socalfunplaces Chapter 128 The Darkness Hidden Beneath the World
Chapter 128 The Darkness Hidden Beneath the World
Chapter 128 The Darkness Hidden Beneath the World
Hundreds of reporters stood frozen in place outside the Manhattan Police Department.
Those long lenses and short lenses mounted on tripods, their index fingers hanging in mid-air on the shutter release cable, just can't seem to press the shutter button.
The residents on the opposite rooftop, peering out from their windows, had mouths agape and were rubbing their ears vigorously.
Then he turned his head to look at the person next to him, trying to confirm from his companion's face what he had just heard.
Hell, demons, aliens.
Are you kidding me?
After a brief silence, a cheer suddenly erupted from the edge of the crowd.
A middle-aged blond man raised his hands, his face flushed red, and the veins on his neck bulged.
He waved his arms frantically towards the podium, his voice so loud it could be heard halfway down the street: "I knew it! I knew the government had been hiding the alien news! Look, even Officer Lee admitted it himself!"
This statement is like a match thrown into a gasoline can.
With a loud bang, the entire open space erupted in chaos.
The sound of camera shutters clicked in rapid succession at the same moment, a continuous series of clicks—
The sound of the electronic shutter and the mechanical reflex mirror mingled together, like someone frantically scraping the air with a metal brush.
Reporters thrust their microphones forward with all their might, shouting incessantly, one sentence after another.
Neither of them could hear what the other was asking, but neither was willing to lower their voice first.
"Officer Li En! You said hell exists—what exactly do you mean by that?!"
"Officer Lee! Are you implying that the government has been hiding the existence of aliens all along?!"
"Officer Lee Eun!!!"
Ben Yurik did not shout.
He stood at the front of the crowd, clutching a worn-out notebook in his right hand and the cap of a fountain pen in his left, which he had repeatedly opened and closed several times.
His gaze passed over the microphones on the podium, over Li En's shoulder, and fixed on the silhouette behind him, shrouded in black cloth.
Then he suddenly realized something.
That shape.
The stench that kept seeping into my nasal cavity was hard to tell if it was rust or rotting flesh.
His fingers tightened around the pen, his knuckles turning white. His lips moved several times before he managed to squeeze out a sound from his throat, each word trembling.
"Officer Li En, what exactly is that thing?"
Li En turned her head to look at him, and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.
He raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and pressed down.
This gesture was like a gate being lowered.
All the noise, the clicking of camera shutters, and the constant stream of questions were cut off at the same moment.
The reporters swallowed their questions, while the red lights on the cameras flashed steadily.
The entire open space was so quiet that you could hear the faint sound of the wind blowing through the clotheslines on the rooftop.
Li En did not speak.
He turned to the side, reached out his left hand, and grasped the edge of the black curtain.
Then suddenly flipped it up.
The black cloth slipped from his hands and fell to the ground at the foot of the podium.
The "pyramid" behind him, which had been hidden for so long, was now fully exposed under the gaze of hundreds or even thousands of eyes.
That's not a prop.
At the very top sat a huge wolf head, its fur dark gray and stained with dried, blackened bodily fluids.
Its mouth was slightly open, and its serrated teeth were sticking out from its gums, each one as long as a finger.
Beside the wolf's head was a sharp claw that had been severed at the root, its tip gleaming with a dull, keratinous sheen in the greyish-white light of the day.
The muscle fibers at the cut still retain the texture they had when severed by the blade.
Looking further down—several vampire heads lay askew among the werewolf's remains.
They did not die.
One of the heads' eyes was slowly moving, its grayish-white pupils sliding from left to right and back again.
Its mouth opened and closed, revealing two pairs of sharp canines on each of its upper and lower jaws, with dried bloodstains still remaining on the tips of its teeth.
Because it only has a head left, its vocal cords are long gone, and it can't make any sound from its throat.
They could only silently repeat that endless biting motion over and over again.
Click, click, click, click.
The white light from the flashbulbs poured down on the wreckage like a torrential downpour.
Every hair, every tooth, every wound is photographed with exquisite detail.
The reporters in the front row were so startled by the still-moving eyeball that they stumbled backward.
Their backs bumped into the cameraman's lens behind them, causing the tripod to shake several times before it stabilized.
Some people gasped in shock, while others blurted out a curse.
Many people simply stared wide-eyed, repeatedly checking whether what they were seeing was real.
"What the hell is this thing?!"
"A prop? It's definitely a prop!!"
