What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 632: Chapter 632: Striking from Barbie (Part 3)

The photographer had just noticed someone standing on the edge of the road, at the fringes of the crashing waves, amidst the raging storm. As he swiveled his camera lens to capture the scene, he saw the figure raise its right hand.

His initial thought was, “Is this guy trying to wave at us?”

But then he questioned how that person, at such a distance, would suddenly notice them? It was normal for them to see that lone figure standing unobstructed by the road, but they were on this rooftop and not so easy to spot.

The next instant, bright lightning ripped through the sky and struck the figure, producing an incredibly bright flash of light.

“Damn it!” exclaimed the photographer, almost dropping his camera.

“Oh my God!” The female host beside him was also greatly startled, stepping back several paces.

However, the lightning didn’t stop, one bolt following another – all concentrated around that figure.

“He must have been fried to a crisp,” noted the photographer instinctively.

The hostess muttered, “What on earth did he do to deserve this?”

Of course, their voices were drowned out by the sounds of the storm, and despite being so close, they couldn’t hear each other.

What happened next was beyond anything they could have imagined, and even challenged their understanding of the world.

The man standing in the middle of the lightning storm, who had clearly been struck by the first bolt, was not reduced to ashes. He firmly stood his ground, streaks of lightning longer than his body reaching from his head to the ground like whipping tails.

Then… he began to fly!

The hostess and the photographer both instinctively dropped their jaws, staring dumbfoundedly at the man with hair glowing like electric light. Encircled by a halo of white light at the heart of the storm, he shot up into the sky.

As he ascended, the light streaming from his head grew brighter, transforming him into the likeness of a rising sun, breaking through the thick clouds of the storm. He vanished into the network of flashing electric light.

Long after “Electric Light Flying Man” had disappeared, the hostess and the photographer still found themselves gaping at the sky, oblivious to the rain falling into their mouths and onto their faces.

It took a while before the hostess snapped back into reality, and she exclaimed, “Did you catch that on camera? Did you get it?! We’re going to be famous! Super famous!”

“Got it, got it! I was filming the whole time!” The photographer quickly checked the footage, confident that he had captured the events on film.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“I’ve already thought of our title for this episode, ‘The Man Who Flew in a Thunderstorm! Is He the Secret Puppeteer behind these Apocalyptic Scenes, or a Superhero coming to Save the World?’ How’s that? Once we get back, I’ll contact our website operator. If they don’t give us more bandwidth, we’ll quit! This video can definitely go viral…”

While the hostess was still talking excitedly, she noticed that the photographer, who was reviewing the video footage, had a stiff expression on his face. She leaned closer to take a look.

“What’s wrong?”

“But I definitely filmed it…”

“Everything was fine earlier, but when it comes to that part, the footage…it’s gone…”

The hostess was devastated, on the verge of tears.

Meanwhile, the photographer was deep in thought, squinted his eyes, and gazed at the sky. The previously taken footage in his camera was fine, but everything after the appearance of that man was gone. This was clearly not due to his operational error or simple equipment malfunction.

…

Naturally, the “Electric Light Flying Man” who shot up into the sky was Xiang Kun.

He had been waiting here all along for the worldwide manifestation of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusion”.

He knew that the colossal figure forming in Antarctica, dubbed the “Ultimate Predator”, as well as the violent global weather changes, would inevitably cause panic in human societies, which would be hard to fully control. So at this time, as the “Ultimate Predator” was about to fully form, Xiang Kun planned to use this widespread fear to his advantage.

Yes, the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusion” that appeared worldwide in various forms was not a mere projection of the fears associated with the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”. Instead, it was a large-scale fear projection created by using the fear associated with the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” as a framework and leveraging the vast amount of “Super-connected Object Matrix” dispersed in human settlements, thereby bolstering his own plans.

High-Dimensional Factors can be directly influenced by consciousness, and emotions can unify different consciousnesses. In Myitkyina, Xiang Kun had discovered that the collective fear emotions amplified the fear projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”. The fear projection is like a sailboat, and the fear emotions are like flowing water or a gust of wind, enabling the boat to sail faster.

With Xiang Kun’s further development of the “Super Sensory Item System” and deeper understanding of “Super Sensory Information”, and with better establishment and connection of “Super-connected Objects” all over the world, he has discovered another way of constructing emotional projection. It involves using existing “Emotion Infused Object” projection as a framework to “contain” more similar “content”.

