Funeral for Spirits

Thud! The sharp end of a black umbrella finally made a hole through the wall after an unknown amount of jabs. Seeing this, Pro only sneered in delight as he reached out his hand and gripped the umbrella tip.

With a strong tug, Pro pulled the entire umbrella spirit through the hole, causing the umbrella to be battered at the cost of a small expansion to the hole. A couple of joss paper ninja darts shot through the hole before losing their power as if they lost connection with its owner.

Pro ignored the ruckus made by the other spirits that were still battering his domain wall. As he watched the metallic funeral umbrella open wide and start spinning like a drill, Pro held on tight even though the skin on his hand became a bit bruised. He turned the umbrella to the side, gripped the other end with his other hand and slammed the handle of the umbrella down on this raising knees.

SNAP! Maybe the claws may fail to cut through the umbrella, but the strength of Pro was strong enough to even snap steel now! However, Pro had never confirmed this, but as a mid-level blood spirit, he was already able to make deep dents on metal doors. Now that he had upgraded his physique to what seemed to be a limit, his strength was no longer something a normal baleful spirit can handle.

A grotesque face materialized under the hood of the umbrella as it screeched in pain while the remaining parts of the umbrella tried to struggled out of Pro's hand. Of course, this struggle was meaningless and Pro happily ripped the metallic canopy of the umbrella off piece by piece. Although it was rather tough to do so with his bare hands, Pro was still able to do so after straining himself.

Eventually, the poor umbrella perished in Pro's hands as black mist defused out of it. Pro then felt a couple droplets of water splash onto his face as he glanced up, only to see the scene change to a gloomy, rainy scene.

Observing the scene, Pro was able to see a brawny man holding the black umbrella while standing in the rain outside a funeral home. He didn't enter the funeral, nor did was it known if he was emotional over it. It seemed he was motionless as even the the rain that wet his clothes didn't bother him.

Suddenly, another man with a black umbrella walked up behind him and placed a pistol against his head.

"Your final mission is complete. It's time to disappear."

"Are my family well-taken care of?"

"Don't worry about them. They are already waiting for you down below."

"You ... That wasn't what you promised-"

Pew. The rain washed away the scene as Pro returned to the stairway, being greeted by the noisy invaders trying to get in once more.

[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 Mid-Level Baleful Spirit. System Library updated with new info.]

[After absorbing a powerful spirit, host gains 900 life points.]

"Two down, five more to go."

Glancing at the baleful spirits that were still trying to breach his domain barrier that was now much harder to breach, Pro was easily able to notice a couple of holes and cracks on the wall as expected. With no further delay, Pro grinned as he opened the door with a thought.

Two black tuxedos and the Chinese funeral dress managed to slip in before Pro slammed the door back shut. The trolley tried to slam it back open but to no avail.

Even though they had no reinforcements behind them, the two black tuxedos dived towards Pro without hesitation and opened up to wrap his head.

Shing! Pro's claw popped out as he shredded the two into scraps in moments, causing the scraps to explode and dissipate into black mist that clouded his vision. With a wave of his hands, Pro blew the black mist away and cleared his vision, only to reveal the Chinese funeral dress that had ominous black mist defusing from it. A woman's sobbing echoed in the stairway as the wave of black mist crashed down upon Pro.

Pro then found himself stuck in place as he stared out at a scene of a funeral. In front of him was a coffin and there was a group wearing the Chinese funeral clothes crying besides the coffin. In the distance, there were blurry figures of humans in black suits.

Pro frowned a bit inwardly as his eyes flicked about. Although the situation was weird, Pro easily concluded it to be an illusion. Unfortunately, he still didn't really have a way to block illusions that can ignore level differences. Of course, this type of illusion doesn't seem to have any capabilities of harming him in any other way.

It didn't take long for the illusion to become blurry, and the next moment Pro noticed that he was back in the stairway. The Chinese funeral dress had now stopped sobbing, and the dress itself seemed to have withered and aged. It seemed that there was a heavy cost of using the illusion, but it was too stupid and used it at the wrong time with no teammates.

Pro sneered and pounced towards the dress and shredded it to pieces. Besides the illusion, the spirit was helpless to fight back. The most effective attack that it had was the cut-scene that it forced onto Pro upon its death.

Glancing at the familiar funeral scene that was pretty much the same as the illusion the spirit showed, Pro didn't have too much interest. The only difference this time was that the perspective was not on the portrait, but was of one of the hosts of the funeral. Sobs echoed in the room, but Pro felt that some of them were a bit too fake.

"Why did you have to go so fast husband? Why did you have to die so ... easily?"

"Why did you leave a share to those b*tches of yours?! Don't worry, I will handle them cleanly."

"I won't let those greedy outsiders take a single penny of your assets! All your assets will belong to me, and me alone!"

"Why?! It's mine! Why are you all taking it from me! I listened and put the poison in! I deserve all of this! Nooo!"

Seemingly unnoticed by the woman, the shadows of the attendees of the funeral began to grow taller and taller until it completely swallowed the woman in the scene. Her final pitiful scream of despair and resentment was snuffed out as the scene transitioned back to the stairway.

[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 Mid-Level Baleful Spirit. System Library updated with new info.]

[After absorbing a powerful spirit, host gains 910 life points.]

"Idiot. How can you swallow everything on your own with all those wolves prowling around you?" Pro sneered at some people's idiocy.

