Brooks and Green's hair stood on end, their hands simultaneously gripping the gun handles at their waists.
However, the scene before them made them instinctively hold their breath.
Xi Manning, who had been fine just moments ago, was nowhere to be found. The entire restroom was empty.
Dazzling fresh blood stained the pristine white sink, winding down the mirror surface and pooling into the washbasin.
A large puddle of blood rapidly spread across the floor, forming a ghastly pool.
In the air, an intensely nauseating smell of blood permeated.
A living person had mysteriously vanished in the one second it took them to turn around, leaving nothing but blood and a scream.
"Oh my god..."
"Ghosts!!"
Panic destroyed their reason. They scrambled towards the apartment door, fleeing the terrifying space filled with blood and the unknown.
The frantic footsteps and terrified shouts in the hallway were clearly audible inside the apartment.
Only Hei Ta remained in the room, standing at the edge of the corridor, staring intently at the blood-soaked floor, her brows tightly furrowed.
She suppressed her discomfort and inspected the area around the sink, trying to find a clue, but unfortunately, she found nothing.
How exactly did the Grim Reaper strike?
Is it much more powerful than the Mirror Ghost in Life-taking Mirror Shadow...?
Hei Ta no longer hesitated. She activated the mental link in her mind and calmly inquired.
"Did you see anything just now?"
At this moment, Qi Zhimu, who had been lurking on the ceiling, was looking down at the crime scene with interest.
The sudden bloody scene didn't scare him at all; instead, he felt a long-lost sense of amusement.
"I did see the entire process."
Qi Zhimu's voice echoed in Hei Ta's mind.
"The Grim Reaper's method of attack is actually very direct. After that woman tied up her hair, two scarlet eyes tightly pressed against the back of her head were revealed."
"That's probably the Grim Reaper's incarnation. I could directly feel that the gaze of those eyes was directed towards the mirror, and it just happened to see Xi Manning."
"Perhaps the Grim Reaper also has limitations when harvesting targets, and the limitation for Xi Manning was that the eyes attached to the back of her head could not see."
"Of course, the above is just my guess. Your brain is better than mine; you can deduce it yourself."
After hearing this, a look of realization appeared in Hei Ta's eyes, and she nodded slightly.
The Grim Reaper indeed had restrictions when taking away people on the list, but it didn't specify what those restrictions were.
It only said: it would harvest the target's life in a way that is extremely easy to overlook.
"Mr. Creditor, what did Xi Manning do and experience before we arrived?"
Qi Zhimu truthfully recounted what he had seen and heard earlier.
Learning that Xi Manning had run back in a panic, Hei Ta had a more reliable answer in her heart.
"...Mr. Creditor, did you notice the weather today? There's been a breeze outside all along."
"There was."
"I guess when Xi Manning was running, her disheveled hair occasionally exposed the eyes at the back of her head."
"The faster she ran, the more obvious that feeling of impending death became... The hint is hidden in that sentence, but it's too broad, which is a real headache."
Who would normally think that the Grim Reaper's incarnation was behind the target's head? Most people would suspect shadows first.
Qi Zhimu brought up a contradiction:
"Xi Manning died one minute before her death moment. Assuming that not letting Xi Manning expose the back of her head is the answer to completing the task, then—"
"If Xi Manning hadn't tied up her hair, wouldn't it be equivalent to you changing the first person's death time without doing anything?"
Hei Ta pondered. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind rushed in from outside, blowing her long hair.
"!!"
She looked up at the open vent window directly opposite the restroom and reconfirmed the time.
13:35.
Suddenly, she understood everything.
So did Qi Zhimu.
Even if Xi Manning hadn't tied up her hair herself, as long as she remained in front of the mirror, a strong wind would inevitably rush in from outside at a specific time.
This was the Grim Reaper's method of killing her, and also the restriction.
Hindsight being 20/20, if Xi Manning's head had been covered with a tight hood, she could have safely passed the death moment.
The method was probably that simple.
But the characteristic of the hindsight bias is that people can never reverse time to verify if it's feasible.
Hei Ta shook her head helplessly. Unless Chronology could be fully comprehended and combined with space to achieve individual time reversal.
If she had some time, perhaps she could make a breakthrough.
Unfortunately, she had no time, nor any more opportunities.
After sending the data back to Azure Star, she would fulfill her promise and calmly embrace the fate of death.
"What's next? Has the second NPC to die appeared yet?" Qi Zhimu asked.
"Not yet." Hei Ta shook her head.
"Your so-called temporary teammates, they all seem like useless good-for-nothings. Can you rely on them?"
"...Hard to say."
They would not become targets of the Grim Reaper until all eight people on the Grim Reaper's list were dead.
This hint was quite obvious, encouraging the task executors to stay on site to find out how the Grim Reaper harvested lives, analyze its methods, and then come up with correct countermeasures.
The result?
Someone died, they saw some blood, and then they scrambled to escape the scene, completely losing their reason, with incredibly poor psychological resilience.
If the Grim Reaper had appeared and chopped the victim into mincemeat in front of everyone, perhaps some people would have fainted on the spot or even been scared to death.
Hei Ta's phone rang.
Seeing the number three displayed on the screen, she casually pressed to answer.
"Officer Brooks."
"...Detective Hei Ta, are you alright?"
"I am."
"That's good. You took so long to catch up, I thought..."
"The Grim Reaper won't target us until all eight people on the list are dead. I don't think we need to worry too much during this time."
"But Hei Ta! At first, none of us believed it, thinking it was a mischievous prank, but now you've seen it too. A living person suddenly disappeared. Who knows if the so-called Grim Reaper will break the rules?"
"..." Hei Ta didn't know how to explain.
Should she say that in a world where Virtual Substance Lifeforms are born, the settings would never lie?
Or should she tell them, who were Virtual Substance Lifeforms but didn't know it, and were NPCs in Qi Zhimu's eyes—
That they were actually characters created by someone on Azure Star?
"We'll wait for you at the intersection three kilometers away." Brooks hung up the phone.
Qi Zhimu jumped to the ground, looking at the phone in her hand with a look of disdain.
"In my opinion, you might as well just play dead. Do you really expect that group of NPCs to give you any help? You've got a powerful magician like me, that's more than enough."
Hei Ta pursed her lips, just about to say something, when the information for the next victim appeared.
"Jedi, 11-2105, Toden Road, St. Earl's Street, private detective. Death time interval is 14:40-14:50 on the same day."
After speaking, she looked at Qi Zhimu.
"You're fast, so I'll have to trouble you to scout ahead."
"Hmph, you don't need this kid to order me around. For my Reserve Food not to die here, this lord knows what to do."
Qi Zhimu turned his head and strode away.
...
Haji Huan hasn't eaten a meal since March and is almost starving to death. Please donate some free Eternal Love Power to help out. (V point)
Before 500,000 words, there was a multi-title test. Do any talented readers with great Supernatural powers have good ideas? The new title needs to be within 15 characters~~
May you wake up with Sister Ta staring at you like this.