Thud!

The fire axe slammed solidly into the wooden door again. Amid flying splinters, the five inside could already glimpse the tenants crowding the hallway through the gaps.

Every tenant stood head bowed, faces deathly pale, eyes rolled back to show only whites. Some clutched kitchen or fruit knives; others brandished sharp scissors.

“This threat isn’t strong—nowhere near Class A Hunter level,” the team leader barked. “Li Dandan, disrupt them psychically the moment the door breaks. Do what you can. Liu Yongkang, support her. Chen Li, Zhou Yuan—get ready. The second the door gives, take down anyone who rushes in!”

Clearly, the tenants were under psychic control. They’d faced this before—but never dozens at once. Panic flickered. Since psychic energy controlled them, counter with psychic interference. Soul-based abilities offered only minor aid, but with two physically strong teammates backing them up, escape still seemed possible.

The leader drew a sharp breath. In that brief pause, the axe struck again. The door was now riddled with holes—the largest wide enough to poke a head through.

Li Dandan, handling psychic disruption, pulled a strangely shaped, pitch-black flute from her pack and raised it to her lips. The others remained tense. They knew: one person couldn’t wake all those tenants. Affecting seven or eight would be a miracle—and what good would that do? They’d focused on soul-based tactics for this mission, even the leader being a soul mutant—all to counter Lu Yunzhi. And now, they’d walked right into a trap.

“The door’s open!” Liu Yongkang yelled.

The barricading sofa flipped violently. As tenants surged inward, a piercing flute note sliced the air.

Movement froze—not just inside, but down the hall. The first attacker, a towering man with an axe, halted mid-step, blinking dazedly at the group. The next few were swiftly disarmed and kicked to the floor.

“Leader! The ones outside aren’t moving!” Liu Yongkang peered out. Tenants stood motionless, expressions blank, like puppets cut from their strings.

“What?” The leader stared. Relief flickered. “Li Dandan—don’t stop! It’s working!”

Sweat streamed down Li Dandan’s face. She was pushing her limit.

“Damn it, what *is* this?” Zhou Yuan muttered, dropping his collapsible baton. He kicked aside a slumped old man and moved to clear the doorway. He knocked a fruit knife from a middle-aged man’s hand, then—without looking—shattered the wrist of a young woman beside him. A sickening *crack* echoed. “Hurry! Xiao Li can’t hold on much—"

He stepped toward the door.

Their eyes met. Zhou Yuan’s pupils snapped tight.

No time to react. Her broken hand shot forward like a blade—*shluck*—plunging deep into his soft abdomen. She twisted, kicked. Zhou Yuan stumbled back. In her grip: warm, slick organs.

Seconds. That was all it took.

Before the others could move, the axe-wielder inside lunged at Chen Li. Chen Li kicked him away—but the delay let seven or eight more tenants flood in, weapons raised.

Only then did they see it.

Black, semi-transparent threads clung to every tenant’s back—puppet strings stretching upward, vanishing over the balcony. Faint. Hidden. Nearly impossible to spot in the dim hallway unless you stood inches away.

The flute’s shriek died. The four remaining Hunters froze.

They’d been tricked.

Yes, psychic energy controlled the tenants—but a second force, soul energy *never mentioned in the briefing*, pulled the strings. Cunning. Deceptive. She’d played along, pretending to be just another victim—then struck the moment Zhou Yuan let his guard drop.

Zhou Yuan’s soul was gone.

On the woman who killed him, the black threads coiled around her arm slowly faded.

“L-Leader… what do we do…?” Li Dandan lowered the flute. The three survivors edged back to the wall.

“Fight out! If downstairs is blocked, head for the roof!” Teeth gritted, the leader pressed a button in his pocket—three times. A distress signal. Headquarters would see their location and feeds, dispatching nearby Hunters or police.

He kicked away an attacker, abandoning Zhou Yuan’s body. “Talk!” he roared. “Killing us gains you *nothing*!”

That move proved high intelligence—far beyond ordinary paranormal threats. Stalling was their only hope.

But the rampaging tenants showed no sign of stopping.

...