"Tick-tock, tick-tock..."
Flowing moonlight fell upon Hou Guisheng's figure in black robes, stretching his shadow infinitely until it extended beyond the revolving doors of the lobby.
Beneath his wide sleeves, an old pocket watch swung steadily from side to side, its faint ticking stirring the heartstrings in the water-still night.
The empty front desk faced Hou Guisheng, who held the old pocket watch, and remained utterly silent.
The pitch-black building seemed to have swallowed all space, blocking every path with no end in sight.
Everyone's attention was focused on Ruru behind the scenes, because they all knew that Ruru's Mother at the forefront had too little presence. That meant she was nearly impossible to deal with.
An existence with absolutely no clues or intelligence was an iron wall with no possible breakthrough.
Unless...
"Crack, crack, crack!"
As the hands of the swaying pocket watch reached 20:30, the mechanical gears within its face suddenly emitted a shrill, unnatural grinding sound, as though they had been squeezed and jammed.
At the same time, the chain swinging in Hou Guisheng's palm abruptly became stiff and slow in midair, and the pocket watch's swinging speed slowed several times over.
The entire Rose Hotel seemed to fall into a bizarre state of slow motion because of a single pocket watch slowing down.
At the same time, a drop of viscous, filthy black mud fell from the hanging sleeve of his black robe and struck the entrance to the hotel lobby.
It had initially been inconspicuous, but the instant it hit the ground, it began to twist rapidly, splitting and multiplying. One drop became two, two split into four...
In the blink of an eye, the entrance where Hou Guisheng stood had become a forbidden zone of twisted black mud. It completely blocked out the moonlight