This way, Xiang Kun could exert a larger scale of influence with less effort.

To achieve this, Xiang Kun had made extensive preparations, including asking Tang Baona to create a special song, with both a “Fear-Increasing Version” and an “Inspiring Version”. Then, Alice would accurately distribute this song worldwide.

The song spread by Alice was not merely playing music through all noise-emitting electronic devices. Instead, it was a full range of sonic influence throughout the entire region. As long as there were enough “super-connected objects” there, Nana’s “Fear/Inspiring March” could resound directly through vibrations in the air, deeply disturbing emotions and intensifying the anxiety and fear brought about by the weather, the “Antarctic monster”, and other incidents.

Once the collective emotions reached a certain level, these emotions would be integrated into the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving projection framework” created by Alice via the “Super Sensory Item System” for “filling”.

Then, after the “filling” process was almost finished, a transformation to uplifting emotions occurred.

This is why every place’s “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusion” has different external features despite having the same basic form. These are different projections of the rescue image from different groups of people in each region.

This is a new application of the “Super Sensory Item System”, and it is Xiang Kun’s first implementation. However, he didn’t go to these great lengths merely to conduct an experiment or to dispel the world’s fear and uplift its spirits. Instead, it was to leverage the enormous emotional projection brought about by collective emotions to mass-produce many “Super Coins”.

The “class-spherical lightning” moving at high speed from various parts of the world towards the central Pacific, as monitored by various countries, were, in fact, “Super Coins” that had been co-manifested.

These objects were much more “real” than those co-manifested by Old Xia and were able to bear more characteristics of “Super-connected Object”. They are actual entities embedded in this real world.

Xiang Kun sought to obliterate the “Ultimate Predator” itself as quickly as possible, aiming to minimize the impact of the battle on Earth’s ecology. To do that, he had to strike precisely but decisively, like a bolt of lightning.

These “Super Coins” were what Xiang Kun thought to be the most suitable tool or weapon.

However, the number of “Super Coins” he could co-manifest within a certain area by himself was limited and would cause a great disturbance, a considerable impact. If he attempted to aggregate a vast amount of “Super-connected Objects” within a small space to aid him in co-manifesting a substantial amount of “Super Coins”, it might end up damaging the Earth before the “Ultimate Predator” has a chance.

Thus, he and Alice came up with a plan utilizing the “Super Sensory Item System” for a global distributed co-manifestation. The emotional projections were necessary catalysts to help consolidate all “Super-connected Objects” for co-manifestation.

Only in this way could he use “Super-connected Objects” to summon a sufficient number of “Super Coins” for Xiang Kun all at once.

As people were entranced by the violent changes in their emotions and their attention was attracted by the “Eight-armed, eight-eyed giant illusion”, the violent reactions and bizarre phenomena that happened during the co-manifestation of “Super Coins” were obscured by the harsh weather and did not draw too much attention.

To ensure that the “Super Coins” could successfully converge on the Pacific Ocean, Xiang Kun and Alice made meticulous preparations. The inland areas were easier. A large number of “Super-connected Objects” were deployed in most human habitation zones. Assisted by “Xiao Luobo”, they could directly form a pathway to facilitate the flight of “Super Coins”.

However, the sea needed careful arrangement. They calculated a flight route and two months in advance, buried and deployed the “Super-connected Objects” to ensure an ocean-crossing route’s existence.

Though Xiang Kun’s “Super-connected Objects” could not cover the vast ocean entirely, they could still create a few narrow sea routes in the short term to provide launch points and coordinates for the “Super Coins”.

To accomplish this, Xiang Kun even used “Super-connected Objects” to influence a fish community, endowing it with community characteristics similar to “001” and “002” that could assist Alice in associating and deploying super-connected objects.

Now, flying high above, Xiang Kun clearly sensed the positions and flight directions of thousands of “Super Coins”. Gazing at the clouds and the ocean beneath him, he felt surprisingly calm rather than the anticipated exhilaration and excitement.

From the moment he first acquired the power of “Electric Mastery Flight”, Xiang Kun had more than once fantasized about standing on thunderclouds, controlling lightning, and making long-distance flights, soaring freely in the high sky.

But due to the stringent conditions of “Electric Mastery Flight”, even when he later was able to fly, he basically could not fly for too long or too far. His flight range was extremely limited.

Even when he got technical assists from Mr. Liang later on, who could fully equip him with an auxiliary flight apparatus, Xiang Kun was still obsessed with the idea of taking a long-distance, high-altitude flight directly using pure “Electric Mastery Flight”.

