Autophagy

Song Lei, Damien, and Old Wolf started ascending the stairs. They had to walk in a straight line right in the middle of the stairs as getting near to the railings or the walls would mean certain death.

When they reached the 8th floor, they saw a darkness monster covering more than a quarter of the corridor, waiting in its place, convulsing from time to time. Old Wolf gestured them to be silent and walked towards the monster. After getting near enough, he raised his hand and made a palm towards the monster. It must've felt his presence as it stopped whatever it was doing and launched towards Old Wolf.

Unfortunately for it, Old Wolf had fought with a lot of different monsters before. He knew that he couldn't let the monster do whatever it wanted to and launched an attack. A white shockwave spread out and covered everywhere five meters in front of him.

'That looks badass...' Song Lei thought while watching the fight from afar. He was making sure that nothing was ambushing him and Damien. At the same time, he occasionally took a look at Old Wolf. Although he couldn't make out what Old Wolf's ability was in one look, he knew that it was something very, very strong. He could probably hold his ground against Isabel or Amber in a one-on-one fight.

Song Lei turned his head towards Damien to see how his situation was. Damien, who was supporting himself holding a wall, was sweating a lot. He had squinted his eyes and seemed to be shivering. Although Song Lei wanted to do something for him, he couldn't.

The shockwave Old Wolf emitted traveled through the air and hit the darkness monster. The shockwave hit its body and made it back off. Old Wolf changed his stance by turning the other half of his body forward and raised his other hand, releasing another shockwave. This shockwave hit the darkness and cut it in half. The darkness quickly dispersed, leaving nothing more than some ash behind.

Song Lei and Damien went to Old Wolf's side. Song Lei took out a water bottle from his backpack and threw it at Old Wolf.

"Thanks," Old Wolf said before opening the water bottle. Song Lei felt like he was some kind of porter in a raid party.

After Old Wolf was done drinking, they walked further down the hallway. This floor's branch member lived in room 814, which was the furthest away from the staircase.

"Hey," Song Lei said. He frowned and continued by saying, "Is it normal for there to be a random skeleton lying in the hallway?"

"Shut up," Old Wolf said with a grim expression. There was a skeleton lying on the ground, just where the darkness monster had been before it disappeared. This skeleton still had a little bit of flesh and blood left on it. It was still hot. It was pretty obvious that this skeleton belonged to someone who had just died.

"This is Shi Feng," Damien said. He seemed to have recovered a little bit from his distressed state. "There is no one in our branch that has this big of a bone frame. And since this floor is Shi Feng's floor, he must have died while trying to go to the lower floor."

"He was just one floor away and died without being able to go down..." Song Lei muttered.

"It's normal," Old Wolf said. "You need to have a special kind of ability if you want to beat those darkness monsters," he explained. "Shi Feng's ability was a simple body strengthening type. He couldn't have done anything to the darkness monster."

"What type of ability does someone even need to beat them?" Song Lei asked curiously.

"Usually, energy-type abilities are the best. There are some others that could be useful but they are too scarce to mention," Old Wolf answered patiently.

"I see..."

They pulled Shi Feng's corpse towards the staircase and left him near the railings. Not a lot of time passed as hands appeared from below the railings and pulled Shi Feng's skeleton down. Song Lei went forward to see what happened to it. Weirdly, it had just disappeared.

"That was brutal..." Song Lei muttered.

"We have no choice," Old Wolf said. "If we let corpses stay like that, they might produce diseases or evil spirits. Throwing them to the apartment for it to consume them is the best choice," he explained

"What even are these?" Song Lei asked. "I mean the hands that just appeared."

"We don't know too," Damien said. "They have been here for the whole time. We just know that whatever they grab and pull down disappears from existence."

"And how does it look from the lower floor?" Song Lei asked. The hands always appeared from the lower floor and pulled whatever it was pulling towards the stairwell. If someone waited on the lower floor, they could see what happened.

"It's weirder from there," Old Wolf said. "The hands seem to appear out of nothing. When they pull something, it just phases out of existence. It literally fades away. As we don't know what happens to them exactly, we just assume that they become a part of the apartment."

After they were done speaking, they went up to the 9th floor. This floor was Gao Jing's floor so they didn't expect anyone to be here. They just entered it to clean up any monsters that could be there. Although there was a darkness monster, Old Wolf could easily handle it. It was becoming more and more obvious to Song Lei that Old Wolf was pretty strong.

They finished dealing with floors 9 and 10. The one who did all the job was Old Wolf. He didn't seem like he was getting tired anytime soon. The problem was, Darkness monsters seemed to increase in number. They had already killed more than five of them but it didn't seem like they were done.

They reached floor 11 and entered it. This was Xu Chang's floor. Although they guessed that she had been kidnapped, they still wanted to check her room. Old Wolf took out a spare key he had and opened Xu Chang's door.

"You have a spare key?" Song Lei asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes. I have spare keys for all the branch members. You excluded," Old Wolf said. They entered the room. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the room. Everything was exactly the same as they had left.

"The room hasn't changed. It seems like no one has entered it," Song Lei said.

"Probably. We'll keep going up," Old Wolf answered. Just as they were about to leave for the 12th floor a shrill scream resounded in the apartment. 

"That can't be good...."