"Have you ever seen a moving prop? Look at that head! Its eyes are even moving!"
"Wait—look at its teeth—they absolutely can't be fake!"
"What on earth is this thing?!"
Li En gracefully stepped back, making way for the display stand behind her, which was piled high with wreckage.
He put a lot of thought into these exhibits.
After the fighting in New Mexico ended and it was confirmed that we would return here.
He then had Tony Stark urgently search the desert for a batch of remains of dark creatures and airlift them over.
The vampire's head was temporarily taken from the laboratory at Umbrella Academy.
Fortunately, the clouds were thick today, and the sky was dark, so the sunlight couldn't penetrate.
If even a ray of direct sunlight were to hit those two vampire heads, they would be burned to ashes within seconds.
At the same time, the live broadcast studios of major New York television stations exploded.
The directors jumped up from their seats and yelled into their headsets to switch the camera.
Within seconds, the signal switched, and the same image appeared simultaneously on television screens throughout New York.
That pyramid piled with wreckage, that vampire head with its eyes still rolling.
And Li En, standing behind the podium, hands resting on the table, with an expression as calm as if he were reporting on his daily patrol work.
The hosts from more than a dozen media outlets spoke rapidly into the camera at the same time, each speaking faster than the last, some even pulling their microphone cords taut without noticing.
Someone stood up directly in the live stream, pointed at the screen, and spoke in a shrill voice that cracked.
Ben Urick yelled at the cameraman, but the latter didn't dare to take a step forward.
He reached out, personally carrying the camera, and pressed the lens firmly against the vampire's still-rotating head.
His breathing was heavy, and with each exhale, the air flowed into the camera's built-in sound hole, turning into a broken, rough sound of airflow.
His voice trembled noticeably as it came out of his throat.
The last syllable even contained a hint of sobbing that couldn't be suppressed.
"Ladies and gentlemen—did you see that? Did you see that?!"
"This isn't a prop—this isn't a movie prop!"
He stretched out his left hand and pressed his fingers directly onto the cheek of the vampire head.
His skin was cool and rough to the touch, and the muscles underneath gently dented and bounced back when pressed by his fingertips.
He pinched the head's ear, then withdrew his hand, spread his fingers, aimed at the camera, and each word seemed to be forcibly pulled out from the deepest part of his chest.
"Look—it's real! It's real!"
He had waited too long for this day.
More than 20 years ago, he was young, his hair was not yet white, and his legs and feet were much more agile than they are now.
Back then, he followed a news story about aliens and enthusiastically traveled across half of the East Coast, interviewing more than a dozen eyewitnesses. The data he collected was as tall as his calves.
Finally, only one sentence was given above.
There are no aliens in this world; all sighting reports are either natural phenomena or human misjudgments.
The report was suppressed, his editor was transferred, and an informant who was willing to speak out never answered his calls again.
Now, this young police officer named Li En has dug up the things that they buried in the ground twenty years ago.
In front of millions of viewers across New York, it was dug out of the ground and thrown onto the stage for everyone to see.
More reporters followed his example and crowded around.
The moment their fingers touched the wreckage, some gasped, some fell silent, and some couldn't utter a word in front of the camera.
That tactile sensation doesn't lie.
The cold keratin, the rough fur, and the muscle fibers still trembling slightly at the cut surface.
This is definitely not a prop, not silicone, and not a model.
Li En stepped forward and casually grabbed the hair of the vampire's head, which was still silently opening its mouth.
They lifted it out of the wreckage and held it in front of everyone so that everyone could see it more clearly.
Because it only has a head left, it cannot make any sound. It can only open and close its lips repeatedly, revealing and hiding its sharp canine teeth again and again.
The reporters closest to the podium were so startled that they all fell to the ground, their heads hitting the cameraman's knee behind them, and the cameraman also swayed several times.
Li En casually tossed the vampire head in his hand into the pile of wreckage behind him.
The thing landed between the werewolf's severed claw and another head, rolled half a circle, and its mouth was still moving.
Then Li En dusted off his hands, walked back to the center of the podium, and stood still.
"This thing is called a vampire."
His voice wasn't loud, but it pierced through the still buzzing discussions and clearly reached everyone's ears.
"They have always been around us, feeding on human blood."
Every year, there are tens of thousands of missing persons cases reported in the news. How many of them are unsolved by the police? How many are simply listed as missing in the files?
A significant portion of it was done by them.
He paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the reporters in the front row, before continuing.
