Link a Tunnel

Buried ten feet under, Hulk had currently already given up struggling as he waited for his death. Even though he did his best to conserve energy and air, the small pocket of air was slowly running out.

Soft, unburdened giggles sounded in the tiny breathing space as Hulk's eyes dully stared at the darkness above him. Perhaps others would feel despair in this situation, but Hulk only felt relief as he was finally free from his duties.

As Hulk gradually felt his senses fade away, a smile arose on his face as he made his final wish in a squeaky voice, "May the sh*tty gods never rise again."

Another helpless soul silently left this world. Maybe being buried deep in sh*t would have been a fitting grave for the poor man, but Pro would not give the dead any honor.

"Heck, I'm dead, I don't have to abide by human moral codes of not disturbing the dead," Pro mocked as he began to absorb all the layers of dung with his domain while checking his notifications.

[Host has eliminated an intruder in your domain. Domain is now absorbing the remains of the intruder ...]

[Host has absorbed the life force from the remains of two living being. Host gained 50 life points.]

[Host has absorbed an owner-less light attribute mysterious origin of yellow rank. Host gained 1500 life points. Host's resistance to holy light has increased by 20%.]

[Host has absorbed the souls of the invaders. System Library updated with new information.]

"Wow, this brings my total holy light resistance up to 45%! Heck, I may even have higher resistance to holy light than sunlight someday. Of course, the damage from the two is completely different, and even if I can have 100% holy light resistance, my actual resistance may at most be at the level of a normal living human with no holy light resistance."

After confirming his loot, Pro continued to wait for the packed cow dung to be cleared. Observing the layers of dirt being excavated slowly by his domain absorption, Pro then decided to check on the profile of the silly, mentally retarded knight.

The buff man in priest clothes is named Hulk Benner. He was a level two mystic of the Holy Soldier path as expected, a Holy Knight. Of course, his situation was a bit different from the other Holy Knight that Pro had slain.

Unlike many of the ones on the bright side, as a tool for the dark side of the church, Hulk was trained through a lot of torture and brainwashing in order to be obedient. Still, a mark of control was still placed on him in the end to prevent him from escaping. Hulk knew there was no hope, he couldn't even commit suicide.

He has been living his life like a puppet, a cannon fodder that is at the disposal of the church in order to handle their tasks in the dark. Although the church was small and powerless on the surface, it still had a powerful force in the dark. Without this force, there may not even be a chance for the small church to survive till this day.

Hulk, like many of these tools of the church, were picked out from the population at a young age and trained with the resources of the dark side of the church. They are always sent on the most dangerous missions, and their life and death did not bring much concern. Their only worth is to support the church's rise on the bright side.

Although Hulk was completely under the control of this dark force, hatred still can't help but brew inside of him. He wanted to rebel, he hated the so called God of Light, and he hated the person who gave the prophecy of the god's rise.

However, Hulk had nowhere to vent his hate. He could only hold it in and not show it. Otherwise, he would have been sent for 'purification'. Keeping this hatred inside him too long caused Hulk to develop mental problems. In order to keep himself sane, he could only think about funny things, causing him to always giggle from time to time.

His sanity helped him live through many dangerous missions, but in the end he was buried alive in this investigation mission to find one of the missing members on the bright side of the church.

"When there's light, then there's darkness. The church that has fallen to desperate straits also have a hidden dark side to keep them afloat. As for the world, it's not much better with all those evil cultists," Pro sighed in melancholy and felt a bit fortunate that he didn't have to deal with any of those corruption yet.

"For me, I just have to kill anyone that dares to come my way. If there's light, I'll block it out. If there's darkness, I just have to swallow it as well. It doesn't matter what this world ends up being. Gods may rise for all I care. The only things I care about is my freedom and my lovely family."

Glancing at the charming Alice and cute Ali playing kick ball in the hallway with Toi Toi, Pro felt that his life was fulfilled. As long as he can protect his domain from all his enemies, the world can burn and he won't care.

