I Have A Super USB Drive

by <unknown>

  Parsons could tell that the video was only a short clip extracted by the technical department when he looked at the progress bar. The length of the video was displayed to be less than a minute although the full surveillance footage should be very lengthy. This fifty-nine-second footage was the only part that contained a clue to the Herrank Warehouse District murder case.

  Parsons watched the video with this in mind.

  One second, two seconds, three seconds...

  The clock slowly ticked away but even after thirty seconds, there was still nothing notable appearing on the screen. Parsons frowned slightly when he saw this. He wanted to drag the progress bar and skip to the later parts of the video.

  Then again, he figured that he may as well finish the video patiently since there was only half a minute remaining.

  At the thirty-one-second mark, something finally happened on the display. He saw a frenzied man running from the top left of the screen to the bottom right. This man continuously looked over his shoulder as he ran. There was no way to make out what he was running away from due to the limitations of the camera angle.

  Despite the poor resolution of the footage, added with the time of recording being set at night, Parsons could still make out the faint appearance of this man. This man was one of the eight victims during the second incident.

  This video had successfully roused Parsons' interest. He leaned closer to the screen and waited for whatever was pursuing the man to show up on the screen.

  The figure of the man only appeared in the video for three seconds before he ran out of the surveillance camera's range. However, the pursuer did not appear on screen at all. When Parsons checked the progress bar, he noticed that it was at the fifty-five-second mark already.

  Just as Parsons wondered if the technical department made a mistake with the video clipping, the footage suddenly became distorted. The entire video turned into a blur as if there had been a signal disruption but the progress bar was still moving along despite all this. A second later, the pixels were restored. The image of a statue appeared on the screen seemingly out of nowhere.

  It appeared!

  Parsons perked up when he saw the statue. Before he could further inspect the make of the statue, the footage became distorted again and a second later when it reverted to normal, the statue had disappeared!

  With that, the progress bar had reached the ending mark. The video had ended.

  Parsons was still at a loss after the video ended. He frowned and pondered on what he just watched.

  "Could this be the statue the hacker talked about? The one that if you look at it, it becomes a solid statue but starts to move the moment you take your eyes off it?"

  Parsons mumbled to himself, "But why is it that even the surveillance camera cannot capture the image of it moving?"

  Upon contemplating this, Parsons dragged the progress bar back to the fifty-five-second mark and replayed the final four seconds of the video many times.

  No matter how many times he replayed it, the statue disappeared entirely before he could get a closer look at it. The video became distorted at the fifty-six-second mark. The statue appeared at the fifty-seven-second then the video distorted again at the fifty-nine-second. The statue only appeared for the entirety of a second on tape.

  "Based on the guidelines provided by the hacker, the one-second window where the statue appeared on the screen should be when the escaping man turned around to look at it. This still was coincidentally captured by the surveillance camera and as soon as the man took his eyes off the statue, it disappeared again instantly..."

  After making a brief deduction of what happened, Parsons replayed the clip for the fifth time and looked for the right timing to pause the video. He stopped the video at the fifty-seven-second mark!

  Just as Parsons intended, he caught the still of the statue on screen.

  Although the resolution was poor due to the quality of the camera, he could faintly make out the shape of a half-spread open wing behind the statue. It reminded him of the statue of angels seen in churches.

  The statue was facing toward the bottom right of the screen, which was also where the now-deceased man ran toward.

  Though he was still reluctant to believe it, Parsons was slowly coming to be convinced of what the hacker stated. Perhaps this was not a simple ploy to deceive the Northern American government...

  Parsons started to get agitated upon arriving at this thought. He took out a cigarette and used a lighter set on top of the table to light it.

  After lighting the cigarette, Parsons took a strong puff and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs before turning to look at the screen again.

  What he saw when he looked at the screen made him jump a little.

  There was no telling if it was all in his head or not. It seemed as if the statue was now facing a different angle than it did previously.

  Was it his wrong impression?

  Parsons raised an eyebrow and took another closer look. It seemed like the statue had turned its head to face the camera, looking straight at him.

  Parsons was demented by this, he was no longer certain if it had always faced this angle all this time. Was it him who had the wrong impression or was he looking at another video?

  Parsons looked at the progress bar which still showed that it was the fifty-seven-second mark. This was also the only video the hard drive contained.

  Perhaps he got the angle the statue was facing mixed up in his head...

  Parsons raised his head, feeling somewhat confused by all this. His heart dropped the moment he looked at the screen again! He saw the statue on the screen now had its entire body turned to face the camera. Its pair of hollow eyes seemed to burn themselves through the display and looked square into his soul!

  Parsons fixed his eyes on the display. His heart began to drum and thump repeatedly as sweat started to pool around his forehead. He felt a numbing chill coursing through his body. He was certain that it could not possibly be his mind playing tricks on him. The statue was moving on the screen!

