Autophagy

Song Lei and his company kept waiting for a long time. Waiting for this long without doing anything was really tiring. After more than a few hours, the door of the meeting room was opened.

"I'm here," Gao Jing reported. He seemed to be unscathed. Considering that the whole apartment was filled with horrifying darkness monsters roaming everywhere, this was pretty weird.

"Come in. Are you aware of the situation?" Old Wolf said with his arms crossed. Lu Peng could be seen clenching his jaw. Seeing Gao Jing unharmed must've irritated him as he himself had been hurt a lot while fighting the monsters.

"Yes, I am. I was just in a zen state where they couldn't sense me. I wanted to meet you before acting myself," Gao Jing answered with closed eyes. Song Lei had just noticed this but Gao Jing seemed to never open his eyes.

"That was the right choice," Old Wolf said. He turned his head towards Song Lei. "Please call Damien and Xu Chang here," he said. Song Lei nodded and left the meeting room. Because Damien was in a tired state, he had gone to another room to rest. Xu Chang had told that she was bored of sitting in the room and left the room.

Song Lei started searching the rooms one by one to find Damien and Xu Chang. This floor had a few kinds of rooms. Initially, almost all of them were made as waiting rooms to wait in before a meeting started. But they all had different usages. Some were made in a way that a group of people could rest in. Others were arranged in a way that a person could sleep. After looking through five rooms, Song Lei found Damien lying on a bed with his eyes open.

"Are you okay?" Song Lei asked. Damien mustn't have sensed Song Lei as he jumped in his place when he heard Song Lei's voice.

"Yeah. I just woke up," he said while rubbing his eyes. He got up from the bed. "Is it time?"

"Probably, Old Wolf told me to call you and Xu Chang to the meeting room," Song Lei answered.

"Xu Chang? Where is she?" Damien asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well... I was hoping that you would be the one to tell me but..." Song Lei said. He looked into Damien's eyes.

"Oh... I might have an idea then," Damien said. He passed by Song Lei and left the room. Song Lei followed him outside. "She usually hangs out in that room when she waits for the meetings," Damien said while pointing his finger towards room 701. "You should go and look for her. I will go back to the meeting room."

Song Lei nodded and parted ways with Damien. He went to room 701 and opened the door. "Xu Chang? Are you the-?" Song Lei stopped in his tracks and looked at the room. "What..."

The room had a disgusting stench to it. Compared to other rooms on this floor, this one was much messier with a lot of furniture thrown around. It seemed as if someone had fought here.

Song Lei walked inside the room carefully. He was scared of a monster or person jumping out from somewhere and attacking him. Fortunately, no such thing happened. When he stood in front of a desk, he saw a piece of cloth on it.

"What is this..?" Song Lei muttered. He took the cloth from the table and examined it. 'This is a piece of Xu Chang's tracksuit!' He shouted in his mind. Normally, Xu Chang would wear a blue tracksuit wherever she went. The only time Song Lei saw her in a different cloth was the time that they had gone to inform her of the meeting. This piece of cloth seemed to be ripped out of her blue tracksuit. 'Something might've happened to her. I have to tell the others about this.' 

*Swish

Song Lei felt the hairs on his neck stand on their end. He bent forward as fast as he can and kicked backward. When he turned his head, he saw that there wasn't anyone in the room. 'What was that?'  Song Lei thought. Something had passed by his head at incredible speeds. If he hadn't bent down in time, he would've probably lost his head by now.

He quickly spun on his place and looked around the room to see what was happening.

[Your soul has recovered completely.]

A sudden notification made Song Lei jump in his place. He felt a wave of air coming from his right. Because he was surprised by the notification, he couldn't react in time and barely managed to back away.

A long cut appeared on his forehead. Song Lei quickly took the cloth piece of Xu Chang and wrapped it around his wound to block blood from flowing into his eyes.

He then turned around and looked at the left side of the room. At the left top corner of the room, there was a circular, very small, and a dark blob of unidentifiable material. There were some blood droplets on the dark blob. Blood droplets suddenly got pulled into the dark blob. The thing became a few centimeters bigger.

'It gets bigger by consuming my blood,' Song Lei thought. He opened his system and put a point in his soul stat. When he did so, his eyes glowed white for a moment. When the upgrade was finished, the outline of the blob became much clearer for Song Lei to see. When he saw the blob disappear from its place, he jumped to the side.

The dark blob passed by him. As long as Song Lei was careful enough, it didn't have a way to touch him. Unfortunately, Song Lei had left his cursed knife back in the meeting room.

'How could I be so careless?' Song Lei regretted. 'I have to find a way of getting out of this.'

Although he was able to dodge the dark blob, he wouldn't be able to do so indefinitely. He didn't know if the dark blob was inexhaustible or not. So he had to somehow turn the tables one way or another. If he didn't, he would eventually run out of breath and lose.

"This is going to be hard...."