"And in order to protect, I need the strength. I may not be any protagonist or overpowered war god, but I can still make all my enemies end up in deep sh*t if I get strong enough," Pro resolutely decided as he imagined spawning a giant piece of cow pie and smashing it down upon a city.

"Uhh ..." Pro shivered at that thought as he couldn't help but decided, "Maybe I will have to start on an official mystic path once I get out of here. It will help me stay undercover and also give me a tiny boost in power. Then, my ghost abilities can be my trump card."

Pro easily made the decision to switch his pathway. It's definitely not because it would be embarrassing to smash people with sh*t.

"But that is all for later. For now, I must grow stronger!" Pro firmly gripped his fist as he watched the remaining cow dung being absorbed by his domain.

Strolling into the room, Pro easily searched through the priest's robe to find not even a single talisman. Well, he already knew there would be none after reading the poor guy's memories. The church will not give any talisman to the disposable folks unless they are powerful enough to be reused.

After disposing the bulky body in floor 3's graveyard and part-time trash bin, Pro returned to his domain and was ready to expand!

With a total of 6150 points, Pro decided to take over an important expansion to make his invasion of other floors easier, the stairway!

[Expansion Name] Linked Stairways

[Room Category] Large

[Specialty] Linked Entrances

[Expansion Cost] 5000 Life points

[Are you sure you want to add Large Linked Stairways to your domain?]

"Yes!"

[Deducting 5000 points. Expanding domain, please wait ...]

Pro felt an intangible wave burst through the wall and flowed down the stairway. His domain perception ability seem to activate automatically as Pro zoomed out and saw the stairway slowly appear on his map, bottom up. The map also seemed to have upgraded into a 3D model because Pro could now tilt and view his domain at different angles.

After watching the miniature model of the stairway appearing on the map, Pro smiled in happiness as his senses returned to normal.

"Although this upgrade is not as cost efficient for reaching the next level requirements, the power of the stairway will definitely help me gather points much faster. Not only that, I will have less risk when invading others floors since I am technically connected to all floors now!"

With this thought, Pro couldn't help but feel a bit excited. Wanting to test his theory, Pro stepped into the stairway and dashed down to the first floor. Stepping into the silent, but normal hallway, Pro strolled through it as calmly as he could.

30 minutes on the clock was plenty of time, and it didn't take long for Pro to reach the front door of the apartment building! Pro took a deep breathe to contain his excitement as he stepped out with one foot.

Seeing no barriers stopping him, Pro's eyes sparkled. His entire body left the apartment building and stood on the dark, empty street. He looked up as he bathed in the moonlight, feeling a sense of accomplishment and freedom.

After enjoying the moment for a while, Pro wryly smiled as he returned to the apartment building and re-entered the stairway. He trudged back up the stairs as he sighed in melancholy, "Although I can step out, it's only a false sense of freedom. I am still trapped in this cage as long as my death countdown exists. Since I'm bound to the domain and my domain can't leave, I can't leave."

Returning to the fourth floor, Pro glanced at his remaining 1150 and decided to save it for domain repairs. Although the expansion into the stairway can make his invasions easier and less risky, it also increases the risk that his own domain is invaded. There is also a higher chance that his domain barrier will be damaged as it is now connected to all floors.

"Of course, I won't be so stupid to prevent other spirits from entering the stairway. In fact, letting them enter will actually allow me to keep watch over them. This can serve as an early warning, and if they dare to come to the fourth floor, I can decide whether I want to harvest them or not," Pro chuckled as he observed the stairway with his domain perception.

Through this, Pro noticed something weird. There was only 13 floors in this building that were connected to the stairway!

"Huh? What about the 14th floor that the blood spirit knew about?" Pro couldn't help but mutter in confusion, but there was no info on how to get there in the blood spirit's memory as he never actually went.

"Well, I shouldn't worry about that for now. It's not like I will go there anyways. I'm not stupid to provoke that floor," Pro muttered before he called Alice over to show her around the stairway.

While Toi Toi plopped to the ground in excitement over his newfound freedom, the excited Alice brought Ali along as Pro watched them run up and down the stairway. Pro smiled but warned them not to go too far from the fourth floor because it may be dangerous.

