eyes on the screen, just in time to see Wu Xiaoming open his eyes and sit straight on the bed, panting, wiping the sweat off his face and grunting.
"Xiaoming, are you okay?" Tammy picked up her walkie-talkie, only to hear her voice come back from a corner of the control room - neither Wu Xiaoming nor them brought it to Room 127.
On their screen, Wu Xiaoming looked around a bit, then decided to get off the bed and leave the room. Before long, he came right into the control room: "I'm sorry, guys, but - I was just sitting on the bed and it struck me - "
"What struck you?" Leslie McKinsey asked.
"The dream. It pulled me the fuck in." Wu Xiaoming shrugged and found his chair in the corner, along with his walkie-talkie: "That was such a bitch of a dream."
"And what happened? Did you get trapped? Did you get out?" Tammy asked.
"Wait." Leslie McKinsey raised his hand, then gestured at the cameraman, who pulled a handheld camera and pointed at Wu Xiaoming: "What happened? Do you remember much from that dream?"
"Okay - I actually remembered a lot." Wu Xiaoming responded after a short hesitation: "I was just there, thinking I could get a feel of the bed since I still had time. So I just sat on it. But then all of a sudden, this sudden wave of - of sleepiness and weariness just struck me outta fucking nowhere. And I just fell into the dream."
"And what did you see? " Tammy let out a light gasp.
Wu Xiaoming took a moment to organize his words before answering: "Indeed the interior of a Taiwanese style building. But the layout was very confusing - and always changing. No wonder so many people have fallen into the dream and never got out - the walls would change and close in on you when you're not looking."
"Okay - can you elaborate?" Leslie McKinsey frowned.
"It's just that - for example, I can make a turn at a corner, right? And if I don't like the road ahead of me and want to turn back, sometimes it's not possible, because after I turn, the road behind me simply disappears." Wu Xiaoming responded.
"But how did you wake up? Sounds like that dream was going to trap anyone in it for a while." Tammy asked and took a look at her phone: "And right now it's only - 3:24."
"That's probably because I - I ran into a special door." Wu Xiaoming scratched his jaw and decided to give a false answer.