With lights flickering, the room turned dark and then bright, over and over again, like a series of snapshots.

  At a certain moment, when the room turned bright once again, those dark figures, like phantoms, suddenly appeared at the front door.

  Every time the room turned dark and then bright, there would be another dark figure showing up and joining the others.

  Thus the amount of figures was going up rapidly.

  They all gathered at the entrance area, not coming in yet. Though standing still, as the amount kept increasing, the stress Lun felt was getting higher and higher.

  Soon enough they filled up the front door which was also the only exit of this poor rented service center.

  Xu Lun had no choice but to retreat step by step.

  His living space was constantly compressed because those outnumbered creatures which were like cancers that kept reproducing themselves, began to show up inside one by one.

  Xu Lun didn't stop until he was at the very end of the room, where he had a bump on the back with the drinking fountain.

  His heart suddenly stopped for a second. He knew there was no more retreat.

  Meanwhile, the amount of dark figures seemed to stop increasing as well. They had no reaction at all and remained motionless once they showed up, just standing there and facing him, like a bunch of pieces in chess, waiting for the player to decide how to move next.

  The atmosphere in this room became extremely tense.

  Xu Lun had run through all the possible scenarios in his mind, but only to realize that he had no chance of winning at all.

  "Fine..."

  With a sigh of despair, Xu Lun reached into the pocket and took out his smartphone.

  He raised his phone, focusing on those dark figures, and began to record his final words:

  "Guys, I think I'm totally f**ked up! As you can see, those..."

  He was halfway through his words but suddenly stopped.

  Xu Lun just found something strange. Those dark figures stood still ever since they showed up. But when he raised his phone, they seemed to react, moving their heads slightly to face toward the phone.

  The first thought of Xu Lun was that they didn't like what he was doing with the phone shooting stuff. But as his eyes moved from those dark figures across the room to something much closer to himself, soon enough did Lun realize that they were not looking at the phone in his hand but the bangle on his wrist.

  At this moment, the crystal part on the perfect circle of the bangle, which had previously emitted an ice-blue glow, was giving off a purple like, kind of amethyst light.

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  This weird change caught Lun's attention right away, but he had no clue what it meant.

  However, he did come up with an idea about how to retreat.

  After taking a deep breath, he forced himself to remain calm and said:

  "All right, since you guys come all the way to find this, I'll just leave it to you. I promise I've never, ever wanted to possess this thing. I don't even know what it is. I was totally framed by the Japanese girl. Do you guys remember the girl with the pink hair? She played tricks on me. She was..."

  Lun suddenly stopped just in time before his mind was about to send some dirty words to his mouth and then uttered.

  He knew that he was talking too much and went too far.

  "Okay, anyway I would certainly like to give it back to you. But the only problem is that I can't take it off by myself, you see..."

  He stretched out his arm, showing them the bangle which fitted his wrist so well.

  Although Lun wasn't sure if this bangle belonged to them, at this point, it didn't matter at all because the only thing he wanted was to survive.

  The next moment, one of the dark creatures standing at the very front suddenly moved.

  It slowly raised one arm, which was like a withered branch and even grew like a branch, getting longer and longer, stretching forward to reach Lun's hand .

  Xu Lun held his breath. He stared intently at the dark withered arm, watching it get close to him like a slithering viper.

  At one point, the arm that had moved in a low stable pace all the time, suddenly launched a fast attack! Like a viper, it reached over distance and instantly seized Lun's forearm!

  A sharp pain was caused by the touch immediately, making Lun's head buzz a lot. Soon enough the pain spread out everywhere on his body, causing his heart to pound violently in the chest.

  "Shit! What the f...You bastard!"

  He shouted with fury and terror. He meant no harm but why did those idiots treat him so rude?

  In that case, Lun quickly made up his mind and his thumb firmly pressed the record button on the phone screen, trying to save a video for what might be the last minute of his life.

  In the next second, all the rest of the dark figures rushed forward at once! Like hyenas fighting over food, they all stretched out their withered branches, trying to be faster than others to get the glowing bangle.

  Time seemed to be frozen at this very moment.

  When countless dark claws were about to tear Lun up.

  All of a sudden, the bangle burst into a brilliant dazzle, unleashing countless rays of purple light, like many sharp blades piercing through the darkness, stabbing all the dark creatures in the room with thousands of punctures and hundreds of slices!

  Xu Lun felt almost blind by the intense light and instinctively closed his eyes.

  At the same time, the smartphone dropped on the ground without Lun's notice.

  When Lun opened his eyes again, perhaps due to the impact of the intense light, everything he saw turned gray.

  It seemed that the entire world in his eyes was like an old black-and-white movie.

  The room was still the same room, but the dark figures had vanished.

  On the ground, there was a pool of dark liquid that was still spreading.

  No, the color of the liquid was too dark and it looked somehow much thicker than water.

  Tracing from where it intended to spread, it seemed that the dark liquid came from someone's own feet.

  Xu Lun slowly lowered his head and saw that his shoes were surrounded by the dark thick liquid, as if he was standing in the middle of a pool of...blood.

  He was stunned and instantly felt a jolt in the chest.

  It was his blood.

  As eyes moved to the left arm which was previously seized by the dark creatures , Lun saw that the forearm was gone and the remaining part was like an open faucet that kept losing water in a massive way.

  "Damn..."

  Lun's vision was getting blurry as soon as he realized that it was he himself bleeding all the time. With a sudden thud, he knelt down on the ground.

  Dark liquid splashed all over his face.

  Lun just moved his right arm fast enough to prop his body before falling down on the pool of blood, happening to see his reflection on the surface of the dark liquid. His face was so lost and filthy, like a homeless underdog.