Investigation Report of the Gods

Chapter 12: Ghost Truck

The night fog thickened, as if layers of white ink were staining the night.

Just moments ago, they could still roughly see the distance, though their line of sight was somewhat obstructed.

But within just a few minutes, the fog surged more intensely, even the sports car’s headlights seemed suppressed by it, only managing to light up four or five meters ahead.

And within this extremely dense fog, the surrounding sounds and objects had all been concealed, as if trapped in a lonely and sealed-off world.

Only the sound of the engine echoed in this narrow space, but even that sound was bizarre, as if it were a mixture of mechanical energy, heartbeats, panting, moaning, and wailing.

Han Su didn’t know why, but he began to feel an uncontrollable surge of excitement rising in his chest, overwhelming and hard to restrain.

“Not good!”

He suddenly heard a subtle change in the engine sound coming from behind the dense fog, instantly alert.

The instinct honed by countless escapes from dark ancient castles acted even before his consciousness.

With a shout of warning, one hand pulled open the car door, and the other hand grabbed Xu Ji, rushing out of the car.

Boom boom!

Almost at the exact moment Han Su yanked Xu Ji without warning and dashed out of the sports car, two waves of fog parted ahead of the vehicle, flowing outward as if pushed aside.

Immediately after, a massive truck barreled through.

It was a giant truck with a cab towering four or five meters high, made of solid metal and cold, rigid lines, yet the body was covered in bloodstains.

Some vein-like structures intertwined with mechanical components covered it, delivering an intense visual shock.

It charged in with a crazed force at a speed of nearly 260 kilometers per hour.

From afar, that speed and force might have seemed manageable, but at close range, it was like the collapse of mountains and the shattering of earth.

Xu Ji’s flamboyant red sports car was crushed into pieces in the blink of an eye by this giant truck.

The wrecked car exploded with countless sparks, flinging away like a torn sack, parts clattering all over the ground, looking like a soccer ball kicked far away.

Even though Han Su reacted fast enough to pull Xu Ji out in time, the two of them were nearly swept under by the violent wind stirred by the impact.

“Damn it, damn it, this thing actually exists?!”

Xu Ji collapsed on the ground, completely disoriented from the shock, but he stared dead ahead in the direction where the eerie truck vanished, as if he recognized something, his whole body soulless.

He could only shout, “It’s not logical, it’s not logical! Something like this can’t really exist in this world...”

“If it did, my dad should have told me a long time ago…”

“……”

“What is it?”

Han Su, after rolling on the ground twice, immediately pulled up the fallen Xu Ji.

While dragging him into a corner, he kept his eyes on the fading taillights in the dense fog, an unexpected joy flashing in his eyes, calmly asking Xu Ji.

“The killer truck on Highway 59…”

Xu Ji looked like his worldview had been shattered, dazed as if drunk: “Some loudmouth at the club once talked about it. He’s a drunk, always babbling weird nonsense no one can understand. Don’t know how he even got into the club.”

“Said there was a big truck hauling cargo late at night that got into an accident on Highway 59—driver and truck both crushed to bits.”

“But the truck driver was unwilling to die, and fused with the wreckage, becoming a monstrous entity in the wilderness, appearing every night, ramming to death every living thing it encounters…”

“But—but that guy said a legendary investigator had sealed it off on the abandoned Highway 59…”

“But we’re clearly on Highway 48!!”

“……”

“Huh?”

Han Su looked amazed: “So things like this really exist?”

Xu Ji was nearly in tears: “How can you accept this so easily?! This thing isn’t supposed to be real!”

Han Su ignored him and suddenly looked displeased: “Didn’t you know I’ve always been interested in things like this? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“？”

Xu Ji’s expression was strange and aggrieved: “I kept asking you to hang out at the club, saying the people there knew everything. You were the one who insisted on running to the library…”

Before he could finish, Han Su suddenly turned his head and looked at him, then unceremoniously kicked him.

That kick was full force, sending Xu Ji flying five or six meters away.

But at that very instant, within the dense fog ahead of them, blinding lights suddenly lit up.

A towering truck cab, full of oppressive presence, burst out from the fog at a mad speed, charging straight toward where the two of them were standing, its bright and blood-tinged headlights almost enough to steal a person’s sanity.

