Gargoyle Supremacy

Chapter 11 - I Need a Hand

Carn's curiosity piqued as he watched the strange man closely. 

Could this really be a doppelganger? 

From his father's stories, doppelgangers were supposed to be far more dangerous, capable of wiping out entire cities in a single day. Yet, this guy had only managed to claim around 500 victims. It didn't add up.

Surely, the local authorities, police, investigators, and FBI agents, weren't that incompetent. By now, they should have noticed the disturbing pattern of murders and mobilized every resource to capture the killer.

But this guy was still walking free, dragging his bloody suitcase through a crowded shopping mall like he had nothing to fear. Why hadn't he been apprehended yet?

Carn grew more cautious. Something was very off about this man, and it wasn't just the skin mask or the heavy air of death surrounding him. He seemed too conspicuous, yet somehow untouched by law enforcement. Carn silently switched from hunting mode to stalking mode, deciding to observe the entity from a safe distance.

The man boarded the escalator and headed down to the first floor. Carn waited until the man was halfway down before stepping on the escalator himself, maintaining just enough distance to avoid suspicion.

Ahead, the college girls exited the escalator and were still lost in their own world of chatter, selfies, and phone calls. One girl even started a video call, completely oblivious to the looming danger behind them.

Meanwhile, the suitcase stalker followed 10 steps behind, widening his grin as he dragged the luggage behind him. Sweat poured from his body despite the mall's cool 18°C (64.4°F) temperature.

Carn, now halfway down the escalator, noticed something disturbing. The man briefly turned his face toward the group of girls. Even more unsettling, a faint black aura began to seep from his body, causing the nearby spirits to wail in terror.

'…run…' 

'…get…away…'

The desperate cries of the spirits filled the air, but no normal human could hear these ghosts. The girls remained completely unaware of the horror lurking behind them.

Carn clenched his jaw as he looked up, biting his lower lip in frustration. The spirits' haunting pleas reminded him of the innocent monsters and beasts that haunted the so-called heroes, who indiscriminately slaughtered everybody who was not of the human race. 

"I hear you," Carn muttered quietly, activating a minor spell under his breath. He knew he couldn't let this go on any longer. Communicating through the haze of spirits, he produced a silent vibrating voice with his throat, asking for their help. "I can hear you. Look at me. I'll help you."

The reaction was immediate. The floating human faces in the haze whipped around, staring directly at Carn with hollow, pleading expressions. They swarmed him, their voices rising in desperation.

'You can see me…' 

'Can you hear us…?'

'Help me!' 

The spirits, driven by the last traces of their wills and agony, shouted in Carn's ears, begging for salvation. 

Carn's focus wavered for a moment as he was bombarded with their voices, but he quickly steeled himself. He was going to put an end to this monster and free them from their torment.

"I'll help you," Carn negotiated with the spirits. "But first, I need you to help me. Can you disable the mall's CCTV cameras? I need to move without being seen."

The spirits, their spectral faces momentarily frozen, seemed to process his request. Without uttering a word in response, they suddenly dispersed into the air like wisps of smoke.

*BOOM*

A deafening noise echoed through the mall. Every LED light shattered in an instant, cascading glass fragments to the floor. The CCTV camera lenses exploded in a shower of sparks, rendered useless. 

Even worse, every mobile phone within a hundred meters began to overheat, causing panicked shoppers to scream as they frantically dropped their burning devices. 

Phones hit the ground with dull thuds. Some threw them away in pure terror, causing their screens to crack.

The interior of the mall was plunged into an unsettling darkness. As the blackness consumed the building, the ventilation system began emitting a low, eerie sound. A ghostly, howling wail echoed through the emptying halls. 

The atmosphere quickly shifted from an ordinary shopping day to something out of a horror movie. Only the faintest beams of sunlight pierced through windows and skylights, casting jagged shafts of light that barely illuminated small patches of the ground. The once bustling shopping mall now resembled a haunted house.

Screams erupted. Shoppers, storekeepers, and employees fled in a chaotic stampede, rushing toward the nearest exits in sheer terror. Some store owners, confused but unwilling to leave their merchandise behind, remained frozen inside their shops. Their eyes darted nervously around as they tried to make sense of what had just happened. 

