The corpses were moving surprisingly fast for the condition their bodies were in, but Katie was faster. One by one, she caught onto the retreating corpses and tore them apart, rescuing their bodies and souls alike from an eternity of servitude.

As she grabbed onto a corpse from the behind and slit her Knife across its neck, the girl couldn’t help but let out a satisfied smile. Wow...she was such a compassionate person! Coming in here and putting all of these victims out of their misery...she was such a hero! Someone should give her a medal or something! Maybe even write a book about her grand deeds!

One by one, the corpses fell until there was only one of them left. Katie didn't bother hunting him down. All she did was follow the corpse as it moved as quickly as its fleshless limbs could carry it.

The two made their way across bloodstained walls of the first floor. They came across countless silent auditoriums that once held the walking dead that Katie just massacred. Finally, Katie followed the corpse up a set of old stairs. With the flashlight of her phone, she could see dried blood on the staircase and along the bars on the side.

Yep. Nothing unusual here.

Finally, the corpse made its way onto the second floor. Katie followed tightly behind. She watched as the corpse ran across the seemingly empty floor, its rotting feet sliding across the ground as it moved.

Finally, as it reached the middle of the floor, the corpse came to a stop. Under Katie’s flashlight, she could see the head of the body turning to face her. A mocking smile climbed onto what was left of his face. The empty eye sockets stared at her provokingly.

Just as Katie was about to walk up to the body and end its miserable existence, she suddenly heard some noise from the left. Oh...and from the right too. In fact, she could hear these sounds coming from all around her. It was the sound of bodies clashing against each other. She and the corpse weren’t alone on this floor.

As she scanned her flashlight across the dark corners of the floor and landed on countless more corpses, that became even more clear.

Katie couldn’t tell how many corpses were lurking on the second floor of the cinema. All she knew was that there were these things anywhere her flashlight reached. How many of them were there? Hundreds? Thousands? Considering how long the cinema had existed, its victims were in the thousands at least.

The dozens of corpses that lured Katie onto this floor were just a tiny group of the victims.

Of course, it was impossible to fit thousands of bodies on the second floor, but Katie suspected there were at least hundreds of them here.

“It’s an ambush, just as I suspected. By the way, our retreat has been cut off. There were these walkers in the halls that we ran past and didn't have the time to check. That’s...relieving.” Gadreel’s voice came from behind as the Angel walked up the stairs as well. The light radiating from his eyes allowed Katie to see the surroundings even more clear than before, and she was glad.

“Relieving?” Katie asked, gripping tightly onto her Knife and scanning the ambushers, wondering which direction she should charge head-on into first.

“Well, I knew something was up. The fact that the owner’s best strategy is to try to overwhelm us by force means that he doesn’t have any other secret weapon up his sleeves. It seems like I have overestimated this cinema.” Gadreel turned to Katie. “Go on...you know you want to.”

Katie returned a small smile before turning and charging right at the corpse that led her up here. He laughed at her, so it was only fair for her to rip his head off, right?

Several corpses placed themselves in Katie’s path, only to be slammed into pieces upon contact. These corpses were hardly the most durable beings out there. They were similar to the living corpses Katie burned alive in Mr. Isaac’s house a long time ago. Aside from being visually intimidating and difficult to kill, they were actually quite weak.

Even the Chaos Descendants the Dark Pantheon agents summoned en masse were more powerful than these corpses.

Still, it was only a matter of moments before Katie’s form disappeared in the sea of flesh and bones, overwhelmed by the sheer number of the undead.

Gadreel sighed as countless walking corpses approached him from all sides. Unlike Katie, the Angel had no intention of going into hand-to-hand combat with these atrocious creatures. Instead, the man waved his hand, and four flashes pierced the darkness.

Before they knew it, four corpses felt something piercing their body. Of course, that pain was hardly the issue. They were missing entire limbs, so what could a single crack do to them? The issue for them was the powerful celestial energy that suddenly appeared inside their bodies, expanding outward and tearing them to pieces.

The corpses kept on charging toward Gadreel, but every step forward was followed by the sound of several of the corpses exploding where they stood. The four needles that Gadreel used as weapons dashed across the second floor, piercing and imploding the corpses closest to the Angel.

The corpses were like a tidal wave, but this particular wave just couldn’t even get close to Gadreel.

On the other side, Katie was having the time of her life. To be fair, this wasn’t nearly as fun as the time she spent holding the door against that Chaos Portal, nor was it as fascinating as the fight against the Seven Tribes. However, there was a certain satisfaction in carving through and massacring defenseless monsters like they were made of paper.

Something grabbed onto Katie’s hand. Katie turned around and found herself looking at a rather pretty face. It was a girl around 10 years old. In the sea of half-rotten or fully-rotten bodies, she stood out a lot, but the countless lines across her skin suggested she was far from alive.

As a matter of fact, this particular body was dissected alive inside a sickening horror movie. When it was all over, the girl’s soul was returned to her body, which was stitched together once again.

“Please...save me!” She begged, her soft and small hands still holding onto Katie’s left hand. The way she looked at Katie resembled how princesses in distress looked at knights. It was the look of pleading.

As Katie looked at the girl, another corpse pulled on Katie’s right hand and started biting and tearing on her fingers. Katie didn't mind that. As her index finger started parting away with her hand, Katie spoke at the stitch girl.

“Save you? How? Is there some monster in particular I need to defeat?”

“You can save me…” The girl’s eyes suddenly turned red as her voice pitched high. “by sharing my pain! By becoming just like me!”

As soon as she said those words, Katie felt excruciating pain all across her body. Slowly, her body started to fall apart piece by piece. The fingers on her hands simply started falling off. A piece of flesh slid off her thigh. Another off her torso. Two more departed from her belly. A fracture was formed at her neck as if someone took a knife and cut the piece out just then.