  "But, how is this possible..."

  Parsons muttered. The warning issued by the hacker flashed across his mind. The hacker mentioned that it was vital to keep one's eyes on the statue. Otherwise, the statue would rush forward and snap its victim's neck the moment the victim took his or her eyes off it...

  He was under the impression that this rule only applied to the physical statue. Who would have expected it to apply to a statue inside a video as well?

  "D*mn, the warning issued by Blacklight Biotechnology didn't mention that even footage of this cursed thing can trigger it!"

  Parsons complained angrily. Years of experience as a mayor of a city had honed his reaction speed. He immediately darted the cursor to the top right corner and clicked the X button!

  Another window popped up on the computer and asked for confirmation for closing the video. Parsons quickly tapped the "Yes" selection which closed the video and reverted to the image of his desktop on the screen.

  "Phew, it's over?"

  Parsons was just about to celebrate when he saw the statue disappear. That was when there was a sudden flash on the desktop. The video that he had just closed was opened automatically and jumped to the frame with the angel on screen!

  Parsons felt his soul seeping out of his body the moment he saw this. Again, he reached for the button to close the window. However, the video of the surveillance footage did not even close this time. It flashed for an instant after his selection and then froze in place!

  Even after repeatedly tapping the close button dozens of times, his efforts still yielded zero results. Parsons got down and reached for the power button and shut down the computer but no matter what, the display refused to turn off.

  Somehow, the computer had completely frozen. Even the power button was useless!

  Also, in the span where Parsons turned away from the screen to reach for the power button and got back up, the statue drew closer to the display. At this point,
the statue nearly had its entire face crowding the display and it looked like it was inches away from bursting through the display and coming into the real world!

  In this moment of life and death, an idea suddenly occurred to Parsons. He immediately got down and unplugged the computer. He had never moved this fast in his entire life!

  "Pop!"

  With a gentle and abrupt "pop", the computer was shut down completely!

  Parsons got back up, his expression was frozen with horror. When he saw that the computer display had turned dark, he finally managed a sigh of relief. He got up on his trembling feet and rejoiced at surviving the ordeal.

  "I was this close to dying, this cursed thing!"

  When Parsons rubbed his eyes, he felt the touch of something tiny and hard. He looked down to investigate it and saw what was what seemed like a tiny piece of white sand, barely the size of a sesame seed. It disappeared when he blew on it.

  Parsons did not have the mind space for further speculations or whatnot at this moment. There was no chance that he was going to remain in this office any longer after what had just happened to him. He shouted Mu Liao's name out loud while leaving his office in a hurry...

  Chapter 475: Rapid Transformation |

  Inside one of the warehouses in the Herrank Warehouse District.

  "I found it!"

  A heavily armed special unit officer wearing tactical goggles suddenly raised his right hand signaling for his team to stop while looking ahead at a corner filled with debris.

  The other two officers, upon seeing the signal, followed the line of sight of the leading officer and aimed at the corner ahead of them. They identified a slightly old statue silently placed by the corner.

  The sculpting of the statue was extremely delicate and intricate as it was almost lifelike and gave off an ancient aura. It seemed as if this statue was left in the warehouse for so long that its existence had been forgotten by the sands of time.

  They had received mission notes from their superior that these statues only took on these aged and textured forms to help them blend into their surroundings.

  "Leader, are you sure this is it?"

  One of the special force officers was uncertain. "No matter how you look at it, it's just an ordinary statue..."

  "This is orders from above, we just have to follow the orders given."

  The leading special force officer spoke calmly, "The instructions given to us are that the three of us have to keep our eyes on this thing no matter what. Don't look away and if you want to blink, inform the others, got it?"

  "Yes!"

  The other two officers nodded and gave their word as they fixed their eyes at the statue without blinking.

  The special force leading officer took out the walkie-talkie to report to his superiors, "Reporting to headquarters, this is twenty-third Hound, we've located the target in section six. We're keeping our eyes on the target, requesting additional forces to contain the target, over!"

  There was an immediate response from the walkie-talkie after his report. "Roger that, twenty-third Hound. We've received your request, please confirm the number of statues at your position."

  "We've only identified one so far."

  "Alright, the containment squad are on the way to your position, over."

  After the brisk report, the three of them did not sense anything peculiar. They were merely executing the orders given to them and waited for the containment team to arrive.

  They made small talk while waiting. It was clear that this was a light and casual mission for them.

  "Leader, you say that these things can snap people's necks?"

  One of the officers raised a question, "If they say that it will attack us the moment we take our eyes off them, what happens if only one person looks at it and alternates the blinking of both eyes separately? Will it still be held in place?"

  "I don't know."

  The special force leader shrugged. "Alright, I'll blink in two seconds, you two keep an eye on it."

