Soul Lock: The Ghost City Tycoon

Chapter 9: Bring the Nest Down

The first warning was small.

A splinter of wood shot across the office like a bullet and skidded against Alex’s boot.

Mei Lin choked on a scream.

From the new crack in the door, a single paper-thin claw slid through—edges dripping with black, corrosive tar. It twitched once, tasting the air.

Alex’s stomach dropped.

The door wouldn’t last. Thirty seconds, maybe less.

“Alex…” Mei Lin whispered. Her voice shook uncontrollably. “It’s just wood. It’s just wood—we’re dead…”

Her words were terrifyingly true.

They weren’t trapped from something.

They were trapped with something.

Alex’s body trembled—blood loss, exhaustion, the sting of a hundred cuts. The bronze bell felt too light in his grip. Too small for what was outside.

Second life, same stupid ending.

Not betrayed by a general this time—just a cheap office door.

Then Mei Lin said one quiet word.

“No.”

Alex looked up.

Fear still clung to her, but her eyes had sharpened—no longer panicking, but calculating.

“You’re thinking like a soldier,” she said, voice thin but steady. “Planning to fight the whole army. Idiot.”

She pointed upward.

The ceiling tiles sagged under a dark, spreading stain.

A slow drip… drip… of black water fell onto the desk.

“We don’t fight the army,” she said.

She swallowed hard.

“We kill the leader.”

Alex blinked.

Then the idea slammed into him so hard he nearly laughed.

“The Nest,” he whispered. “Third floor.”

“Right above us,” Mei Lin said. “We don’t climb up. We bring it down.”

Outside, the Paper Demons shrieked.

The next hit tore the top hinge clean off.

Metal screamed.

“Seconds!” Alex barked.

He shoved the foreman’s desk under the dripping patch in the ceiling. The legs screeched across the floor as Mei Lin pushed from the other side, teeth clenched, panic becoming purpose.

“Alex, what are you—?”

“You’re the brain,” he grunted, climbing onto the desk. “Let me do the stupid part.”

The ceiling pulsed above him. A faint rustling inside the plaster—like breathing.

He lifted the bronze bell.

“Wait!” Mei Lin screamed. “If you break the seal, the whole Nest—”

“Get down!”

The door exploded inward.

Three Paper Demons crashed through, dripping tar, claws clicking like knives.

Mei Lin dove behind the filing cabinet.

Alex didn’t look at the monsters.

He swung upward.

THUD.

The bell smashed into damp plaster. Cracks spider-webbed outward.

Dust rained over him.

A drop of tar hit his cheek—it burned instantly.

“Again,” he rasped.

The demons screeched and bounded forward.

He swung again.

THUD.

The ceiling groaned.

The first Paper Demon leapt at him—

He screamed and slammed the bell a third time.

The warehouse roared.

The ceiling caved in with a deep, tearing crack.

A flood of black sludge and shredded pulp crashed down—violent, crushing, cold.

“Oh, shit—”

Water and paper swallowed him whole.

He was thrown from the desk, slammed into the wall, buried under a mountain of stinking, soaked paper.

Lights blew out.

Air disappeared.

For a moment, there was no up or down—only drowning in ink and rot.

The Paper Demons shrieked—then went silent, crushed beneath the collapse.

Somewhere in the dark, the bronze bell hit metal with a lonely clang.

Alex clawed upward, coughing tar, lungs burning.

His head broke the surface of the flooded paper pile.

“Mei!” he croaked.

A faint cough answered.

She emerged from behind the cabinet, drenched, shaking, but alive.

He staggered upright. Black water lapped around his boots, ankle-deep.

The Nest hung half-collapsed—wet paper, twisted staples, and stagnant tar dripping from the rafters.

No movement.

No rustling.

Only water running softly down the hall.

A thin, broken laugh burst from Alex. “We… did it,” he said. “Cut the conduit. No power—no monsters.”

He kicked a soaked mass. It slumped like dead sludge.

“We won,” he whispered, smiling through pain. “We’re—”

He froze.

A sound.

A heavy one.

Thump.

Not paper.

Not pulp.

Flesh.

He slowly turned.

Mei Lin’s fallen phone lay on the floor, its flashlight still glowing. The beam lit the debris near the door.

Something inside was rising.

Pushing aside wet paper.

Pushing aside cardboard.

Pushing aside death.

A man’s corpse stood up—soaked driver’s uniform clinging to gray, bloated flesh.

Mei Lin gasped. A sound too sharp for words.

Her driver.

The one she’d sent to rescue Old Man Ling.

The corpse lifted its head.

The neck bent sideways with a sickening crack.

Tar oozed from its mouth.

Two solid black eyes opened—glossy, depthless.

Alive.

Alex’s breath disappeared.

“That’s not paper,” he whispered.

The corpse stepped forward, feet leaving black streaks across the floor.

Cold filled the office—unnatural, heavy, aware.

Mei Lin’s voice trembled. “What… what is it?”

Alex lifted the bronze bell with shaking hands.

“It’s the Core,” he whispered.

The corpse smiled—thin, impossible, human.

The bell in Alex’s hand hummed violently.

And the darkness answered.

End of Chapter 9