Split and Hunt

Snip. Snip. Snip. A lady with a sewed mouth walked down the concrete stairs while snipping her scissor hands vigilantly. Her head twisted around in weird angles while her bloody eyes swiveled around as she tried to find her prey that damaged her scissors. This grudge must be settled.

After traveling for a while in the stairways, she had long separated from her friendly neighborhood security guard, the lamp spirit. Of course, this was no accident, but intentional.

Although the guardians seem to defend the floor harmoniously against outsiders, but the notion of working together did not exist. In fact, they are wary of each other and may actually be desiring to devour each other to improve themselves. The weak are only prey for the strong, and even the prey belonged to the one who could hunt them first, which usually end up being the stronger evil spirits.

So, the scissor lady didn't want to cooperate with the other evil spirits to hunt this foreign invader at all. Even though she felt that the invader was a bit strong, her instincts and grudge drove her to seek revenge. As for whether this decision is stupid or not, she never considered it.

It didn't take long for the scissor lady to reach the fifth floor doorway. The scissor lady tilted her head in confusion as she didn't sense the dense yin qi that she had expected.

Although she wasn't too smart, she still knew that there should be evil spirits gathered on each floor, enough to resist the invasions of outsiders. With so much evil spirits gathered, there is usually a dense yin qi radiating from the floor to intimidate outsiders.

Well, she didn't think too much about it. After all, her goal was not to invade another floor. She already had a home on the sixth floor. Once she finishes getting revenge, she will go back and continue her repeating cycle of life.

Seeing no signs of her target, the scissor lady continued to walk down the stairs with her rickety gait. However, she only walked down a couple of steps before the fifth floor door slammed open!

Bam! Pro pounced through the open doorway and smashed his claws down at his prey, the scissor lady. Honestly, he could have just confronted her head on with his strength, but he still chose to stage an ambush.

The scissor lady barely managed to react to the swift ambush. Raising her scissor hands in an attempt to defend, she barely managed to block the attacking claws, but at the cost of having her scissors being dented even further!

Clang! The loud clash between two small metals caused a loud sound to echo in the stairway. It may have already alerted the other hunter in the stairway, but Pro didn't worry. He believed he could take out this low-level baleful spirit before the other could arrive.

Watching the scissor lady tumble down the stairs due to the force from the attack, Pro chased after her while firing yin needles. As an added bonus to finish the fight quicker, Pro also activated his ultimate trap card, the toilet effect.

Screeeee! Slamming into the wall of the stairway, the scissor lady screeched in pain due to her damaged scissors, a couple of black needles corroding parts of her body, and an unknown pain coming from her stomach. She staggered up and tried to fight back by viciously swinging her scissors in front of her in an attempt to snip the enemy.

However, he struggle was futile. Pro easily dodged to the side and sliced off her outstretched arms with ease. The evil spirit that has lost her scissors screamed in more pain, but Pro ignored it and booted her body down the stairs with a kick. He then focused his attacks on the pair of scissors.

After multiple clashes between metals, Pro's claws won in sharpness and turned the giant scissors into scrap metal. The body of the lady spirit crawled up the stairs while moaning in despair as she gradually dissipated into black mist.

Snip. Snip. Snip. Pro heard the sound of scissors snipping echoing in his ears as a female voice whispered a secret out loud.

"I thought he loved me ... but after coming here, I've noticed something was wrong ..."

"He keeps saying he loves me, but why does he treat me like this ... I need to end this relationship as soon as possible."

"I've decided to cut off my relationship with him. I will tell him upfront tonight ... if he truly loves me ... he will let me go."

The voice faded away as Pro dusted himself off symbolically, like a ruffian who patted his booty and prepared to leave after doing the deed. Pro was already used to these depressing stories, so they don't affect him much.

After happily watching the scissors being absorbed by his domain, Pro hopped back up the stairs and used the fifth floor door to teleport away. Returning to the safety of the fourth floor, Pro then checked the notification.

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

[Absorption completed. Intruder was determined to be a Lower-Level Baleful Spirit. System Library updated with new info.]

[After absorbing a powerful spirit, host gains 580 life points.]

"Oh, not bad! Although it was only a trifling low-level baleful spirit, it gave more points than usual. Is this because it carried what seems to be its possession object along with its body, and my domain managed to absorb the object with no loss of yin qi? I thought only blood spirits or above can assimilate their possession object, but maybe this is a special ability of the evil spirits of this floor?"

Pro considered the possibility for a moment, and thought it made sense. After all, the higher the floor, the closer the evil spirits' powers get to a blood spirit. So, it won't be too surprising if they had a unique ability to assimilate their possession objects and use it as a weapon.

Of course, this isn't as safe as the assimilation of a blood spirit. A blood spirit would usually keep their possession object completely protected inside their body, but these baleful spirits had their objects exposed still.

"Well, not that it matters. It just makes it easier for me to harvest them. Now that the easier one has been solved, it's time for the more troublesome one."

Observing the lantern spirit that was slowly floating down the stairs towards the fifth floor, Pro couldn't help but feel that it is a bit difficult to hunt it when he saw the beam of glaring light.

Although his power may exceed that of the lantern spirit's power, the beam of light could easily help prevent his attack from succeeding. Even if he ambushes it, it only needed to turn around in time to slow him down.

Pro also didn't know if there would be any other weird abilities, especially if the lantern spirit manages to touch him. Pro managed to deduced that this was its goal with his earlier encounter with it. Fortunately, the lantern spirit could only move slowly as if it was permanently stuck in its own search light.

Still, Pro didn't worry much about the light as it wasn't too harmful. What Pro was truly worried about was that the lantern spirit will escape once if discovered that it couldn't beat him.

