Disappearance

Drip. Drip. Drip. The calming sound of rain pelting on the window served as background music for Pro as he began to prepare for his escape. A pile of different credit cards under different names scattered messily on the bed while Pro purchased tickets on the computer.

An occasional rumble of thunder echoed from the distance, causing Pro to look up from his task.

"It seems that there won't be many customers today," Pro muttered to himself before returning to his task.

Pro knew that the time to escape was coming soon, but he won't wait until the last minute. He decided to start ordering tickets for different routes of escape. In order to avoid being traced, these tickets were for both train and planes at different times. Not only that, Pro also ordered them using the many different cards that he 'borrowed' from his dead visitors.

Multiple routes that mixed an assortment of different transportation modes were purchased throughout the following week. If everything goes as planned, Pro knew he would be able to escape within the week. There are also routes for the week after, just in case there was an accident.

Of course, most of these tickets are just smoke screen to distract enemies that may want to track him. Although it's not completely foolproof, it was better than nothing.

Meanwhile, Pro had no worries about his haunted house business anymore. Since he decided to keep all visitors here permanently, he decided to let Alice handle the customer service downstairs. All he needed to do was to make sure the visitor ends up being trapped in his domain forever by completely blocking their escape route using the linked doorway ability and the infinite hallway mode when necessary.

Although there wasn't many visitors on a rainy day, he still managed to easily harvest three humans so far. All three were turned into dolls in the end, bringing his total doll subordinates count to nine, excluding Ali.

[Ding~ Domain barrier repaired.]

Glancing at the notification, Pro stretched himself as he leaned back on his chair.

"It seems that the barrier is finally finished repairing. I can finally complete the floor expansion."

Getting up from the chair, Pro strolled through the wall and into the hallway. A soft smile appeared on his face as he watched a couple plushy dolls playing around in the hallway outside of apartment 448. It felt like watching the neighborhood children playing on the street, and Pro can't help but feel a sense of peace.

Strolling across the hallway, Pro arrived at apartment 445. After consuming 1400 points, he easily assimilated the apartment into his domain. Continuing down the hallway, Pro spent another 2800 points to add both apartments 443 and 441 into his domain.

[Ding! Congratulations to host for assimilating an entire floor of Apartment Rooms into host's domain. Density of yin qi in domain increased by 10%.]

"With that, I have full control over this entire floor," Pro muttered with a sense of accomplishment, "There is also this extra bonus ... I don't feel much difference besides the fact that the atmosphere feels a bit more comfortable for me."

Not caring much about this beneficial bonus, Pro strolled out of apartment 441. Patting the floating security uniform spirit on the shoulder and complimenting it for its good work, Pro then returned to the bedroom to continue his planning.

After spending a couple more hours on planning, night finally arrived. Only one more doll was added to Ali's kingdom, but the total harvest of points was a full 200 points because Pro didn't hold back and drained a 50 points from each visitor.

"Eventually someone will notice the disappearances here. Hopefully they will send some investigators as that would mean more harvest for me."

With a hint of anticipation, Pro strolled out of the bedroom and towards the stairway. Listening to the cheerful voice of Alice as she played with the dolls, Pro smiled gently as he walked up to her.

"Master~ did Alice do a good job today?" Alice leapt up and hugged Pro as she giggled.

"Mmm. Good job Alice," Pro replied as he planted a kiss on her forehead, causing Alice to giggle happily.

Pro then felt soft taps on his leg. Glancing down, he noticed Ali poking his leg with her plushy hand, asking for his attention. Seeing him look at her, Ali cutely flapped her plushy hands up and down.

Pro gently picked her up and also gave her a kiss on her plushy face. In response, Ali intimately rubbed herself on his face. Plopping Ali onto Alice's shoulder, Pro then told them to go play as he marched off to hunt the eighth floor.

There wasn't much info regarding the eighth floor in the memories Pro had collected. Still, Pro knew that there should be at least 8 baleful spirits. As for blood spirits, there probably isn't any, but Pro still decided to stay cautious in case something like the tuxedo boss spirit appears.

As the floor goes up, besides the evil spirits getting stronger, they are also more intelligent to some extent and may have weird abilities. According to the memories of the seventh floor coffin spirit, the previous baleful spirits on the seventh floor were all consumed by it and transformed into its loyal minions. This is the reason why the entire floor was funeral themed instead of being a mix of baleful spirits.

Arriving at the eighth floor, Pro cautiously peeked in and observed the gloomy atmosphere of the distorted hallway. As expected, he already sensed mid-level baleful spirits in apartments 889 and 886. There should also be a top-level baleful spirit in apartment 888.

Silently stepping into the hallway, Pro sneaked down the hallway to scout the situation. He easily got an estimate of the powerful baleful spirits on the floor. Apartments 885 and 883 also had mid-level baleful spirits. On the other hand, apartments 881, 884, and 880 all had top-level baleful spirits.

As usual, Pro decided to harvest all the lingering spirits first. Apartments 882 and 887 were easily cleaned up by Pro, netting a total of 480 life points from four top-level lingering spirits and 2 mid-level lingering spirits. There wasn't much ruckus as the fights ended after they barely started.