Within moments, Katie somehow became even more bloody than before.

On the third floor, as he watched the ambush from a monitor, the Owner found his lips curling up in satisfaction. If the Angel and this girl thought all he could do was deploy a corpse wave and try to overwhelm them, they would be painfully mistaken. Yes...the corpse wave was part of the plan, but that wasn’t it.

This was a cinema, and its customers were all sorts of supernatural beings within Los Angeles. At the same time, watching movies required tickets, and tickets had to be bought.

Clearly, these tickets were not bought with dollars or gold. No...they were bought with supernatural gadgets and weapons. In some cases, they were paid for with portions of powers from the customers.

That stitched girl was crafted by the essence of a powerful wraith who, in life, was kidnapped by a psychopath as a young girl. That psychopath was a skilled doctor. He kept her alive and awake for days as he slowly dissected her piece by piece. She died slowly and gruesomely, and that suffering and hatred made her a powerful being in the city. Of course, the psychopath that murdered her...he paid for his crimes with ten times the agony.

Talk about karma.

In exchange for a portion of the power of this wraith, Crypt Entertainment specifically directed a movie about that wraith and was able to please the beast. The stitched girl was one of the victims that played the girl that would become the wraith in the horror movie. She was also the only one who managed to succeed that portion of power from the original wraith.

There were dozens of beings of special powers within Crypt Entertainment. The Owner scattered these assassins across the sea of weaker walking corpses in an effort to catch the pair by surprise by capitalizing on their overconfidence.

Gadreel was no fool, and neither was he. In this world, no one survived by being stupid.

On the second floor, Katie let out a growl. At first, the stitched girl didn't think much of it. Katie’s body was literally falling apart bit by bit. Growling in agony was anything but weird. But slowly, as she examined Katie’s expression, the girl realized that Katie wasn’t exactly in pain...well, she was in pain, but...there was something else. Something like satisfaction? Something like lust?

Before the girl could do anything else, Katie grabbed onto her and yanked her in.

“So, Ms. snitch...keep that going please.”

Wait...snitch? It took the stitch girl a while before she realized what Katie meant. She had stitches over her body. Snitches get stitches. This realization brought fury into the girl’s eyes. Really? She was put through so much torture, and this young woman was still laughing at her? What was her? Sadistic?

The girl reinforced her power on Katie. This time, entire limbs started falling off. Slowly, Katie watched as her hands fell on the ground, creating quite a splash in the puddle of dark blood. She wanted to say something, but talking became a little difficult when she was missing a jaw.

The stitch girl, now free of Katie's grip due to obvious reasons, let out a sadistic grin. She was also a victim of Crypt Entertainment, but she didn't show any sympathy toward Katie. In fact, she wanted Katie to scream. She wanted this girl to get on her knees and beg for mercy...or beg for death. She was fine either way. Why? Simple. Even as she died, the young girl was still enslaved by Crypt Entertainment. Every second in death, she was put through the same tortures she was put through in life. Even now, she could feel a serrated blade cutting through her skin. Her body was shivering in pain, but the hand holding onto the blade was steady.

She wanted to scream, but there was really no need for that. Screams would bring her no mercy, so why bother?

The only thing that could make her feel just a tad better was when someone else shared her pain. It was only a brief solution, but a brief moment of relief was better than none.

And then Katie’s voice dragged her out of her thoughts.

“Ok…tell me, my friend...what is wrong with this picture?”

The girl turned to Katie, who was holding her hands out to her in inquiry. Wait...hands? How? Not only did she just sever her hands, but she was using a part of her essence to do that! This essence should be enough to halt whatever rapid regeneration power this girl had! How did she grow back so quickly?

“You don’t know? Well, let me answer that for you.” Katie continued before suddenly reaching out and grabbing onto the girl by the neck. Corpses attacked her from all sides, achieving a grand total of nothing. “I’m not crippled, so...chop chop. I still have to kill your boss soon, so…do whatever you can now.”

The girl’s eyes widened as she was held into the air. Blood flowed out of the lines across her body. Intimidating? Sure. Threatening? Maybe. Enough to scare off Katie? Not even close.

The essence of the stitch wraith burned as the girl started carving Katie’s body open again and again, but this time, the girl wasn’t as confident as she was moments ago. In fact, no one could be confident in her shoes if they saw Katie letting out giggles as if she was being tickled and not dissected.

Just like many monsters who fought Katie before, this girl felt terrified.

Also feeling terrified was the Owner behind the monitor on the third floor. The stitch girl was one of his most prized possessions and weapons. She could kill many supernatural beings with ease, and he really didn't want to lose her here!

“Damn it!” He swore before giving a psychic order. Countless corpses were sent into a frenzy as they crowded toward Katie. Not to kill her, but to distract her. A few other wraiths and monsters ceased their lurking as well and pounced on Katie.

Claws tore through Katie’s skin and flesh. Corrosive acid melted through her skull. Nails and teeth fought against the armor of brown branches over Katie’s body. But throughout all of that, all Katie did was sit back and enjoy herself.

Finally, as the stitch girl’s power was exhausted, Katie’s eyes snapped open once again, and she couldn’t help but sigh.

“Well, thanks for that session, my friend.” She commented quietly with half her skull exposed. That was due to some sort of cobra-like monster who just rained her with venom moments ago. Fun. “Either way, I’m afraid I have other things to attend to, and since you’re obviously not enjoying this as much as I am…”

She reached out once again, going past several corpses and grabbing onto the girl. On the third floor, the Owner’s eyes widened as he let out a furious growl, but it was too late. Without a moment of hesitation, Katie brought her Knife down and killed the stitch girl once and for all.

A hero indeed.