"Here I want to make one thing clear: vampires are not the beautiful and noble aristocratic creatures depicted in movies and TV shows."
They are not noble; they are merely parasites, parasites of humanity.
This parasite has existed in our human society from the very beginning and has never left.
After he finished speaking, he bent down and picked up another wolf head from the pile of wreckage next to him.
This head was much larger than a vampire's head, and its dark gray hair was rough and prickly.
The nasal bone is particularly prominent, and the sharp teeth in the mouth are arranged in a serrated, interlocking pattern.
"That's right, this is the head of a werewolf."
He turned the wolf's head in a different direction, allowing everyone to see every non-human feature on its face.
"These creatures also exist in our human society. They often strike in dark corners, dragging people into underground sewers, or pounce out of alleyways at night, tearing apart and devouring lone pedestrians."
This thing has always lived around us, always.
He gently placed the wolf's head back on the pile of wreckage, as if laying down evidence that needed no further explanation.
"And these little devils from hell around here, you can also call them demons."
His hand swept over the twisted broken horns, cracked carapaces, and tarnished wing fragments, his tone remaining unchanged throughout.
"These things are all real."
"Whether they are hellish imps, demons, vampires, or werewolves—they are all dark creatures, filthy, disgusting, and deserving of no light."
His voice suddenly stopped.
The surrounding reporters were still reeling from the shock of observing the wreckage up close, their flashes going off one after another.
Some people are squatting on the ground examining the tips of the vampire's teeth, while others are quickly making a live broadcast in front of the camera.
But Li En's sudden silence made them instinctively raise their heads at the same time.
He stood behind the podium, his hands gripping the edge of the table again, his upper body leaning slightly forward.
His gaze swept from the far left to the far right, meeting the eyes of every pair of eyes that were looking at him.
Then he spoke, his tone unchanged, but his volume lowered by half an octave, as if he were saying something he hadn't intended to say.
But there are dirty things I have to talk about.
"Whether these hellish imps, demons, vampires, or werewolves, they are all dark creatures, utterly filthy."
"But do you know what's the dirtiest thing?"
The reporters present looked at each other in bewilderment.
I really can't think of anything dirtier than a demon that just crawled out of hell.
Li En didn't wait for them to guess.
He raised his right hand high and then swung it down sharply.
Dozens of black cloth bags were simultaneously thrown from the roof of the police station.
They tumbled and fell through the air, landing on the cleared ground on either side of the podium, their impacts on the concrete floor producing a dull, heavy thud.
Li En walked to the first bag on the far left, bent down, reached out, grabbed the bottom corner of the bag, and pulled hard.
The cloth bag slipped from his hands.
A human head was revealed.
It was hastily fixed to the wooden board in the center of the cloth bag with a thick hemp rope. Its hair had turned into dark knots, and its skin was grayish-white.
The blood at the cut had dried to a dark brown color, leaving several crooked, dark streaks on the wooden board as it flowed down the broken neck.
A thick stack of documents was tied below the head.
Printed paper, photographs, signed copies of contracts, and handwritten records.
Each page was sealed in a transparent waterproof bag, allowing anyone to bend down, get close, and read each word clearly.
On the surface of that dull, lifeless eyeball, the reporters' pupils widened in shock.
"That's not Hollywood—"
"How did his head get here!"
"Wait, could it be that Officer Li En killed him—"
"My God! Those are his photos, those documents—"
Compared to the remains of the vampire and werewolf from before, this human head is the real bomb.
Hollywood's top action star, with a global box office exceeding 10 billion, nearly 100 million followers on social media, and sitting in the front row at the annual charity gala—his head.
It was hung up like a piece of cured meat next to the podium in front of the Manhattan Police Department.
The impact of this head was far more direct and violent than any demonic remains.
Almost simultaneously, all the camera lenses turned to the head, and the sound of shutters exploding again, even more intense and frantic than before.
Ben Yurik didn't take a picture of that head.
He carried the camera, squatted down, and pressed the lens firmly under the heads of the people, onto the documents sealed in waterproof bags.
His lips moved silently, but every word was clearly heard within the range of the camera's built-in microphone.
"Rape — Kidnapping — Drug Addiction — Murder — Forced Minors"
With each word he uttered, his already dark face darkened even further.
The anchors next to him were still passionately shouting at the camera, each one louder than the last, trying to drown out their peers with an even more exaggerated tone.
But Ben Urick suddenly stood up and hoisted the camera onto his shoulder.
