“These are my antique coins! My god! I’ve spent so much on these! I’m counting on their resale value to buy a new apartment!” The owner of the internet cafe cried and whined holding the string of coins in his hand. After what happened, the coins had a few cracks on them and from the looks of them they were on the brink of falling apart.

“I’m sorry, Boss. But you should feel fortunate, if it weren’t for these coins you might not have been able to make it out alive.” The chubby man patted the owner on his shoulder.

“What did you see when you were in the illusion?” Gloria looked around the windows to check on the status outside - it seemed there was nothing eerie outside, and the Blood Rainbow had all but disappeared.

“I - I don’t remember.” The owner of the internet cafe shook his head, then looked to the other two who also fell into illusion earlier. They also shook their heads and shrugged. All three of them were sweating through their clothes. The sickly middle aged man was coughing, and before anyone could ask, he stood up and rushed to the bathroom and started making retching sounds.

“Now, stay inside, don’t move. And light up some more incense if you need to.” Gloria checked the windows once again, grabbed her things and went to the door.

“Wait!? Are you getting out?” The young man with a blue strip in his hair asked: “Isn’t this a little dangerous?”

“It should be good now.” Gloria nodded and cracked the door open by a hair. A bit of cold night wind blew in and through her fingers, she used her Qi to sense the energy in the air, and she could not feel anything. “Yeah, I’ll be out quickly. You hang in there. If you’re worried, call the collective watch and patrol team.”

“No! That’s not safe!! You can’t leave!” The young man cried out: “What if we have something coming at us again? What if they come in again?”

“Yeah, use the coins again.” Gloria shrugged: “I think you can still use them a few more times. They’re cracked and won’t see a good price anyway.”

There was an unmissable smell of salty water, wet dirt and rotten aqua weeds in the air outside. And even from afar, she could see the slowly fading foot and hand prints on the ground. They seemed to be made of mainly dirty water, and there was not anything or anyone around that would indicate where they came from, other than the water itself.

“Shit.” Gloria looked around again, there were a few older warehouses that had collapsed. It seemed there was a fight in the area, with some discarded makeshift weapons lying on the ground. And most important of all, was that there were a few bodies lying around as well, in the rubbles.

She hesitated for a moment, then decided to go in to take a closer look, with her phone taken out ready to call Gyuu Park and Sue. There was no signal on her phone at all

The closest body to her was that of a young shirtless man lying on his chest with his arms grabbing the crevices and bumps on the ground. His face was frozen in a twisted state of horror, his tongue fell on the cement floor, decayed and blackened. The tips of his fingers were bloodied and torn, as if something or someone was trying to pull him away while he was sliding on the hard surface of the docks area.

The next closest body was clearly that of a local gangster, as his body was covered in tattoos mostly common among high tier gang members. There was a broken sword next to his hand, and his chest was completely torn open, exposing the bloody, empty messes of chest and stomach cavities. She averted her eyes, for she doubted she could find anything useful without incriminating herself by investigating this body that had his spine revealed through the front.

Between this body and the one that was further away, one seemed to be mostly intact, there was a trail of blood and some bloody footprints, leading up to a side area on the docks. Gloria immediately stamped forward and checked the edge of the docks platform.

This was a platform that was elevated from the surface of the water, and the trail of blood and bloody footprints led up right into a tunnel on the side. When she looked around making sure that there was no one around her, a figure standing over mostly intact body almost made her jump and throw fists.

The figure did not do anything threatening, though, he just pointed at the direction of the tunnel, before something dragged him into the water.

“Fucking hell.” Gloria checked her phone again - there was still no signal. So she crafted a message and clicked “Sent” to both Sue and Gyuu Park, so that whenever the signal was back the message would go out before going in.

The tunnel was dark, and the smell of blood somehow got stronger from inside. There was another foul smell that stood out even more, a smell of what she could assume was exposed innards of humans. She infused her Qi into her legs and feet so that she could lighten her footsteps. She did the same with her fingers and eyes, so that she could see more clearly in the dark tunnel and grab the slippery wall to maintain balance.

The smell of blood and human insides grew stronger. Something was close, and she could feel it.

Inching inside and past a turn, Gloria saw a man in a ragged jacket and with blood all over his waist area and pants. Strangely, this man was still standing, even though his eyes were closed, and his breathing pattern indicated that he had probably passed out already.

There was a messy torn hand on the far side of the tunnel in front of her, and there were strips of flesh floating in the water. She snuck over, and the scene made her stomach rumble - though she had seen plenty of gruesome bodies, this was still the first time she saw people being torn up and shredded like this. Compared to the two or three or maybe four individuals that perished here, the man with his torso hollowed out got a fortunate and decent death.

Without a moment of doubt, Gloria doubled back and held onto the man that was still alive. Hopefully he could provide answers to her questions. Or at least, he could tell Gloria what happened.