Anna's body was at its breaking point.
She had endured a brutal few days. After staying up all night, her fever finally broke. Then, upon her return, she was struck on the head by a white-collar worker. This was followed by a heavy rain that brought a chilling, pervasive cold. The fact that she had held on until now was a testament to her sheer will.
However, after the ghost effortlessly used Anna's own plan to kill two people, Anna was about to lose her temper.
"Let me take a look."
Ling Yan immediately took Anna's hand, checked her pulse, and then reached out to press her forehead.
"Her heartbeat is very fast, and it's too cold to tell if she has a fever, but she can't continue in this state..."
"I can continue."
Anna panted, touching her head. A trace of blood had seeped through the bandage again. The wound on her head seemed to have reopened, but the pain brought a degree of clarity to her dizzy mind.
"The situation isn't bad... Let's go to that room..."
Ling Yan had no choice but to support her. The five of them walked upstairs to the room the substitute ghost had entered earlier.
It was a single room with only a bed placed near the window. A rope was now tied to the bedpost, with the other end hanging out the window, reaching the ground below.
"Is this where the rope was set up?"
Ling Yan continued to check the rest of the room, confused, but found nothing.
"The substitute ghost has no special mobility; it can only go downstairs using ropes, like a human..." Anna walked to the window, placed her hands on the windowsill, and looked outside. There was a faint drag mark on the ground, extending about one or two meters.
"A drag mark..."
There was grass below, making footprints invisible from that distance, but the obvious drag mark was very strange.
"It seems the substitute ghost ran away from here, and Beom Seok chased it out," Ling Yan's fruitless search left her no choice but to accept this explanation.
"..."
Anna held the windowsill and slowly sank to the floor.
"Anna!"
Cairo, who was closest to her, rushed forward to help her up. At that moment, Anna suddenly laughed.
"Is this a coincidence, or is it destined?"
"Oh!"
Cairo cried out in pain, stumbled back a few steps, and stopped when he bumped into the wardrobe. A dagger was stuck in his chest, fully embedded with only the hilt visible.
This sudden turn of events immediately shocked the other three, who all looked at the two in surprise. Anna seemed to have regained some spirit. Leaning against the wall, she slowly stood up, her eyes filled with coldness as she looked at Cairo.
"You..." Cairo raised a finger, pointing at Anna, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"The biggest difference between us is that you always like to play with humans before killing them. Isn't the cat-and-mouse game interesting?"
Anna tilted her head, her tone now bordering on madness.
"But if I want to kill someone, I'll do it immediately—whether it's planning or execution, I never drag my feet... Mr. Mensal, are you surprised?"
Hearing that name, everyone's eyes fell on Cairo again.
"It seems I was careless."
Cairo's expression abruptly changed. He was no longer trembling with fear or looking near death after being stabbed. He stood firm, a mocking smile on his face.
"But you truly dared to do it. You didn't hesitate, even with your friends who have been searching with you from the beginning."
"If I hadn't done it, I'm afraid I wouldn't have had the chance. The next time you created an opportunity to separate us, Grandpa Cairo would disappear forever, and along with him, false news that a certain ghost had killed people would be attached... This was your plan, wasn't it?"
"Was it a plan, or just going with the flow?" The substitute ghost spread its hands and shook its head with feigned regret. "In fact, we were having a lot of fun and didn't deliberately make any plans. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been stabbed by you, right?"
"I said I would send you to hell."
"Then your persistence is truly admirable," The substitute ghost showed no sign of defeat. Instead, it fiddled with the dagger in its chest with interest. "This thing can only seal me for a period of time, but my quota for killing is full. It's no use if you kill me."
"Useless?"
Anna smiled.
"You are the only ghost responsible for planning the murders. Without you, can the remaining ghosts really work together?"
"...Ah, probably not," The substitute ghost replied to Anna's words with a tone of regret that couldn't have been more fake.
"But your so-called goal of surviving together is just a joke. The rest of the time is almost ours."
Anna was silent.
"After all, you went to such great lengths to find me earlier. You... may have found that method?" The substitute ghost smiled lightly and pointed to Anna's clenched left hand.
"...I should have discovered it earlier."
Anna walked towards the substitute ghost and stood in front of it.
The old man who was once kind and gentle had now been replaced by a ghost.
However, the old man's remaining words were still in Anna's hands.
She opened her hand, revealing a wrinkled piece of paper on which was written a line of last words in very bold font:
[ The old man is waiting for you in hell! ]
"Grandpa Cairo trusted me so much; I certainly won't let him down."
