"You two walk at the front, I'll stay at the back to cover you."

After thinking for a moment, Wang Zhifan made some arrangements for these two residents who were not aware of the situation, having them walk at the very front instead of in the middle of the group, with him observing from behind.

The main purpose of this was to guard against any potential risks these two might pose. He was confident he could protect himself and respond if something happened, but it would be troublesome if they involved other residents. He always remembered the condition that at least one resident had to be returned for the blood mission to be valid.

"Big brother, this is a good method. I also felt they obtained those ghost items too easily; we need to be cautious."

The young man in the school uniform expressed his support immediately upon hearing Wang Zhifan's arrangement, but he then mentioned another perplexing issue.

"What about that girl? Why hasn't she returned yet?"

He was asking about the petite Assassin girl who had disappeared after scouting for the first time earlier, making people suspect she might be out of the game.

"Not sure... I can only confirm she's not around here."

Wang Zhifan's expression was a bit helpless. His teammate asked him this because he was the girl's temporary partner, but clearly, his partner had already gone missing, and he bore some responsibility for that.

"Alright... let's continue up the mountain, try to reach the peak as soon as possible."

After asking about the Assassin teammate's whereabouts, the young man in the school uniform didn't dwell too much and turned back to the end of the team.

Thus, the team formed by this blood mission continued up the mountain path, choosing the left fork, not for any complicated reason, mainly because the left path appeared straighter, possibly a shorter route to the peak.

Soon after, leading the group was a tall, skinny young man wearing blood-stained clothes and a middle-aged man wearing blood-stained shoes.

Neither seemed willing to lead the way for everyone, but with Wang Zhifan holding a knife and watching from behind, they dared not refuse.

Following Wang Zhifan were three other apartment residents, who were also being watched, or protected, by the middle-aged gunman and the young Mage behind them, maintaining the team's order and stability.

The eight of them continued up the mountain path for about an hour without anything noteworthy until, as fatigue set in, something abnormal finally began to emerge.

The two walking ahead of Wang Zhifan, the tall, skinny young man in blood clothes and the middle-aged man in blood shoes, started acting more and more strangely.

The tall, skinny young man seemed to be walking on tiptoes, as if he were wearing high heels - initially not very noticeable, but Wang Zhifan soon realized he was doing so.

Meanwhile, the middle-aged man in blood shoes was even more bizarre; Wang Zhifan noticed that blood stains started appearing on his pants, as if the blood from his shoes was spreading through his clothes and over his body.

"Stop! Stop! What's going on with you two? Don't you feel anything unusual yourselves?"

At this point, Wang Zhifan called out to the two residents ahead, reminding them of the strange occurrences happening to them. He noticed these anomalies a while back, assuming they would soon realize something was wrong, but they seemed completely oblivious.

"What's wrong? I don't see anything unusual? Ha ha ha..."

The tall, skinny young man in blood clothes turned to Wang Zhifan first, his face puzzled, but then suddenly, from his mouth came a bizarre feminine laugh, as if there was another mouth inside his body!

The woman's voice caused the tall young man's face to change instantly, showing fear due to the strange feminine laughter he emitted, and then his hands seemed to lose control, suddenly raising up to choke himself as if he wanted to strangle himself to death!

The middle-aged man in blood shoes was even more bizarre; when he turned around, he revealed a horrifying visage of blood streaming from all seven orifices! His skin turned a terrible shade of black and purple, looking long dead!

"When did this..."

At this moment, Wang Zhifan was quite taken aback, not by the significant change in the two men, but that they both reached this point, and he only then felt he needed to alert them. His earlier sensory judgment was quite flawed, severely underestimating the strange effect on them and seriously neglecting surveillance over them.

As Wang Zhifan puzzled over his incorrect judgment, he drew his Thunder Dragon Fury, ready to fight, seeing the two corrupted residents in front of him had drastically transformed.

The tall, skinny young man in blood clothes quickly turned into a narrow female ghost figure, with disheveled hair and black, pupil-less ghostly eyes. Her elongated, terrifying face was filled with undisguised malice and resentment.

The middle-aged man in blood shoes transformed from his blood-dripping visage into a mass of indistinct, dripping, putrid blood, unrecognizable as a normal human being.

Undoubtedly, these two malignant spirits were the same ghosts seen by the team on the upper mountain path earlier, two of the three ghostly entities who later attacked the group. The third eerie figure, resembling a short middle-aged man, had appeared in Wang Zhifan's perception and view, positioned on the mountain path behind the female and blood ghosts.

"Welcome to my world, young man."

This eerie figure, once thrown out of apartment 444 by the old building manager, now spoke human words, slowly descending from the upper mountain path with a faint smile, looking towards Wang Zhifan below, who was brandishing Thunder Dragon Fury against them.

"Young man, you should be able to see I am not an ordinary specter. I stand before you not to engage in futile battle but to propose a transaction. I hope you will not refuse."

The short middle-aged man stopped on the path above, just five meters away, and spoke to him, smiling lightly.

Wang Zhifan didn't immediately reply but used his perception to probe the man, finding an extraordinary aura of dread—that it was overwhelmingly stronger than the female and blood ghosts combined by at least tenfold.

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