Of course he did not choose to separate the weapons - there was no reason to do so. Until he had a better weapon, this would be his weapon of choice for now.
For now, there was no reason to go up this building, finding his way to the Sproutlinger Hotel was the primary focus.
Having looked through the rest of the drawers in the reception desk, and all the corners where possible weapons could be hidden, he left the building somewhat disappointed that he ended up finding nothing else of value.
He continued his way, and walked past another building whose first floor lounge looked like a bank branch. He went in and did a quick sweep again, only to find nothing, again. There was a heavy metal door leading to somewhere below ground, which he had no intention of exploring for now.
But, before he walked out the door, a wave of horror washed over his entire body. The environmental light dimmed, fog began spreading from the far side of the street outside of this bank building, which happened to be vertical to the boulevard he was walking on.
He found the reception desk in the lounge and hid behind it. Under the desk there was a small gap between the wooden panels. He pulled on it to widen the gap, so that he could peek out with one eye.
The fog kept pouring along the street. Bit by bit, the entire street was covered in fog, through which he could barely see the other side. Something glowing in pale white light was coming the same way the fog was spreading. From the spread of the glow, it was something tall, wide and slow.
A few shadows came into Wu Xiaoming's view before the glowing entity itself - it was humans, each dangling in the air by a rope connected to the upper back. From where Wu Xiaoming was hiding, it was not easy to tell from what these human shadows were hanging. But for sure, they were connected to the glowing object somehow.
A few of the dangling human shadows turned their faces towards Wu Xiaoming's location from the motion. Their eyes were glowing in pale white light as well, only dimmer in comparison.
After a short while, the glowing object finally appeared in the fog - it was indeed fat and tall - it was in the shape of a mushroom, or a tree; the glow came from strips on the surface of its body, as if people glued hundreds of glowsticks onto a giant, moving oyster mushroom.
The glowing mushroom moved past the window through which Wu Xiaoming was watching. Human shadows with glowing eyes were also dangling in the air behind it. Following the mushroom was a horde of creatures on all fours - humanoid creatures, but with shapes that were just hairs of distances away from becoming something else.
Some were in the shapes of some kind of twisted oxen or cows - their hands and feet were gone, and were walking on stumps of their wrists and ankles; the two hands seemed to have moved to their heads, palms crunched together and fingers pointing forward like crude attempts at mimicking cow horns; their stomachs were bloated to an almost disgusting degree, truly fitting fitting what the body of a cow would look like if it was mutated from human body; they did have tails - tails that seemed to have made from toe bones.
Others were in the shapes of dogs and horses - elongated arms and legs, twisted bone structures in their limbs and spines reshaped in such ways that would look natural on actual bodies of horses and dogs.
A few of the human dogs and oxen came quite close to the window, so that Wu Xiaoming could get a better look at them. It appeared that all of them had grown very thick and elastic skin - pale as well, so much so that the pulsing mutated veins were visible from a short distance.
A faint chuckle came from the other side of the building - the side facing the boulevard he had just been walking along. Wu Xiaoming scooched over, poked his head out of the desk and took a peek - it was another wave of fog, sweeping through the boulevard.
"Shit, what the - " Wu Xiaoming almost cursed out loud, but he managed to only say so with his inner voice. This kind of made him feel quite fortunate that he followed his instinct to not just go in the wide open.
Another horde of shadows, some humanoid, some animal-like, and some had shapes that seemed more like amalgamations or abominations of different kinds of objects and living beings marched along the fog. Just from a rough estimate based on the speed of these shadows and the glowing mushroom, two groups were probably going to run into each other soon.
Wu Xiaoming let out a long exhale before moving back behind the desk. He checked the gap between the wooden panels again, only to find himself looking eye to eye with a human dog.
The pale white light was not irritating to his naked eye at all. In fact, it was only informative, inspiring, even. Countless voices began echoing in his ears and in his head, telling him the immense value in joining the human dogs, oxen and horses, and what a wonderful life was awaiting him, as long as he joined their march. For a moment, it seemed that joining the march would be a pretty good choice. The idea grew and blossomed, and Wu Xiaoming almost crawled out from behind the desk. He did not realize this, but his eyes were starting to glow in pale white light as well.
