Chapter 21: The Darkness Outside the Door

I will die! I am definitely going to die!

The primal fear of life left Dai Heming with the absolute certainty of his situation. Unlike Shen Lin’s playful taunts from just moments ago, those withered hands felt as if they had reached out from the abyss of the underworld. He felt as though he were an old, withered tree bark about to be drained of all sap, his soul scattering into oblivion.

Run! Run!

Dai Heming repeated this to himself, yet the path beneath his feet seemed to stretch into infinity. That blood-red light was devouring everything; he could find no road.

No! There was no road at all!

The situation was beyond comprehension. You could see many things with your eyes, yet you couldn't even take a single step.

The distance that seemed reachable was truly just distance—a distance you could never reach.

It was over. Everything was gone.

The hands drew closer, nearly upon him. Dai Heming was consumed by despair.

"Whoosh!"

It was a sound like a tiger’s roar tearing through the wind. A pair of pale hands seemed to slash through the darkness, reaching in front of Dai Heming and yanking him back with immense force.

The world flipped upside down. Dai Heming found himself back in the villa. Lingering in terror, he realized his clothes were soaked through with cold sweat.

"What happened?" Shen Lin’s cold voice reached his ears.

Dai Heming snapped out of his daze, only to find everyone around him staring at him in horror.

Five seconds ago, right before their eyes, Dai Heming had shattered layer by layer like scraps of paper in the wind, then dissolved into black light, vanishing in a way that defied human comprehension.

Shen Lin was equally shocked. He hadn't retracted his Ghost Domain, yet under these circumstances, Dai Heming had been snatched away right under his nose without him noticing a thing.

Inconceivable. Incomprehensible.

Even someone as powerful as the Ghost Mother could only achieve her goals by shattering or suppressing a Ghost Domain. Within a domain, the Ghost Master controls everything; to trigger a rule and kill someone under these conditions—the terror level of this ghost was beyond his imagination.

Shen Lin condensed his Ghost Domain and struck at the last remaining fragments, piercing into that world like a steel needle. He felt intense pressure; his Ghost Domain itself was trembling, as if crumbling in an earthquake. In a world dominated by scarlet and pitch black, Shen Lin followed the direction of the drifting fragments to find Dai Heming and pulled him back before his domain collapsed entirely.

Lingering fear and dread washed over him. He must never go there. This was a battle on the level of Ghost Domains; the opponent’s domain was on a much higher tier. This was a confrontation between two different dimensions.

Shen Lin immediately activated his Ghost Domain to escape, only to find that after a flash of light, they were still in the same place.

His expression darkened again. His worst fear had come true: his Ghost Domain was being suppressed. The opponent acted as if they knew he was here all along, completely sealing his means of escape.

Did the expansion of his domain just now alert the ghost? Shen Lin speculated silently. Ghosts are not terrifying; it is the unknown that brings fear. Shen Lin gritted his teeth.

"I... I don't know either." Dai Heming’s voice trembled. He answered honestly. In those few seconds, it felt as if he had experienced an eternity; he couldn't even understand or describe what he had been through.

Did he trigger a rule?

Shen Lin pondered. What could have triggered the rule? What did his Ghost Domain do? No, that wasn't right. The neighborhood had been experiencing disappearances all along; it couldn't be the domain’s fault.

Then it had to be the person. Shen Lin gave Dai Heming a deep, searching look.

"What did you do?"

"Huh?" Dai Heming looked blank. He didn't know how to speak, for he didn't know where he had gone wrong.

Shen Lin carefully examined the surroundings, but he found nothing unusual. Either the rule meant the ghost could only strike once a day, or the entity was lurking nearby, and he simply couldn't detect it. The former would be a stroke of luck; the latter would cause the ghost’s terror level to skyrocket in Shen Lin’s estimation.

Caution.

Shen Lin dared not be arrogant. He carefully took out a Ghost Candle and lit it.

The materials and methods used to craft a Ghost Candle were different from ordinary ones. It could sense ghosts; the higher the terror level of the ghost, the faster it would burn. Conversely, if the entity’s terror level was low, or if there were no ghosts at all, the candle could burn for a long time. While burning, it guaranteed that everyone nearby would be 100% immune to ghostly interference. It was a strategic resource.

As the Ghost Candle burned, the flame remained steady. The emerald fire did not flicker in the slightest, which made Shen Lin breathe a sigh of relief. He turned his gaze back to Dai Heming.

"Tell me in detail what you did today that you don't usually do."

It had been over thirty days; it made no sense that the rule was only triggered today. Dai Heming must have done something out of the ordinary. Shen Lin was certain of it.

"I... I didn't do anything." Dai Heming panicked. He racked his brains but realized he had only done his usual routine. He hadn't done anything special—unless you counted the fact that their group rarely came here for meetings.

