parentshiftbook Chapter 646 Capture
Chapter 646 Capture
"Attention everyone." Hardin's voice came through the portable communication device to everyone's ears. "The Shadow Thief may appear at any time. Stay alert, do not act alone, and always pay attention to changes in your shadow."
silence.
Only the buzzing of the lights and the low echo of waves crashing against the shore remained in the factory.
Not long after, Dirk was the first to see it.
From the northwest corner of the factory, beneath a pile of scrap steel, a semi-transparent shadow slid out.
Its shape was just like the drawing on the paper that Harding brought: a flattened human silhouette, without facial features or details of limbs, like a human-shaped paper cutout made of translucent black plastic, gliding silently on the ground.
Its movement is very strange.
It's as if someone has applied a layer of oil to the underside of its "body," allowing it to glide in a manner unaffected by friction.
The Shadow Thief wasn't fast, but it was incredibly quiet—so quiet that if you stared at it, you might wonder if you were hallucinating. "Target confirmed," Dirk whispered. "Northwest corner, about fifty meters away."
The shadow thief did not come straight towards them.
It slid along the base of the wall, as if searching for something, or perhaps testing the waters.
Its "body" nimbly turned at the angle between the wall and the ground, sliding along the corner of the wall all the way to the south side of the factory.
Then it passed the first set of lights.
The light shone down from above, casting clear shadows on the ground.
The shadow thief paused at the boundary between light and darkness, its "body" trembling slightly at the edge of the light, as if sensing something that made it uncomfortable.
But instead of retreating, it traced an arc along the edge of the light and continued to glide deeper into the factory.
Without a doubt, its target was the man lying on the stretcher.
The truck was parked on the south side of the factory building. The lights inside the truck shone through the half-open door, casting a rectangular patch of light on the ground.
The man on the stretcher was pushed to the door of the train, his body half in the light of the train carriage and half in the darkness of the factory building.
The shadow thief glided in that direction.
"It's hooked," Harding's voice came through the comms. "Proceed as planned."
The shadow thief glided across the open space in the center of the factory.
Its speed was increasing, like a shark that had smelled blood.
A translucent shadow cast a blurry trail on the ground, heading straight for the truck.
Harding moved when it was less than 20 meters away from the truck.
However, Harding did not rush towards the shadow thief, but moved laterally, blocking the straight line between the shadow thief and the truck.
His shadow moved with him, like a black flag unfurled on the ground.
As a result, the shadow thief's trajectory was deviated.
It was looking for an angle, an angle from which it could safely "eat" Harding's shadow while also getting close to the truck.
Dirk flanks from the other side, forming an angle with Harding.
The two men turned on their flashlights together, the beams of light blocking all paths the shadow thief could take to approach the truck.
The shadow thief slowed down.
Its "body" began to tremble slightly, as if it was hesitating or calculating.
Then it suddenly turned and slid along the ground toward the east side of the factory.
That was the edge of the sealing array that the capture team was setting up; the light was slightly dimmer there.
"It wants to take a detour," Dirk said on the channel.
"Don't chase it, let it circle around." Harding's voice was calm. "There are people on the other side of the magic circle."
Sure enough, when the shadow thief slid to the east side, several other people were already waiting there.
The four people's flashlights formed a line on the ground, blocking the path of the shadow thief.
The shadow thief stopped.
It was parked in the open space in the center of the factory, surrounded by a large number of beams of flashlight light, which surrounded it from all sides.
The translucent shadows slowly rotated on the ground, as if surveying every direction, searching for any possible opening.
"Activate the sealing array," Harding ordered.
A pale blue light simultaneously illuminated the four corners of the factory.
Runes emerged from the pre-buried stone slabs, spreading rapidly along the ground and converging into a huge closed ring at the boundary of the factory.
The light from the magic circle contracted inward, gradually shrinking the area where the shadow thief could move.
Meanwhile, the Shadowman was pulled back into the truck bed, and the truck carrying him sped off to a spotlight that had been prepared nearby. The scent of "food" disappeared, and the surrounding environment changed, making the Shadow Thief feel threatened.
Its "body" suddenly accelerated and rushed in the nearest direction.
That was the gap between Dirk and another player's positions.
It was at least twice as fast, like a black lightning bolt streaking across the ground.
Dirk raised his right hand, palm down, and a black thread shot out from his fingertips, precisely wrapping around the edge of the Shadow Thief. The Shadow Thief's body was pulled by the thread, and its speed decreased sharply.
But it reacts quickly.
Its body was deformed and stretched by the pulling of the silk threads, like a jelly with its edges pinched.