Stepping into the hallway once more, Pro decided to sweep the rooms from one end to the other, starting from apartment 888. He was prepared to retreat if he encountered any weird abilities he couldn't handle, like an illusion ability or spatial ability; however, as a top-level blood spirit, only top-level baleful spirits had a chance of affecting him with their illusions. As for spatial, he will just have to fight them head on whilst he retreat.

Bam! With another door getting destroyed like usual, the entire floor of spirits were woken up by the ruckus as multiple apartment doors creaked open at once. With a smile, Pro retreated to the stairway after provoking the enemy. He even held the stairway door open like a gentleman to wait for the evil spirits to chase him.

"Come one, come all. Come pay a visit to your friendly neighborhood spiderm*n. I promise it's not a trap. There isn't any webs over here," Pro mocked loudly as he watched the evil spirits clamber out of their rooms.

Screeee! Roarrrr! Grrrrr!

A chorus of howls rung in the hallway as an assortment of spirits charged towards Pro. With a glance, Pro noticed that most of them had physical body parts of humans sewed together with different parts of animals.

Some had lion head mixed with bird claws as feet and a human body with snakes for hands. There was the bullhead human, the human with wings for hands. It was basically your typical fantasy world monsters, and didn't seem to be evil spirits at all.

The lion man pounced on Pro, but Pro didn't have any fear and slashed it with his claws. Pro then widen his eyes in shock as he claws pass through the lion man as if it was just an illusion!

Freezing a moment in surprise, Pro was then met with the counterattack of the lion man as its snake hands bit at Pro's hand. Pro felt the force of the bite on his hand, but fortunately it didn't manage to break through his defense.

With another swipe of his claws, Pro watched his attack pass through the enemy once more. Pro couldn't help but frown as he dodged the claws of the harpy monster that tried to attack his head.

Stepping back into the stairway with a frown, Pro watched the illusory monster squeeze through the door, but he had no way of dealing with them.

"What is this nonsense? Is this Ob*to's ability from the fanfic next door or something? Even that has the weakness and he can be attacked once he attacks, but that doesn't seem to be the case here?"

Ignoring the attacks that couldn't pierce his defenses, Pro began to find a solution as his eyes examined the eighth floor for clues. Glancing at these evil spirits that seemed to be human experimentation of some sort, Pro counted seven of them, a lion man, harpy, minotaur, medusa, lizard man, bug man, and werewolf. Don't mind the out of place bug that was clearly just there to fill in the spot.

"Missing one?" Pro realized that there should be eight, and his instincts said this was a clue.

Recalling the rooms that the animal monsters stepped out from, Pro then realized that nobody stepped out of apartment 881!

With that abnormality, Pro locked onto his target. Ignoring the illusory monsters around him, Pro dashed down the hallway and kicked down the door to apartment 881.

Bam! The silent living room was revealed to Pro and Pro locked onto an antique vase that was decorated with familiar looking images of animal monsters. With a grin, Pro dashed up to the vase. The illusory spirits failed to stop Pro and could only helplessly watch as Pro smashed the vase to pieces.

With the sound of glass shattering, Pro saw cracks appear all around him as the scene shattered. In a blink of an eye, Pro realized that he was standing at the end of the hallway in front of apartment 881. The illusory monsters were gone, but it was unknown when the door to apartment 881 was opened as Pro didn't even recall it happening!

"It seemed that everything that just happened was an illusion? I seriously need an ability to counter illusions in the future," Pro muttered as he glanced at his points that hadn't change.

Peeking into apartment 881 and noticing the vase with cracks inside, Pro sneered as he understood that there must have been a backlash from the destruction of the illusion. Without hesitation, Pro went inside and smashed the vase to pieces.

The sound of glass shattering echoed in the hallway as Pro could feel the gloom of the floor rising. Pro then enjoyed a cut-scene of a sailor carrying the vase as he stared out at the raging sea.

"We're almost there. Once I make it back and sell this cursed vase, I should have enough money for her medical expenses."

"I hope those annoying bunch of the Dark Coalition won't chase over. It took a lot of effort to smuggle this vase out of Europe."

"Huh? That black robe ... who are you? I don't remember you being part of the crew?"

"Why are you all on that guy's side?! We've been through so much together! How could you all betray me?!"

"No! No one will take this vase away from me! I curse you all to have a fate worst than animals!"

The cut-scene disappeared along with the sound of waves crashing against the boat. However, a new sound replaced this, the sound of screams and moans echoing in the hallway.

Picking up the remnants of the vase, Pro swiftly dashed out of the hallway and towards his domain. Glancing at the wolf-like evil spirits formed from black mist crawling out of their rooms, Pro knew that this time it was for real.

Dodging a couple of attacks and easily dispersing some of the black mist monsters, Pro made his way back to the stairway. Letting the remnants of the vase get absorbed by his domain, Pro turned around and prepared for battle.

[Ding! Mysterious object with yin qi detected. Absorbing object ...]

[Host's domain has absorbed a possession object filled with yin qi. Host gains 1780 life points.]

Recalling the glimpses of the antiques he saw in the apartment rooms he passed by, Pro knew that this time he couldn't lure the evil spirits into his domain. He will have to fight each one outside of his domain for once.

Glancing at the army of different black mist monsters crawling his way that served as the antique monster's cannon fodder, Pro knew he will have to clear each room one by one while being besieged by this army that will continuously keep spawning.

With a grin of excitement, Pro pounced forward to welcome the challenge.