Fifth Floor

On this day, the calm, silent fifth floor welcomed an unwelcome guest. Pro cautiously sneaked into the distorted hallway of the fifth floor. Glancing at apartment 559, Pro decided to test his luck.

"If the pattern is the same for each floor, then this floor should have five baleful spirits. I can at most guess that there will be one in apartments 551, 554, 555, and 558, but I am not sure where the last one could be," Pro thought as he silently sneaked into apartment 559, hoping it wouldn't be a baleful spirit.

An old apartment room revealed itself to Pro's eyes. Unlike the other apartments, Pro did not see a sofa in the living room. Instead, he saw a square-shaped mahjong table in the center of the living room along with four chairs on each side. Mahjong tiles messily scattered around the center of the table, while four sets of mahjong tiles of different length lined up on each side of the table as if the players are currently engaging in a match.

Sensing the yin qi defusing from the table, Pro cautiously approached it. Suddenly, he paused in place as he saw a mahjong tile move on its own!

Pro watched the tile float in the air and was added to the line of tiles located on the left side of the table.

Tap. The tile firmly landed on the table, and the game continued on its own as the two more tiles were picked up by their invisible players in a clockwise fashion. When it reached the final player's turn, the room returned to silence as if waiting for a player to join the game.

Pro twitched his mouth as he realized what was going on, "Is this inviting me to play?"

Glancing at the roll of tiles at the south side of the table that had a couple of middle pairs and a mess of other tiles, Pro rolled his eyes as he muttered, "Such a bad starting hand, isn't this setting me up to lose? What happens if I lose? Will I be cursed or something?"

As Pro stood there to silently contemplate his actions, soft repeated whispers began to echo in the room, trying to persuade Pro to play.

"Play ... it's your turn ... join us ... choose your piece ..."

Pro chuckled as he stated, "You want me to play? Heh, but there's just a tiny problem. I like playing games a different way!"

Shing! Pro's yin claws were activated as he strolled up to the mahjong table, "What I like to play is called flipping the table!"

Bam! Pro lifted the table easily and flipped it over as he bisected it in half with his claw. Mahjong tiles danced through the air before scattering all over the ground.

However, this seemed to have angered the evil spirit of this room as all the tiles on the ground trembled a bit before they lifted themselves up into the air and shot towards Pro like bullets!

Pak! Pak! Pak! Pro watched the tiles helplessly smash into his body with no effect. He grinned as he continued to destroy the mahjong table with his claws. The table was destroyed not long after. Losing its source of power, the floating tiles lining up to fire plummeted back to the ground.

"Well, that's one. Based on the yin qi density I sense, it should be at least a mid-level lingering spirit?" Pro guessed as he collected the chunks of the table.

Glancing at the silent bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, Pro could sense another two yin sources located in the bedroom and bathroom. Even after hearing the ruckus, they didn't seem to want to come out and welcome him.

Noticing his hands were full from the debris of the table, Pro helplessly decided to return to his domain to deposit his points first.

[Ding! Object with yin qi detected. Absorbing remnant yin qi. Host gains 15 life points.]

[Ding! Object with yin qi detected. Absorbing remnant yin qi. Host gains 10 life points.]

[Ding! ... ]

"Oh my! A whopping 40 points from just one spirit?!" Pro exclaimed in excitement as he greedily licked his lips, "If all the lingering spirits are at least mid-level, then I would at least get 120 points per room?!"

Pro almost drooled as he thought about his harvest, but he reigned back his urge soon.

"Stronger spirits mean more harvest, but it also means more danger. If it was just mid-level lingering spirits, it may still be easy to solve; however, if there were five baleful spirits added on top of that, it may be a bit troublesome. Even worst, if there is a top-level baleful spirit, it may be able to pose a danger to me if it teams up with the rest," Pro cautioned himself as he swiftly went to recover.

Not long later, Pro climbed the stairs once more and returned to the fifth floor. Seeing the still silent hallway, Pro breathed as sigh of relief as he knew that the lingering spirits in apartment 559 didn't go alert the rest of the floor. This is a good thing for him.

Sneaking back into apartment 559, Pro strolled over to the bedroom and smashed the lock open as quietly as possible. Click. The now unlocked bedroom door was shoved open by Pro.

Observing the gloomy bedroom with curtains draped over the windows, Pro locked onto the source of yin qi, from underneath the bed. Condensing a yin needle in his mouth, Pro fired it at the bed.

Tat! Tat! Tat! Multiple needles pierced through the wooden bed and into the ground beneath it. As if finally awakening from its slumber, the evil spirit hiding under the bed finally came out!

A pair of skeletal hands crawled out from under the bed like a spider. Pausing for a moment, the two hands stuck a skeletal finger at each other and wriggled it about as if they were communicating. Of course, Pro didn't give them much chance as he fired yin needles at the hands.

The two hands dodged out of the way by hopping in opposite directions. Then, the scurried on the ground and underneath other furnishings to escape Pro's line of fire. Not wanting to give them the chance to hide, Pro dashed towards the wardrobe that one of the hands hid under.

Firing a couple needles on the way as distraction, Pro smashed his yin claws at the bottom of the wardrobe as soon as he got close enough. Bam! The bottom half of the wardrobe was sliced apart as the wardrobe toppled over.

Side stepping the falling wardrobe, Pro then noticed the skeletal hand crawling up the back of the wardrobe. With a sneer, he smashed his claws down. Sensing the danger, the hand swiftly launched itself out of the way, but the claw still managed to lop off a chunk of the metacarpal bones on the palm of the hand.

Suddenly, Pro sensed a cold, bony object land on his head. Pro then felt multiple taps on his head, as if something sharp was trying to pierce his head, but failed to even penetrate the skin. Pro chuckled in mirth as he swiped his claw above his head and managed to cut off a couple of skeletal fingers.

