Invasion Occasion
After another day of daily harvest, Pro increased his savings to 3735 points. After cleaning up for the night and stationing his second security uniform spirit to guard the stairway door, Pro then prepared to set off on his first expedition.
Peeking through the door to the stairway, Pro glanced at the silent concrete stairway that has a couple of new cracks due to the recent invasion. Fortunately, it didn't destroy the stairs.
"Assuming I run the whole way to the next floor, I will probably only have around 3 to 5 minutes to explore and harvest all I can before having to retreat. Not only that, the furthest I could go with my available time is only one floor because any further will render my exploration time to be so small that it will be meaningless," Pro calculated in his mind.
Pro then sighed with a hint of worry, "I don't have much time, and if I get trapped I will risk dissipating. With my
Glancing at the stairs that led upwards, Pro shook his head as he thought, "Going up means more danger, and a higher risk that I will get trapped and not being able to coming back in time. I can only go down and hope to harvest some weaklings for points."
After confirming his plan, Pro stretched his legs before he stepped out into the stairway.
[Warning! Host is leaving his designated domain. Host's spirit will gradually dissipate when outside his domain. Once the spirit dissipates, the host will cease to exist.]
[Time remaining until spirit dissipates: 600 seconds]
Glancing at the time, Pro kept it in mind as he jogged down the stairs as fast as he could while skipping steps when possible.
Tap. Tap. Tap. With Pro's enhanced physique, he didn't get tired even when dashing down the stairs. Not only that, he was able to leap down many steps with no problem. It didn't even take him one minute to reach the door of the third floor!
Stopping in front of the 3rd floor door, Pro took a deep breathe and recalculated his plan, "Going down the stairs definitely was much faster than I expected. Although this leaves me a bit more time to explore, I would rather add this extra time to my time for retreating up the stairs. After all, going up is harder than going down."
After this trifling decision, Pro glanced at the door the third floor with a hint of anticipation before he cautiously stepped through it, not intending to disturb the spirits on the floor in any way. Pro is not an idiot and he won't invade a floor like the blood spirit who invaded his floor and made a ruckus every time.
Stepping into a hallway very similar to floor four's hallway, Pro was confused for a bit, but it didn't take long for him to realize that it was just a similar layout. Glancing at the nearby rooms, Pro noticed that the apartment rooms are laid out the same way as the fourth floor, but they are numbered with 33 instead of 44. Hence, the last digit is used to determine the room number.
"Since the floors are so similar, then the layout of spirits may also be similar. If my guess is correct, the baleful spirit guardians of this floor should be in the corner rooms, apartments 331, 334, 335, and 338," Pro speculated as he made the connection with the limited info.
"If that is truly the case, my limited time doesn't allow me to deal with baleful spirits inside their own domains because spirits in their own domain are usually stronger. So, I should only seek the lingering spirits in the other rooms. Of course, if a baleful spirit is willing to chase me all the way back to my domain, I don't mind making it feel the charm of the toilet," Pro finalized his plan within moments as he stepped towards apartment 339.
"Unlike apartment 449, there should be a lingering spirit because they shouldn't have devoured each other to evolve," Pro predict as he cautiously stepped into apartment 339.
An apartment oriented similarly to apartment 449 appeared in Pro's view; however, apartment 339 has no scratches all over the walls and no hole in the wall either. Facing the wall between of the bedroom and bathroom doors, a sofa sat in the center of the living room with a circular wooden table in front of it. A painting of a forest hung on the wall between the two doors.
Seeing the painting that stood out from its gloomy surroundings, Pro thought it was a possession object, but he saw no black mist defusing from it nor could he sense any yin qi near it. Instead, he actually sensed yin qi from the sofa!
Knowing that there was a leek waiting to be harvested, Pro glided towards the sofa as he activated his claws.
Shing! Hearing the sound of an intruder, the spirit on the couch seemed to have awaken from its slumber. A old, worn tuxedo floated into the air from the sofa as it turned around intending to confront its target, but as soon as it did, it actually floated backwards towards the bedroom swiftly as if trying to run away!
Of course, Pro wouldn't let the tuxedo spirit go. Unlike the floating baleful spirit head, this lingering spirit's flying speed is just way too slow compared to Pro. Hence, Pro easily caught up to it when it was about to reach the bedroom and tore the tuxedo into shreds!
Click. The bedroom door opened as if a person inside was coming out to check what was going on. A floating white, transparent nightgown revealed itself on the other side of the doorway, but when it saw the shredded remains of its husband on the ground, it hurriedly tried to slam the door shut.
Bam! A claw pierced through the shutting door and greeted the nightgown. It wasn't long before the nightgown performed its last dance as shreds of transparent cloth fell from the air like a rain of beautiful flower petals.
Pro swiftly collected the remnants of the two lingering spirits as he glanced at the kitchen where he also sensed some yin qi. With an evil grin, Pro swiftly dashed over. Peeking into the empty kitchen, Pro sensed yin qi coming from a bottom drawer of the kitchen counter.
Without hesitation, Pro stepped forward and roughly opened the the doors to the drawer. To Pro's surprise, a child-sized pink dress slumped against the wall of the drawer and shivered as it saw Pro. Pro had a mental struggle for a moment before he slashed his claws down.
"Sorry kiddo, I'm a big bad wolf, not prince charming," Pro muttered as he shredded the little dress to pieces while feeling like a piece of sh*t inside.
