In a vast auditorium washed in gold light, the hum of the crowd rolls like a living tide.

Lin Yu sits among them, his face calm, eyes half-lidded as he watches the woman on stage.

Adele Francis stands beneath the glow of the chandeliers, her voice rising clear and effortless, weaving through the air like silk.

Each note pulls at the hearts of those listening, and the crowd sways as one—caught in the rhythm, lost in the sound.

Lin Yu’s gaze lingers not on her beauty, nor her fame, nor on the faint shimmer of energy coiling beneath her song.

He came here to make her fall sick, so Henri would crawl out from hiding.

“Not now,” he murmurs inwardly. “We’ll do it at the end of the concert.”

He sways with the melody, feeling the current of sound stir his emotions.

He claps and cheers like everyone else, a perfect shadow in the crowd.

When Adele announces her final song, Lin Yu slides his right hand into his pocket.

Inside, a faint green glow ignites—cold, venomous, alive.

As the last note fades, he opens his palm, and a mosquito drifts into the air.

While Adele bows and thanks the audience, the insect lands on her neck and bites.

She grimaces, swats it away, and continues smiling, unaware of what has entered her blood.

Lin Yu joins the departing crowd, leaving the auditorium with the same calm mask.

Outside, the night air is deep and silent as he walks home, his face shifting, returning to that of Dr Yu Lin.

At dawn, the mist clings to the ground when he steps outside—and finds a row of black carriages waiting at his gate.

Uniformed investigators stand tense, eyes sharp beneath their caps.

At the front, Captain Cedric salutes. “Dr Yu Lin, you’re to come with us. A village by the western woods—everyone’s dead.”

Lin Yu’s eyes narrow faintly. “Everyone?”

Cedric nods. “No survivors. Not even the animals.”

For a moment, the soft ticking of the pocket watch in Lin Yu’s coat drowns the world.

He glances at the pale sun rising over the mist. “Very well,” he says. “Let’s go.”

The carriage door closes with a dull thud, and as the wheels begin to turn, Lin Yu wonders if the deaths in that village are the echo of his work last night—or the stirrings of something far older, finally waking.

A few hours later, the carriage halts before a fog-draped village ringed by police carriages and uniformed men.

Lin Yu steps down, boots sinking slightly into the damp soil, his eyes narrowing at the faint smell of rot on the breeze.

Captain Cedric moves ahead to speak with the officers in charge, while Lin Yu waits beside three investigators, his gaze sweeping over the still roofs and shuttered windows.

At Cedric’s signal, they move forward and join him near the village gate, where a police officer—Moran—waits with a pale face and tired eyes.

“According to our coroner,” Moran says, voice low, “the deaths happened late evening, just as the villagers were preparing for sleep.”

Cedric frowns. “No wounds on the bodies?”

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“None,” Moran replies. “That’s why I’m certain it’s an extraordinary case—and why I requested you and Dr Yu Lin.”

They walk through the empty streets, boots crunching over dry earth, the silence pressing down like a shroud.

Lin Yu closes his eyes for a moment and inhales slowly.

A chill moves through him—dense, unseen, heavy with decay.

The air itself reeks of death energy, thick and suffocating, saturating every corner of the village.

Lin Yu notes the levels are abnormally high—far beyond what even a fully depopulated village should emit.

Ordinary deaths cannot generate such dense death energy. What caused this? he wonders, eyes narrowing.

One of Cedric’s team members wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “It’s so cold.”

Another mutters the same, and the rest echo her. None are high-level extraordinary, just Tier one or two, yet even they can feel the icy weight radiating from the death energy.

The group halts at the centre of the village, where the police have arranged the corpses in neat, grim rows.

A woman moves among the bodies, poking and prodding with professional precision.

Officer Moran calls out, “Dr Sasha, over here! Dr Yu Lin has arrived.”

The woman straightens, turning toward them. A male investigator in Cedric’s team gulps at the sight of her—a sharp, commanding presence, beautiful yet cold.

Lin Yu does not linger on her appearance. His attention sharpens, drawn to the elemental flow around her.

