Chapter 61 Theater: Is There Any Other Way?

Chapter 61 The Theater: Is There Any Other Way?

Everly handed Misha's phone to Old John so her grandfather could also understand the current situation. She pulled out her own phone and, through the gap in the grate, took a few photos of the scene below, focusing on the pile of corpses and that inverted pentagram magic circle, which gave her a deeply unsettling feeling.

After taking the photos, she closed the camera app and was just about to call Rebecca to ask about the situation when an incoming call notification appeared on her screen. Fortunately, Everly remembered Survival Rule No. 25 from horror movies: when in hiding, keep all sound-emitting devices on silent. She had earlier reminded the other two to turn off their ringtones and vibrations. Otherwise, if a phone rang, who knows if it might draw the attention of the thugs below!

The incoming call was from an unfamiliar number. Everly initially didn't plan to answer, but she thought about it—she didn't have many friends, and her phone number rarely rang even once every couple of weeks. Under these circumstances, a sudden call might mean something, right?

So, after a moment's hesitation, Everly tapped the answer button and brought the phone to her ear.

To her surprise, the caller was a police officer from the Mikano precinct. He gave his badge number and could even name the detective who had helped Everly with the Meghan Clinic dental case four years ago. His identity seemed genuine.

The officer had reached Everly through the number she had registered on the volunteer service platform. After quelling the crowd's resistance, the masked figures had confiscated and destroyed all the hostages' phones. Combined with their airtight defense of the theater, the police outside had no idea how many masked figures there were, what firearms they carried, or what condition the hostages were in.

Before reaching Everly, they had already made over a hundred calls, trying to communicate with hostages inside to gather intelligence. This included calls to Old John, who had originally made the emergency call, but none of those calls had gone through. So when Everly whispered to the officer on the other end, he thought he might be hallucinating.

"This is Everly Manners. When the danger happened, my companions and I managed to hide, and that's how we survived..." Everly worried there might be a mole among the police—a real possibility, since in many horror movies, good cops die within five minutes and nine out of ten cops who survive to the end are the bad guys—so she didn't give too many details. She only described what she had seen in the performance hall, gave an approximate count of the men in black inside, and mentioned that they had pistols and submachine guns.

"Great, thank you, Miss Everly. Your intelligence is very useful. I'll report this to my superiors right away. Please protect yourself, stay hidden, and don't do anything rash. We're figuring out a way to get inside the theater. Trust us, the police won't abandon you—just be patient. If we need to ask more questions later, we may call you again. If it's convenient, please do answer..."

The officer kept reminding her before hanging up.

Everly hung up and had Old John check his phone first. As expected, the same number had called his phone earlier, but because Old John had been crawling through the ventilation ducts, he hadn't noticed.

With that, the officer's identity was all but confirmed.

Relieved, Everly moved closer to Old John and Misha and filled them in on the situation.

The police were trying to find a way in—that was good news. The masked figures were too numerous, both inside and outside the building. The three of them alone would take forever to escape. But if the police could manage it, take down the masked figures, and rescue the hostages, then they could just stay hidden in the ventilation ducts and wait for rescue without risking themselves.

"I have some chocolate in my pocket—we can eat that to tide us over... If we get really thirsty, we can go to the men's bathroom. The partition door there isn't fully closed, so we can sneak down when no one's around to drink water." After hearing Everly's update, Misha reached into her pocket and pulled out a few squished pieces of chocolate, generously dividing them into three portions and handing one each to Old John and Everly.

Seeing this, Everly checked her own pockets too. Unfortunately, she wasn't one to snack, and all she found in her bag was a compact mirror.

Old John, meanwhile, stayed true to his cautious nature. The vest he wore had a square pocket on the left side of his chest. The old man unzipped it, reached inside, and pulled out a military-style compressed biscuit slightly smaller than a cigarette pack. He showed it to the two girls: "Make it last. With water, this can hold you for at least three days."

That was good to hear. They'd just wait in the ventilation ducts for rescue, then.

With the plan settled, Everly suddenly lost the motivation to come up with more ideas. The current section of duct was spacious and sloped, close to the vent, with fresh air—a perfect place to wait.

The three of them lay there quietly for a while. Outside the vent, the screams of people continued to drift in from time to time, weighing on everyone's spirits. To take her mind off things, Everly pulled out her phone and sent the photos she had just taken to Rebecca.

