"James, we need to calm down," Victoria tried to persuade him. "Laurent is dead. What kind of power can kill a vampire that easily? This ability is... too strange."
Laurent's death had been disturbingly easy. It left her with a very real, visceral fear.
So what if our bodies regenerate quickly?
Some peculiar force had suppressed that regeneration—and now Laurent was a cold corpse, showing not even the slightest sign of revival.
James grabbed Victoria by the throat.
"You want to give up? Can't you tell that guy's attacks are getting weaker?"
He's getting weaker—do you think that somehow makes us stronger?
Victoria looked at Laurent's corpse in silence. It was her answer.
"I admit, his power is strong. But he only has a few tricks. As long as we figure out the pattern, he's not that hard to deal with. Earlier, he was bound to that woman. Now the connection has shifted to us. Don't you get what that means...?"
James lowered his voice.
"I feel like... if we could master this ability, the power we could unleash would be unimaginable. Use your head! If we crack the secret behind it, the vampire elders will have no choice but to kneel and kiss our feet!"
With a mix of threats and coaxing, the two vampires grudgingly reached an agreement:
They would continue fighting this bizarre entity—and kill that sharp-tongued woman while they were at it.
Crushing Laurent had satisfied a simmering anger in Death.
His existence no longer fit within human understanding. He had lived, died, and now returned—but in a very different state.
To the world, he was something new again, like a newborn child—only this "child" wielded terrifying power.
The battles with the vampires, and his failure with the woman in white, taught him that ordinary people and extraordinary beings were not the same.
He absorbed those lessons. He gathered energy. He prepared for a new round of attacks when the time came.
At this moment, Bella had parked her truck on the roadside, staring curiously at the nearly totaled yet stubbornly advancing ghost truck.
Its tires were gone. The engine and driveshaft either missing or snapped. The whole thing looked like scrap metal—and yet, with the vengeful spirit inside powering it, it crawled slowly toward her.
At that speed... who was it going to kill?
"Serves you right for being racist," Bella muttered as she picked up a rock and hurled it.
Thud! The left door dented again.
This truck was done for. And its ghost was nearly toast too.
Bella came to that conclusion instantly.
If she had been an ordinary human, she would've done what every horror-movie side character did—scream bloody murder and run for her life.
But she was very obviously not that type.
Instead, she approached the ghost truck excitedly. The closer she got, the angrier the truck seemed. It roared, it shrieked, it wanted to ram down every living thing in sight.
"You still trying to act tough with me?"
Bella grabbed the mangled door and ripped it clean off.
The truck was still technically "moving," but so slowly that Bella stepped into the cabin with ease.
Inside, she immediately noticed a white, fog-like entity trying to condense into shape. Through the mist came faint echoes—screams of innocent victims crushed beneath this truck.
"Haha! Good thing I came to check!"
One glance told her everything.
This fog was the truck driver's soul—previously too damaged to reform. Now he was trying to absorb the accumulated negative emotions inside the vehicle to regenerate.
If he succeeded, he would absolutely chase her again.
"Your luck is truly terrible."
Bella used her only spell—her psychic shield—as a weapon and smashed it into the passenger seat.
The foggy spirit was sandwiched like a panini, squeezed brutally between two layers of psychic force.
It lasted less than two seconds. The mass of negative emotions exploded from the inside out—and the driver's soul teetered on the brink of collapse.
Bella raised her hand, ready to finish him—when a white silhouette suddenly appeared at the door.
A breathtaking figure. Hair covering her face. White dress. Bare feet.
"Take me home."
Bella couldn't help it—her emotions overflowed. It was like seeing a long-lost relative.
"Holy—Sis, you're alive?!"
To Bella, anyone who sincerely praised her beauty was automatically a good person. Family.
"Take me home."
The woman in white pointed at Bella's pickup. Same words. Very different meaning this time.
Bella focused, reading the information through her psychic sense. After a long moment, she frowned and asked tentatively:
"So... you're saying... you and my truck have merged into one?"
The answer was unexpected but also made perfect sense.
The pickup had been used by a Native American tribe for nearly thirty years—it carried their spiritual imprint. Then Bella drove it while repeatedly escaping Death. In a way, the truck had gained a bit of immortality.
When the woman in white was "beauty-killed," her last fragment of soul had accidentally fused with the pickup. She escaped her fate of seducing male drivers—and the truck became something entirely new.
The ghost woman nodded, then pointed at the ruined ghost truck:
"Take me home."
Bella scratched her head. "You want the parts from that truck to upgrade the pickup you're in now?"
"Take me home."
"But the pickup is my car! ...What? It's mine during the day and yours at night? What is this, a shift schedule? What are we, taxi drivers now...? It feels weird."
"Take me home."
"...Fine, how about this? We'll agree on two conditions:"
"First, you don't kill people at random."
"Second, you praise my beauty once every seven days."
"Do that, and I'll agree. Deal?"
After a round of negotiations, Bella and the woman in white finally struck a deal.