Entrapment, a Free Soul ATM

On the eastern outskirts of Linhai City stood an abandoned chemical plant.

It had once been the city's largest chemical enterprise. Later, a violent explosion caused a massive combined leak of toxic chemicals and dark matter, turning the place into a wasteland where not a blade of grass grew.

Warehouse No. 3 stood at the far end of the plant. Countless holes had rusted through its massive sheet-metal roof, letting cold moonlight spill onto the dusty concrete floor.

A black SUV with no license plates was parked inside the warehouse.

Five people stood in front of it, dressed in different clothes but all radiating a fierce murderous aura.

Their leader was a middle-aged man in a tailored suit and gold-rimmed glasses. His name was Gu Ming, an outer-circle deacon of the Gu Family who specialized in handling their dirty work away from prying eyes.

The other four were veteran assassins from the Shadow Guild's Linhai City branch. Every one of them was a False God at the intermediate second tier or above, with who knew how many lives on their hands.

"Deacon Gu, Venomous Bee has been out of contact for a full twenty-four hours. His life token at the guild has shattered too." An assassin with a long scar across his face toyed with a butterfly knife, his voice icy.

"A bounty of three million is tempting, sure. But even Venomous Bee, a peak second-tier expert in concealment, went down. That means your intelligence was wrong. That high schooler called Su Bai definitely has an expert protecting him in secret!"

"Mad Blade is right." Another assassin, a curvaceous woman in tight leather clothes, giggled, though her eyes were as cold as a venomous snake's. "The Gu Family wants to use our hands to kill someone, so the price has to go up."

Gu Ming pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, his expression sour.

He hadn't expected a high schooler whose hair hadn't even finished growing to make Venomous Bee come a cropper.

But the family head, Gu Canghai, had given an absolute order: Su Bai had to be killed before he reached Benevolent Heart Hospital, or on the way there. He absolutely could not be allowed to complete the practical assessment!

"The price can go up. Five million!" Gu Ming gritted his teeth and held up five fingers.

"As long as you bring back Su Bai's head tonight, the Gu Family will also provide each of you with a set of top-grade second-tier cultivation resources."

At the mention of five million and top-grade resources, all four assassins' eyes lit up.

People died for wealth, just as birds died for food. Venomous Bee's death only meant his skills weren't up to scratch. With the four of them joining forces, even if a third-tier Demigod came, they could still peel a layer of skin off him!

Just as the assassins were rubbing their hands, ready to discuss how to ambush Su Bai on his way to the hospital,

the warehouse's half-closed sheet-metal doors suddenly gave an ear-piercing creak.

A figure peered around and squeezed through the gap.

"Oh man, it's pitch-dark out here. How did the navigation bring me to a godforsaken place like this?"

A clear young voice, tinged with youthful immaturity and complaint, echoed through the empty warehouse.

The four assassins and the deacon, who had been plotting together, instantly froze. They turned in unison and stared fixedly at the doors.

A boy in a Linhai No. 3 Middle School uniform, a backpack, and a baseball cap was brushing dust off his clothes as he looked at them with an innocent expression.

"Oh, uncles and auntie, are you having a party here in the middle of the night? Could you tell me how to get to the main road into the city?"

The boy blinked his big, clear, foolish eyes and gave them a radiant smile.

A deathly silence fell over the warehouse.

Gu Ming got a good look at the boy's face, and his gold-rimmed glasses nearly slipped off his nose.

"Su... Su Bai?!" Gu Ming shrieked as if he had seen a ghost.

He couldn't understand how the target the Gu Family was hunting everywhere with a five-million bounty on his head had swaggered into their secret meeting place! And from the look of him, it was as if he really had wandered in because he was lost!

The four assassins were stunned too.

Then a wild, cruel smile spread across Mad Blade's face.

"Hahaha! There was a road to heaven, but you wouldn't take it; hell has no gate, yet you came looking for one!" Mad Blade flourished his butterfly knife, looking at Su Bai as though he were a walking pile of cash.

"Deacon Gu, looks like we're earning this five million too easily. This kid must have been scared stupid and delivered himself right to our door!"

The leather-clad assassin licked her bright red lips. "Handsome boy, how about big sister shows you a clear path—the path straight to the underworld?"

Faced with four murderous assassins and a Gu Family deacon, Su Bai didn't turn and run. Instead, he sighed, looking like he hated that iron could not become steel.

"Alas, I was going to play a little role-playing game with you, but it turns out none of you has a funny bone."

Su Bai took off his baseball cap and casually tossed it to the floor. His gaze turned icy in an instant.

"Boss Gu is really too kind. He knew I was short of materials to build a vehicle lately, so he specially sent me five living souls. I don't even know how to repay this kindness."

"What big talk! You're courting death!" Mad Blade shouted, divine power erupting from his body.

A massive phantom instantly appeared behind him: a second-tier berserk mantis-man dependent wielding two blades.

Without another word, Mad Blade entered his Human-God Unity combat state. His hands transformed into two enormous bony scythes and slashed straight for Su Bai's neck, shrieking as they tore through the air!

He was so fast that he left two afterimages in midair.