A wave of chills shot through his entire body. In but a moment, Wu Xiaoming regained his consciousness and pulled himself back together.
The human dog on the other side of the wooden panels barked, but only for two times as Wu Xiaoming's fist already punched through the wooden panels and caved its face in.
The other human dogs, oxen and horses turned towards Wu Xiaoming, screaming and charging right at him. Wu Xiaoming shot out from behind the desk and rushed at the metal door at the back of the lounge - that was the only passage to other inner parts of the building when he could not scale up or down the elevator shaft.
He locked the door behind him - the pale, mutated humanoid creatures came banging on it, screeching and clawing. The lock was nothing but a simple rotation doorknob and would not hold for long, so he just chose to run upstairs.
A wave of freezing energy exploded from the direction of the streets, passing through all the windows and walls as if they were nothing. Wu Xiaoming's entire body was rendered paralyzed for a brief moment as the energy swept through him. He lost his balance from this sudden interruption and fell onto the stairs.
Lucky for him, the humanoid creatures coming after him seemed to have suffered from the same effect as well.
But very unlucky for him, following the burst of the freezing energy, the lights in the staircase flickered and cracked. In the on and off darkness, shadows of humans with pale faces began to manifest from thin air around him.
Pale, in uniforms, bleeding from their eyes and with wide grins on their faces - grins that did not reach any other parts of their faces. All of them were still for a brief moment, before turning their faces and fixed their eyes on Wu Xiaoming. A few of them closest to him even began approaching him, with slow but unnaturally steady steps.
Wu Xiaoming pulled out the newly acquired combined baton and swung it at the closest office lady walking towards him. After a low "poof" the office lady turned into dust and sand. He swung again, and again, and again, until all four of these shadows trying to swarm him all crumbled.
He took a quick look at his currency count - the number of his Spirit Fragments changed slightly - indicating that these shadows, though quite weak, were indeed creatures in this realm and not illusions.
The other shadows continued to form their enclosure unperturbed. Wu Xiaoming took a single moment to evaluate his circumstances before continuing his path upwards, swinging the baton as well as a one morningstar at the same time at all of the shadows that dared come close.
Leaving a trail of dust along his way, Wu Xiaoming kicked open a metal door and burst into the third floor. This entire floor was one giant office, with cubicles laying about and an open space in front of him - from his own experience, this kind of open space was usually reserved for lunch tables or barely usable "relax zones".
What was also present here, were the pale shadows of office people - though they were not in any kind of uniform, all of them gave off a similar aura, or "vibes" to one another. They stared at Wu Xiaoming, with wide grins of only the mouths and dead eyes. All of them tried to approach him, like those in the staircase, but were instantly turned into dust and sand as well.
"Boom!" A fat, greasy and barely clothed man burst out from behind the door to his own isolated office and rolled towards Wu Xiaoming. His body was covered in sores, and reeked of sweat, rot and vomit. With a gurgling voice, it mumbled: "Nine nine six! Nine nine six! Don't you dare be lazy!"
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming did not want to get anywhere close.
The man whined and cried as the energy blast tore a giant hole in his body. Dust, smoke and cinder poured out, as its body deflated like a balloon. Before long, it became nothing but a crumbling skin sack on the ground.
Wu Xiaoming obliterated a few more human-shaped shadows before getting close to a window to look down - the streets outside of the building were still covered with fog, though the glowing mushroom had already gone to a block down from this building. The shadows in the fog covering the boulevard were still marching down the direction he had been going earlier. There did not seem to be any indication when the fog would dissipate.
He circled back, destroying some more human-shaped shadows, and locked himself in a storage room.
"Damn." Looking at the empty shelves, Wu Xiaoming could only sigh. Apparently more creatures or shadows came to the door and began banging and scratching on it. He moved a shelf over to the door to block it. He did a quick sweep of the room, then sat in the corner after finding nothing of value, ready to exit.