It wildly crushed through the spot where Xu Ji had just been, then with a deafening roar, dashed into the fog on the opposite side, quickly swallowed up again.

All around turned deathly quiet, only the dense fog creeping closer, bit by bit.

And from deep within the fog, they could faintly hear the engine’s roar, like a mechanical beast hiding behind the mist, gathering strength, staring at them intently.

Everything about it exuded a madness and grotesqueness beyond reason, something that shouldn’t exist.

By now, Xu Ji was completely at a loss; within the fog, even if he wanted to flee, he had no idea which direction to run in.

In theory, to face such a truck, one should leave the road—but the fog was too thick, and he could no longer see the sides of the asphalt.

Trembling, he groped along the ground, trying to crawl off the road, but all he found was asphalt—he couldn’t find the edge.

And Han Su, truthfully, was also encountering this kind of bizarre phenomenon for the first time.

Only, having been kidnapped back to the past countless times, this was the first time he’d faced something so strange in the real world.

Staring into the dense fog, feeling the suffocating, maddening aura that chilled the blood, his mind instead became unusually sharp:

“It truly exists—not an illusion, not some indistinguishable vision seen during a kidnapping. It’s something real, something everyone can see…”

“Was it that spell that summoned this eerie thing? Or… has the world finally gone mad?”

“……”

Whichever it was, he was incredibly excited.

Even his right eye—the one that had lain dormant for ten years along this life line—was now faintly aching, and the pain was intensifying.

Boom!

From deep in the fog, the heavy truck engine roared again, rising to a new level.

Immediately, the frenzied fog surged, and piercing lights filled their vision.

The truck that had just charged into the right side of the fog now suddenly burst out from Xu Ji’s right again.

If they hadn’t gotten their bearings wrong, that should have been a slope off the road—an empty place.

Yet the truck came crashing straight from that direction, directly toward Xu Ji, who had no time to turn around.

But at the same time, Han Su, who had been prepared, suddenly stepped forward, grabbed Xu Ji by the collar, yanked him aside, and while ensuring his own safety, abruptly extended his hand.

Facing the massive cab four or five meters tall and the blinding headlights, his figure appeared minuscule, and compared to this monstrous killing machine, a human body was as fragile as tofu—unable to withstand a single blow.

But he raised his hand in a half-pressing gesture, his expression mad, as he rapidly chanted:

“Gods descend with their divine decree!”

The syllables rose and fell with strange rhythm, carrying an ancient and mysterious tone.

In his mind, that dormant spiritual power surged forth at once with that ancient fisherman’s chant.

As if he had grown familiar with it—this time, the spiritual power rampaged through his body, quickly found its destination—his right eye.

And this time, it surged straight into his right eye; the force of this impact far exceeded anything before.

Han Su’s gray-white, dim right eye began to bleed almost instantly.

As though torn from within by a tremendous force, the searing pain of ruptured flesh sent shockwaves from just beneath the brain, pounding his sanity layer by layer.

Screeech…

That eerie and frenzied truck came to a sudden halt.

The wheels still spun wildly, grinding against the ground, releasing the smell of burning rubber.

The headlights of the giant truck were blindingly bright, and as the beams slightly twisted, they resembled two huge, glowing eyes turning to stare in Han Su’s direction.

All around, the fog surged upward from the ground, a sea of white.

Within the mist, illusory figures began to appear.

Among them, they even saw Zhang He, blood covering his body, and that innocent long-legged girl in the short white skirt, faces twisted with unwillingness and pain, lips moving as if trying to speak.

They too had been devoured by this killer truck, turned into its ghostly minions.

Pale faces like masks merged into the truck itself, expressing the ghost truck’s grim visage.

And across from the ghost truck, Han Su stood motionless, his right eye bleeding, the agony assaulting his brain.

Yet he felt exhilarated, his scarred face twisted, grinning like a demon.

Just now, when the spiritual power surged into his right eye, it had still been blocked.

It seemed that spiritual power entering reality faced even greater restrictions than he had imagined.

He didn’t know the origin of these limitations, but Han Su could vaguely sense that they were like rules etched into the deepest layers of human instinct.

Spirit—must not enter reality!