The warehouse erupted into noise.
It started as a low hum, shivering through the concrete floor, then climbed into a deafening, mechanical shriek. The industrial meat grinders, embedded in the floor at the end of the conveyor belts, roared to life. The sound was physical—a wall of vibration that rattled the teeth of everyone in the room.
"Volume is useless!" Ren shouted over the noise, deflecting a flailing zombie arm with his crowbar. The impact jarred his shoulder, but he held his ground. "They are hungry ghosts, Jian! They don't hear sound; they hear life! You have to trick their hunger!"
Jian was huddled under the control panel, hyperventilating. He jammed a cable into the rusty port, but the screen flashed red.
"I can't just 'hack' it!" Jian screamed, his voice cracking. "This isn't binary code! It's a Blood-Seal! If I force it, the feedback will fry my brain! It's like trying to hack a curse with a calculator!"
"Don't force it!" Ren commanded, kicking a Husk away. "Mimic it! You listen to soul frequencies all day at your dad's office, don't you? What does a dying soul sound like?"
Jian froze. His eyes widened behind his fogged glasses. The chaos around him—the moaning constructs, the screaming metal—seemed to fade.
"440 Hertz," Jian whispered. "The acoustic resonance of fear. The sound a soul makes when it leaves the body."
Jian stopped typing. He realized the keyboard was useless against this kind of magic. He reached into his bag and pulled out a stripped copper wire.
He didn't use the interface. He jammed the raw copper wire directly into the circuit board of the panel, bypassing the safeties.
ZAP.
Sparks showered over him. Jian gritted his teeth as the spiritual electricity bit his fingers, burning the skin. It smelled of ozone and singing hair. Tears welled in his eyes, but he didn't let go. He twisted the wire, manually bridging the connection.
"Eat this, you ugly bastards," Jian hissed.
HUMMMMMM.
To the naked eye, nothing changed. But in the spiritual spectrum—the world Ren saw through his green-fire eyes—the grinder pits suddenly flared white-hot.
It wasn't heat. It was a beacon.
To the zombies, the spinning steel gears didn't look like machinery anymore. They looked like the most delicious, radiant, terrified soul they had ever seen. It was a buffet of pure life force.
The horde stopped mid-charge. Their heads snapped toward the pits.
They shrieked—a sound of pure, mindless gluttony that scraped against the soul—and changed direction. They threw themselves at the machinery, clawing over each other to be the first to feast.
CRUNCH.
The first Husk dove headfirst into the gears. Black ichor sprayed the ceiling like oil from a struck well. Then the second. Then the third. The sound of grinding bone and tearing spirit-flesh filled the air.
Jian pulled his burned fingers away from the panel, panting, cradling his hand. "I... I did it. I actually did it."
"Good," Ren said, wiping black slime from his cheek. His eyes were already fixed on the stairs leading to the upper office. "Now, stay here. I have an audit to finish."
The Audit
Ren climbed the steel stairs. He didn't kick the door open this time. He stopped outside the Manager's Office, pressing his hand against the cold metal.
He sensed the air.
The mana inside was turbulent. Dense. Rotting. It felt like standing next to a reactor leaking toxic waste.
Ren opened the door and stepped inside.
Master Gui was waiting.
The Necromancer stood behind his massive oak desk. He wasn't running. He was floating three inches off the ground, his robes billowing in an invisible wind. Green, necrotic fire danced between his fingers, forming complex geometric shapes.
"Only Level 2?" Gui sneered, sensing Ren's aura. "I expected a Reaper Captain. Instead, I get a child. You destroyed my army with a cheap trick, boy. But tricks don't work on a Level 10 Warlock."
Gui flicked his wrist.
WHOOSH.
A lance of green fire shot across the room. It was fast—too fast for a human to dodge. The heat of it curled the papers on the desk.
Ren didn't dodge. He didn't even flinch.
In his old life, he had seen spells that could boil oceans. This? This was amateur hour.
He watched the green fire approach. To his Shaman eyes, it wasn't a solid beam. It was a braid of three magical threads twisted together. And the middle thread was loose.
Sloppy, Ren thought.
He raised the crowbar. He didn't block the fire. He struck the air just to the left of the spell.
TING.
A clear, bell-like tone rang out.
Ren had hit the "Mana Node"—the invisible structural weakness holding the spell together. It was like pulling the keystone out of an arch.
The lance of fire destabilized instantly. It shattered mid-air, dissolving into harmless sparks that washed over Ren like warm rain.
