Surging Peril

"Thump, thump-thump."

At this very moment.

In an apartment building in Kobe City, in a dark, unlit first-floor corridor, a muffled, oppressive knocking sound echoed. The sound was eerie, each knock seeming to strike the heart, making it almost impossible to breathe.

The person knocking on the door in the darkness was an old man dressed in a retro long gown. The old man had been dead for a long time; his skin was emaciated and covered with lividity, and his eyes were empty and numb, devoid of any emotion.

"Thump, thump thump"

The knocking continued. The door to the rented room was already open, but the old man didn't go in; he kept knocking.

"Ah!"

A scream came from inside, but then it stopped abruptly. Something fell heavily to the ground with a dull thud, and finally everything returned to calm.

The terrifying old man in the long robe mechanically lowered his arm, turned around and continued walking. The buildings he passed were old, the walls were peeling, mottled and blackened, as if they had been ravaged by time, giving people a sense of disbelief.

And then the old man who knocked on the door left.

In that rented room, two corpses lay on the floor, a man and a woman, both with their eyes wide open, seemingly dying with their eyes open. There were no wounds on their bodies, and all their bodily functions were perfectly healthy, yet they showed no signs of life. This was a bizarre phenomenon that medicine could not explain.

The act of killing someone by knocking on the door is just that bizarre and uncanny.

The departing old man continued on his way, still lingering in the building, clearly still being watched.

The old man's movements were not fast; he moved slowly and stiffly, wandering around every corner of the building. Even so, he soon found his target and arrived at a rental room on the floor above.

The door was tightly shut, and there was no sound from inside; it appeared to be an empty rental room.

But there were people inside.

He was a survivor who remained here. He was a man in his forties, hiding under the covers with his head covered, his face filled with fear. His cell phone had long since run out of battery and was no longer working.

Calling for help is impossible now; the only option is to stay here and try to survive.

But the man knew very well what had happened in the city. The deathly silent streets and the dead heads floating in the sky all told him that a terrifying ghost was shrouding everything he knew. There was no hope of escaping, and he could only hide here and pray that he would not be targeted by the vengeful ghost.

But the man felt his luck wouldn't last.

Just a short while ago, he received a phone call. There was no one speaking on the other end, only a series of knocks on the door.

But that phone number is clearly disconnected.

The man hiding under the covers stared at the phone in horror, the strange thumping sound still echoing in his mind.

"Thump, thump-thump!"

Sudden.

The silence was broken when a knock came from outside his rented room. The rhythm and frequency of the knock were exactly the same as the one on the phone before, without any difference. However, the real knock was more muffled and more strange. Just hearing it made one feel as if their heart was being squeezed and they couldn't breathe.

"No, no way, who's knocking on my door? Could it be the neighbor? Or has that thing come?"

The man's mind went blank, fear gripped his entire body, but the knocking continued.

"Thump, thump-thump."

The sound echoed in the room, but it was all too late. The man had been thinking, but suddenly his breath stopped, and he collapsed to the ground, motionless, letting his body gradually grow cold.

The Ghost Knocking continues to happen.

However, the terrifying old man suddenly stopped after knocking on the house.

Like a stiff corpse standing still, it neither breathed nor moved.

Soon, the old man moved again. Instead of going deeper into the building, he turned back and began to leave along the same path he had come from.

Because something is attracting it, it has to abandon its previous goal and choose to head towards a specific location.

The ghost candle worked its magic, attracting the Door-Knocking Ghost to the door.

But before the Door-Knocking Ghost arrives, true terror has already begun.

Above the gloomy sky, the heads of the dead, floating with their eyes closed, began to converge involuntarily in one direction of the city. It was as if a gust of wind was blowing these heads, causing them to change position, or perhaps something else was attracting these terrifying heads as well.

Soon.

More and more strange things are happening around the ghost child holding a white candle at the crossroads. Some of them are understandable, while others are things that even Yang Jian himself cannot comprehend.

He observed everything around him like a bystander.

A cold female corpse numbly approached Yang Jian, but it was not a ghost, but Ghost Slave. Yang Jian glanced at it briefly with his Ghost Eye, and the headless ghost shadow behind him swayed and directly invaded the corpse.

Soon, the body stopped moving and fell to the ground with a thud.

The Ghost Slave were too weak; they could be dealt with by mere ghost shadows. Yang Jian's only concern was the real, vengeful ghost lingering here.

For example, the ever-increasing number of heads overhead.

"Bang!"

A dead human head fell from the sky, hit the road, shattered into pieces, and the stench of corpses filled the air.

This was a human head that had reached its limit, unable to hold on as it drifted through the air.

Yang Jian remained unmoved, his Ghost Eye peering at the individual heads, seemingly searching for something special within them. He still hadn't determined the source of these head balloons, only knowing that they were connected to the Caesar Hotel.

Thinking about it carefully now, the ghost that caused the supernatural incident in the city under Tong Qian's jurisdiction was most likely a vengeful spirit that escaped from those mysterious rooms.

The sight of human heads floating by, and the gathering of Ghost Slave nearby, were enough to prove just how terrifying this city was. Attracted by the ghost candles, many potential dangers would be exposed.

Fortunately, it was the ghost child who bore the brunt of the cost; otherwise, anyone who held the ghost candle would have died.

"There are too many of them. Has the Door-Knocking Ghost not appeared yet?" Yang Jian frowned.

Several corpses had already fallen near him; these were all the Ghost Slave he had killed. But the source of the ghosts was still dormant and had not yet revealed itself.

"I need to keep the ghost candle burning. I hope nothing goes wrong." Yang Jian felt slightly uneasy. His original plan was to quickly attract the Door-Knocking Ghost and then blow out the ghost candle.

It now seems that the location that Mishima sensed was quite inaccurate. The ghost is indeed in this vicinity, but it's not the closest one.

Soon.

The Ghost Slave had reached the ghost child's side, their pale hands reaching out towards it, seemingly intending to attack and kill it.

The burial shroud on the ghost child was fluttering, as if it had come to life, resisting the attacks of the Ghost Slave. Although it looked like the Ghost Slave were about to be buried alive by the corpses, Yang Jian knew that the ghost child was still alright.

Instead, as they came into contact with the ghost child, the damp corpse fluid caused these long-dead bodies to rot rapidly, and then, losing the support of supernatural power, they collapsed to the ground.

"Mr. Yang, something is very wrong. If this continues, we will all die. That candle should be blown out."

Nagazawa cried out in horror. Even though he hadn't noticed it at first, he could now see terrifying figures emerging from the darkness and getting closer.

Mishima turned pale with fright. In her perception, there were countless ghosts all around her, and nowhere to go. The only safe place was around Yang Jian.

Just like Keiko, who was trembling slightly with her eyes closed, she was afraid, but she was always safe.

Before being targeted by a real ghost, their lives were temporarily safe. Yang Jian did not choose to abandon them directly. Although they were indeed useless at this time, they were still of some help, so he still took care of them.

"It's not the right time yet," Yang Jian coldly rejected Nagazawa's suggestion.