Autophagy

As Song Lei kept tapping his foot on the ground while trying to hide his excitement, the door was opened. Four trainees entered the room, indicating that they had all gathered.

"Why did you guys take so long?" Aston asked.

"Sorry, boss. We got noticed by a patrol and had to take him down silently. Fortunately, he wasn't able to alert anyone," One of the trainees said.

"It's fine as long as you weren't noticed," Aston sighed in relief. "Do we need to go over the plan once more or is everyone ready?"

The tension in the room rose. Excitement was overtaken by it. This was good, as tension would help them focus. Their plan needed absolute caution.

Everyone shook their heads one by one, indicating that they were ready for what was to come. The plan was pretty simple.

"Let's split into groups then," Aston said. Song Lei and he walked in front of the door and stood side by side. Following them, the remaining 24 people split into two. Half of them stood on Song Lei's side as the other half stood on Aston's side.

Then they split into groups of three people. Song Lei and Aston were excluded from these groups. After all, they were commanders that couldn't attach themselves to a single group.

"Group L will clear out the dorms while Group A will clear the remaining parts of the building," Aston explained. These groups were obviously named after their leaders Lewis and Aston.

"Yes, sir," All the trainees whispered in unison. They looked like special forces with how organized they were.

"Great," Aston said. After he made a gesture with his hand, everyone drew their soul daggers from their sheaths. Song Lei opened the door of the library as the trainees left the room one by one. Their destinations were in two separate directions, so Song Lei and Aston's groups would separate from here on.

"Take care," Song Lei whispered to Aston. After that, they both led their respective groups to their destinations. Song Lei would be taking care of the dorms. With the way their plan worked, they couldn't afford worms jumping on them from the buildings nearby. They had to do a thorough cleaning before they clashed with the main forces of the enemy.

As Song Lei was going to take care of the dorms, he wanted to start from the lowest floor. If they were to conquer the lowest floor first, they could better control the building.

The dorms had four floors. The first one was where different kinds of classes were. Other than that, all the other floors were filled with dorm rooms that the trainees lived in.

After reaching the first floor of the dorms, Song Lei turned and looked at his 12 men. They were vigilant and ready for a fight. Song Lei could see their emotions in their eyes. This gave him courage. The courage to finish this off somehow...

Confirming that everyone was ready, Song Lei raised his hand and gestured them to start the assault. Instantly, the twelve trainees started walking in the hallway like ghosts. Their footsteps couldn't be heard unless they were right in front of you.

There were five or six silhouettes patrolling the hallway. These were obviously the guards placed by the soul worms in case something went wrong in the orphanage. In such a situation, they would instantly inform Clark. However, Song Lei and his men wouldn't give them the chance. Like the wind, all of the trainees charged down the hallway like a tide. Even though they were running, they still kept their footsteps as silent as possible.

Along the way, they had their first encounter with one of the infected. One of the trainees swung their dagger. It ripped through the clothes of the infected and slightly scratched his skin. Immediately, the infected fell down on the ground. He opened his mouth as wide as he could as he started puking soul worms out of it. Weirdly, he didn't make any noises while doing so.

Leaving him on the ground, the trainees kept on rushing down the hallway. In less than a minute, they manage to clean up every enemy in the hallway. As soon as the infected were even slightly scratched by the soul daggers, they would instantly crumple on the ground and start puking out every worm that had been infecting their bodies. This was exactly like what Aston had told him.

After cleaning the trainees finished taking the infected down, Song Lei quickly followed them and gathered the unconscious trainees' bodies in a single place. He was planning to observe the trainees until they needed his help and clean up after them.

As Song Lei dealt with the unconscious infected, the twelve trainees split into four groups and started storming through the rooms. They would open the door of any room, charge in like lightning, spot the enemy, and neutralize them very quickly. These trainees weren't just some run-of-the-mill ones. After all, they had strong souls that could resist the soul worms.

With the absolute advantage they had gained over the infected with the help of their soul daggers, small groups were easy for them to deal with. It only took them about ten minutes before they cleaned the whole floor of the infected. Now, there was a pile of human bodies lying in front of Song Lei. He threw the last unconscious infected into the batch and wiped his forehead with his hand.

"Boss, we've finished dealing with all of them," one of the trainees reported to Song Lei.

"Great job. We'll be proceeding shortly after." Song Lei said. "Make sure to keep watch of both of the staircases," He reminded the trainees. Every floor of the dorms had two staircases. One would be on the east side of the hallway while the other would be on the west side. Other than that, there weren't any ways to change floors.

This made things a lot easier for Song Lei and his men. After all, they only had two places that they had to guard.

Song Lei picked two groups of three from his men and deployed them on both of the stairs. Until they finished cleaning up the whole building, these two teams would keep guard on the staircase to make sure that there wasn't a leakage of information. If one of the infected managed to escape their grasp and inform Clark of their deeds, their whole plan would fail instantly.

After deploying six of his men on the first floor as guards, Song Lei was left with six people in his hands to clear the upper floors. Although it would be a little harder to do it with this many people, it was still possible.

Silently climbing the stairs on the east side of the hallway, Song Lei and his men made their way up to the second floor. After reaching the end of the staircase, Song Lei reached his head out into the hallway while gesturing his men to stop. The dark hallway seemed to be completely devoid of any silhouettes, indicating that there weren't patrols on this floor.

This was incredibly suspicious to Song Lei. Considering the number of patrols Clark would deploy inside the dorms, there wasn't any meaning behind a whole floor being completely devoid of them.

Considering all of this, Song Lei decided to not make a move for some time. The hallway was almost totally dark, so it could just be that he wasn't able to locate the patrols. He didn't want to alert the whole building and get into a fight where they were outnumbered.

After waiting for ten minutes, Song Lei smiled widely.

'Just as I thought...' Song Lei thought. A few silhouettes appeared in the hallway as they moved around for a little bit before disappearing again. These infected were actually able to completely remove their presence from the hallway.

Because of the layout of the windows on this hallway, the ground of the floor would always be completely dark during the nights. Although the moon would illuminate the hallway a little bit, the light wouldn't reach the ground because of the peculiar angles those windows were placed at. These infected were utilizing this fact and hiding their presence in these shadows perfectly. So much so that even Song Lei wasn't able to detect them

Fortunately, he had acted carefully enough. Turning to his men, he gestured them to come closer to his side. All of the trainees rushed to his side.

"The infected are laying on the ground and waiting for an ambush," Song Lei started explaining the situation to his men by whispering. "You have to be as silent as you were on the lower floor and keep in mind that your enemies are hiding in shadows. Utilize all of your senses and make sure that you are not limiting yourself to your eyes."

After giving out his warnings, Song Lei turned to look at the hallway once more. He gulped loudly and raised his hand.

"Let's go..."