Upon hearing this, the substitute ghost gave a strange smile and then stood still.
Anna lowered her hand, turned her head, and looked at the three people in the room, her face showing neither joy nor sadness.
"They are all gone."
And someone else will die tonight.
The countdown reached fourteen hours.
The two new ghosts, the invisible ghost, the black fog, and the mirror ghost had not yet acted.
It had begun to get dark outside, and the few bright candles on the table were the only light in this environment. Although everyone's mobile phones could illuminate, the flashlight's light didn't feel as safe as the candle's.
Beom Seok and Noah were still missing. The four had searched around in the afternoon but couldn't find them.
The two people holding the Bagua wooden sword and the spirit summoning catalog weren't so easy to kill, but it was unsettling that they hadn't appeared for so long. Now, Anna had only a few usable props, and the ghost probably hadn't attacked because it hadn't found an opportunity.
"Are we still going to look for them?"
Ling Yan was always a little worried. It wasn't completely dark outside yet. It would be completely dark in an hour, and then there would be no chance.
"We can't help even if we go."
Sister Olivia's voice was muffled, sniffing from time to time. Although the cold in the room had dissipated somewhat, it still felt like winter, and some people were gradually showing symptoms of a cold.
At that moment, a faint sound suddenly came from the direction of the window.
A window that was originally closed suddenly opened and the wind and rain from outside immediately blew in, even extinguishing one of the candles on the table.
"What's going on?"
Ling Yan stood up immediately, only to be held down by Anna beside her to prevent her from approaching.
"The windows are all locked; there's no reason for them to open suddenly..."
Wyatt immediately picked up a candle and inserted it into the rotten hand, and the flame instantly turned blue.
"Sure enough..."
Anna crossed her hands, staring at the candlelight, unhurried.
"The substitute ghost has found a helper who can replace itself to create murderous intent for the mirror ghost, so it decided to kill directly."
Bang!
The second window opened, just behind Anna.
"Let me guess... the abilities of newly born ghosts aren't really random, but have something to do with the dead?"
The third window continued to open.
"The first person is Black Mist, whose intention is to protect himself. Elizabeth corresponds to the wall ghost, and Soren corresponds to the shadow ghost. However, I'm not very familiar with these people, so I don't know their personalities and hobbies... But I know Kenzo and Lily better."
From the first day of entering the main house, Lily showed a strong interest in the furnishings in the house. Although she suppressed it later, Anna still remembered it.
"So you can control the things in the house? Or... can you control dead things?"
At this time, all the windows were open, and the cold wind poured into the room but stopped before approaching the bodies of the people at the table.
"You can't kill people," Anna said.
A circle of red quicksand surrounded the four people, demarcating the two worlds inside and outside the circle.
Ghosts could not set foot on the red quicksand. Not only the ground but also a certain area above was an absolutely forbidden area for evil ghosts.
It was for this reason that the ghost could only cause trouble in the house but could do nothing to the four people gathered in the hall.
This small amount of red quicksand had also used up the last of their stock. In theory, it was safest to spread out a surface that could allow people to stand. However, as mentioned before, there wasn't so much red quicksand to waste, and Anna only used it as a last resort.
At this time, a figure appeared outside the door.
It wasn't the two people everyone was waiting for, but a group of soaked figures. A flash of thunder dimly illuminated the familiar faces in front.
Francesco, the nouveau riche, the two band members, the man with dyed hair...
The dead, in the appearance of death, walked stiffly into the hall. Except for a few whose bodies were missing, including Grace, Kenzo, and Lily, who should have turned into evil spirits, everyone had mirrors hanging on their hands and bodies, and slowly approached the long table.
Even after so many days of being frightened by evil spirits, the scene in front of them was still shocking.
"Don't move! They can't get close to us!" Anna shouted, stopping Sister Olivia, who was about to escape.
"It wants to use these corpses."
Ling Yan looked at the corpses created by the invisible ghost with some disgust. Their limbs were broken, and their steps were twisted and grotesque as they walked. Some even rolled and crawled forward. Such an act of insulting the dead was simply unbearable.
However, the last corpse that walked in after these corpses was the real killer.
Noah's burly body appeared outside the door, still holding a wooden sword in his hand, his eyes wide open, and seven or eight iron pipes piercing his body. Blood was still flowing down the iron pipes. It was obvious that he had just died not long ago.