Three days later.
[System Alert: Player Mu Sicheng has cleared the game "Urban Strange Tales."]
[System Alert: Player Mu Sicheng has qualified for the league.]
Mu Sicheng glided effortlessly through the fire and smoke, seizing an invisible rope mid-air. He whistled on cue, his lips curling into a smirk.
Deafening, high-tempo music blasted in his headphones, and the flickering firelight cast an eerie glow on his exhilarated expression.
[OK.]
The moment Mu Sicheng's small TV flickered off, a new poster appeared at the tail end of the system's league registration. It depicted Mu Sicheng, one arm twisted into a monkey's paw, his eyes unfocused, an ominous grin on his face. Behind him, a train teetered on the brink of explosion—a frozen moment from that game, the exact scene where Bai Liu had driven him to the edge of a mental breakdown.
A man stood before Mu Sicheng's television, his gaze fixed on the screen. The butterfly on his shoulder fluttered its wings almost imperceptibly, and the breeze swept his long hair over his shoulder.
On the small TV, Mu Sicheng announced proudly to Bai Liu, "We made it. Now, we wait to win the league."
Armand lowered his gaze, his long lashes casting deep shadows over his face. A faint smile ghosted his lips as he turned away.
"Mu Sicheng, whatever game you're playing this time—"
"I'll be there for all of it, just like before."
"In our last life, we played half and half. We ended up in the same place."
"If you think beating me will be easy—"
"Think again."
The third-ranked player on the Nightmare Nova list, just behind Armand, was a figure in a crude, self-painted clown mask. Laughing shrilly, he fired indiscriminately at both monsters and players with a half-meter toy flare gun. Blood and minced flesh splattered across his mask.
In front of his small television, the audience was frozen in stunned silence.
"Holy shit. Is this guy crazy? He's still a rookie, right? How is he grinding so aggressively? This is the seventh time I've seen him on the Rising Stars list in the past two days—does he not sleep?"
"...I even saw someone from the Kabbalah Guild try to recruit him yesterday, but he killed them outright..."
"Weren't they hunting him today? He wiped them out instead..."
"What kind of skill is that? One shot and the Kabbalah Guild's reserve team couldn't even fight back. He's a newbie—how the hell does he have an attack damage value over 10,000?!"
Daniel emerged from the entrance of the boarding house, drenched in blood.
The players around him recoiled instinctively, making way for him in horror. He was the only survivor from the game.
It wasn't that the game had a low survival rate. It was that he had killed everyone else. Nearly beaten them to a pulp.
But Daniel remained unfazed by their fear.
From the first time he logged out of a game like this, he had fallen in love with the feeling—warm blood soaking his skin, wrapping around him. It made him feel alive.
Alive—before he met Bai Liu.
Before his dreams became nightmares.
Daniel crushed the bloodstained homemade mask in his hand and tossed it aside. As he turned, he found himself face-to-face with a man.
Half of the man's face was obscured by metallic armor, but his exposed eye was sharp, unwavering—watching him. Clearly, he had been looking for Daniel.
If this were a game, Daniel would have already pulled the trigger. But this was the game lobby. Instead, he started walking past the man, feigning indifference.
The man caught his arm with practiced ease.
"Want to join my guild?" he asked.
Daniel's lips twisted into an exaggerated grin, but his eyes remained cold. "The last guy who asked me that ended up as a bloodstain on my mask."
The man didn't flinch. He scoffed. "If I told you I could get Bai Liu to take you on, would you be interested?"
Daniel studied him for a long moment before finally asking, "What's the name of your guild?"
The man, as if expecting Daniel's eventual compromise, answered, "The Sixth Guild. The Deer Hunters."
Daniel scoffed. "I don't work with cowards who hide their faces." He gestured to the man's armor. "Take off the mask. Then I'll decide if you're worth my time."
The man remained unfazed, his voice turning sharp. "I thought you might prefer your masked counterpart. After all, there's no monster more afraid to face its own existence than you, Daniel."
He didn't wait for Daniel's reaction. Instead, he reached up and slowly removed the metallic covering.
A dusky hawk-like eye locked onto Daniel. The left side of his face, once hidden, was a black void—a hollow, gaping darkness that sent a chill down the spine.
"Cen Buming. President of Guild 6."
