"Interesting," Chen Yu said as he looked at the oil painting of the lady on the wall, who was watching him with a cold gaze. Although it was just a painting, he could feel her eyes on him.
Chen Yu reached out and touched the painting. There was nothing raised about it, indicating that the effect was not achieved through the use of lenses.
Back when he was in the military, one of his demon-hunting comrades had a fondness for collecting old figurines, some of which, no matter from what angle one looked at them, seemed to have eyes that followed.
It was just a very simple application of lenses.
Chen Yu waved his hand, and the lady continued to stare fixedly at him, which Chen Yu found rather boring.
"Elementary... no, that's not right, this thing doesn't even qualify as a demon. I haven't caught the stench of those demon brats here," Chen Yu's nose twitched. He was feeling somewhat uninterested now.
It had been over ten minutes since he entered, and all the thing had done was attempt to intimidate him with simple methods, which he found very dull. In the Federation, this wouldn't even merit a police call; citizens could exorcise demons with just a few consumer products.
A Spiritual Body, it must be a kind of Spiritual Body. Based on the information from Radiance about the multiple murder cases, it probably ranked at the level of an evil spirit.
If he still had his "Captain-level Sacred Armor" at hand, Chen Yu could switch on the anti-demon stance and instantly vaporize the opponent, turning it into the purest form of energy.
Even without Radiance's assistance, based on his own experiences fighting demons and evil spirits, Chen Yu knew that entities like Spiritual Bodies often had a stable source of energy.
According to the basic principle of conservation of energy, whether it was a Spiritual Body or an evil spirit, or even a higher-level malign spirit, they all needed an energy supply. Most Spiritual Bodies relied on negative energy to survive, and souls were quite the decent energy source.
So all Chen Yu needed to do was find an object with negative energy, and he would likely have found the lair of the evil spirit.
If he was a little luckier, he might even find a portal to a negative plane.
"Radiance, search for news reports of homicides that occurred in the residence and authorize access to the New York Police Department's investigation reports," Chen Yu narrowed his eyes. The house was large, and there were many rooms; he had noticed from outside that there were three stories, and there might even be a basement.
Finding something on his own would be too troublesome.
[News reports have been compiled and sorted, authorization being verified...]
[According to the Federation wartime anti-demon decree, a Captain has the authority to demand local police cooperation in investigations, authorization granted]
[Police internal reports for the residence have been collected]
A myriad of information flashed before Chen Yu's eyes.
[Family Annihilation! The deranged Charles slaughters an entire family!]
[Mysterious Murder House? Following the Charles case, only the youngest daughter of the newly moved-in House family survives]
[Father Martin claims it's demons' handiwork...]
[Twenty-six deaths already in the Mysterious Murder House, experts suggest a possible chemical leak in the vicinity of the house]
There were no useful clues, the news reports had too scant information; these guys wrote whatever would attract readers' eyes, even using some provocative images in their articles—it's no wonder they're said to feast on "blood-soaked buns."
However, the police internal report that immediately followed was much more useful.
[Charles decapitated his wife with an axe used for cutting wood at around 3 o'clock in the morning, it is surmised that he completely severed her head, then he stitched it back on and hung it from a withered tree outside the house, George hypothesized the fate of both pairs of children...]
[At around 3 o'clock in the night, Avril House used a craft knife to slice off an entire family's heads, but strangely, it seemed as if the family had no reaction at all, allowing their heads to be cut off one by one...]
[The preliminary suspicion was that they inhaled some sort of anaesthetic before going to sleep, but according to George's autopsy report, no such substance was detected in the remains]
Chen Yu quickly finished reading the intelligence organized by the Radiant Super Brain, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Interesting, this evil spirit seems to really enjoy cutting off people's heads at around 3 a.m., then sewing them back on, before using rope to hang their corpses from a tree outside the mansion.
Chen Yu glanced at his phone, it was 2:58 a.m.
"Evil spirits, huh... These kinds of beings often like to torment their prey in the ways they find most painful and torturous, so that means..." Chen Yu approached the bed, and through the gaps in the ivy, he could see the silhouette of a withered tree outside.
The moonlight tonight was somewhat dim, and that withered tree happened to be in a spot hidden from the moon's light by the house, its twisted shadows in the darkness resembling a terrifying monster waving its limbs.
Chen Yu withdrew his gaze, he quietly observed the glass, and in its reflection, he could see countless pale feet dangling next to his own head.
It was as if a group of people were hung in midair by an invisible force, causing their feet to dangle straight down behind him, beside his head, and Chen Yu could even see that these feet came in different sizes and shapes, some with nail polish applied.
Even more unsettlingly, these feet were slowly, slowly descending, with lower legs gradually appearing in the reflection on the glass, followed by thighs, and then torsos.
Chen Yu made no moves; he just stared at the glass, at the reflection within the glass, watching as these corpses slowly fell to rest beside him.
"One... two... twenty-seven... twenty-seven corpses?" Chen Yu watched with interest, as in the reflection, his surroundings and back had become laden with bodies, totaling twenty-seven.
But he remembered that the news and the police case reports only mentioned twenty-six corpses, so who was the extra person?
Having read the police internal case report, Chen Yu quickly identified the extra corpse.
Interestingly, it was hanging just to his left, looking at him with resentful, venomous eyes.
"Die, die, die, have your head cut off, go hang yourself..."
A voice as faint as a mosquito's whine, as soon as Chen Yu noticed this extra corpse, the voice began to sound and then slowly increased in volume.
Eventually, it turned into a throaty roar; the corpse shook violently, its eyes bulging with blood, and the stitches on its neck snapped apart one by one, and a frenzied roar erupted from the slit throat.
"Die already! Die! Just die!" The corpse's head drooped down, connected to her neck by only a thread, and Chen Yu could even see her spine and trachea at the neck.
"Hiss... Good thing Luo's not here, or you'd be out of luck..." Chen Yu looked at her smooth esophagus, swallowing his saliva.