James, the white vampire, had an exceptionally sharp sense of smell. He sniffed the air carefully.
"That woman seems to have another helper? I smell something strange in the air… this ability is really bizarre…"
He looked around warily, rummaging through his long memory. But even after thinking for a long while, he still couldn't recall anything with a similar scent.
"Interesting… this is so interesting…" he muttered, sounding a little unhinged.
"I've memorized both scents. Let's hunt a few blood meals first, then take the back roads and cut ahead of her."
With that, he leapt off the highway. He wanted to feed, replenish his strength, and continue the chase.
"Darling, I'll come with you."
The female vampire quickly followed.
The Black vampire suddenly felt a weird sense of foreboding, but it was too late to back out. He could only follow.
The three vampires took the shortcut—completely unaware that Bella had also turned onto the same back road.
She wanted to avoid involving ordinary people, afraid Death's attacks would drag innocents into the crossfire. So she deliberately steered the battlefield toward a rural path. She floored the gas; the pickup tore through the countryside like a mad beast. But after a while, even she was confused.
She stopped the truck and stepped out, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked around.
Where were those three vampires chasing her?
Where exactly was she now?
Which direction was she supposed to go?
She flipped her map back and forth for a long time but couldn't understand anything. So she could only keep driving forward, hoping to find a town, a gas station—anything with people she could ask.
As she drove, night fell. Aside from her own engine, the road was dead silent. To avoid dying of boredom, Bella turned on the radio.
Shhhhh… shhhhh… Major League Baseball… announces… announces…
Bella slapped the radio twice.
The more she slapped, the worse the static got. Then came a series of loud bang bang bang pops.
Before she could figure out what was happening, the pickup stalled.
She looked out—white smoke was rising from under the hood.
Unbelievable! This truck really couldn't handle compliments. That little puppy Jacob had sworn up and down that nothing would go wrong with it!
Bella got out, flipped the hood open Megan-Fox-style, pretended to inspect it, then picked up a stick from the roadside and tapped around.
Perfect.
She couldn't understand a single thing.
She wanted to call Jacob, but when she pulled out her phone, she realized there wasn't a single bar of signal around. The radio static grew louder and messier.
Bella appeared calm on the outside, but she was already on alert, enhancing her eyesight with psychic power and scanning both sides of the road.
It didn't take long for her to spot a blurry white figure near the pickup on the right side of the road. The moment it sensed her gaze, the figure gradually became clearer.
It was a woman in a tattered white dress.
Her face was hidden behind messy brown hair, and standing in the shadows made it impossible to see her features. But the bloodstains and scratches on her neck and hands were visible—like she'd suffered through something unspeakable.
Bella withdrew her psychic sight—the woman vanished instantly. She reactivated it—the woman reappeared.
Great.
A ghost.
This world was terrifying.
She instinctively felt fear, but her heart didn't feel threatened at all. Compared to Death, this ghost's menace was laughably small.
Even if she died suddenly right now, her own soul under psychic enhancement would be ten times stronger than this ghost's.
Still—better safe than sorry. She activated her mental shield.
"Hi, pretty lady. Do you need something?" Bella asked cautiously.
Middle of the night.
White dress.
Standing on the roadside.
Of course she was a ghost—an extremely resentful one, too.
But ghosts also followed rules when killing. They couldn't just kill whoever—they had their own conditions.
This ghost specifically seduced every male driver who passed by. Then she killed them.
If you fit the requirement, she was strong.
If you didn't… that was a different story.
Through her messy hair, a pair of lifeless eyes stared at Bella. The ghost seemed confused. Her chin tilted ever so slightly outward.
The meaning was obvious:
I only take male drivers. What are you doing stopping here? What could I possibly do with you? Don't ruin my business—hurry up and leave!
Bella was an awakened psychic by now. She couldn't read normal human thoughts, but she could sense the general intent of spiritual entities. So she caught a good chunk of the ghost's thoughts.
She was speechless.
"You think I want to stop here? My truck broke down! Can't you tell?"
The truck had conveniently broken down less than a meter from the ghost. Too convenient. Bella refused to believe Death wasn't behind this.
But this situation also showed Death's limitations. Most likely… Death couldn't tell gender?
Death knew the ghost was dangerous, and intentionally set things up so Bella's car would fail right next to her—hoping to borrow the ghost's hand to kill Bella.
But Death didn't know the ghost's specific ability, or gender. Maybe it didn't even know Bella's gender.
The ghost wasn't interested in Bella, but Bella's truck just happened to break down right in front of her. The initial fault was caused by Death's manipulation, then further influenced by the ghost's electronic-interference field.
Together, they trapped Bella.
Bella's gender had completely bugged the ghost.
And the ghost's signal-jamming made the truck immobile.
Both sides were stuck.
Abandon the truck? Bella felt guilty—it was Jacob's heartfelt gift. She couldn't just throw away a friend's present in the middle of nowhere.
But the truck really wasn't moving.
Push it? She had the strength—but pushing a pickup was absolutely not on the menu.
It was already embarrassing enough for a gorgeous girl to drive a pickup.
Pushing one around at midnight?
Was she insane?
"You're doing this on purpose! Hmph!" Bella snapped at the ghost, then rummaged under the seat and pulled out a repair guide Jacob had specially made for her.
Even though he was confident in his modifications, Jacob liked to be prepared. So he wrote a thin manual listing the major reasons the truck might break down, along with detailed troubleshooting steps.
Diagrams.
Clear instructions.
Numbered steps.
A third grader could probably fix the truck with it.
The rural night was quiet.
Bella frowned deeply as she read the manual.
The ghost woman stood like a crashed program staring into the distance.
The scene was… incredibly eerie.