"Wow, that’s brilliant, Harry! Just an ordinary accounts clerk, and suddenly you’ve inherited a house this big."Harry’s footsteps came to a halt at the threshold of an old, carved wooden door with an arched top. The air was cold and musty, and dust was everywhere as they entered.Next to him was Jack, his colleague from the office. He had kindly given him a lift in his car. Jack gazed at the interior of the building with a look of amazement on his face.“I don’t think you can really call this a house,” replied Harry, with a look of disgust.“Harry, this isn’t just any old house! Look… there are loads of antiques in here.” “Of course there are! My grandmother’s an antique dealer,” replied Harry flatly. He waved his hand, trying to brush away the fine dust floating in the air as he stepped inside.Harry let out a long sigh. He took off his black-framed glasses, wiped the lenses with the hem of his still-neat office shirt, then put them back on.“My grandmother’s just a collector of ol

TANG!The wooden mask turned black and billowed thick smoke. It came loose from the dagger Harry had thrust into it. The object tumbled onto the wooden floor, spinning several times before finally coming to rest, lifeless, right at the tip of Harry’s shoe.Harry fell to his knees. The silver dagger slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor beside him. Harry’s breathing was rapid, short, and irregular. Cold sweat soaked his office shirt from front to back. Blood trickled from his arm, cut by glass, onto the floor."I’ve done it… I've done it… Yes! I’ve managed it…," Harry murmured.Every joint in his legs was shaking violently. He had no strength left, not even enough to support his own weight.This was his first face-to-face encounter with a supernatural monster, which he’d always dismissed as nothing more than an old wives’ tale. And what seemed most unbelievable to him right now… was that he’d managed to survive. He’d managed to win this mad battle.Harry’s head felt heavy.

"Hah! All right then! I’m going to check my report first. Jack, just wait in the lobby downstairs and have a quick coffee," said Harry as he hurried towards the building’s main glass door.“Oh, and one more thing! Don’t you dare go up to the fourth floor, whatever happens!”“Hey, Harry! Where are you off to?! Don’t you want to tell me what’s going on first?!” shouted Jack from behind, but Harry had already sprinted straight into the lobby.Inside the spacious main lobby of the building, the atmosphere felt very out of the ordinary. A security guard on duty appeared to be fast asleep, slumped over the reception desk. Harry tried calling out to him and shaking his shoulder, but the guard did not stir in the slightest; he was fast asleep.Harry decided to ignore the row of tightly closed lift doors and headed for the fire escape. He ran up the stairs, one step at a time, towards the fourth floor.The higher he climbed, the colder, thicker, and heavier the air in the stairwell felt. With

From the pool of foul-smelling ink on the floor, a clump of thick red ink with a pungent, coppery odor rose into the air. The clump swelled, taking the shape of a faceless, towering giant. “You’ve only got three minutes before your boss becomes that spirit’s eternal dwelling place.”“Three minutes?! Are you joking?!” Harry shouted, gritting his teeth as he endured the pain radiating from his back, which had just slammed into the filing cabinet due to a surge of supernatural energy.“Who’s joking, lad?” The Spirit of the Padlock hovered above Harry's shoulder, its voice cold and devoid of humor. “Look at your boss’s chest! His aura has already dimmed! If those threads absorb all his life force within three minutes, that ink-like figure will take on a permanent physical form and kill him!”Jack, standing next to Harry, got goosebumps watching Harry talking to himself. Jack knew that his best friend must be communicating with an invisible creature. Jack braced himself as Harry also be

Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass rang out from the meeting room window at the end of the fourth-floor corridor!It wasn’t a direct attack on Harry, but a cloud of thick black smoke that had just burst through the glass. The smoke billowed on the wind, cutting through the darkness of the city this night. “That’s the guardian spirit of yet another cursed artifact that has just been awakened! We must capture it!” cried the Spirit of the Padlock.Harry turned around briefly to check that Boss Thomas was still breathing steadily beneath the neon-lit floor. He then ran down to the lobby via the emergency staircase.In the lobby, Jack was still standing restlessly by the glass door. As soon as he saw Harry appear, his shirt stained with ink and his hand wrapped in a makeshift bandage, Jack nearly jumped out of his skin.“Harry! Are you all right?! There was a loud crash from upstairs just now, and then the lights went out completely!” Jack stammered in a panic."I’ll explain later,