Autophagy

After separating their ways with Song Lei, Old Wolf and Damien quickly went to the 7th floor. They had agreed with Gao Jing and Lu Peng that they would meet up on this floor if something serious happened. Unfortunately, though, no one seemed to have come back here.

"Which floor do you think the noises came from?" Damien asked with a grim expression on his face. Old Wolf sighed deeply.

"I don't know. We'll have to keep going down if we want to learn," Old Wolf said. "But considering that they didn't come back to the 7th floor, things probably aren't going very well at the moment," he deduced.

"Then we'll have to search the other floors one by one..." Damien muttered while holding his chin. They left floor 7 and kept descending the stairs. Old Wolf's face was becoming whiter and whiter with time. Because they were nearing the place that the horde had formed, the density of the horde was becoming higher and higher. Old Wolf had to constantly raise his usage of his shockwaves to keep the horde of ghosts from overrunning and devouring them.

The density of the horde reached its peak on the 5th floor. Because of this, Damien and Old Wolf couldn't pass this floor.

"What should we do?" Damien asked. Seeing that their way was blocked, he felt like following Song Lei would have been a much better choice.

"I hate to say this but we'll have to wait," Old Wolf answered. In this situation, they could neither go back up nor could they force their way through. Their only choice left was waiting.

Just as Old Wolf said this, Damien felt a presence right behind them. He turned his back in one move and pulled Old Wolf to the side.

"Chill!" The person behind them said.

"Oh... Fu Ah?" Old Wolf said curiously. "Why did you come here?"

"What do you mean why? Weren't you the one who used the Call Gong?" Fu Ah threw the question back at them.

"Yeah... I just thought that you wouldn't come. Anyways... Do you have any idea what's going on?" Old Wolf asked. They had entered the safe room on floor 5 to relax for a little bit. As Old Wolf had said, they didn't have much to do unless the horde dispersed.

"If I had to guess? I would probably say that we've either encountered a dangerous and infective curse or that we're under attack by a hostile group," Fu Ah said while adjusting her glasses.

"That's mostly right," Old Wolf said. "But that wasn't what I was asking. I need details."

"Details? I don't really have them," Fu Ah said. Then, after a few seconds, she thought and spoke again by saying, "Now that you've asked, I heard Gao Jing and Lu Peng talking with someone while coming here. I rushed to where they were but couldn't find them when I arrived."

"Were they talking with someone that you knew?" Old Wolf asked with his arms crossed.

"I couldn't exactly make it out by their voice but I don't think I knew them," she said.

"Hmm... Did you see darkness monsters while coming down?" Damien asked.

"What? What is that?" Fu Ah asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Then I'm assuming that you have never seen them," Old Wolf said while holding his chin. "But never having an encounter with them should be almost impossible while coming down. Did they disappear..?" He muttered to himself.

"Maybe..." Damien said.

After their talk was done, they had to wait for some time before things could calm down. When there weren't many noises of the horde were left in the hallway, they left the safe room.

The horde had dispersed, leaving nothing more than a faint sulfuric smell covering the lower parts of the apartment. The apartment was back to its eerie and silent state. Weirdly, though, any normal person could probably realize that this was the calm before the storm.

They went down to the 4th floor with their new accompany. They had to keep their silence now, as they didn't want to alert a horde or any possible outsiders.

Damien and Old Wolf silently reached their head out to look out into the hallway to see if there was something that could be dangerous to them.

"Uh..."

A drop of sweat slid off of Damien's head. A grim expression formed on Old Wolf's face.

There was a person standing right in the middle of the hallway without doing anything in particular. This person seemed to be a male of average height with short hair, wearing a basic white t-shirt with bloodstains on it.

The only problem with this man was the fact that his head seemed to be rapidly spinning in every direction, turning into a blur. The impossible moves this man's head made him seem like his neck was being broken again and again.

"That doesn't look very good," Damien whispered into Old Wolf's ear with the lowest voice he could make. Unfortunately, this was a big mistake as this little noise was enough to alert the monster. It snapped its head backward and started charging at them while grumbling and making weird noises.

Damien's hair stood on their end as he took a step backward. There was darkness covering the face of this monster. When Damien used his ability to see what it was, he realized that this darkness was the same as the ones that were infesting the apartment just a short time ago. Seeing this, Damien started sweating and shaking.

Fu Ah was in a completely different situation. There was a blank expression on her face as if nothing was happening in front of them. She seemed to be indifferent to whatever would happen to them if the monster reached them.

The only one that produced a proper answer was Old Wolf. He jumped in front of the two of his branch members and raised his hand to cast a shockwave.

"You guys stay back. This will get ugly...."