Death. Her affinity is Death. But she is still an ordinary person.

Blue Whale Kingdom is not like his territory.

Here, the government does not guide or test ordinary citizens for elemental affinity, nor does it nurture them into the extraordinary.

So a woman born with such a rare and potent attribute remains unawakened—her talent buried under routine and decay.

The woman greets him with open excitement, clearly aware of his reputation.

Lin Yu offers only a curt nod in return, then slips a silver pocket watch from his coat.

The others glance at each other, puzzled. Instead of examining the corpses, Dr Yu Lin merely stands there, holding that strange watch in his palm.

He flips it open. The ticking quickens, and the slender hands whirl at unnatural speed.

A faint hum ripples through the air as the death energy saturating the village begins to stir—drawn toward the watch, siphoned in streams of pale grey mist.

The wind stills. The corpses seem to exhale.

Then, above the pocket watch, a translucent image shimmers into being—the village as it is now, ghostly and quiet. The hands on the watch keep spinning backwards, faster and faster.

The image rewinds.

Shadows pull apart, night becomes day, and the village comes alive again.

People move within their homes. Fires burn in hearths. Laughter rises faintly from unseen throats.

Lin Yu watches in silence as the Dead Trace unfolds the village’s final moments.

In the fading light of memory, the villagers prepare for sleep—children tucked in, lamps dimmed, doors latched.

Then, from the corners of every home, phantoms emerge—formless and grey.

One by one, they drift closer, and something unseen is drawn out from each villager’s body.

Their faces are hollow, their eyes glaze over, and they collapse without a sound.

The image flickers and fades.

“What is this?” Officer Moran blurts, eyes wide.

“Our murderer,” Lin Yu replies quietly.

Cedric narrows his gaze. “A ghost?”

Lin Yu closes the pocket watch with a soft click, the faint hum dying in the air. “Looks like it. The creature devoured their souls—every human, every animal. Nothing living remained.”

Silence thickens. Moran mutters, “Who could have done this?”

No one answers. The only sound is the whisper of the wind moving through the dead village.

Then a constable hesitantly speaks. “Ghost Cave.”

All heads turn toward him. Moran frowns. “Jake, what did you say?”

Jake swallows, his voice low. “Sir… Ghost Cave. Near my village. People say strange laughter comes from inside. And those who wander too close… they die—just like these villagers.”

Cedric’s expression hardens. “How far is your village from here?”

----

The jungle at night hums with a strange, uneasy rhythm.

Cicadas drone from the trees, owls hoot in the distance, and the rustle of unseen creatures threads through the tall grass.

Yet beneath those familiar sounds lies something colder—an unnatural silence that deepens the closer they draw to the hill ahead.

A low mist rolls along the ground, thickening into white fog that clings to their boots.

From within the fog, a cave mouth yawns open—dark, wet, and breathing out an icy vapour that chills the air.

The jungle’s noise falters here; even the insects fall quiet, as though afraid to speak.

Cedric narrows his eyes at the pale shroud ahead. “Jake, that’s the cave, isn’t it?”

Before Jake can answer, a faint, distorted laughter seeps from within the cave—childlike at first, then twisting into something sharp and cruel.

Jake’s face drains of colour. “Y–yes, sir… that’s it. That’s the Ghost Cave.”

Cedric exchanges glances with his team. No one speaks, but the tightness in their eyes says enough. He turns toward Lin Yu. “Dr Yu Lin, are you certain you’re coming with us?”

Lin Yu’s gaze fixes on the cave. He can feel the thick waves of death energy pouring from within—dense, suffocating, almost tangible. “Yes,” he says quietly.

Cedric nods once. “Alright. Moran and I will lead. Dr Yu Lin, stay in the middle. My men will cover the rear.”

Lin Yu inclines his head in agreement.

As they prepare to move, Jake stammers, “S–sir, what about me?”

Moran glances back at him. “You return to your village and wait for us.”

Jake doesn’t argue. He turns and runs, disappearing into the mist.

The remaining group adjusts formation and starts forward. Step by step, the white fog swallows them whole as they march toward the cave that breathes laughter and death.