  After giving the notice, he lowered his head to massage his eyes before looking up at the statue again. "But I won't recommend you guys to try that. I know that many don't believe that these statues can move, but what if it's true? I don't want any of us to end up like the victims in those pictures they showed us, with necks twisted like timber..."

  While the three of them were talking, they suddenly heard clattering from a short distance behind them that seemed to come from the warehouse entrance. It sounded as if something came in from outside and knocked something over on the way.

  "Is it the containment team? This is the Hound team, one of our targets is just ahead, please contain it immediately!"

  The leader called out immediately but did not receive any form of answer that he was expecting. Instead, he heard a brisk "snap" as if something was broken in half...

  The leader held his breath the moment he heard this distinct sound. Before he could turn around to investigate, he heard the horrified scream of one of his members, "Charles, Charles is dead!"

  "What happened?"

  Despite wanting to turn around to look at what happened, the special force leader remembered the order given to him by his superior and managed to suppress his instincts. He called out in a loud voice to enquire what happened.

  "It's another statue..."

  The voice that sounded composed just a second ago had broken down into hysterics at this point. "It snapped Charles's neck before I could even realize what's going on."

  The leader felt his heart tightening. He asked amid the wailing of the other officer, "Hold on, you mean you're looking at another statue now?"

  "Yes, I'm looking at the statue that killed Charles. It's making a pose with its arms stretched out. Leader, I don't want to die."

  "Hey, you're not going to die here. Just remember, don't blink no matter what, got it?"

  The leader was not prepared to receive such terrible news out of nowhere. He felt as if his soul was about to vacate his body. Shortly after, he heard a deep and subtle wheezing sound. It was produced from the air escaping the lungs of the deceased Charles with his neck crushed just moments ago.

  Even with this, he refused to turn around to steal a look. To make matters worse, he had to keep his comrade calm. Sweat was uncontrollably pouring down his forehead!

  "But I can't hold it any longer..."

  "Shut up, you've got to hang in there. The containment team will arrive before you know it, you just have to hang in there..."

  In the middle of his sentence, he heard a desperate wail coming from his comrade that made him tense up. Before he could finish his sentence, the familiar "snap" rang in his ears once again!

  "Could it be..."

  The special force leader could not bear it anymore. He took his gun out and fired at the statue in front of him. After carving several holes into the statue in front of him, he immediately turned to fire at the other statue. The very next second, he felt a jolt sent across his body followed by a swift "snap" that rang across his ears!

  Only this time, the sound came from his neck...

  "Thump!"

  The special force leader thumped onto the ground with all his weight. His body twitched uncontrollably as his vision slowly turned into a blur. He saw two angels standing in front of him with their arms outstretched as if they were trying to redeem his soul...

  "Hnghh... Hnghh..."

  The lips of the special force leader were trembling. He made his best attempt at mouthing the words "God save me", but the words refused to escape his lips. Several minutes later, he lost consciousness forever...

  Several minutes later, a large pickup truck drove down the road. The windows of the truck were reinforced with a lot of steel. Positioned in the compartment behind the truck was a large steel cast cabinet with a width of one meter and two meters long.

  There were many visible welding marks and iron bolts punched into the cabinet. Not much effort was put into refining its appearance and it was shipped out as s
oon as it was forged.

  There were four heavily armed special police officers inside the truck. This was the containment team formed at a moment's notice by the Los Angeles police. Their task was to bring the statue into the steel cabinet for effective containment.

  By the time they arrived at the scene with the steel cabinet, the only thing they found was the three cold bodies of the dead Hound team members.

  The two statues had vanished without a trace...

  ...

  When the first wipe of dawn appeared on the sky above, a dark shadow rapidly descended to the ground before finally landing on the rooftop of a building not far away from the Herrank Warehouse District.

  The camera panned closer. The figure that descended from above was Chen Chen who had just returned from the rocky mountains.

  At the moment, Chen Chen did not appear to be in good condition. His complexion was unnaturally pale and he was wheezing for air.

  It seemed that flying at supersonic speeds continuously across thousands of kilometers did prove to be more than he could handle.

  "I haven't exhausted my Field reserve this much in a long time..."

  Chen Chen took a deep breath. He still wobbled a little as he looked at the columns of warehouses that stretched into the horizon. "X, what's the situation in the Herrank Warehouse District now?"

  "Severe casualties."

  Little X noted. "The containment efforts aren't as effective as in the Quantum Deity Laboratory. Although there are more angel statues in the Quantum Deity Laboratory, the containment progressed smoothly since you kept them all locked up in the laboratory.

  "However, the sheer size of the Herrank Warehouse District made the operation difficult. They've lost more than twenty special force officers and only managed to capture two statues. The remaining two haven't been found yet."

  "I suppose this is to be expected."

  Chen Chen shrugged and appeared to be relieved at the news. "It's fine as long as the two statues don't make it out of the area. If they snuck into Los Angeles, the consequences will be catastrophic."