Henry Clark kept forcing himself not to blink, but his eyes grew more and more sore and uncomfortable, and tears began to well up at the corners, accumulating more and more.

He was about to reach his limit.

Chapter 3 Danger One

Click.

Finally, the door was completely closed.

Henry Clark let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“What the hell is this place!?”

He locked the door, straightened up, but suddenly remembered that little stutterer from before.

No matter how he looked at it, this place was strange, and that little stutterer seemed like a good person, but how did she manage to survive here?

He took two steps back and let out a long breath.

Thud.

Suddenly, it felt like his back bumped into something.

Cold and hard...

It seemed to be a person!!

Henry Clark froze completely.

He lowered his head and saw, right behind him on the floor, a pair of white shoes, quietly standing behind him.

This guy... actually got in!??

When!?

Bang!!

A sudden loud crash.

The wooden door was slammed open, and a short figure rushed in, raising a grayish-white object and hurling it.

“Ah!!”

At the same time, the little stutterer’s voice pierced the silence like a suona, jolting Henry Clark out of his frozen state.

He felt a flurry of grayish-white shadows brush past his cheek, striking the white-clad figure behind him.

Thud thud thud thud!

A dense sound like something hitting fabric rang out, but along with it, Henry Clark felt his whole body relax, stumbling forward a few steps, nearly falling.

He was already weak and powerless, and now, after being startled, his emotions surged, draining even more of his strength and energy.

After a few steps, his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground.

Rolling over on the floor, he saw the little stutterer rush in, wielding a thick wooden stick, fiercely smashing it down on the white-clad figure.

Even stranger, the white-clad figure was like a deflating balloon—suddenly going limp, then quickly bursting like foam, turning into scraps of cloth and vanishing completely.

Before the scraps of cloth even hit the ground, they shattered again, fading away, leaving nothing behind.

It was as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

Huff, huff.

The little stutterer was gasping for breath, putting down the thick wooden stick in her hand, her face flushed, veins bulging on her face and hands. Even in the dim light, the fine beads of sweat were clearly visible.

“People... weak... dangerous... go... out... less!” She turned to look at Henry Clark, speaking seriously.

Henry Clark nodded unconsciously.

Only then did he feel a burning pain on his back, as if a layer of skin had been scraped off.

Rolling over on the ground, he suddenly noticed that where his back had touched, there were actually a few drops of blood.

Seeing this, the little stutterer hurried over to help him up.

The two of them worked together, and the little stutterer’s strength immediately became apparent.

She was actually stronger than Henry Clark, a grown man—and by quite a bit!

She dragged Henry Clark up in one go, turned him around, propped him against the doorframe, and took off his shirt.

She then somehow produced a jar of something and began smearing it on his back.

Soon, a rough pain spread from his back.

Henry Clark gritted his teeth, knowing she was saving him, helping him treat his wound.

“What medicine is this?”

“My grand...father... left this wound powder,” the little stutterer answered haltingly.

“Works... well!”

Silence.

Henry Clark recalled the white-clad figure from just now. He had a pile of questions he wanted to ask.

After gathering his thoughts for a while, he finally spoke again.

“Just now, that white-clad person, what was it?”

“Specter...” the little stutterer replied.

“Ghost?”

“Was it human?” Henry Clark asked again.

“Don’t know.”

Henry Clark felt that his years of materialist beliefs were about to collapse, especially since the thing had vanished right before his eyes. That scene left him with an indescribable sense of unreality and illusion.

He thought for a long time, until the light outside the window grew dimmer. Then he spoke.

“So that white-clad person, is it a ghost?”

“No...” the little stutterer replied, “Newspaper... has... it...”

She was struggling so much to speak that she simply paused treating the wound, bent down to pick up a newspaper, rustled through it to find a page in the middle, and handed it to Henry Clark.

Henry Clark took it and saw the headline:

“Major Breakthrough in Specter Experiment Progress”

Below were the details.

‘...According to the public announcement by the United Human Research Institute, the essence of specters is closely related to the blood tide, but after careful analysis, the institute’s published experimental content shows that specters themselves possess no memory. They retain only the human form they had in life, but have no corresponding memories or emotions, and simply instinctively hunt any living thing that approaches or notices them, mainly targeting their own kind.

In other words, the essence of specters is more like a new type of highly camouflaged predator. They cannot be killed, only driven away. Even if completely dispersed, they will soon reappear, and possess the special ability to penetrate most existing materials.

In some institutional experiments, it is even suspected that they may not exist in reality at all, but rather exist in our brains, as a special signal similar to self-induced hallucinations.’