A dozen police cars stopped in front of the mansion. A black SUV joined them.

Agent Leon and detective Kirsten walked out of the car. They walked into the mansion. As they moved, both frowned at the sight of the bodies on the ground. They used to be fully armed guards, but they were slaughtered like pigs. The fear on their face was obvious.

They stopped in front of a pile of solidified blood. Both bit their lips and tried to keep their lunch inside of their body.

“Jason Loon.” An officer behind them tried to keep her eyes on her file. “Suspect for mob activities. Our undercover agents on ShadowNet reported seeing him send out a cry for help.”

While the government couldn’t do much against ShadowNet itself, it was capable of sending officers and agents onto the website and check out the public information, including the missions posted on the public mission board.

“ShadowNet?” Kirsten asked. As a police officer, she didn’t know about the website.

“I’ll tell you more about it later.” Leon focused on the task at hand. “What I am more curious is what happened to him.”

“If I may, I think he was hit by some sort of explosive.” The police officer behind tried her best to provide some help. Leon glanced at her. He didn’t want her here for the sake of discretion.

He couldn’t really say anything, so he used a more indirect way.

“Unlikely. From the direction of the flesh, the explosive was placed inside his body.”

The police officer was running to the side and vomiting before he finished. The words themselves wasn’t that bad, but adding the words to the smell and the look, it was torture.

Now that the unrelated was gone, Leon and Kirsten could talk freely.

“What do you think? A wraith?” Kirsten suggested. “If he’s a mob boss, he must’ve had quite some blood on his hand. If one of them decided to come back and get his revenge...”

“I don’t think so.” Leon had some other ideas. “I don’t know the theory behind this, but research and experiments show that grown, healthy men have a significant amount of resistance against spirits. In most cases, wraiths go after women, the sick, the old, or the children.”

“Even wraiths are sexist?”

“Like I said, I don’t know the science behind this, but I once heard of a theory in China. They say human beings have some sort of qi. When a person is strong, their qi is stronger. These qi can protect them from hostile spirits. When someone gets sick or old or week, this qi disappears. Women by nature have less qi than men.” Leon returned to the task at hand. “I don’t think they’re wraith, but I do have some suspects.” He took out his phone and showed it to Kirsten.

“The attackers took out most of the cameras, but two survived. My tech guys managed to retrieve the data and sent them to me.”

In the video, one of the mercenaries was absorbing the life force from all the mercenaries and guards around him. Men screamed and hit the ground. Hooded figures charged forward and took care of the rest.

“The Blood Council.” Leon tapped his phone again and pulled up the image of a bright red Sigil. “This is a group of supernatural beings who inhibit certain characteristics of vampires. They are divided into different families. According to information, family members had the ability to cast spells and infest other creatures and turn them to his puppets.”

“Were those hooded figures human beings?” Kirsten suddenly realized something.

“I don’t know.” Leon frowned. “But I don’t think there is much we can do. Whoever these Blood Council members are, they’re gone now. We don’t have a way of tracking them down.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. We can try to keep a closer look at the city, but...but there’s nothing we can do about this.”

Kirsten remained silent.

----------------------------------------

Katie slammed her duplicate blade into the heard of a screaming wraith. As the wraith hit the ground and vanished into a puff of smoke, she pulled the blade out. The crystal at the end of the weapon was much brighter than before. She turned her wrist. The power the weapon passed on to her was amplified. She felt like she could shatter the stars.

Crushing those illusions, Katie turned to a woman who was on the ground, paralyzed by fear.

“Next time you murder your husband, and I’m sure you will, call me. I can even give you a 50% discount. Either that, or a buy one get one free deal.”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and left the apartment.

As she walked through the streets, Katie took out her phone and strolled through the ShadowNet app. Her lips formed a pleasant curve when she saw one of the missions.

Suddenly, as her eyes were trained on her phone, a car came out of the side. It was obviously speeding, and it hit Katie before either her or the driver could react.

Katie was knocked off her feet.

At this point, anyone would’ve stopped, but the driver had other thoughts in mind. His eyes turned red when he realized even if he stopped now, he would have hit a girl and potentially killed her. In a split second, instead of hitting the break, he pushed on the acceleration pedal.

The car bumped over something. The driver gulped before bringing the car down the road, trying his best to get out of this place as quickly as possible. This was a hit and run. If he was caught, he would be spend decades in jail.

Stolen novel; please report.

As the car departed, Katie sat back up.

“Well,” She flicked her fingers, and her duplicate blade came out of nowhere and floated in midair. “What the hell was that?”

Milestone High School was located at the rural area of the city. After the school was deserted twenty years ago, no one ever bothered to come here.

Katie stepped off her newly gained car and took a deep breath. This was going to be interesting.

Suddenly, she frowned. She heard footsteps from behind.

Turning around, she saw four flashlights.

“Hey! Who’s there?” A voice asked.

Katie turned around and saw four teenagers. Two girls and two boys. All of them were holding flashlights. They looked like they were in high school.

