As the others departed, the riverbed suddenly fell eerily silent.

  "Time to pack it in?"

  John, currently oblivious to the chaos that had unfolded downstream, was still prowling the midsection of the river hunting for Ghost Slaves. Over the course of the afternoon, he had managed to devour seven or eight of the damn things.

  The quality might have been bottom-shelf, but hey—quantity has a quality all its own.

  "Least they could do is give me some of that body-refining medicine for my trouble," he muttered. After all, this was basically a free loot run.

  "A shame, though..."

  He glanced toward the dark, crushing depths of the lower river. He’d originally planned to head down there and see what kind of "bonus" he could score, but that bone-chilling shriek from earlier had killed that ambition instantly. If a sound was that terrifying from a distance, meeting the source face-to-face would probably result in him being deleted from existence.

  "Looks like the Ghost Slaves are tapped out. Time to head home." He shook his head, feeling pretty good about the day’s haul.

  But just as John began his ascent, a dark blur streaked through the water ahead of him.

  "Huh?"

  John froze. He felt it immediately—a concentrated spike of supernatural energy.

  "Another Slave?"

  The shadow didn't hesitate. The moment it "saw" him, it pulled a sharp U-turn and bolted.

  John’s eyes lit up. If it’s running, it’s scared. And if it’s scared, it’s weaker than me. When it came to "weakling" ghosts, John was a firm believer in overwhelming violence.

  "Hey, ghost-friend! Hold up a sec!"

  Within moments, John closed the gap and got a good look at the shadow. It was a head. A woman’s head, severed and swimming through the water like a macabre jellyfish.

  "Definitely not just a corpse," John noted, sensing the raw supernatural malice radiating from it.

  He licked his lips. "Ghost-friend, stop running. You look like you’re in bad shape. Why don’t I play doctor and fix you up?"

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  John lunged, his hand shooting out and snagging the entity by its long, flowing hair.

  "Gotcha, you little brat! Still trying to run?"

  He studied the head. It was cracked and battered, as if it had been struck repeatedly by something heavy. It was a bloody, visceral mess. The head’s eyes were glassy and dead, staring back at John with a flicker of... shock?

  The entity was confused. This was a human—a plain, ordinary-looking human—yet he was completely immune to its hypnotic influence.

  "Wait..."

  John felt a heat in his chest and looked down. The Ghost Face had already surfaced on his skin.

  Normally, the Ghost Face only appeared when it was time to eat. This head, while severely wounded, still possessed a level of spiritual power that should have been too "tough" for the Face to swallow whole. If the Face wasn't out to eat... then it was out to act as a shield. It was blocking the head's mental interference.

  "No way... are you the Big Bad from the bottom of the river?" John’s excitement surged.

  The woman’s head didn't offer a verbal reply. Instead, it let out a piercing, high-pitched wail. John’s chest burned white-hot in response, confirming his theory: this thing was the core of the Ghost River.

  Suddenly, a jolt of agony shot through his arm.

  Black, necrotic blotches began blooming across his skin like a spreading rot. The air around him grew heavy with an ominous, cursed pressure.

  "God damn, even on your deathbed you’ve got bite!" John hissed.

  The curse was aggressive, attempting to consume his entire body. But John wasn't panicking. He looked at the thing with a mean glint in his eye and reached for his backpack.

  "You're real sick, lady. Lucky for you, you ran into me. I’m gonna give you a little shot..."

  The Ghost Head didn't seem to care—until John pulled out a syringe the size of a small missile.

  The entity’s dead expression actually seemed to pale. You call that a needle?! Its deathly eyes buckled with visible panic. A needle that size wouldn't just inject medicine; it would spike its skull into the river floor.

  "Don't be scared, don't be scared," John cooed as he snapped the massive needle onto the barrel. "Just be a brave girl. You aren't afraid of needles, are you?"

  Schwing! The massive needle plunged into the Ghost Head, and John slammed the plunger, dumping the entire vial of black medicinal fluid into the entity.

  Almost instantly, the black rot on John’s arm began to recate. The curse was breaking. Her supernatural power was being forcibly suppressed.

  The woman’s head looked genuinely terrified, unable to comprehend what was happening to its power.

  "See? All better," John grinned. "Now, just to make sure you’re fully recovered, let’s do a little stress test."

  Without a second's hesitation, he pinned the head and began absolutely pummeling it with his free fist.

  The Ghost Head shrieked, a primal fear finally taking hold. It began to thrash, dragging John through the water as it tried to flee.

  "Wow, you’ve got some kick! Let’s see how long you can keep this up!"

  John didn't let go. He rode the head through the water like he was holding onto a jet ski, one hand buried in its hair, the other delivering a relentless rhythmic beatdown. He’d used his expensive medicine on this thing—if he didn't get a payout, he was going to be pissed.

  Meanwhile, the Ghost Head was spiraling into pure horror. Its body had already been destroyed by Han Yu and the others. If this madman destroyed its head, it was game over. Permanent death.

  On the surface, night had begun to fall.

  The task force had returned to the banks. They stood by the water, adrenaline still high, talking excitedly. They weren't just thinking about the official rewards; they were basking in the relief of having saved the city.

  "Mr. Yan, thank you," Wei Feng said, looking at the Corpse-Hauler with genuine gratitude. "If you hadn't stepped in, this mission would have ended in a massacre."

  The fact that Yan Qing had turned the tide—and done it for free—earned him everyone’s deepest respect.

  "Hauling corpses is just my job," Yan Qing replied, though he shook his head with a trace of regret. "It’s a shame the woman’s head got away."

  "It’s fine," Wei Feng consoled him. "Even if it survived, it’ll take a long, long time for it to regain its strength. We’ve ended the crisis. That’s what matters."

  Han Yu nodded, though he felt the same lingering unease. As long as the head existed, the Ghost River wasn't truly dead.

  But just as the four elite Ghost-Users were sharing a somber moment of reflection...

  BOOM.

  The calm surface of the Ping’an River erupted in a violent spray of water.

  "What the—?!"

  The group froze, their jaws dropping in unison.

  A young man came bursting out of the water. He was white-knuckling a severed woman's head in his left hand, while his right hand was—quite literally—hammering the living daylights out of it.

  Han Yu and the others recognized that face instantly. It was the missing head of the Ghost Bride.

  They looked at each other, then back at the kid who was treating a high-level Calamity like a speed bag.

  "What the hell?" someone stammered. "There’s another expert?!"