However, it was necessary. After all, if he let a spirit go, what if it alerted the rest of the spirits on the floor? With alerted spirits, his hunting will be much riskier than now. Although he knew that the spirits on this floor will eventually notice something wrong, Pro wanted to keep it this way for as long as he could so he could harvest more.
After pocketing the shreds of clothes, Pro swiftly left the apartment and headed back into the stairway without hesitation. Although he snuck into the floor silently and didn't disturb the guardians, if he overstayed, he might attract the full attention of a floor of spirits.
After spending about 2 minutes to climb back up the stairs, Pro returned to his domain and finally breathed a sigh of relief as he glanced at the system notifications.
[Ding! Object with yin qi detected. Absorbing remnant yin qi. Host gains 10 life points.]
[Ding! Object with yin qi detected. Absorbing remnant yin qi. Host gains 5 life points.]
[Ding! ...]
Glancing at the additional 55 points he got, Pro happily concluded, "My first hunt was a success. Although it's not a lot, it's still better than nothing at all. Plus, I can hunt multiple times a night even if I play safe."
Pro then went to the toilet to recover before he set off for another hunt. Returning to the third floor, Pro avoided apartment 338 and snuck into apartment 337. A slaughter then ensued as Pro easily harvested the life force of a shoe spirit that tried to kick him, a blanket spirit that played dead on the bed, and a tooth brush spirit that wanted to stick itself up Pro's throat.
Although Pro felt that the combo of spirits didn't really match, he didn't really care as long as he successfully hunted them. With another 60 points in the bag, Pro felt a bit more confident as he rushed back to the third floor for another harvest after he recovered.
This time, Pro snuck into apartment 336, which was not charred. It didn't take long before he harvested a rug spirit that pulled the rug from under him and a a dog bone that tried to play fetch with him.
However, when Pro went to the kitchen to harvest the final lingering spirit, he met a knife spirit! Although Pro easily cut through the knife with a swipe of his claws, the sound of breaking metal still echoed in the kitchen!
Pro then heard an apartment door creak open from outside! Without wasting any more time, Pro collected his spoils of war and hitched out of the apartment! Glancing at apartment 338's door that was now opened, Pro sighed as he realized his sneaky hunting time is now over.
Ignoring the opened door, Pro dashed passed it and back into the stairway. A ghastly and angry moan reached Pro's ears as he climbed up the stairs.
Click. Hearing the door opening behind him, Pro sneaked a glance back. He then saw a familiar black robe floating in the air. Its hood obscured the location of the face, making it seem like the spirit had a black hole for its face.
"Eh? Isn't that the robe of those BDS members? Wow, the elder didn't even let go of his own fellow cultists," Pro muttered as he continued to climb up the stairs with no intentions of staying behind to fight the baleful spirit.
The black robe silently floated at the doorway as it watched the invader slip away, but it didn't chase. After watching the back of the invader disappear, it returned to its apartment room as if nothing had happened.
Watching the remains of the lingering spirits being absorbed by his domain, Pro went to recover his energy while bemoaning the fact that the baleful spirit didn't chase him, "Why is the baleful spirit so diligent in staying in its floor. If it came, I would have gotten even more free points rather than a measly 50 points."
After recovering fully, Pro plopped himself down next to Alice who was awaiting him on the bed. He hugged the cutie as he planned his future hunt, "Now that I have alerted a third floor guardian, my next hunt may be much more riskier as all the guardians could be waiting to fight me. However, there is still a chance that they won't, and even if they do, I won't be scared of them if I can lead them back to my domain."
"Still, since I have alerted a guardian tonight, I should refrain from visiting again to lower its vigilance. That way I may be able to harvest a couple more rooms of lingering spirit before it notices me," Pro snickered a bit as he believed that his layman scheme to be ingenious.
"Of course, there's a slim chance it might camp the doorway and wait for me to come back, but I'm not afraid of fighting a round with it," Pro grinned as he continued his train of thought, "Even if it doesn't fight with me now, I will go provoke it and lead it back to my domain sooner or later!"
"But for now, let's rest for a bit before trying to attract some more visitors with the computer."
With that thought, Pro laid on the bed and held Alice comfortably in his arms like a hug pillow. The cute Alice giggled happily from time to time, but Pro had no idea what she was thinking about and didn't bother to ask.
After resting a bit and relaxing his tense mind, Pro returned to work on his marketing scheme. It wasn't long before daylight streamed through the window, and the lovely ghost couple welcomed a couple more visitors throughout the day.
After a day of toileting ways, Pro was presented with 150 points on the system tray, bringing his total up to 4050. Although the harvest was better than normal, Pro wasn't satisfied and decided to go back to hunting!
After getting himself into his best condition, Pro kissed Alice for luck and was about to set off from the bedroom, but he stopped in place because the phone suddenly rang!
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Pro tilted his head in confusion as he knew that no one should be calling his phone number. He then recalled that his security guards can call this phone!
Strolling over to the phone, Pro picked it up and listened carefully to the robotic male voice that rang from the phone
"Alert. Alert. Incoming intruders discovered by guard number one. Alert. Alert."
Kacha.
Hearing the phone hang up, Pro set the phone back into place as deciphered what the message meant, "Security guard number one should be my first security uniform spirit that I stationed to guard the elevator entrance. Since it sounded the alert for an incoming intruders, that means that there are invaders coming from the elevator! My system will warn me against invading spirits, but since there is no warning now, then it must be humans!"
With that thought, Pro excitedly activated his domain perception as he couldn't help but wonder, "Who would come at this time? Investigators? Is it BDS members? Or will it be other people?"
Pro observed as the elevator doors slid open with anticipation regarding his incoming prey.