He finally saw clearly in the lightning flash that it wasn't a coat rack at all, but a person standing there straight as a board!

The person was tall and burly, wearing a dirty apron covered in bloodstains.

The man was rather fat; even through the apron, one could see his exaggeratedly protruding belly. His exposed arms were an eerie grayish-white, with veins popping out, and his left hand hung down naturally, carrying a huge axe.

Even more terrifying was that he couldn't see the person's face.

Because the man's face was wrapped tightly with circles of transparent tape, the kind used on packages. His entire head was covered, the application crude, as if dealing with a corpse.

His body seemed to have turned to stone, Yuan Xiaotian staring unblinkingly at the bizarrely appearing man, especially the exaggeratedly large axe he carried.

The moment he saw the axe, he knew that Li Mengyao had been killed by it.

The man appeared silently. Yuan Xiaotian hadn't noticed him at all. After the initial panic, he gradually calmed himself and began to think about the current situation.

From the time he woke up, he had been here for less than 20 minutes, and he remembered that when he first woke up, he had looked out the window, and it hadn't been raining then.

But now, the outside was completely obscured by rain, a blurry mess, as if isolated in another world.

No, not as if!

This was another world!

His thoughts racing, Yuan Xiaotian turned to look out the French window. The eerie sense of unfamiliarity made his heart palpitate. He was isolated in this building, perhaps only the 10th floor where he was remained.

For a moment, Yuan Xiaotian's mind went blank.

But soon, he reorganized his emotions, took a deep breath, and adjusted his state. Often it wasn't that there was no chance to survive, but that people lost the will to live.

Just as he looked back at the door, suddenly, his pupils contracted sharply. The man with the axe... was gone!

The space beside the door was empty!

"Where did he go?" Yuan Xiaotian thought with a start. What was even more terrifying than a ghost suddenly appearing was a ghost disappearing silently.

It seemed darker all around, as if strange fog had poured in, making everything nearby shadowy, as if something might burst out of the fog at any moment.

Subconsciously, he scanned the entire office area. He had memorized the positions of the nearby tables and chairs, but now, those places had turned into blurry, dark black outlines.

An indescribable sense of oppression washed over him like a tide, making it hard to breathe, or more precisely, it was a fear of the unknown.

"That thing wouldn't disappear for no reason, it must be nearby." His heart felt like it was about to leap out of his throat, Yuan Xiaotian held his breath. He knew the other was definitely looking for him. "The rain outside hasn't stopped yet, so the task is still ongoing."

A voice in his heart kept urging him to run, that staying here was a dead end, he would be found sooner or later.

Calm down! Must calm down!

Based on Yuan Xiaotian's experience, running now was a dead end. He had no doubt that the moment he moved, that ghost would immediately lock onto his position!

And once found, his fate would be the same as Li Mengyao's.

He was determined not to leave this office area unless he was found.

At the same time, he had another plan: even if he was killed, he would leave clues for Brother Qiang and the others.

If his body was found in the office area, with the brains of Brother Qiang and the others, they would definitely think of his purpose.

Staying hidden wouldn't escape the ghost's pursuit.

It would also eliminate a wrong option for them.

A cold draft slowly swept over, stimulating the pores on Yuan Xiaotian's body, as if something nearby was moving, stirring the air.

Yuan Xiaotian perked up his ears. He didn't hear any sounds like footsteps, only the wind and rain outside.

"This ghost moves without making a sound," Yuan Xiaotian muttered to himself.

Sure enough, as the icy feeling grew stronger, a blurry black outline appeared less than 5 meters away from him.

It was the man!

The man stood straight, his features wrapped in tape, carrying the exaggeratedly shaped axe, slowly walking out of the fog, his steps stiff, looking very strange.

With each step the man took, the ground trembled slightly. Yuan Xiaotian couldn't help but think that the man was wearing heavy shoes like boots.

Black leather boots!

But he still didn't hear any footsteps, so this was one of the ghost's characteristics: walking without a sound.

Especially in such a limited visibility environment, this ability was particularly deadly.

As the distance closed, Yuan Xiaotian saw the man's appearance clearly. Even though he had prepared himself mentally, it still made his heart race.

Under the translucent tape, the man's face was grotesquely twisted, his eyes wide open, his mouth stretched into an extremely horrifying smile.

And all of this was cruelly fixed in place with tape, making that momentary bizarre expression eternal.

Like an insect preserved in amber, it had become a cruel work of art.

The man looked like he had been killed and then made into this.

Similar to their previous guesses, the axe in the man's hand was a whole circle larger than a fire axe, like one used for logging, several times larger in volume.

As if it had been used for a long time, there were nicks in the sharpened side of the axe, and some dark red stuff on it, he didn't know if it was blood or rust.

The axe was connected to a wooden handle at the back, the kind with rough workmanship, the wooden handle not even straight, but somewhat curved, splattered with black liquid.

Yuan Xiaotian sniffed lightly, knowing that it was blood, and most likely Li Mengyao's blood.

A rainy night, a tall, slovenly dressed, strange man, carrying a huge axe, in the office area of a luxuriously decorated building, chasing down the people trapped here. It all seemed like a plot from a third-rate horror novel, but this scene was playing out right before Yuan Xiaotian's eyes.

And what Yuan Xiaotian couldn't accept even more was that he was the one being chased.

After observing for a moment, he noticed a very strange detail. The man's walking posture was stiff and methodical. The amplitude of each arm swing and the size of each step were the same, as if he were a robot programmed with some kind of procedure.

Without emotion or excess consciousness, the man only remembered killing, in a permitted manner.

Moreover, the man shouldn't have discovered his hiding place, as he seemed to be walking aimlessly, heading east and west, like a headless fly.

This made Yuan Xiaotian even more convinced that staying was the right choice. If he couldn't withstand the pressure and ran out, he was afraid he would already be dead.