Even though this lantern spirit seemed a bit dull and stupid because it actually chased after Pro, Pro knew that the basic instincts to survive still existed, and if he failed to kill the evil spirit in time, it may use its weird ability to hide to escape. Even Pro was not able to discover his location when the lantern spirit was in its invisible form.

"If guns worked, it would be a viable option, but it could only inflict non-fatal damage that evil spirits could recover from. If only I could operate the gun left by that Sheriff, I might be able to slay it easily, but there doesn't seem to be any special holy ammo left in it."

Pro patiently paced around in circles as he tried to come up with a plan while observing the lantern spirit who had finally reached the fifth floor. Seeing it slowly sweeping its search light around the area to examine the battle scene, Pro finally decided on the tactic he would take.

"Well, since melee and ranged combat won't work, the last resort is still spells right?" Pro muttered as he went off to prepare his ambush for the lantern spirit.

On the other hand, the lantern spirit continued to sweep its beam of light around, hoping to find the target that disturbed the peace of its floor. Its duty as a security guard caused it to hold a grudge against all invaders, and it didn't feel that this outsider was particularly strong because it was still affected by its searchlight.

Hence, it decided to hunt this outsider down, in hopes of consuming it and promoting to the next level. That way, it could one day seek revenge against the strong evil spirit that ate all of his lantern spirit brothers.

However, after examining the area carefully, the lantern spirit wasn't able to find his intended target, but it remembered the noise coming from this direction. So, it continued to trod down the stairs slowly, hoping to encounter its target eventually.

Unfortunately, the lantern spirit that thought it was the hunter turned out to be the prey. All of its moves were under the observation of Pro. Like a snake waiting in ambush, Pro patiently waited for the lantern spirit to approach the fourth floor.

After considering all possibilities, Pro decided to take a bit of risk and chose the fourth floor as the main battlefield. After all, the hallway's distortion ability may still have a chance of trapping the lantern spirit on the floor. A trapped prey is a good prey.

Of course, Pro had Alice temporarily move out with Ali and the other subordinates. He didn't want to end up with casualties by accident. The stairway was a large area, and the group could easily hide at the safe area by the first floor.

When the lantern spirit finally approached the fourth floor door, Pro opened the door with a thought as if inviting it in. The lantern spirit paused in place as its beam of light shone into the silent hallway.

Pro cheekily appeared at the opposite end of the hallway and loudly taunted the lantern spirit, "Yo! Light boy! I'm over here! Come in if you dare! Let me enlighten your stupid mind and make you brighter!"

Locking onto its target, the lantern spirit twisted its body like a robot and marched towards Pro. After his prey fully entered the trap, Pro sneered and slammed the door shut. The distorted hallway also switched to 'infinite loop' mode, and Pro was ready for his hunt.

Seeing the beam of light approaching him, Pro obviously didn't stand still to wait for it. He easily avoided it by slipping through the walls of the nearby apartment 440.

Losing its target, the lantern spirit paused a bit before it continued to head towards its original destination. It didn't consider that its prey could pop up somewhere else.

After the lantern spirit walked past apartment 444, Pro's head sneakily popped through the wall and activated his spell card, Toilet Woes be You. Unfortunately, the lantern spirit didn't know how to play cards and couldn't activate any cards to counter the effect.

It didn't even know it was targeting until it sensed a curse targeting him. It turned around as fast as it could to lock onto his target, but its beam of light only shone on old, gloomy walls.

Not finding its intended target, the lantern spirit paused for a moment again as if to calculate his next actions. Then, its head twisted around and it continued its patrol down the hallway without realizing the seriousness of the situation.

It wasn't until it felt an unknown pain in its stomach that it realized that something was wrong. It tried to resist the pain, but none of his abilities seemed to be able to counter the pain. He could only tolerate the pain while continuing his hunt.

He arrived at apartment 440 and shone his beam of light on the door. The light seemed to affect the physical world as the door to the apartment actually unlocked and creaked open on its own.

Shining its beam of light into the apartment room and not seeing its target, the lantern spirit continued to slowly search the rooms one by one while the pain in his stomach continued to drain its stamina and yin qi.

After searching a couple of apartments and not finding its target, the lantern spirit seemed to finally realize that something was wrong. It seemed to have consumed too much power on this hunt because its yin qi seemed to be running dry.

After pausing in place a bit, his brain fired a command to retreat. The lantern spirit then faded away into thin air, and tried to escape. In this form, his beam of light was turned off but his speed returned to normal, and he was able to move swiftly to escape.

However, when it tried to leave the floor, he always failed as he was never able to reach the escape door! The lantern spirit continuously tried to run towards the opposite end of the hallway, not knowing what is wrong. It just knew its escape was that way, and that his yin qi was still being drained continuously.

Meanwhile, Pro used his spiritual sense and watched a diminishing blob of yin qi repeatedly running in a straight line in the hallway. Although this ability was useful for locking onto the lantern spirit's hidden form, Pro still wasn't able to see the lantern spirit with his eyes.

So, combat will be difficult, and Pro decided to wear down the lantern spirit with his abilities instead. With the toilet assimilated into him, Pro had no worries about running out of energy before the silly lantern spirit does.

After almost an hour of relentless, mindless of charging forward, the lantern spirit finally exhausted itself. Its body gradually dissipated into black mist, leaving behind its lantern head that was flickering and seemed to be about to go out any second.

Without its body, the lantern itself was immune to Pro's toilet spells. So, Pro cautiously approached the lantern by traversing through the apartment rooms. When he was near enough, Pro cautiously pounced out with the intention of giving the lantern a finishing blow.

As expected, the lantern still had its final struggle. A beam of light exploded from the lantern sitting on the ground and Pro felt a hint of danger from it!