Chapter 50: SHADOWS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Night had grown late when shadows started moving in the middle of the city. In an old five-story building located on the outskirts of town, dim lights were still on in a few rooms. The building looked eerie and abandoned—its walls were cracked, its windows were broken, and its iron doors were rusted. In some places, wild plants crept along the walls, and broken glass shards were scattered on the floor. Inside, the sound of footsteps echoed on the dusty concrete floor. Dust floated in the air, dancing under the flickering neon lights.

Tok... tok... tok...

The building’s ceiling was high, with large pipes hanging overhead. Some neon lights flickered, creating unstable illumination. In the corners of the rooms, there were piles of boxes and old, unused items. The musty smell of dust filled the air, mixed with the stinging scent of blood. On some walls, still-wet blood splatters could be seen, slowly dripping to the floor.

Dak! Dak! Dak!

The sound of hurried footsteps could be heard from the upper floor. A man in a black suit was running down the dark corridor. His breath was panting, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Sweat flowed down his forehead, and his eyes darted nervously, searching for a hiding place. His suit was torn in several places, and there was a wound on his arm that was bleeding.

Haaah... haaah...

"Where is she?" the man muttered, his voice hoarse from fear. "Where is that woman?"

Suddenly, from the floor below, the sound of a gunshot was heard. BANG! The sound echoed throughout the building, making the man flinch. His body froze for a moment. Bang! Bang! Two more shots followed, accompanied by a man’s scream.

"AAAAHHHHH!"

Bang! One more shot. The scream ended abruptly. THUD! The sound of a body falling to the floor. CRASH! The sound of breaking glass.

The man bit his lip, his hands clenching tightly at his sides. "Damn... she managed to kill them all."

He ran to the corner of the room, hiding behind a pile of large boxes. His hand felt his stomach, and he felt wetness there. When he looked at his palm, fresh red blood covered his fingers. The wound on his stomach was deep—maybe from broken glass or a stray bullet when he fled.

Haaah... "I’m wounded..."

He pulled out his phone from his pocket with trembling hands. His blood-soaked fingers pressed the emergency button. Click... click... But no one answered. The call disconnected on its own. Click!

"No... no..." he whispered, trying to contact his other colleagues. But all calls went unanswered. "They’re all dead..."

Tok... tok... tok...

The sound of soft footsteps could be heard from the end of the corridor. Slow. Calm. Like someone who wasn’t in a hurry. The rhythmic sound of high heels echoed on the dusty concrete floor.

Tok... tok... tok...

The man froze. His breath held. His eyes didn’t blink, staring toward the sound.

"Damn it," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Who is that woman really? How could she kill all the guards in this building alone?"

He remembered how it all happened. Twenty armed guards were guarding this building. But one by one, they fell. He heard their screams, heard their gunshots, heard their bodies fall. And all of it happened in less than thirty minutes. The woman moved like a shadow, appearing from the darkness and disappearing before anyone could catch her. Her knives scattered through the air, stabbing with terrifying precision.

Tok... tok...

The sound was getting closer.

The man quickly stood up, trying to escape in another direction. His wounded leg felt heavy, but he forced himself to run. Dak! Dak! Dak! His footsteps were hurried in the dark corridor.

But as he turned—

Whoosh!

A knife attached to a rope managed to pierce the other side of his stomach. SHLICK! The knife pierced through the flesh easily, through skin and muscle, until its tip emerged on the other side. Blood gushed from his wound, soaking the concrete floor.

"AHK!" The man staggered, his body falling to the floor with a loud THUD!. His head hit the concrete floor, and for a moment, the world spun. But his consciousness remained. He saw a woman walking toward him from the shadows.

The woman was wearing a long black dress that fluttered gently. A large round hat covered most of her face, and in her hand, she held a black umbrella. From beneath the shadow of her hat, a pair of sharp eyes stared at the man coldly. Her long black hair fell over her shoulders, and under the dim light, she looked like a demon descending from hell.

"Damn woman..." The man tried to crawl away while lying on the floor, his hand feeling the wound in his stomach. Blood flowed profusely between his fingers. Haaah... haaah... "What do you really want? Why are you doing all this?"

The woman didn’t answer. She just walked closer with graceful steps. Tok... tok... tok...

"Gghh..." The man groaned in pain when the woman stepped on his wound with her high heel. CRACK! The sound of bone cracking. "Let go of me!"

