Autophagy

Song Lei suddenly pushed the infected he was fighting with away and charged towards him. Clark was by no means expecting such a thing. With his incredible speed, Song Lei managed to get past Clark's effective defensive area.

"Take this!" Song Lei shouted as he swung his dagger. His dagger stabbed deep into Clark, forming a wide wound on his waist. Clark felt a warm substance rising up from his stomach, Slowly filling his upper body. In the next instance, he puked out a few mouıthful of blood as he tried to step back. This time, however, Song Lei didn't let him go.

He kept chasing after Clark. His initial attack had left a lot more damage than he had expected so he opted to leave a few more scratches on his body by attacking Clark by throwing slash after slash. In the end, none of their efforts would mean anything if he were to accidentally kill him. The best case would be for him to return to the streets after being thrown out of the orphanage. The worst case, however...

Clark was met with an onslaught of attacks raining on him. With every scratch the soulite dagger left on his skin, he felt his soul buzzing like a phone alarm. This, in turn, caused his eyes to go hazy, shutting his senses down and making him want to stop existing. After all, a soul was a person's existence. A huge part of their personality and consciousness was supported by it. It being shaken wasn't something to be taken lightly.

Although it was manageable for someone like Song Lei who had thirteen points in soul, there was no way a person with a slightly above-average soul.

Clark gritted his teeth as he did his best to dodge Song Lei's attacks all the while healing himself. However, this was obviously no easy feat.

Song Lei raised his speed as he overloaded his leg muscles with energy. He threw himself forward as he brandished his dagger. Clark ducked to dodge Song Lei's attack, however, Song Lei's attack suddenly changed its course midair and left a long scratch on Clark's abdomen.

With this, Clark rolled on the ground and tried to create distance between himself and Song Lei but to no avail. Song Lei was like a ghost, haunting Clark wherever he went. This made Clark incredibly anxious as he never got the chance to recuperate.

"Not so easy!" Song Lei shouted as he swung his dagger once more. With another clear scratch, Clark's eyes went empty. His body stopped moving entirely as he crumbled on the ground. Song Lei looked at his empty eyes for a second.

"I- I did it..." Song Lei muttered. He chuckled to himself and squatted next to Clark. He slightly stabbed his dagger into Clark's abdomen and left it there. As long as the dagger was there, he wouldn't be able to wake up.

"Huff... Huff..." Song Lei did his best to breathe. His body was exhausted. So exhausted that he wanted to just relax all of his muscles and throw himself on the ground to sleep. Unfortunately, he couldn't do that. After all, the battle between the elite infected and their side was still going on.

On the good side of things, there wasn't much left for Song Lei to do. He joined the battle with bare hands. He threw a few punches and disrupted the enemy's movements. The last elite infected fell down on the ground.

"That was easier than I thought," Aston said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Really? I think it was pretty hard," Song Lei said.

"I don't know... After working so hard for so many months, this just feels anticlimactic," Aston explained his reasoning. "I feel like there should be more problems we have to fa-"

*Ding

Suddenly, a sudden noise cut off Aston's words. It resounded across the whole orphanage, making everyone in the premises close their ears. As the noise passed, Song Lei's face soured up.

"You really had to go ahead and speak like that, right?" He asked Aston with a tired expression on his face. He turned his head towards Clark who was lying unconscious on the ground. At first look, it didn't seem like there was anything out of ordinary about him, however, when one looked closer, it was easy to notice that Clark's limbs were slightly moving.

Normally, this wouldn't mean much. However, considering that he still hadn't puked the soul worms infecting him, it was easy to understand that this wasn't a good thing.

Gulping loudly, Song Lei took the soulite dagger of the nearest trainee from his hands and ran towards Clark. He didn't know what was about to happen, however, he knew that he couldn't just let it.

Reaching Clark's side, Song Lei felt the ground under his feet slightly shaking. It was as if he was cruising on a ship during calm weather with little to no waves. It was definitely there, however, it wouldn't disorientate a normal person.

Disregarding this weird phenomenon, Song Lei stabbed the soulite dagger into Clark's skin again. Just enough so that it would stay there, however, not enough to leave a meaningful wound on him.

This, in turn, lessened the shaking of the ground. Thinking that this was probably a good sign, Song Lei turned his head.

"Hey! Come here! I need your daggers too," Song Lei said. However, before the other trainees could come to his side, his sixth sense told him to immediately run from his current place. He had never felt such a direct warning with his sixth senses. It may have not been the most dangerous, however, this danger was directly pointed towards him.

Not wasting a single second, Song Lei tensed his leg muscles and launched himself backward. In an instant, he managed to traverse more than five meters. This made his sixth sense calm down a bit, however, it still wasn't enough. He took a few more steps as he stumbled on his own legs and fell on his butt.

'What... What is coming?' Song Lei did his best to guess. "Aston! Quick! Throw me the monocle!" Song Lei shouted. Aston's face soured up as he quickly took out the monocle and threw it towards Song Lei.

Song Lei caught it in midair. It slightly bounced in his hand, making Song Lei flustered. After managing the properly hold it, Song Lei raised it to his eyes and looked towards Clark's unconscious body.

"Huh... That's awkward," Song Lei thought as he lowered the monocle back down. Around Aston was something that looked like a sphere. As if they were in a hot desert trying to stare into the distance, it constantly wriggled around.

This sphere had a diameter of seven to eight meters. Seeing this, Song Lei quickly understood that this was the thing that was making his sixth sense tingle. "Take it!" Song Lei shouted at Aston as he threw the monocle back.

After catching it in the air, Aston went through the same stages of confusion Song Lei had experienced. Right now, in this place, everyone who still had their consciousness was confused.

However, this confusion didn't last long.

*DONGDONGDONG!

Time after time, as if someone was hitting a gigantic gong with all their might, an ear-deafening noise resounded throughout Section A. It was to the degree that the trainees Song Lei had gathered all crumpled down on the ground. The only two remaining were Song Lei and Aston. Aston wasn't in a very good state too as he closed he clasped his hands over his ears. Song Lei looked slightly better, however, he too had been disoriented by the noise.

Of course, there was a big question at their hand.

"What was the thing that caused such a huge noise?" Song Lei asked himself. He looked around, feeling that something was a little awkward. Suddenly, his eyes widened for a second before he quickly rushed towards Aston's side. "Hey."

Aston did his best to recover from the temporary tinnitus he had got and listened to Song Lei.

"How loud do you think that sound was?" Song Lei asked.

"Very loud?" Aston said confusedly. He didn't know what Song Lei was trying to ask.

"No. Like... In terms of decibels," Song Lei said.

"What are decibels?" Aston asked again.

"Oh..." Song Lei muttered. "Anyways. That was pretty loud."

"Yeah... And?" Aston asked. He couldn't understand Song Lei. They were in a dangerous situation but he was muttering words that Aston couldn't really understand.

"Then why didn't the windows explode?" Song Lei asked. This made Aston's eyes widen for a bit. The decibel of this noise could easily reach as high as 140 decibels which were far more than enough to permanently hurt a human's ears and make glass explode into pieces.

However, nothing had changed with the windows of the orphanage.

"You're right..." Aston muttered. He tapped his chin calmly and thought about Song Lei's words a little bit more.

"Why didn't they...?"