A skeletal hand that has lost three fingers tumbled on the ground after plummeting from Pro's head. It picked itself up and tried to run away with its two finger, but a couple of yin needles accurately pierced a couple of holes in it and one of its remaining two fingers was also knocked off by the yin needles.

Watching the skeletal hand topple over, Pro did not show mercy and smashed it into smithereens with his claw. Sensing the death of its companion, the other skeletal hand rushed out and attempted to launch itself at Pro's crotch, but Pro just sent it smashing into the wall with a simple kick.

Watching the bones of the hand scatter into pieces after getting smashed into the wall, Pro shook his head while muttering like a villain, "Sadly, this is just like a dimensional reduction attack. The power difference is just too big. Your struggle is futile."

Too bad, there wasn't any come back even though Pro talked too much. Placing the bone remnants into his pocket, Pro then went over to knock on the door of the bathroom. Well, Pro's way of knocking is simply destroying the lock and inviting himself in.

Glancing at the mirror facing him, Pro waved to himself as he asked, "Yo, you in there?"

As if answering Pro, a bloated, decaying man's head appeared in the mirror. It screeched at Pro, but no sound came out as if Pro was watching a silent film. Then, it opened its mouth as a long tongue extended out and shot towards Pro. Surprisingly, the tongue easily penetrated through the mirror's surface and came out to reality.

Seeing the incoming tongue, Pro chuckled as he easily reached out his hand and grabbed it, completely stopping it from going anywhere. Seeing its attack fail, the man in the mirror then awkwardly stared at Pro as it tried to retrieve its, but he couldn't pull it back no matter how hard he tried!

"Well, since you sent it out, let me help you get out completely," Pro offered as he tugged at the tongue with a strong grip.

Feeling the force trying to pull it out of the mirror, the ghost in the mirror's face paled in fear as it tried to struggle to remain in the mirror. Alas, it was too weak in face of Pro's power and was gradually pulled out of the mirror.

Plop. After being pulled out of the mirror, the decaying head plopped onto the ground and began to decay at a rapid rate. Seeing the tongue in his grasp turning into black mist, Pro turned his attention to the empty mirror that began to crack on its own.

Tilting his head because it felt too easy, Pro then took the mirror off the wall and carried it under his armpit. After checking one last time to see no more yin sources in the apartment, Pro swiftly returned to his domain.

[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 15 life points.]

[Ding! ... ]

Pro saw his points jump up by 70 points. Although it didn't hit the full 40 points per spirit as Pro predicted, Pro was still happy that it wasn't far off.

"It seems that not all the lingering spirits are as strong as that mahjong table. The two skeletal arms were also mid-level, but that spirit in the mirror was simply a low-level. No wonder it stuck its tongue out just to welcome death," Pro chuckled in mirth.

Checking the time after recovering, Pro knew he had more time. So, he went back to the fifth floor to continue to try his luck. The next target was apartment 557. Heading inside, Pro was welcomed by the usual living room with a sofa. However, this time he noticed an additional fish bowl filled with muddy water.

Clearly seeing where the problem is, Pro strolled over to his fishing spot. When Pro neared the fish bowl, an entire set of fish bones shot out of the muddy water with a splash! Noticing the sharp bony teeth on the skeletal fish that was flying towards him, Pro didn't even want to give it a chance to taste his flesh.

Shing! With a slice, Pro smashed the bones into powder. However, even more skeletal fishes launched themselves out of the water and at Pro.

Pro rolled his eyes as he complained, "Hey, this doesn't make sense. How can such a small fish bowl fit so many fish. Well, it doesn't matter, just smash it and I'll fish out the results."

Stepping back a little to avoid the soon-to-come muddy water, Pro easily turned the glass fish bowl into shattered glass. Pro watched the muddy water spill out onto the living room floor as the yin qi began to escape from the shattered glass.

Collecting the glass and placing them into his pocket, Pro curiously glanced at the previous location of the fish bowl and noticed nothing there except muddy water. Scratching his head in confusion while wondering where all those fish bones came from, Pro strolled to the kitchen and took out the trash bag.

The trash bag disobediently struggle as it tried to strangle Pro, but Pro easily kept it out of reach. Keeping the trash bag and its garbage away from his body, Pro did his best to dice it open as he found a couple of human body parts within. There were two eyeballs, a heart, and some fingers. Of course, Pro helped the criminal get rid of the final set of evidence by turning these parts in splats of blood.

Seeing the trash bag calming down, Pro slung it on his shoulder with one hand and stepped towards the bedroom.

"Knock knock~" Pro hummed a little tune before stepping in.

Not long after, Pro stepped out with an additional broken clothes hanger in his hand. After depositing another 100 points into his domain, Pro was about to go hunting once more, but his bedroom phone rang once more!

"Alert. Alert. Incoming intruders discovered by guard number one. Alert. Alert."

Kacha.

Telling Alice to bring Ali back in to safety, Pro then activated his domain perception and focused on the elevator.

Ding~

The elevator opened as a three-man team stepped out. There was a elderly man with white beard and wearing brown robe while holding what seemed to be a staff with a sapphire gem embedded at the top. Next to him was a young, brown-haired man twirling two pistols with runic marks in each of his hands. Finally, a buff, tan-skinned, and bald-headed man wearing a loose priest robe walked out while gripping a giant metal hammer.

Pausing before the elevator, the trio vigilantly surveyed the silent hallway with their glowing eye and grim faces.

It didn't take much thought for Pro to come to a conclusion.

"I thought I would have more time, but what is to come is still inevitable in the end. The investigators are finally here."