Chapter 26: Midnight Terror

Lin Dong continued to use his Corpse Domain ability, attacking from within to avoid any blood spilling out and the scent alerting other Awakened. Their sense of smell was sharp indeed.

After dispatching the three, Lin Dong moved to the next room. Here, a female Awakened lay in deep slumber. Following the same method, he extracted her brain core.

Just like that, Lin Dong killed five Awakened in succession, devouring their brain cores.

The sensation brought back memories of his childhood, when, in the orphanage’s backyard, there stood a cherry tree. Whenever the cherries ripened, he would go with Cheng Luoyi and a group of younger children to pick and eat them. Even after so many years, the memory was vivid, as if it happened only yesterday—a fleeting piece of his lost childhood.

He hadn’t expected that, at such a moment, he’d be reminded of those days, memories tinged with sweetness.

With these pleasant thoughts, Lin Dong prepared to continue his work.

But as he passed through the wall once more, he found himself in a vast warehouse packed with goods—oil, salt, firewood, rice, sauces, tea, drinks, instant noodles, sausages, bread—everything one would expect from a supermarket was there.

Without hesitation, Lin Dong swept his hand, storing all of it in his spatial storage.

He moved on to another large warehouse, filled with fresh meats, frozen shrimp, crabs—all perfectly preserved thanks to backup generators.

With another sweep, Lin Dong collected everything.

He kept moving—each step revealed yet another warehouse. In total, there were four massive storage areas, containing everything from household appliances to brooms, mops, detergents—anything one might need.

The only exception was the vegetable storage, where large-scale rot had set in.

But Lin Dong was unconcerned—he was a carnivore after all.

……

At that moment, two Awakened standing guard outside began to sense something was wrong.

“Nan, it’s already five past two. Why hasn’t Gou Sheng come to relieve us?”

“No idea,” the middle-aged man replied, puzzled.

“Maybe he’s wiped out from last night?”

“I’ll go get him. He’s probably just lazing around, doesn’t want to take over,” the younger man grumbled.

He walked straight to the first room and knocked loudly.

“Gou Sheng, get up and change shifts! Hurry up!”

“Hey, you hear me? Don’t play dead!”

No matter how much he knocked, there was no response from inside.

The young man’s sense of unease grew. He forced the door open with brute strength.

Looking toward the bed, he saw a man and two women lying there, their faces deathly pale, drained of blood—clearly dead.

“Shit! Something’s happened! Someone help!” The young man’s cry, trembling with fear and panic, exploded through the hall like thunder, shattering the night’s silence.

Countless people were startled awake from their dreams, rubbing their eyes as they stumbled over in confusion.

“What’s going on?”

“What happened?”

“Don’t say a zombie got in…”

The survivors gathered, murmuring their anxious speculations.

No one noticed the tall, expressionless youth standing among them, watching impassively—the same Lin Dong.

The night guard Nan was actually named Li Nan, an Awakened who had formed a crystal core—a leader here.

“Xiao Liu, what is it?”

“Nan, Gou Sheng… he’s dead!” the young man hurriedly replied.

“What?” Li Nan glanced into the room, his brows instantly knitting together.

The survivors behind him began to chatter.

“How did he die? Don’t tell me he got too excited and tripped up?”

“That can’t be! Those two women are dead too.”

“Maybe… it’s some infectious disease?”

Li Nan’s frown deepened. With his keen perception, he could tell that Gou Sheng’s energy was utterly depleted—his brain core had clearly been taken.

But… there wasn’t a single wound on his body!

“That’s impossible. His head is intact—how could the brain core be gone? What about the people in the next room? Bring them out and ask.”

“No idea,” Xiao Liu replied, baffled.

Li Nan looked ahead and found that the doors to four consecutive rooms remained tightly shut. His heart sank.

Awakened could sense disturbances; with all this commotion, they should have woken—unless…

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Li Nan forced open the four doors in quick succession.

Inside, as expected, lay the cold corpses of the Awakened.

A cold gasp swept through the crowd.

They were dead—all of them.

Just then, a girl ran over from the direction of the warehouse, her face full of panic.

“Nan, the warehouse… all the supplies are gone!”

“What?” Li Nan nearly fainted, rushing over to the warehouses.

Where once there had been stacks of goods, now there was nothing but emptiness.

“An illusion! This must be an illusion—I’m under some kind of mental control!” Li Nan muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

Some Awakened or mutant creatures did indeed possess mental manipulation abilities.

But no matter how hard he concentrated, reality refused to change—this was no hallucination.

“How… how is this possible?” Li Nan’s expression darkened further, almost stormy.

The others stood in silence—over a hundred people, not one dared speak.

Of the original twelve Awakened, five had died inexplicably, leaving only seven.

Most importantly…

All the warehouse supplies were gone—how would they survive now?

“Something must have gotten in!” Li Nan analyzed calmly.

A woman beside him asked, “Nan, to kill five Awakened without a sound and make off with a fortune in supplies—what kind of ability is that?”

“I don’t know,” Li Nan replied, scanning his surroundings with a furrowed brow. “But… it’s possible he hasn’t left—he’s still hiding in this building!”

A ripple of fear spread through the crowd.

The giant supermarket had six floors. They dared not turn on the main lights for fear of attracting zombies or powerful mutant beasts; only dim emergency lighting was on, illuminating less than twenty meters around.

Everything else was shrouded in darkness.

The thought that a monster capable of killing five Awakened might be lurking in the pitch-black, unseen, unsettled everyone deeply.

People glanced nervously about, dreading what might emerge from the shadows.

Yet Lin Dong stood right among them.

There were still seven Awakened left, five of whom seemed especially vigorous, likely crystal core holders—their abilities unknown.

There was no need to rush. He could toy with them for a while yet.

With this calamity, every survivor wore a worried face, their spirits crushed. Compared to the five dead Awakened, they cared more about the lost supplies and the monster in the dark.

“There’s nothing to eat now—what do we do?”

“Xiaoxue, didn’t I give you a chocolate yesterday? You’d better give it back.”

“Nan, can you take us back to Tech Corporation? Or… ask them for some supplies?”

Their voices overlapped in anxious desperation.

Li Nan nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

Though he said this aloud, inside he was calculating: losing so much, five dead, and now to request reinforcements from the company—this would be a major offense. If the company blamed him, he might just end up as a living test subject…

The best solution now was to stay quiet, say nothing to the company, and in the meantime, find and capture the ‘monster,’ recover the supplies, and restore order.

……