"Brother, what time do you think it is? Hurry up and think! All of our lives are depending on you!" Before Shen Lin could speak, Dai Hening grew anxious. Even a fool could hear the implication behind Shen Lin’s question. This ghost had clearly been brought here by his brother; what a disaster.

Dai Heming panicked. He tried his hardest to remember, and in his desperation, his brow twitched.

"I... I remember now."

"Our car broke down today, so the driver only took me to the entrance of the residential area, and I walked the rest of the way here."

"Walked? Which part did you walk through?" Shen Lin asked.

"The Donghua Plaza in our community. Our home is in Building One; it’s only a minute or two walk from there. It’s very close." Dai Heming replied hurriedly, trying his best to prove his usefulness. He could even feel the gazes around him like torches. He understood perfectly well that he had to do something right now, or he would be abandoned without hesitation.

Shen Lin mused, carefully considering the characteristics of the victims: drivers, housekeepers, designated drivers, and even some children. Donghua Plaza was the most convenient path to the entrance; walking there to commute or run errands, it all seemed to add up.

Donghua Plaza! There must be some taboo there. Either it was the location itself, or something done within that plaza.

Shen Lin was about to ask more, but he noticed the emerald fire before him began to fluctuate, as if sensing something approaching.

The next second, the Ghost Candle, which had shown no signs of rapid consumption, began to burn slowly—no, rapidly!

It was here!

Wait! Fast and slow—what did that mean? Was the ghost moving in and out of range? Was it jumping back and forth?

Bizarre. Indescribably bizarre.

Shen Lin steadied himself and pulled out his phone, dialing a number out of habit, only to hear a busy signal. His eyes remained calm, as if he had expected this. Wu Qiu was his dedicated operator; a busy signal was impossible. There was only one explanation.

Shen Lin looked at the villa, which seemed normal, his eyes filled with profound depth. A Ghost Domain could be considered another world; this domain had severed their communications.

"Lin, what do we do?" Li Meng dragged his father closer to Shen Lin. He knew, of course, what they were up against, and he knew there was no place safer than by his best friend’s side.

"The situation isn't clear. My Ghost Domain is being suppressed. We have to walk out of here," Shen Lin said.

There were many ways to suppress a Ghost Domain, but every single one of them was incredibly troublesome. This ghost was suspected of performing a dimensional strike from a higher-level domain; he couldn't deal with it for the moment. This wasn't a game on the same level; if they fought, Shen Lin had no chance.

"Xiao Lin, with so many of us, wouldn't it be easier to leave in batches?" Li Yihui suggested. In conventional disaster scenarios, evacuating in batches was far more convenient than a unified withdrawal. It made management easier, prevented chaos, and increased survival rates.

But this was no conventional disaster. This was the horror of a supernatural awakening.

Shen Lin was absolutely certain that if the ghost was as terrifying as he imagined, they would die, perhaps even be wiped out entirely.

"No, we must stay together. This supernatural disaster exceeds your worldview and logic. Do not think about it with fixed, rigid thinking; that will only get us killed."

Regulating his breathing, Shen Lin stepped forward. The flame of the Ghost Candle in his hand flickered violently, as if a great terror was lurking within this seemingly ordinary villa.

"You, open the door." He pointed at someone at random.

The man’s panicked face turned pale, and he stepped back slightly. "Mr. Shen, you have immense supernatural powers; surely you don't need us to do this?"

He was terrified, staring fixedly at the door, convinced that the horror behind it would exceed his wildest imagination. It felt as if the moment the door opened, a vicious, fanged ghost would devour him.

"I’ll say it once more: you, open the door. If you stay here, you must learn to create value. Do you really think I’m some merciful saint taking you all on a trip to an amusement park?"

Shen Lin’s tone was cold—cold enough to snap them back to reality. He wasn't just talking to that one person; he was talking to everyone. There might be a ghost outside the door, but there was a true ghost inside. They could even see a vision of a silent, blood-soaked mountain of corpses reflected in Shen Lin’s eyes.

"But... you promised to help us fix this for four hundred million," someone spoke up, emboldened. Shen Lin smiled at him.

"I can refuse the money, and I can also refuse you."

The man stopped talking. He dared not speak anymore. Just as Shen Lin said, the money hadn't been collected yet; it was just a blank check, and Shen Lin could choose to discard it at any time. Even if he had taken the money, so what? When human lives were at stake, what could they use to judge him? A bank statement or an IOU? How laughable.

"I... I’ll do it!" Dai Heming took a deep breath and stepped forward. Being the most desperate to prove his worth, he knew the gravity of the situation better than anyone. He was the one targeted by the ghost; he had no choice.

Taking a deep breath, Dai Heming used all his strength to open the door, attempting to do it as quickly as possible so he could return to Shen Lin’s side.

"Creak~"

The door opened!

Nothing happened.

Everyone looked outside. The light they had imagined did not appear. It was an endless, boundless darkness, contrasting with the brightly lit interior like the divide between heaven and hell.