Flying encapsulated by an aircraft is one kind of experience, being assisted by an aircraft to fly is another kind of experience, but flying without external devices or assistances and relying solely on one’s power is yet another kind of experience.

This time, taking advantage of the global weather effect created by the “Ultimate Predator”, Xiang Kun and Alice cleverly constructed a “storm passage” that allowed him and the “Super Coins” to have an air route directly to the Central Pacific.

He always thought that he would be ecstatic to make such a long-distance flight. Yet, unexpectedly, as he was truly flying over the boundless sea and the clouds, he felt incredibly calm with a sense of “that’s just it” or “it’s nothing special”.

Then he subconsciously began to analyze his mindset, wishing he could discuss it with Old Xia. His mind then drifted to the scenes from a few days ago when he was briefing Old Xia and Nana about everything and making their “last meal”, the image of chatting with his parents at the dining table, and the formidable “Great Wizard” picture Little Fatty Girl drew for him.

He realized that he was somewhat unable to let go or rather, was somewhat reluctant to part with the time spent with them.

Xiang Kun couldn’t help but chuckle, thinking that he was being a bit melodramatic. It’s not like he won’t come back again. It is simply a phase transition that will take some time. But, according to both his and Alice’s calculations, this time wouldn’t be too long. At best, it would take a few months, a year or two at most, and it definitely wouldn’t exceed three years.

He should be able to return soon.

Xiang Kun couldn’t resist going over all the details he had previously theorized with Alice in his mind again. After assuring there were no issues, he activated all the “Super-Connected Objects” he was carrying with him, accelerating his flight speed.

Over the sea, one could see an immense grey storm linking heaven and earth, moving forward at extremely high speed, like a living beast.

And within this grey storm, an increasingly bright entity, flying at meteor-like speed, was driving the whole storm forward. It looked like the eye of the beast, exuding a fierce, fearless aura.

From other directions, spherical objects that resembled lightning were converging at high speed.

…

Pengcheng City.

While Mr. Liang and Old He were discussing the “Antarctic crisis” and Xiang Kun, in the same city, Tang Baona, Yang Zhen’er, Little Fatty Girl, and Xiao Pingguo had just come down from the rooftop. They excitedly discussed the appearance of several “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusions” in Pengcheng.

Unlike others in the city, they showed no fear or anxiety; Nana’s “March of Fear” did not play out here.

If they were ordinary people and not the creatorsagglomerators of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusion,” they would naturally be affected emotionally and experience the collective fear that creates the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusion.”

But because they all have a direct connection with the “Super Sensory Item System” and are deep connectors, under Alice’s arrangements, they can watch various “Eight-Armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusions” appear like an exciting scene, without any emotional influence.

Seeing these uniquely styled “Eight-Armed, Eight-eyed Giant Illusions”, Little Fatty Girl was naturally most excited. To her, this was simply a “Barbie Warrior” fashion show.

“The ones in the armor are always the coolest! But the ‘Barbie Warrior’ just now was empty-handed and not powerful enough. They all should have weapons and the weapons have to be different to be imposing!” Standing at the door of Yang Zhen’er’s house while waiting for her to open the door, Little Fatty Girl kept discussing her “Barbie Warrior Fashion Show” experience with the co-manifested Alice next to her, offering her “guidance.”

“Those are not up to Alice,” Tang Baona laughed, “They are the images formed from other people’s belief and mutual cognition… Alice, am I correct?”

Alice looked up at Tang Baona: “Yes, Sister Nana is right.” She then looked at Little Fatty Girl: “But Little Lingdang’s suggestions can also be done. In the future, it can always be done. There’s no problem!”

Yang Zhen’er opened the back door and smiled back, “Hehe, then I’m going to design my own ‘Barbie Warrior’ in the future. I’ve got the best sense of fashion!”

“Alice, where is Uncle Xiang now?” Xiao Pingguo, who looked like she was wearing ultra-thin 3D glasses because of her visual restoration device, asked from the doorway.

Alice walked into the house, pointed at the TV, and said: “Boss has taken off!”.

As soon as she finished speaking, the television switched on automatically, displaying an image of a man standing in a storm.

The man turned his head as if noticing the camera, raised his right hand high towards the sky.

Yes, Xiang Kun intentionally let himself be captured by the camera. He was indeed waving, but it was specifically to Tang Baona and Little Fatty Girl.