A small smile climbed onto Katie’s face as she realized something very, very interesting.

“What are you guys doing here this late?” It was already ten PM. Katie was here because she wanted some thrill, but why would these four teenagers be here?

“Us? What are you doing here? You’re no older than us.” One of the leading teenagers asked.

Katie smirked. She loved a boy with some ball. “Fine. I’ll go first. I’m a fan of thrills, and I heard there are some fun over here. You?”

The teenagers exchanged a glance, and the two girls smiled. The leader replied.

“We’re students of Charleston High School. We heard there is something fishy with this school, so we decided to check this place out.”

“Oh.” Katie rose her eyebrows. A while ago, she briefly went undercover in the Charleston High School to infiltrate a cult. “Well, it’s fun meeting you guys here, but you should be going.”

“Going? We just came here.” The leader said. “We’ll be going through the entire school tonight.”

“What is it? A dare?” Katie was being extremely talkative for someone who interrupted the conversation between two supernatural beings multiple times because she was bored. There was a reason for that.

“It’s none of your business!” The other boy complained. “Say what you want, but we’re going in there.”

“Fine.” Katie held her hands out. “Mind if I join you?”

The second boy scanned Katie from top to bottom. “Sure. My name’s Duncan. What’s yours?”

“Katie.”

“Brian.” This was the first boy.

“Ashley.”

“Nicci.”

The group of five started walking into the high school. There was a fence around the campus, but it has been a while since it was maintained. The five got by the fence from an opening.

Entering the high school building, the five walked through the hallway. The walls were filthy. Spider webs could be seen at every corner. Maybe it was because of the psychological effect, but the wind howling through the campus sounded like the scream of wraiths.

“We should leave.” Duncan frowned. “My car is outside. If we leave now we can still make it home by 11.”

“Are you chickening out?” Nicci smirked. “I remember someone promising us he is the bravest person we’ll ever know.”

Duncan blushed. “I just feel this is stupid. We should be watching a movie or something.”

“Trust me, this is going to be more interesting than any movie you’ve ever seen.” Katie smiled. She casually kicked on a cockrock on the ground and sent it flying through the air. She heard the sound of it hitting the ground and felt a surge of pleasure. It was always fun to watch others suffer.

The five went through another corner. Suddenly, they frowned.

“Didn’t we just go past here?” Brian saw a room with the label D102. He remembered going past there just a few seconds ago.

“You must’ve seen it wrong,” Duncan complained. He turned to the three girls. “This is dumb. If we go home now, I can still buy you guys some food. Why are we wasting time here?”

Suddenly, Nicci turned around.

“Where’s Ashley?”

The rest of the group turned around and found they were one woman down. Three of them were confused. The last was impressed.

“Ashley!” All three high schoolers yelled. Their voice echoed through the halls.

“Don’t bother with it. She’s gone.” Katie commented casually.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Duncan turned around and demanded. “What do you know about this? She’s probably just lost or something...”

Katie’s mouth was shut.

Duncan groaned and wanted to say something mean, but Brian held him back. “Something’s wrong. We need to leave now.”

“But Ashley…”

“We can call the police after we get out. There’s something wrong here. I don’t...I don’t feel good.” Nicci added. Her words was the last straw. Brian knew leaving was the best idea. Duncan wanted to leave the entire time. With all members having the same idea, the three turned around, ready to leave. Katie followed quietly, silently swinging her blade behind her back with her mind.

At the beginning the four were walking, but their footsteps grew faster and faster. Eventually, they started running. Katie followed their pace with absolute ease.

They ran and ran, but the hallway seemed endless. Again and again they ran past the same classroom, and every time Brian would stop and leave a mark at the door.

After a while, the group was dragged out. Brian and Duncan were in front. Nicci was slightly behind.

Katie went side by side with Nicci.

“Watch your footstep.” She silently hinted.

“Why?” Nicci asked before suddenly disappearing. Katie didn’t seem surprised at all. She merely continued.

Ten more minutes passed. Neither Brian nor Duncan stopped. Neither of them even turned around to check out the two girls. It was as if they forgot about the girls.

Katie wasn’t surprised. She already knew what happened.

Duncan started to fall behind.

Katie ran beside him.

“That’s gotta hurt.”

Duncan faded away.

Brian ran and ran. Adrenalin was pumped through her body again and again. Eventually, He could no longer handle it. His knee collapsed and hit the ground. His breath was heavy.

Katie stopped beside him. She was breathing heavily as well. It was only the duplicate blade in her grip that kept her from collapsing. Of course, there was also the fact that she pretty much couldn’t die.

“That’s a fun way to die.”

She commented before Brian disappeared.

Out of all five people in the group, Katie was the only one left. Anyone with common sense would think she would be next, but she wasn’t quite bothered.

Glancing down on her watch, she saw the time was 10:05. She looked around.

She was still in front of her car.

“What...what happened?”

She turned around and found all four teenagers standing in front of her, just like they did about half an hour ago.

“What the hell just happened?”