Alice nodded in agreement as she brought Ali to play for a while. It didn't take long for them to get bored of the concrete stairway, so they returned to the fourth floor to play with Toi Toi.

Meanwhile, Pro began to test out the new ability of the stairway!

[Linked Entrances] Host can distort the space of two doors in the stairway and form a connection between the two doors, allowing one door to lead to another. Only one pair of doors can be under this effect at one time. The connection is one-way, and will only apply when someone leaves the stairway through a door, but will not apply to anything entering the stairway from the other side of the door.

A glint of light seemed to flash across Pro's eyes. With a thought, Pro stepped into the stairway and turned to stare at the door to the fourth floor. Activating domain perception, Pro chose the third floor door and activated .

Pro felt a mysterious force swiftly connect the two doors as if an invisible spatial tunnel was built between the two. Pro then pushed open the door to the fourth floor and stepped into the familiar hallway. Glancing at the apartment numbers starting with 3, Pro checked the nearby apartment 338 and was sure that this was his neighborhood trashcan.

"This ability is amazing! Now, I don't even have to walk to another floor if I wanted to invade them," Pro concluded happily as he returned to the stairway by walking through the third floor doorway.

Glancing back at the doorway, Pro noticed that it did not lead to the fourth floor hallway.

"It seems that you can technically 'disconnect' a floor from the stairway by linking the door to another floor. This is probably how the previous blood spirit prevented others from invading its own floor. Another life saving card for me."

With a thought, Pro deactivated the ability and reactivated it to connect the third floor door to the fourth floor. Then, he walked in and returned to the fourth floor easily. Deactivating the ability, Pro watched the doorway distort like an illusion and saw the still closing door of the third floor transform into a closed fourth floor door.

Although Pro wondered a bit how someone could walk through the doorway if the physical door is still in place, Pro didn't think about it too much. As long as it works, don't worry about it.

After reloading all his weapons and re-stashing them, Pro counted 14 rounds left for the Glocks, 15 rounds for the assault rifle, and 35 rounds for the S&W M&P handguns.

After cleaning the remaining junk from the fight, Pro returned to apartment 444 and checked on the three props from the visitors. Unless it is an yin artifact, the domain only absorbs mysterious properties of objects and left behind the mundane parts. The hammer, the dual pistols, and the sapphire staff are now all normal, useless props without mystical effects.

Pro had not much uses for these items except the pistols and the hammer, but he already had enough pistols. Plus, there wasn't much ammo left in these two pistols as that Kane fired most of them. Still, Pro thought he could maybe sell it in the future so he stashed it away.

The hammer was kept in apartment 446. Maybe he could use it to smash intruders in the future. As for the staff, the fragile wooden stick will probably break even if smashed against a wall, so Pro just gave it to Alice and Ali as a toy. Who knows, perhaps Alice may have magical girl transformation in the future?

"Probably not, this isn't a fan-service anime, it's real life," Pro muttered as he plopped onto the bed and hugged Alice who was rolling around on it with Ali.

Ali's little plushy head popped out in between Pro and Alice's entangled bodies as she cutely tried to pulled herself out. Pro chuckled, helped her out, and plopped her on top of him. Ali cutely hugged Pro's arm as she happily rubbed her plushy head against it.

After resting a bit, Pro was rejuvenated and returned to work as an estate agent, keyboard warrior, cat-fisher, and horror story enthusiast. Of course, his apartment is always broken so service people must not be left out.

Another day swiftly flew by as Pro harvested another 150 points. It wasn't much to be happy over anymore in comparison to the vast amount of points he harvested yesterday, but Pro still never gave up. Any points is better than none.

Of course, night was in sight and Pro welcomed another guard of might. After losing all his security uniform spirits in the night before, a new one has been created. Pro easily taught it the rules and stationed it at the elevator entrance.

Then, Pro gave Alice and Ali a kiss before setting off. With the confidence brought from the stairway expansion, Pro believes that it is time to clear the fifth floor.