Checking his notifications and not noticing any points from the destroyed black tuxedos, Pro frowned a bit in confusion, "It seems that the tuxedos aren't it's main body? It came from the security room. Perhaps, there's a main body in there creating all the tuxedo spirits? It makes sense as they are fairly weak, probably at the level of a top-level lingering spirit at most."

Seeing a couple more black tuxedos flapping around on the other side of the door and the trolley, that had fully recovered its dent, ramming itself on the door, Pro decided to finish the deed. Opening the door wide, a wave of joss paper darts gave Pro a couple more cuts on his body, but Pro ignored the minuscule damage.

The tuxedos then filed in, only to be shredded into pieces. This time, Pro paid attention and watched the black mist, that defused from them, escape from his domain and disappeared as they headed towards the direction of apartment 770.

Ignoring this special event for now, Pro glanced at the trolley that was having a hard time fitting through the doorway. Pro smiled like a gentleman and stated, "Here, let me help you."

Pro then walked up to the trolley and lifted it up while turning it onto its side. He slid the trolley through the doorway before letting it back down. Pro then gently closed the door behind it as he stared down at the trolley that was dumbly sitting in place wondering why its prey would help him. Huh? He's kind of nice ... but I can't disobey the strong leader of the floor.

However, before the trolley could attack, Pro made the first move. With his fists, Pro hopped onto the trolley and gave the poor trolley a beat down, causing dents to appear all over its body. The trolley trembled in pain and fright as it uncontrollably rolled down the stairs, trying to throw Pro off of itself.

Thud! Crashing into the wall and causing a couple of cracks on it, the trolley then steered itself down the next couple of steps as Pro smashed a hole into the trolley.

Screee! Mixed screeches of pain echoed in the stairway as the trolley crashed into the concrete wall once more. This time, it didn't continue to roll. Instead, black mist exploded from the trolley itself and in the blink of an eye, Pro realized he was surrounded by a small army of corpses!

Pro then felt the foothold loosen up and became like quicksand! The surface of the dented trolley is now full of ripples and Pro had now began to slowly sink into it. The army of corpses also reached out their hands and gripped onto Pro's body from all angles to restrain him, trying to pull him down faster.

Shing! Claws popped out of both hands as Pro easily diced the nearby corpses into pieces, but more corpses filled their places. The corpse's moans echoed in the stairway as they climbed onto Pro's body.

However, even with all of this, the sinking of Pro's body did not speed up by too much. Pro sneered and gripped onto the handle of the trolley. Then, with a strong pull, he actually completely pulled himself out of the quicksand!

Landing calmly on the concrete stairs nearby, Pro couldn't help but compliment the spirit's designer, "What a good design. Its ability is a quicksand, but the designer conveniently installed a handle nearby so that the one trapped in the quicksand has something to grab onto. Hahaha."

As Pro diced up the nearby corpses assaulting him, he glanced at the dents and the finger imprints on the trolley that was quickly recovering like memory metal.

"Tsk ... I hate these tanky, recovery ones the most, but I don't believe I can't smash you to death."

With that, Pro gripped onto the trolley with one hand to prevent it from rolling away to escape and used his foot to stomp the trolley continuously from different angles. His other hand diced up the incoming corpses that were still spilling out of the trolley.

With this summoner tactic, maybe the trolley may be able to drain most humans and evil spirits to death, but unfortunately, the strength difference was too big here. Within half an hour, Pro had smashed the trolley beyond the point of recovery and watched the army of corpses gradually dissipate into black mist.

Glancing at the changing scene around him, Pro couldn't help but complain, "Not again ..."

The squeaking sound from the wheels of a moving trolley echoed in the scene as a middle aged man pushed a trolley with a corpse out of what seemed to be an autopsy room. The man eventually stopped in front of a couple of blurry figures.

"So, how is it? What is your final report?"

"This is against the law ... Will this truly be the last time?"

"Will you testify as we want? Know that your family is still in our hands."

"I- Don't hurt them! I ... will do as you say."

"Good. You have already handled enough of these cases, so we promise this will truly be your last time."

"T-Thank you. Can I see my family after this?"

"Of course. They have been waiting for you for a long time."

The humanoid figures dissipated as the middle aged man ended up laying on the trolley. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. The trolley rolled down a dim hallway as the scene faded away.

[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 Top-Level Baleful Spirit. System Library updated with new info.]

[After absorbing a powerful spirit, host gains 1350 life points.]

"Phew~ that was a bit strenuous compared to the others. As expected of a top-level baleful spirit. Fortunately, I am already an entire rank above it, so it wasn't too harsh of a fight."

Glancing at the couple of bruises and scratches on his body, Pro sighed a bit before he decided to go back and recover. Although this would let the blood spirit of this floor recover, it's better to be safe than sorry.

While he recovered, Pro checked on the points he had easily gathered.

"A total of 4840 points! I already have enough points to complete my domain expansion! Unfortunately, my domain is still damaged and requires about 180 points in repair fees. I can't expand until the domain is completely repaired."

After a moment of thought, Pro still decided to let the domain recover on its own. It may take a couple of hours, but his points are saved which is a happy thing.

After fully recovering, Pro checked the time and noticed that he still had a couple of hours before daylight. After having Alice give him a lucky kiss once more, he set off to finish his hunt of the seventh floor.

"According to my estimation, there should still be a baleful spirit in apartment 775 that hasn't come out. Apartment 770 still has a special spirit of some sort that I will have to hunt. Finally, the blood spirit jackpot is a must."

Pro's eyes glinted in excitement as he strolled back to the seventh floor.

"It's time for me to finish the funeral for the spirits!"