The Happy Ending Funeral Home sat on the edge of the city, surrounded by overgrown weeds and a rusted chain-link fence. It was a low, blocky brick building that looked like it had been abandoned since the 90s.
But to Spirit Sight, it was a lighthouse.
Thick, oily smoke poured from the chimney, invisible to the naked eye but blindingly green to Ren. It was the exhaust of necromancy.
Ren and Jian were crouched on the flat roof of a self-storage facility across the street. The wind whipped at their hoodies.
"This is a bad idea," Jian whispered, his fingers flying across his laptop keyboard. "This is a terrible idea. We are literally watching a SWAT raid from the splash zone."
"Quiet," Ren said, his eyes fixed on the funeral home. "The show is starting."
Ren checked the timer.
[ TIME UNTIL PURGE: 58 HOURS, 15 MINUTES ]
Down on the street, the black SUV pulled up. Mr. Liu stepped out. He didn't look like a dad anymore. He buttoned his trench coat, and the air temperature around him plummeted.
Two more black vans arrived. Six figures stepped out—Reapers in tactical gear. They didn't carry guns. They carried collapsible staves etched with silver runes.
"Squad 6," Jian narrated, looking at his screen where he had tapped into a traffic camera. "Standard breach formation. They're going to knock down the door."
"They won't need to," Ren muttered. "The enemy knows they are here."
As if on cue, the front door of the funeral home exploded outward.
BOOM.
A wave of green fire rolled out, scorching the pavement. The Reapers didn't flinch. They raised their hands in unison.
"Shield."
A blue barrier of light snapped into existence, absorbing the green fire.
Then, the dead came out.
They weren't slow, shambling zombies. They were corpses wrapped in yellow talismans, moving with jerky, unnatural speed. Their nails were long and black, like iron spikes.
"Jiangshi," Ren noted, unimpressed. "Hopping Vampires. Low quality."
He narrowed his eyes at the nearest corpse.
"The stitching is amateur," Ren critiqued. "Look at the neck. The soul seal is loose. If you hit them on the left shoulder, they'll fall apart."
There were twelve of them. They threw themselves at the Reapers.
The street erupted into chaos.
The Reapers moved like a synchronized machine. Their staves extended into scythes made of blue energy.
SLASH. SLASH.
Limbs flew. The Reapers didn't just cut flesh; they severed the spiritual strings controlling the corpses. When a Reaper cut a Jiangshi, it didn't bleed—it just collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
But the corpses were just the distraction.
"There," Ren pointed. "The roof."
On top of the funeral home, a figure appeared.
He was a short, hunched man wearing a ceremonial Daoist robe that was stained with grease. He held a wooden gourd in one hand and a copper bell in the other.
This was the Rogue Cultivator.
"Reapers!" the man shrieked, his voice sounding like grinding metal. "You dare disturb Master Gui's sanctuary? Do you know who backs me?"
"I don't care," Mr. Liu's voice boomed from the street. It wasn't shouted; it was projected.
Mr. Liu stepped through the line of Reapers. He looked up at the roof.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a handle wrapped in black leather. He flicked his wrist.
SHIIING.
A massive, curved blade of black steel extended. It wasn't energy. It was a physical Soul Weapon. A Tier 3 Scythe.
[ BOSS SKILL OBSERVED: REAPER'S EXECUTION ]
Mr. Liu didn't jump. He vanished.
"Flash Step," Jian gasped. "Dad never uses that at home."
Mr. Liu reappeared in mid-air, directly above the roof. He brought the scythe down in a vertical arc.
"Judgement."
Master Gui rang his bell frantically. "Bone Wall!"
A dome of white bone-shards erupted around him.
CRACK.
Mr. Liu's scythe shattered the bone wall like it was made of sugar glass. The impact shook the entire building. Dust and debris billowed out.
"He's strong," Ren admitted, watching the shockwave. "Your father is a high-tier warrior."
"He's the Section Chief," Jian said, pride warring with terror in his voice. "He clears A-Rank dungeons on his lunch break."
On the roof, Master Gui was thrown backward, coughing blood. His robe was shredded.
"You fools!" Gui screamed, scrambling backward. "You think I am alone? The Northern Office will hear of this!"
"The Northern Office issued the warrant," Mr. Liu said, walking through the dust, his scythe dragging on the roof tiles. "Surrender, Gui. Or be harvested."