Gui's eyes bulged. He looked at his own hands, then at Ren. "Impossible. You... you disrupted the weave? Without mana? Who are you?"
"Your casting is sloppy," Ren said calmly, walking forward. The sparks faded around him. "You rely on power, not structure. You waste 40% of your energy just keeping the spell stable. In my time, you wouldn't have passed the apprentice exams."
Ren's eyes glowed with a terrifying, ancient green light. He didn't look like a teenager anymore. He looked like a veteran walking through a battlefield he had already won.
"Try again," Ren taunted. "Show me what else you learned from your correspondence course."
Gui roared. Humiliation twisted his face. He clapped his hands together. Shadows peeled off the walls, forming into three serrated blades of darkness.
[SPELL: SHADOW FLAY]
"Die!"
The blades flew at Ren from three angles. They screamed through the air, hungry for blood.
Ren moved. This time, it was a dance.
He side-stepped the first blade, letting it graze his shoulder. He ducked the second, feeling the wind of its passage ruffle his hair.
For the third, he channeled his remaining Mana—not into a blast, but into a thin coating on the crowbar.
"Dispel."
Ren swung the bar in a perfect arc. He struck the center of the shadow blade.
SHATTER.
The magic exploded outward. The force of the backlash slammed Master Gui backward into his own bookshelf. Books, artifacts, and jars of preserved eyes rained down. Gui fell to the floor, coughing blood. His concentration was broken.
Before Gui could recover, Ren was there.
He didn't tackle him. He pinned him.
Ren slammed the crowbar down. The curved end hooked around Gui's neck, pressing him against the Persian rug.
Ren leaned down. His face was inches from the Necromancer's.
"You have power," Ren whispered, his voice cold and intimate. "But I have Authority. Do you know the difference, Gui?"
Gui stared up, paralyzed by the sheer weight of Ren's killing intent. It wasn't the anger of a boy; it was the judgment of a King.
"Power is screaming," Ren said. "Authority is silence."
Ren reached into Gui's robe and pulled out the Jade Tablet (Factory Key). Then, he grabbed the Ledger from the desk.
"Please," Gui wheezed, the crowbar crushing his windpipe. "I can pay you. I have gold. I have—"
"Quiet," Ren hissed.
He looked toward the window. The factory lot outside was bathed in flashing lights.
Blue and Red lights from the East.
Cold, clinical White lights from the West.
Ren stood up, dragging Gui with him by the collar. He shoved the defeated Warlock toward the window.
"Look," Ren commanded. "You have visitors."
Down in the parking lot, two armies had arrived.
On the left, Ren recognized the coats. The Reapers. Mr. Liu stood at the front, his scythe drawn, surrounded by officers in black trench coats. They looked like the law.
But on the right was something Ren didn't recognize.
A convoy of matte-grey SUVs. No sirens. No markings. Men in heavy tactical gear spilled out. They didn't carry scythes; they carried sleek, long rifles that hummed with a strange, dissonant vibration. They wore blank, grey masks that covered their entire faces.
Ren looked down at Master Gui. "Friends of yours?"
Gui's face went white. His pupils dilated in sheer terror.
"The Cleaners," Gui whispered, his voice trembling. "They have Suppressor Rifles... Void Glass... Oh god."
"Who are they?" Ren asked, watching the grey soldiers take aim at the Reapers.
"They are the Minister's personal death squad," Gui choked out. "They don't make arrests. They erase spiritual signatures. If they shoot you, you don't go to the afterlife. You just cease to exist. They wipe your soul from the Cycle."
Ren's eyes narrowed.
"The Ancient Mana," Ren realized. "I released it when I woke up. The Northern HQ tracked the signature here. They aren't here for the noise." He looked at the trembling Warlock. "He's not here to rescue you, is he?"
"No," Gui wept. "He sent them to clean up the mess. He sent them to kill me."
Ren looked at the Ledger in his hand. Then at the two armies pointing weapons at each other outside. One wanted to arrest them. The other wanted to erase them.
He smiled.
"Jian," Ren called out. "Get up here."
Jian stumbled into the room, nursing his burned hand. He looked out the window and gasped. "My dad... and the Death Squad? Ren, we are trapped. If we go out there, we die."
"No," Ren said, adjusting his bloodied cuffs. "We are in the perfect position."
Ren shoved the Ledger into his waistband and grabbed Master Gui by the back of the neck.
"We are going to walk out the front door," Ren said. "And we are going to let them fight over who gets the privilege of arresting us."