Inside the Jade Garden Residential Complex, the man stepped into the elevator, took a greedy breath, and closed his eyes to savor it before pressing the button for the twelfth floor.
Puppeteers dealt with corpses year-round and knew even the slightest differences in the scents of human bodies like the backs of their hands.
Once they had seen someone, that person could never escape their grasp again.
"Hiss... exquisite. The scent of a Blood Talisman."
"I wonder which useless idiot died at the hands of a brat who hasn't even grown his hair yet!"
Liang Si was in his forties. Beneath the brim of his hat, his face was as pale as paper, almost bloodless, a sign of years without sunlight.
After all, if his home got too much sunlight, the corpses he collected would easily start to stink.
Blood Talismans were generally issued only to the Dark Alliance's elite-at the weakest, C-Plus Rank experts, or people with special abilities. Such people usually possessed formidable combat strength and meticulous minds.
What surprised Liang Si was that, judging by the traces he had picked up along the way, this young man clearly possessed only D-Rank strength.
And his guard was far too lax.
He had clearly just returned from a mission and was at his weakest, yet he still rode through the streets ostentatiously in a sports car, without taking any measures to conceal the Blood Talisman mark on his arm.
"Looks like life has been too easy for the Dark Alliance lately. Even useless trash like that gets a Blood Talisman."
Sneering, Liang Si stepped out of the elevator.
He stood in the hallway for a moment, then quickly headed right toward apartment 1201. His footsteps were so light that the sound-activated hallway lights never came on.
In the darkness,