Amid the chaos, a few opportunistic figures emerged. They were startled at first by the sudden explosions, but they quickly recovered and began eyeing the abandoned stores, thinking about what they could snatch before fleeing into the confusion. 

The exploding lights and the chaos around him acted as the signal Carn had been waiting for. His head throbbed because of the backlash from the lack of Aether, but he didn't hesitate. He launched himself forward, sprinting toward the mysterious entity without a second thought.

The suitcase man, still trailing the group of shoppers, found himself caught off guard by the sudden darkness and chaos. Panicked crowds flooded the mall, blocking his path. The group of girls he had been stalking earlier screamed in terror and disappeared into the frantic mass of fleeing people.

Frustration boiled within him. Realizing his prey had slipped away, the man let out a growl of rage. He stomped his feet hard, and in a fit of anger, he lifted his heavy suitcase and slammed it down onto the ground with a thunderous crash. 

The impact was so violent that the suitcase burst open slightly, allowing its gruesome contents to spill out.

A collection of bloodstained tools slid from the cracks—small surgeon's scissors, wooden sticks soaked in dried blood, forks twisted at odd angles, and a butcher's knife that gleamed even in the faint light. The items scattered across the floor, creating a grisly mosaic that mirrored the bloodied horror this man had carried with him. 

Carn observed from a distance. His gaze fixed on the blood-soaked tools that spilled from the suitcase. The sight confirmed his suspicion that this being wasn't a doppelganger but something else.

'Shame. I wanted to see what a doppelganger really looked like,' Carn thought, mildly disappointed. Still, that didn't change the fact that this creature in human disguise had more to hide, such as supernatural power or other abilities to hide his presence. 

It was time to test the waters.

The darkness enveloping the mall was now Carn's ally, allowing him to move with ease. Preserving his limited spell usage, he decided to rely on his physical prowess. 

Silently, he closed the distance between himself and the suitcase man. The entity, entirely oblivious to Carn's approach, grumbled to himself as he bent over, fumbling with his scattered tools.

Carn loomed over the creature's massive form, blending into the darkness. As quiet as a shadow, he reached out, his fingers wrapping around the crown of the man's head with one hand, while his other hand clamped down on the man's chin.

Before the man could even register the danger, Carn twisted the head. 

*CRACK!*

The sound reverberated through the chaos. The entity's head rotated vertically, dangling like a grotesque hook. 

"REEEEEEEEEE!!" 

A high-pitched screech pierced the air, rattling the nerves of anyone close enough to hear. 

Carn's satisfaction from the clean twist quickly dissolved as the creature retaliated. Without hesitation, the unknown entity swung a punch toward his face, its fist barreling through the air with unnatural speed.

Carn leaped backward instinctively, but his momentum sent him into an unintentional backflip. As his feet hit the ground, he pivoted, launching himself sideways, vanishing into the shadows like a ghost.

'As expected, that thing is never a human' Carn thought, watching from the darkness.

"REEEEEEEEEE!!" 

The creature screamed the ear-splitting screech again. With the sound of tearing fabric, its grotesque transformation began. 

The mask it wore, a hideous mockery of human skin, was ripped away, revealing not a face but a massive, broken fingertip with a jagged, vertical mouth lined with sharp fangs.

Its entire body expanded, doubling its size, shredding its clothes like fragile paper. From a regular 5'11 fat man, it turned into an 8-foot giant. 

The human guise fell apart, revealing the monstrosity beneath. It was a colossal hand-like creature, complete with seven thick fingers, four thumbs, and six slithering tentacles extending from beneath its twisted palm. Each finger featured smaller mouths, gnashing and dripping with saliva, while its tentacles acted as grotesque legs. Five eyes, embedded in the palm of its bloated hand-body, rolled in every direction, scanning for its attacker. 

On the back of the creature's body, patches of its victims' facial skins were grotesquely grafted onto its flesh. Hundreds of tiny black tentacles, like writhing threads, appeared to have sewn the disfigured faces into place as if some twisted being had stitched them onto the monster's body.

Carn crouched in the shadows and observed its form. Indeed, it looked impressive for a monster from another dimension. 

However, compared to THOSE CALAMITOUS ABOMINATIONS that Carn had fought in that dungeon, he found this entity cute. 

'Alright. One of those skinwalkers, I see. I thought they were extinct.'