He let out a hoarse, tearful roar, using all the strength in his chest.
"This guy's not even human!"
His shout was so loud, far exceeding the volume of any live broadcast host, like a blunt hammer smashing into a noisy flock of chickens.
The reporters around him, who were still rushing to report the confirmed death of the top movie star, were abruptly silenced by his shout, and the scene suddenly became quiet.
All the cameras began to slowly move downwards, focusing on the document sealed in a waterproof bag.
Then, one by one, the reporters' expressions changed.
Confusion faded from their faces, replaced by something deeper, something that was hard to define as fear or nausea.
They finally saw clearly what was written on those documents.
No wonder Ben Ulrich was so angry.
He spent half his life covering Hell's Kitchen, seeing everything from bloodshed at the dockside bar to shell casings strewn everywhere after a gang shootout.
But he had never seen anything like it before.
The so-called "elites" are those who stand at the top of human society, possessing the most wealth, honor, and the widest admiration.
The things done behind the scenes are things even the dirtiest poisoners and the most brutal killers wouldn't do.
This so-called Hollywood movie star cannot even be called a human being.
Ben Yurik steadied the camera again, his lips still trembling slightly, but his hands were steady.
He crouched down and photographed the documents page by page, line by line, word by word.
After Li En finished patting the first bag, he walked to the second bag, reached out, and pulled hard.
A new head was exposed to a barrage of flashes of light.
"That's the chairman of a pharmaceutical company—"
Even he—
"What do these things, what are written in those documents—?"
"Human experimentation? Unapproved clinical trials? Report alteration after a death —"
The third bag was torn open.
"Member of Congress! What's the congressman's head doing here?!"
"Is that stack of documents next to him a record of bribery?"
"Not only—look at that photo, that's—"
The fourth bag, the fifth, the sixth —
Li En did not stop.
He ripped the black cloth bags off people's heads one by one.
Each sound of fabric slipping was accompanied by a new gasp of shock.
A new storm of shutter clicks, a new exclamation.
Then the gasps began to subside.
The frequency of the shutter sound is decreasing.
Even seasoned journalists who were used to seeing big scenes were standing there, their hands holding cameras trembling slightly.
It's disgusting, so disgusting that they hesitated.
It was so disgusting that they weren't sure if they had the courage to continue sending these images back to headquarters and tell people all over the United States and the world.
What kind of faces do those people who stand at the top of this country's pyramid really have behind the scenes?
Several people had already retreated to the back of the crowd, bending over to make phone calls to the editor-in-chief, their voices extremely low and their speech rapid.
As he spoke, he kept turning back to look at the ever-growing pile of wreckage.
They were unsure whether they could continue reporting on this matter.
Only Ben Yurik did not hesitate.
He photographed every single document, head to head, page to page.
By the end of the shoot, his lips were completely cracked, and his tongue could taste rust when he licked them. It felt like something was blocking his throat.
He knew it was anger.
A burning rage surged from the deepest part of his heart, making his whole body feel hot.
The fire made him feel a little dizzy.
He swayed twice when he stood up.
Li En stepped forward, took a red pill out of his pocket, and handed it to him.
"Eat it."
Ben Yurik didn't ask what it was.
He took the pill, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed it in one gulp.
Within seconds, the dizziness subsided, breathing became easier, and the hand holding the camera regained its steady grip, as if it were welded to the shoulder.
He nodded to Li En, his voice hoarse, "Thank you."
Then he turned around and continued to photograph all the criminal evidence against these so-called "human elites."
Only after the last bag was filmed did Li En walk back to the center of the podium, brace his hands on the edge of the table, raise his head, and face the row of cameras that were still broadcasting live.
His expression was calm, so calm that it didn't seem like he was standing in front of a pile of human heads and demon remains, but rather like he had just completed a routine work report.
"These guys—" he pointed to the row of heads behind him, "cannot be called human at all."
He paused for a moment, then looked away from the camera.
He glanced at the reporters in front of him, who were still holding microphones but didn't know what to ask, and then added the last sentence in the same calm tone.
"Even in hell, the demons will despise them."
After saying that, he didn't look at the reporters' reactions.
He turned around, raised his head, and shouted to the residents who were still leaning against the window frames on the opposite rooftop.
"But don't worry—these guys won't get to heaven."
Then he raised his hand high, palm facing the gray sky, and his voice suddenly rose, penetrating the entire street.
"Send them to hell, Frank!"
On the rooftop, a flame silently lit up.