Illusion Report

"Hmm?" Fley looked up. "What did you say? I didn’t catch that."

Chaisi didn’t say a word. But the other, younger officer heard, and with some amusement, he chimed in, "He just said he wants to borrow our phones."

"Ha."

Fley pulled a phone out of his pocket, slapped it on the table with a CLACK, and slid it across the surface toward Chaisi. "You want to borrow this? You should have just said so."

The moment Chaisi lowered his eyes, Fley snatched the phone back, his attitude like he was teasing a dog.

"But you don’t need me to lend it to you, do you? A big shot like you can just take my phone whenever you want, right?"

Chaisi wasn’t provoked. He just nodded. "You’re right."

He turned his gaze and scanned the interrogation room.

The room’s design was standard: the entrance door had no window and only opened outward, preventing anyone from barricading it from the inside and turning the interrogation room into a sealed space.

The suspect’s chair was bolted to the floor. The ceiling was smooth, with nothing to grab onto. The room was small, roughly 2.5 by 3 meters, and besides three chairs and a table, the only other things were the audio and video recording devices on the wall.

The interrogators were undoubtedly armed. The slightest strange move from him and reinforcements would swarm in from beyond the door—this was, after all, the Blackmoor City Central Police Station. Excluding field agents and administrative staff, there had to be at least several dozen armed officers in the building.

He, on the other hand, had nothing on him, and even his hands were cuffed.

All he had was the "Rumor" Illusion in his mouth, which was utterly useless at this moment. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

His eyes swept over every corner of the room, inch by inch, which seemed to stir a mixture of anger and unease in Fley.

"What are you looking at? I’m talking to you!" He slammed the table hard and demanded, "I’m asking you, when was the last time you saw Ivan Weston?"

’That bodyguard?’

’So, the person behind today’s events is after the same thing I am: the Illusions scattered after Westley’s death?’

’I wonder who it is, someone who can turn the Blackmoor City police force into their own private army...’

’In the past, there was only one person who could mobilize the police for personal use: Westley. But Westley is long dead, his body buried and all. Who else in Blackmoor City could it be?’

’It doesn’t matter who it is. As long as I get out of here, I’ll find the answer eventually. If I don’t get out today, then the answer is irrelevant anyway.’

Chaisi looked up at the two men opposite him, surprisingly calm.

The closer he got to making a move, the slimmer his chances, the calmer he became.

After all, people only get nervous when they can’t accept the consequences. Facing a life-or-death situation, he felt dazed, as if he were a man tired of living this life. His emotions felt detached; he was simply arranging the final pieces, one by one.

For example, the first step was to reach for the coffee cup.

When he had put the cup down earlier, he’d placed it half an arm’s length away, directly in front of the younger officer. Chaisi was lanky, and a slight stretch of his arm easily reached across half the table, so placing the coffee cup a bit far away didn’t seem unnatural at all.

With his hands cuffed together, when his right hand grasped the cup, his left hand had no choice but to move with it, hanging below the table.

"Ivan fled early in the morning after Westley died. Did you know that?"

Fley was asking this just as Chaisi’s five fingers touched the paper coffee cup.

He flashed a row of white teeth and smiled at Fley.

The next second, with a flick of his wrist, Chaisi sent the paper cup tumbling across the table. Coffee splashed out like watercolor from a painter’s brush. The young officer reflexively dodged back, and Fley’s gaze was drawn away for a split second.

A split second was all he needed.

The left hand, dangling below the table’s edge, suddenly flipped up at the exact same moment the cup was sent flying, grabbing the table from underneath.

The interrogation table, not being bolted to the floor, seemed to have no weight in his grasp. Chaisi simply lifted, effortlessly flipping the entire table over. He was already out of his chair; the moment the table left the ground, he kicked its underside, sending it flying forward like a cannonball.

The two officers, distracted for that one instant, were still sitting in their chairs and hadn’t even processed what was happening when the table flew at them. A cry had barely escaped their lips before they were knocked over, chairs and all, by the crashing table. A muffled, crunching sound of wood and bone colliding echoed off the concrete floor.

In the space of just a few breaths, a sequence rehearsed in his mind to the point of instinct was executed.

Chaisi crouched like a cat and leaped, landing squarely on the overturned table. His weight made the two men underneath scream in agony, and the faint sound of a snapping arm bone could be heard. He stumbled slightly, as if on a seesaw, but quickly regained his balance.

The Blackmoor City police weren’t idiots; they wouldn’t bring guns into an interrogation room, precisely to prevent a situation like this. So Chaisi just glanced down, not wasting any time searching for a service weapon.

As he stepped off the table, his hands gripped one of its metal legs. With a sudden wrench, he snapped it off. Screws clattered onto the floor with a sharp, ringing sound.

Chaisi timed every second with extreme precision. As he took a few strides across the small room, the interrogation room door happened to be flung open.

If he’d had time to feel anything, Chaisi might have even felt bored.

It wasn’t that he was bored because he was certain of victory.

He was just doing one thing after another, taking down one person after another, with neither tension nor fear. The metal leg swung through the air in a gray blur, striking the newcomer’s temple hard. The man crumpled like a clay doll, collapsing without even having time to pull the trigger.

Chaisi’s hands were still bound by the cuffs, making his every movement look like a strange dance.

The metal leg went spiraling out the door, startling the several officers rushing up from behind and forcing them to retreat a few steps. In that tiny opening, he had already bent down, scooped up the fallen man’s pistol, and brought it into his hands.

"You—"

The young officer’s roar came from behind him. It seemed he had only just managed to get to his feet from under the tabletop. He had just shouted a single word when he found himself staring down the barrel of Chaisi’s gun, which was now pointed at him.

Every second was timed without a hint of hesitation. A gunshot shattered the air in the room. The young officer instantly collapsed like a kicked-over set of LEGO bricks, his body spilling onto the floor.

If one was going to do something, one might as well go all the way—to the point of no return.

Chaisi raised the gun and fired several shots—BANG! BANG!—toward the doorway. He wasn’t trying to hit anyone, just suppress the reinforcing officers outside and keep them from rushing in all at once.

Seizing the opportunity, Chaisi took a few steps back, kicked the table away, and planted his foot on Fley’s chest.

It seemed that Fley had been trying to lift the table when Chaisi jumped on it, the weight snapping his arm bone through the tabletop. He was groaning now, still unable to get up. Though it looked like Chaisi had completely turned the tables, only a few dozen seconds had passed.

"Get up," Chaisi said, his eyes lowered. He held the gun with both hands, the barrel drifting until it was aimed at Fley’s head. "Time to say hello to your colleagues."

Fley understood Chaisi’s meaning in an instant.

He roared toward the doorway at the top of his lungs, with all his strength, "Don’t come in! Nobody shoot! Don’t be rash!"

"Not bad," Chaisi said with a glance at the door, then smiled. "Now tell them to close it."

"Close the door! Close the door!" Fley shouted.

The interrogation room was very well soundproofed. The moment the door closed, Chaisi, without looking back, turned the pistol slightly, and the one-way mirror shattered with the shot. A waterfall of splintered, silvery fragments cascaded down, revealing an empty room behind the glass.

Less than a minute had passed, but that was more than enough time for whoever was behind the glass to see things were going south and flee.

Chaisi transferred the gun to his right hand and crouched down beside Fley. He lowered his head, sizing him up like a predator sniffing its prey, and then split his lips in a grin.

"Unlock the cuffs," he said, his voice a near-whisper. "Now, may I borrow your phone?"