But instead of struggling, it changed its trajectory in the direction of the tension in the thread.
It abandoned its charge towards Dirk and instead glided at another angle.
From that angle, Dirk's shadow was stretched very long by the direction of the light, with the end of the shadow less than three meters away from the shadow thief.
The shadow thief rushed toward the end of the shadow.
"Dirk, turn left!" Harding's voice boomed in my ears.
Dirk carried out the order almost instinctively.
He took three steps to the left, and the shadow beneath his feet changed direction as he moved, the end of the shadow shifting away from in front of the shadow thief.
At the same time, a capture team on the east side immediately adjusted the angle of their lights.
A beam of light from a high-powered lamp swept across Dirk's original spot, completely erasing the afterimage of his shadow.
The Shadow Thief's attack missed.
Its body circled once in the open space, as if expressing some kind of "confusion".
Then it rushed off in another direction, this time toward Harding.
Harding stood still, hands in his pockets, calmly watching the shadow rush towards him.
His shadow lay quietly at his feet, motionless.
The shadow thief suddenly stopped when he was less than a meter away from Hardin's shadow.
Its "body" trembled violently on the ground, as if it were enduring some kind of pain.
A faint blue light shone from beneath the badge embroidered with a star on Hardin's left chest.
That was his eeriness: the aura of the "eye of the storm".
The mere permeation of his aura was enough to make a strange being of the Shadow Thief's caliber feel uneasy.
So the shadow thief retreated.
It retreated to the open space in the center of the factory, its body curled up like a crumpled piece of paper.
It was trembling, a subtle, high-frequency tremor that traveled through the ground to the soles of everyone's feet.
"Is it scared?" Dirk said.
"No," Harding shook his head, "it's preparing."
No sooner had he finished speaking than the shadow thief's body suddenly exploded.
The flattened human silhouette spread in all directions like ink spilled on the ground, turning into an almost transparent dark film that rapidly spread along the ground.
The edge of the film touched the factory wall.
There are many shadows on the wall.
The rusted machines, broken windows, and steel-framed roofs cast countless shadows of varying sizes and shapes under the light of the lamps.
The moment the thin film touched the shadow on the wall, it seemed to have found some kind of passage.
It "climbed" up the wall following its shadow, then "climbed" along the shadow to the abandoned machines, and then "climbed" onto more objects following the shadows cast by the machines.
"It's connected!" Dirk's voice held a hint of tension. "It's manipulating those things!"
The items in the entire factory ruins seemed to come alive.
A heavy-duty stamping press that had been rusted for thirty years suddenly started up.
Its motor roared, its massive flywheel began to spin, and its rusty nozzle slammed down, creating a crater in the ground. A bridge crane slid along tracks on the ceiling, its huge hook swinging in the air, its claws outstretched, reaching for the crowd below. A pile of discarded steel pipes sprang up from the ground, as if manipulated by an invisible hand, whistling towards the psychics in the arena.
"Attention everyone!" Harding's voice remained clear amidst the chaos. "Don't panic, proceed according to the plan!"
The capture team immediately turned the sealing array and lighting equipment to full power.
The light from the magic circle changed from pale blue to bright white, enveloping the entire factory area in an almost blinding halo.
The beams of light from the lighting system began to sweep rhythmically, attempting to cut off the path through which the shadow thief connected objects with their shadows.
But each of those objects that have been manipulated by the shadow thief has a direct connection to its shadow membrane.
Even if the beam of light sweeps across and cuts off one of the shadow channels, it can still maintain control through another channel.
"Dirk, don't unleash your weirdness!" Hardin stopped Dirk as soon as he raised his hand. "I'll do it."
Harding took a deep breath and released the strange pressure he was under.
Thus, the eye of the storm was released.
Inside the abandoned factory, a storm suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Genuine dark clouds gathered in the space beneath the factory roof, thunder echoed between the walls, and a gale swept everything away, accompanied by large raindrops.
Rain poured out from all directions simultaneously, as if someone had installed an invisible rain-generating machine in every corner of the factory. And at the eye of the storm was Harding.
He stood in the wind and rain, his uniform fluttering in the wind, but his body remained motionless, his hands still in his pockets.
The gale struck the objects manipulated by the shadow thieves.
The flywheel of the heavy-duty press slowed down in the wind, the crane hook swayed in the air, and the flying steel pipes were swept away by the wind, clanging and clattering against the wall.
The storm and the shadow thief were locked in a standoff.
The objects manipulated by the Shadow Thief were constantly pushed back by the storm, but the shadow film stubbornly clung to the shadows of each object, refusing to let go.
(Bonus chapter, one more to come)