The sky bled light.

Cities across the world folded into silence as power grids failed, oceans turned black, and the air thickened with the metallic taste of fear. Screens everywhere flickered with the same message before going dark: **SYSTEM INITIALIZED — WELCOME, SELECTED SOULS.**

Joseph had seen those words once before. He didn’t flinch this time.

A pulse shivered through the air, like thunder without sound, and a whisper slid into his mind — the same voice from the last cycle:  

> “Task location assigned.  

>  Site: **Karl Dancer Luxury Jewels.**  

>  Designation updated: **The Hundred Ghosts Boutique.**  

>  Objective: Survive until dawn.”

He exhaled slowly. “So it begins again.”

Outside the hotel, chaos was blooming. The city’s skyline had begun to twist; glass towers bowed like dying trees, neon lights bending into grotesque shapes. Screams rippled in the distance, mixed with laughter that didn’t sound human. The Rules had awakened, each spirit claiming its hunting ground.

Joseph walked through the ash-tinted air, his shoes leaving prints that smoldered faintly. A burning billboard above him collapsed, sparks raining like false stars. Through the haze, he saw the boutique — once Karl Dancer, now warped and blackened, its golden logo reshaped into letters carved by unseen claws:

**The Hundred Ghosts Boutique.**

The glass door breathed, expanding and contracting as if it were alive.

He wasn’t the only one summoned.

A few people stumbled toward the entrance — two men in office attire, a woman still in her pajamas, a teenager clutching a phone that no longer worked. Their faces were pale, eyes wide and unfocused. One of them spoke in a trembling voice.

“I—I heard something… telling me to come here. It said if I don’t, I’ll be erased.”

Another nodded frantically. “Me too. It kept saying *‘the boutique needs staff’.*”

Joseph said nothing. Experience had taught him that words were currency more dangerous than Mingbi. In the first days of the apocalypse, the living often killed faster than the dead. He simply adjusted his coat, scanning the shadows behind the storefront glass.

The reflection moved before he did.

Then the door opened with a soft chime — a sound too civilized for this world.

From the threshold stepped a figure in a charcoal-gray suit, crisp and spotless amid the ruin. His tie was red silk. His skin gleamed faintly blue beneath the dim lights, and his eyes — polished obsidian — regarded them with the calm of a man greeting clients, not prey.

“Welcome,” he said, voice smooth, echoing like two tones speaking at once. “I am **George Taragan**, regional manager of the Hundred Ghosts Boutique. Please, come in. Work is about to begin.”

The crowd froze. Their breaths turned visible, frosting the air though the night was warm. The scent of jasmine and decay drifted from the doorway.

One woman tried to laugh it off, a sound too sharp. “You’re… joking, right?”

George’s smile did not move his eyes.  

“Joking? No. We’re quite serious about punctuality here.”

Behind him, the interior shimmered — chandeliers of bone, necklaces that pulsed faintly like veins, and mirrors that reflected not faces but skulls made of light. Each showcase glowed with ghostly currency — silver notes of Mingbi drifting lazily in midair, as if gravity had lost interest.

Joseph watched quietly. His heart was steady. He remembered how this place had killed him last time — the first mission, the first failure.

He took a step forward.

“Let’s get this over with,” he murmured.

George Taragan inclined his head slightly, eyes gleaming like wet stone. “Excellent. The boutique values experienced employees.”

As the doors closed behind them, the lights outside dimmed entirely, and the city vanished into a curtain of ash.