"Shit! I need to do something—now!"
As death crept closer, Lordi's mind flashed with faces of the dead he'd once known.
The yandere yet formidable phantom maid, Willow, and her companion, Joanie.
The towering guardian phantoms that stood vigil at Ghost Shade Peak's Affairs Hall...
"There's gotta be a way to reach them. Bargain? Plead? Grovel if I have to!" His thoughts raced.
"Maybe if I show enough sincerity—play the desperate fool—they'll spare me. Ghost beings were turned by mortal. Maybe there's a way to communicate, right?"
Resolving the festering resentment of Yunny Hanzwart's wraith was a feat beyond Lordi Payne's power, and he knew better than to expect miracles in such poisoned condition. But survival demanded action. To escape this cursed house, he needed to unravel Yunny's pain, to step into her world of torment. The oppressive sensation of being watched intensified, as if invisible eyes blinked closer, their gaze boring into his soul.
"Yunny's still here," Lordi murmured, his voice barely audible over the pounding of his heart. "I need to summon her, speak to her spirit directly."
Clutching the bone-pierced doll in one hand, he left the room with the Blade of Hater Later and began a methodical search of the house—kitchen, bathroom, living room—seeking any trace of the blind wraith. Though he found no sign of her spectral form, the discoveries he made sent shivers crawling across his skin.
In the bathroom, the shower curtain bore three small, deliberate holes, each perfectly sized for an eye to peer through, watching, always watching.
Every lock in the house was broken, rusted, or jammed, leaving no door capable of offering privacy or safety.
Despite the house's age, the hinges on doors and furniture gleamed with fresh oil, silent as they swung open or shut—a predator's design to move undetected. In the entryway, four pairs of cotton slippers sat neatly in a shoe rack, but three were coated in a thick layer of dust, untouched for years.
The family of three, it seemed, had prowled barefoot, their steps silent to avoid alerting someone.
In drawers and cupboards, Lordi uncovered vials of mortal drugs known to impair hearing, alongside crimson-stained cotton earplugs, their waxy surfaces crusted with dark red blood.
The truth was chilling: for a blind girl like Yunny, who relied on sound to navigate her world, this family had systematically stripped her of that lifeline, plunging her into a silent, vulnerable void.
Only one room remained—the most foreboding of all: the princess room. Lordi's jaw tightened as he crossed the threshold into the pastel-hued bedroom. The decor was deceptively charming: soft pink walls, a window adorned with delicate water-themed flower patterns, tiles carved with playful fish, and a small wooden bed etched with aquatic motifs.
It was a room fit for a mermaid princess, yet standing within it, Lordi felt only a suffocating dread, as if the air itself sought to drown him. "This place… it's a mockery," he thought, his breath shallow. "A beautiful cage for a tortured soul."
Pausing beside the bed, Lordi's gaze swept the room and froze. Among the dozens of dolls scattered across the floor, everyone seemed to stare back, theirs faces radiating unnatural malice. "Yunny's parents must have loved her very much, showering her with these dolls," he mused, his voice trembling. "But this family… they took everything from her. Is Yunny... is she hiding in one of them, her spirit bound to this room?"
Clearing his throat, Lordi steadied himself and spoke into the oppressive silence. "Ahem… I am Lordi Payne, an official Enforcer of the Abyss Pit Sect. I apologize for entering your home without permission. I mean you no harm, Yunny. If anything, I want to help you—help you punish those who wronged you."
Lordi Payne's attempt to commune with Yunny's wraith met only silence, the oppressive stillness of the princess room swallowing his words. Undeterred, he scoured the bedroom for clues, his trembling hands rifling through the dresser, pillows, and bed. As he reached for the bedside table, a stinging unease prickled at his back, sharp and cold, like the gaze of a predator.
The sensation recalled the Bone Raksha Byobu screen from Kinson Wexford—a relic said to curse restless spirits. Whipping his head around, Lordi froze. Every doll in the room, dozens of them, stared at him. Some sprawled on the floor, others leaned against the pastel walls, but all their heads were unnaturally turned, their eyes fixed on him.
The dolls' eyes—crafted from cotton, beads, and tarnished metal—glinted with a haunting reflection of pain and despair. Even for Lordi, a cultivator who had faced countless terrors in the demonic Abyss Pit Sect, the sight of these lifeless figures watching him in an inescapable room sent his heart racing.
He pinched his arm hard, forcing a steady smile. "I believe there's a misunderstanding," he said, his voice calm despite the tremor in his chest. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, Yunny. I want to punish those who hurt you. I'm not just saying this—I mean it. I'll help you claim the justice you deserve."
To prove his sincerity, Lordi reached into his storage pouch and retrieved the thumb-sized doll embroidered with Yunny's name. As he held it, the room's temperature plummeted, the air turning so frigid it rivaled the feeling of icy depths in the Gworm Abyss. His breath clouded before him, and his fingers ached from the cold radiating from the doll.
"You don't need to torment yourself anymore," Lordi said softly. "The real culprits are the ones who betrayed you."
Before the wraith's wrath could erupt, Lordi carefully eased the bone nail from the doll's chest. He peeled off the tattered cotton dress bearing Yunny's name and birthdate and set it aside. Stepping out of the princess room, he entered the zither bedroom, where he retrieved the mother's diary and the daughter's sketch pad. Tearing a blank leaf page from the sketch pad, he folded it into a crude leaf doll. He dipped a fingertip into the blood at his lips, then scrawled Mollie across its back in his own crimson.
The house's dolls watched in eerie silence, their unblinking gazes heavy with confusion, as if even the ghostly entities struggled to comprehend Lordi's actions.
Raising the bone nail once embedded in Yunny's doll, Lordi drove it through the leaf doll marked with Mollie's name. "These monsters committed unforgivable sins!" he said, fury burning in his words. "They don't deserve to live—they're criminals with nowhere left to run. They will PAY for what they did to you, Yunny. They will SUFFER just as they made you suffer!"
He tore additional pages from the mother's diary, folding two more leaf dolls. On one, he wrote Suzanne in blood, assuming it was the mother's name. "Suzanne… and the father? Who is he? Tell me, Yunny, so I can help you!" he pleaded, his eyes scanning the room for a response.