The other three assassins also summoned their dependents, ready to block every route of escape Su Bai had.

Yet Su Bai didn't even blink at the deadly attack right in front of him.

"That's all the speed you've got? Even the rats in my Divine Kingdom run faster."

With a thought, Su Bai swung his right hand sharply forward.

"Divine Kingdom passage, open!"

Rumble-!!!

Without warning, a deep black spatial rift tore open with a crash in front of Su Bai, radiating an aura of death and pollution in the extreme!

Mad Blade had charged too fast to stop. He plunged headfirst into the pitch-black rift.

"Aah-!"

Just half a second later, Mad Blade's agonized scream rang out from the rift.

It was the scream he let out when his prized berserk mantis-man dependent came into contact with the 99.5% high-concentration wasteland pollution and was instantly corroded into a puddle of pus!

Immediately afterward, a pale, slender hand without a trace of color reached out of the rift, seized Mad Blade by the hair, and forcibly dragged him into the endless black fog.

"Mad Blade!" The remaining three assassins and Gu Ming were scared out of their wits and hurriedly stopped in their tracks.

An instant kill!

An intermediate second-tier assassin had vanished into that black rift in such a bizarre fashion without even touching Su Bai's clothes!

"What on earth is that thing?! Doesn't he have an F-rank wasteland Divine Kingdom?!" the leather-clad assassin screamed in terror.

"Run! Run! There's something strange about this kid!" Gu Ming's soul nearly flew out of him in fright. He turned and pulled open the car door, trying to escape.

"Run? This is a proper unlicensed ride. Once you get on, nobody's leaving without paying the full fare."

Su Bai sneered, and the Divine Kingdom rift behind him instantly expanded to a full five meters wide.

"The Thirteen Steps, time to take customers!"

At Su Bai's command,

a ruined staircase, covered in moss and bloodstains, shot out of the Divine Kingdom rift and slammed onto the warehouse's concrete floor!

The irresistible spatial pulling force emanating from the staircase instantly locked onto everyone present.

"No! My legs won't obey me!"

"Help!"

Suppressed by the forced-path rule, the three assassins and Gu Ming walked toward the staircase like puppets on strings, their legs moving against their will.

One step, two steps, three steps...

The instant they stepped onto the thirteenth step in despair, all four vanished from the warehouse into thin air.

They had been forcibly dragged into that death maze filled with bloody handprints and an endless loop!

"Done." Su Bai clapped his hands in satisfaction.

He stepped straight through the Divine Kingdom passage and entered his wasteland.

At that moment, inside the maze of the Thirteen Steps, the five unlucky souls were experiencing the same despair Venomous Bee once had.

"Venomous Bee..."

"Mad Blade..."

The eerie voice of Roll-Call Response echoed through the maze. Amid shrill screams, their bodily organs were stripped away bit by bit by the steps, becoming tentacles of flesh and blood on the walls.

Su Bai sat on the roof of the abandoned school building, eating sunflower seeds conjured from who knew where and watching the free horror blockbuster with relish.

"Hongdou, don't let them die too quickly. Their fear value hasn't been squeezed dry yet," Su Bai instructed the female ghost in red standing beside him.

Hongdou nodded slightly and turned into a red blur as she entered the maze to begin her cruel "psychological counseling."

Half an hour later.

The maze fell completely silent.

The Thirteen Steps forcibly extracted the souls of the five dead, filled with resentment, terror, and unwillingness to accept their fate, and left them floating in midair.

But the target was fourteen souls, so he was still nine short.

"No rush. These five were just the appetizer."

Su Bai glanced at the spatial ring he had just searched out from Mad Blade and took a black communications wristwatch from it.

It was a device the Shadow Guild used internally to contact team members.

Su Bai pressed the emergency assistance button on the watch, then shouted into the microphone in a frightened, halting voice altered by a voice changer.

"Warehouse No. 3! The target's tougher than expected! Requesting backup! He has a priceless treasure on him! Hurry... aah-!"

Su Bai let out a scream and cut the connection.

Then he sat on the roof, humming a tune as he waited quietly.

In less than twenty minutes,

the rumble of many car engines came from outside the warehouse.

This time, more than a dozen black modified cars arrived and completely surrounded Warehouse No. 3.

More than thirty Shadow Guild assassins and two squads of elite Gu Family deathsworn charged into the warehouse, fully armed.

"Where is everyone? Where are Mad Blade and the others?!" A scar-faced assassin leading the group raised his psionic gun and looked around.

The warehouse was empty.

Only a chair had been strangely placed in the open space at its center.

Su Bai was leaning comfortably back in the chair, counting a thick stack of banknotes like a wealthy old landlord.

When he saw the crowd charging in, Su Bai didn't panic. Instead, he stood up warmly and bowed deeply to them.

"Welcome, all you big suckers."

"My [Midnight School Bus] just needs a few souls like yours to get started. Please line up and take the stairs one at a time. No crowding."

As the more than thirty assassins stared at him as though they had seen a ghost,

the void behind Su Bai shattered with a crash!

Endless black fog and the Thirteen Steps leading to hell fully descended upon the abandoned warehouse!