She felt uneasy and wanted to ask what exactly that magic circle was for.

Rebecca was quick—the moment Everly's photos went through, her phone rang.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! If you hadn't sent that photo, I'd almost forgotten—Little Miss, your community service was supposed to be today! So you're caught up in the Shinkan Blue Theater hostage situation too?! Where are you now, are you okay?"

The moment the call connected, a barrage of questions came tumbling out. Everly's head was ringing from the noise, so she had to hold the phone a bit farther from her ear and whisper back, "I'm fine, I'm in hiding, everything's okay for now. I sent you that photo because I wanted to ask what that magic circle the masked figures drew is meant for."

"Yes, that's exactly why I called—Little Miss, the magic circle you photographed is extremely dangerous. No matter what, you need to get as far away from it as possible—the farther, the better!"

"What do you mean?"

"That's a sacrificial circle with a range that extends far beyond the circle itself! Although my abilities are limited and I can't tell which deity the circle corresponds to, there's no doubt it's a powerful, terrifying, and evil entity. This is an inverted pentagram, which in the eyes of spellcasters represents the footprint of a demon—a symbol used only in black magic!"

"Now look at the ring of symbols around the pentagram—that triangle-like pattern, in runes, means 'offering.' The circular pattern next to it means 'life.' And that crescent shape beside that means 'absorption'..." Rebecca compared the patterns and walked Everly through an analysis, finally concluding, "In short, these people are trying to use this circle to sacrifice to the evil entity they worship. That pile of corpses, those killings—that's how they please their evil god. And the people still alive are the offerings the cultists present to their deity!"

Everly was stunned after hearing all this—what on earth was going on? A free musical turning into a battle royale was bad enough, but now it had suddenly escalated, upgrading from a killing game to a ritual sacrifice to a dark god. Come on, this was really going too far!

"So how big is the actual range of this sacrificial circle, and where should I hide?" She took a deep breath and asked Rebecca.

"Ah, well, that..." Rebecca stammered for a moment before sheepishly admitting she had no idea about the range either.

For such an evil circle, one had to kill over a dozen people in brutal ways and use their fresh blood, filled with fear and despair, to draw it. Even historically, such heinous events were rare, and Rebecca had no similar cases to reference.

"In any case, just stay as far away as possible, because you never know what these cultists will ask of their evil god. With this many members mobilized and an entire theater of hostages taken, causing such a huge commotion—there's no way they're only asking for something small, right? And in our world of the occult, there's an unshakable truth—when you ask something of an evil god, you often have to pay ten or a hundred times the price. If those masked figures' wishes are reasonable, fine. But if they're too greedy and ask for something out of the ordinary, then the area affected by the sacrificial circle will naturally expand..."

What... So that was it—she finally understood!

Everly had long wondered why those masked figures chose to commit their crimes in broad daylight in a busy downtown area and make such a huge spectacle. Even if they needed a large number of human sacrifices, there was no need to choose Shinkan Blue. To put it bluntly, Fino High School, where Everly attended, would have been a better choice—more students and staff, located in the suburbs, and a boarding school to boot. As long as they blocked communication networks and prevented news from leaking, even if everyone at the school died, it might not be discovered until the weekend. By then, the masked figures would have been long gone. Wouldn't that have been a much better choice than Shinkan Blue?

Now the masked figures were trapped in the theater. Although they had hostages and the police wouldn't dare act rashly right away, a siege was itself a form of attrition. Given enough time, either the theater's food supplies would run out, or the police would find an opportunity to infiltrate and take them out one by one. In any case, things would eventually turn in the police's favor. They didn't even leave themselves an escape route—were they tired of living?

Now Everly finally got it. Those masked figures had planned it all along! They deliberately chose a small theater in a busy downtown area, deliberately swaggered in to provoke the police, and deliberately posted on the forum to attract attention. That way, not just the people inside the theater, but also the police gathered outside, the news media, the hostages' families, and the curious onlookers—once the sacrificial circle activated, they would all become gifts to their evil god, stepping stones to gain its power!

By then, everyone would be dead, and the masked figures could come and go as they pleased, not caring about being surrounded...

Having figured it all out, Everly's heart sank.

If her guess was right, then trying to stay far from the magic circle was pointless. Given how tightly the masked figures had the place defended, she, Old John, and Misha had no way to leave the theater. And as long as they stayed inside the theater, they would inevitably be swept into this sacrifice... Was there any other way?