The woman didn’t budge. With quick movements, she wrapped the knife’s rope around the man’s neck. The rope, which had seemed ordinary, now turned into a circular blade sharp against the man’s neck. The knife was cold and sharp, pressing against the man’s skin until a thin red line appeared.

"Please! Let me go!" the man screamed while struggling, his body trembling violently. His eyes started turning red, and his breath grew shorter. "Don’t... don’t kill me! I beg you! I’ll do anything!"

But the woman didn’t care. Her voice was calm and cold. "You know too much," she said, her whisper like a snake’s hiss. "You shouldn’t have interfered in this matter."

"I don’t know anything!" the man screamed, tears starting to flow down his cheeks. "I’m just a guard! I don’t know what’s happening here! I was just doing my job!"

"Your job," the woman repeated, her voice full of contempt. "Your job was to protect a traitor. And traitors must be eliminated."

With quick movements, she pulled the rope. SHLICK!

The man’s head separated from his body. THUD! The head fell to the floor, rolling several times before stopping in the corner of the room. His body still twitched for a few seconds before finally falling still. Blood flowed profusely from his neck, flooding the concrete floor that was already covered in blood.

Haaah... The woman sighed softly, then started cleaning the blood clinging to her weapon. Sss... She wiped the knife with a black cloth she took from her pocket. Her movements were calm and practiced, like she’d done this thousands of times. The cloth absorbed the blood quickly, leaving the knife clean and gleaming.

After the knife was clean, she twisted the mechanism on the rope. Click! The knife folded back and became an ordinary rope. She rolled it up neatly and stored it in a small pouch at her waist. Nothing remained of the deadly weapon—it only looked like an ordinary, harmless rope.

Then, the woman took out her phone from her dress pocket. The phone screen lit up under the dim light. Her fingers, still slightly wet with blood, pressed a number she’d memorized.

Click... crackle...

"The target has been eliminated," the woman said in a flat voice, her eyes staring at the dead man lying on the floor. Blood was still flowing from his neck, forming a small puddle on the floor.

She took a photo of the corpse. Click! The flash illuminated the room for a moment, capturing the image of the head separated from the body. "I’ll send the photo of the body shortly."

A heavy voice from inside the phone answered. "Good. You executed the mission very well. That traitor indeed needed to be eliminated."

The woman sighed, her eyes looking at the corpse in front of her. "So, what’s the next mission?"

"For now, there’s no assassination mission," the voice answered. "But we have a reconnaissance mission."

The woman frowned slightly. "I’m not usually given reconnaissance missions. Can’t someone else do it?"

"No. This operation must succeed no matter what. Because the person you need to observe is the one once known as the Grim Reaper."

Haaah! The woman was silent for a moment. Her sharp eyes widened slightly, then returned to normal. "The Grim Reaper... from eight years ago? Isn’t he dead?"

"We also believed that," the voice answered. "But one of our informants saw someone resembling the Grim Reaper lurking around Phoenix Academy."

"The old man’s school..." The woman smiled slightly. "If we’re talking about that old man, he must be thinking of something interesting."

"We think so too. This could be a trap to lure us out. But from the man’s movements, it doesn’t seem like it."

"So what do you want me to do?" the woman asked, her voice starting to sound curious.

"Watch him. If possible, make contact with him. And confirm our suspicions."

The woman smiled widely. "We expect good news from you," the man’s voice continued.

Click! The call disconnected.

Haaah... The woman sighed, her eyes looking toward the window where the crescent moon hung in the night sky. Moonlight entered through the broken window, illuminating the room with soft silver light.

"The Grim Reaper, huh..." she whispered, a mysterious smile appearing on her lips. "Finally I can meet you again."

She walked toward the exit, her black dress fluttering behind her. Tok... tok... tok... Her footsteps echoed in the silent corridor. In her hand, she held the black umbrella tightly. At the doorway, she stopped and looked back one last time. Her eyes looked at the scattered bodies on the building floor. There were about twenty corpses, scattered in various corners of the room. Some of them were still holding unused weapons. Others lay in unnatural positions, showing they died in fierce combat.

A faint smile appeared on her face.

"See you soon, Grim Reaper."

Then she stepped out, disappearing into the night shadows. Whoosh... The night wind blew, carrying her black dress, and in an instant, she vanished into the darkness. Nothing remained except the scattered bodies and the gripping silence.

In the distance, police sirens started to be heard. But the woman was already far away, disappearing behind the night shadows.