"Beep—beep—beep—"
The shrill alarm pierced the silence above the scrapyard.
Several inspection drones,emblazoned with the emblem of the Ash City Administration Bureau,were closing in at high speed,their scarlet scanning beams flickering.
"Damn it!So fast!"
Lin An's face turned pale.
The energy fluctuation from reading the memories had still alerted them.
He immediately grabbed the recycling box and turned to run.
The scrapyard's complex terrain was familiar territory to him.
But the drones were too fast,and their cold scanning beams locked onto him tightly.
[Undocumented energy reaction detected!Target is moving!]
The mechanical synthesized voice echoed through the air.
"Warning!Stop moving immediately and submit to inspection!"
Lin An knew that if he was caught,his identity as an Eroder would be exposed.
And that fate was worse than death.
He darted into a narrow alleyway.
On either side of the alley were densely packed cheap rental houses,and the air was thick with negative emotions of poverty,anxiety,and despair.
These emotions,like a viscous spider's web,silently entangled every passerby.
For ordinary people,it was oppressive.
For Lin An,however,it was...power!
The drones'locking beams were getting closer.
"There's no other way!"
Lin An's eyes hardened.
He opened his"mouth,"not a physical one,but a"mouth"at the spiritual level.
The"mouth"of an Eroder,one that devours negative emotions!
Whoosh!
An intangible suction force erupted from him with a sudden burst!
The accumulated anxiety,fear,and resentment in the alley,as if finding an outlet,poured into his body frantically!
[Anxiety]turned into thorny intangible chains,which he forcibly snapped and absorbed!
[Fear]tried to form a black hole-like vortex in his consciousness,but was swallowed by his even stronger hunger!
This feeling was like a dying person taking a deep breath of oxygen,both painful and empowering.
But this time,he had sucked in too fiercely,too hastily!
"Ugh—!"
Lin An felt a sharp pain in his brain,as if it was about to explode.
At the same time,the entire block,and even buildings further away...
Crack!Crack!Crack!
All the light cores,whether streetlights,billboards,or the illumination cores in residents'homes,lost their light in an instant!
The energy was drained!
The entire area plunged into a deathly silence and darkness!
Only Lin An's translucent right hand emitted an eerie glow in the darkness.
"Succeeded..."
He panted,using the cover of darkness to quickly disappear into a deeper alley.
Hundreds of meters above the clouds,inside a streamlined silver flying vessel,a woman dressed in a pure white prosecutor's uniform was watching the sudden large-scale darkening of light points on the surveillance screen.
She had a beautiful appearance and a cool demeanor,with a first-class light core emitting pure white light pinned on her chest.
"Report!A large-scale light core energy paralysis in Zone B-7!"
"Preliminarily determined to be...a high-intensity negative emotion devouring phenomenon!"
The subordinate's report was somewhat trembling.
The woman,Bai Jin,the newly appointed prosecutor of the Light Core Administration Bureau,frowned slightly.
Her white light core,a rare pure white,seemed to dim slightly for a moment due to the distant energy fluctuation,as if covered by a very light layer of gray.
"Lock onto the center of the energy burst."
Bai Jin's voice was cool and decisive.
"Notify the ground troops to seal off the area."
"Target characteristics:suspected...Eroder."
Her gaze was sharp,as if it could penetrate through layers of buildings to lock onto the figure fleeing in the darkness.
"He must not escape."
to be continued...