Gui's eyes darted around. He looked desperate.
He grabbed the wooden gourd at his waist.
"I will not go back to the Void!" Gui yelled.
He smashed the gourd on the ground.
A thick, purple miasma exploded from the shards. It wasn't smoke. It was concentrated screaming.
[ ALERT: HIGH-DENSITY SOUL RELEASE ] [ TYPE: VENGEFUL SPIRITS ]
Hundreds of ghosts—the ones Gui had been illegally harvesting—poured out of the gourd. They didn't attack the Reapers. They swirled around in a chaotic vortex, blinding everyone.
"Cover your eyes!" Mr. Liu shouted to his squad.
In the confusion, Master Gui did something strange.
He didn't attack. He ran to the chimney. He pulled a lever hidden in the brickwork.
CLICK.
The chimney collapsed inward, revealing a hidden slide.
"A bolt hole," Ren whispered. "He's running."
Gui dove into the hole, vanishing into the darkness of the earth below.
The purple ghosts dispersed, fleeing into the night sky now that their prison was broken.
Mr. Liu cursed. He slashed the air, dispersing the remaining miasma, and ran to the chimney. He peered down.
"Blocked," Mr. Liu growled into his radio. "He collapsed the tunnel behind him. Suspect has escaped underground. Sector 4 is compromised."
On the rooftop across the street, Ren stood up.
"He got away," Jian said, disappointed. "Dad missed him."
"No," Ren said, his eyes glowing. "Your dad flushed him out. Gui is running scared. He abandoned his base. He abandoned his minions."
Ren looked at the funeral home. The battle was over. The Reapers were securing the perimeter, tagging the destroyed zombies.
"But he left something behind," Ren said.
"What?"
Ren pointed to the roof. Where Master Gui had been standing, amidst the shattered gourd shards, was a ledger. A thick, black book that had fallen out of Gui's robe when Mr. Liu hit him.
Mr. Liu hadn't noticed it yet. He was too busy barking orders into his radio.
"That book," Ren said. "It contains his contacts. His buyers. His supply lines."
"Ren," Jian warned. "You can't go down there. There are six Reapers and my Dad. If you step on that street, they'll arrest you for obstruction."
"I don't need to go down there," Ren said.
He looked at the scene. The Reapers were distracted. The spiritual turbulence was high, masking small signatures.
Ren held out his hand. He focused on the book.
He didn't have a telekinesis spell. But he had the Phoenix Hairpin.
"Jian," Ren said. "Open the laptop. Hack the streetlights. Give me three seconds of darkness."
"What? Ren, I can't just—"
"DO IT."
Jian groaned and hit a macro key.
ZZZT.
The streetlights on the block flickered and died. The funeral home was plunged into darkness.
"Power failure?" one of the Reapers shouted below. "Switch to thermal!"
In that three-second window, Ren acted.
He didn't use Mana. He used the Artifact.
He pulled the hairpin from his pocket. It was warm. He visualized the book.
"Fetch."
A small, spectral bird—no bigger than a sparrow, made of faint red light—shot out of the hairpin. It flew across the street faster than an arrow, invisible to thermal vision because it possessed no heat.
It swooped down to the roof, grabbed the black book in its talons, and shot back up into the night sky.
The streetlights flickered back on.
Mr. Liu looked around, scythe raised. "Status?"
"Clear, sir. Just a grid fluctuation."
On the storage roof, Ren caught the spectral bird. It dissolved into light, dropping the black book into his hand.
Ren held it up. It was heavy. Bound in human skin.
"The Ledger of Master Gui," Ren smiled. "Jian, we just stole the evidence right out from under the police."
Jian stared at him, then at the book.
"We are going to prison," Jian whispered. "So much prison."
Ren opened the book. The first page wasn't a list of sales.
It was a contract.
[ CONTRACT OF SOUL SUPPLY ] [ BUYER: MINISTER SHEN (NORTHERN OFFICE) ] [ SELLER: GUI ] [ TARGET: THE SCHOOL ]
Ren closed the book. The smile vanished from his face.
"It's confirmed," Ren said coldly. "The Northern Office isn't investigating the crime. They commissioned it."
Ren turned to leave.
"Let's go, Jian. We have 58 hours to prepare for a war."