Six days later.
[System Alert: Player Bai Liu and Player Muke have cleared the game "Daughter of the Mire."]
[System Alert: Player Bai Liu and Player Muke have qualified for league registration.]
[System Alert: The Wandering Circus team has gathered all five core players and has officially entered the league selection process. We wish you success in the league...]
Tang Erda scanned the team and nodded. "Looks good. Basic panel values are over 8,000. Let's get in the game pool."
The doors to the game pool slowly swung open. The dazzling colors of the screens reflected on their faces.
As the doors shut behind them, the number one player on the Nightmare Rising Stars list flashed onto a small TV—Daniel, wearing a wide clown grin.
"I'm off to play in the league, everyone. Please support me."
He bowed politely, lifting one hand in a perfect stage gesture. Then he looked up, revealing clear, apple-green eyes that crinkled with amusement.
"Otherwise—" he added with a laugh, "—I'll just have to kill any audience that doesn't."
At the same time, an announcement from the Deer Hunters' Guild flashed across the system—
[The player at the top of this Rising Stars list is one of our official guild members this year.]
In the real world, at the headquarters of the Bureau of Heresy Processing.
Cen Buming strode past Tang Erda's abandoned office, his uniform pristine. He slowed, glancing inside. His gaze lingered on the empty desk, then on the gun resting on its surface.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he snorted.
"So, is it a hunter's fate to be forsaken by the prophets?"
"No matter if it's the first generation or the second, the end result is the same—you become a monster for others to observe."
"...How pathetic."
He hooked the door shut with his toe and walked away without a backward glance.
On the desk, next to a transparent monocle, lay a classified file.
It seemed that before leaving, Tang Erda had hesitated—he had considered using the monocle to peek inside.
But in the end, he hadn't.
A gust of wind flipped the monocle over, revealing the file's title through its convex lens—
Heresy No. 0009
Heresy Name: First Generation Hunter—Cen Buming.
[... Former deputy captain of the first detachment. Assumed prophet authority following the 0006 world line and carried out hunter tasks. With the complete degradation of the 0317 world line's spirit, the first riot broke out. Hunter status revoked. Prophet authority outlawed. Transferred to second detachment captain, then reassigned to the third detachment captain—the second-generation hunter, Tang Erda...]
[... No current intention to harm others. Signs of recovery. Remains on duty under observation...]
-------
Inside the Game Pool
The atmosphere here was entirely different from the small TV area outside. A massive screen was projected onto the ground, resembling an enormous pool, with a half-metre-high embankment enclosing its edges.
A strange, psychedelic glow bathed the entire area, shifting in shadowy, colored lights—evoking the feel of an underground dance hall from the 1980s.
The screen displayed countless game covers in a dazzling, rapid rotation, swirling like a school of carp bobbing in a pond. Players leapt in and out, adding to the surreal spectacle.
"The lights here... are so bright..." Muke murmured, rubbing his eyes. "I get dizzy just looking at them for too long."
"Obviously," Liu Jiayi shrugged. "The game pool's lighting has a mental value-draining effect—it's also a form of power-up."
Mu Sicheng shot her a glance. "Wait. Isn't this your first time here? How do you know all this?"
Liu Jiayi hesitated, then admitted, "Hearts had me use her skill card to impersonate her so I could train safely inside the game pool. The training here is way more intense, so I spent most of my time inside."
"No wonder I barely see you on the rankings outside." Mu Sicheng clapped his hands in realization. "I thought you'd died in some game and just hadn't shown up for ages."
Liu Jiayi: "..."
She decided to ignore him. This fool never thought before speaking.
Standing beside the massive floor screen, Bai Liu observed the shifting covers. "These fast-moving game posters—they're part of the training, aren't they? A test of dynamic vision and information intake?"
Tang Erda nodded. "Yes. Choosing the right game is crucial for newbie teams like ours. Some of the big guilds monopolize certain games for training. If we're not careful, we might end up running into them too early, and—"
Before he could finish, a wave of players burst out of the game pool all at once.
It wasn't unusual for players to log out, but these ones clawed their way out like they'd seen a ghost—faces pale, gasping in terror, cursing under their breath.
"What kind of rotten luck is this?! Randomly pick a game and step on a landmine!"
"Damn good thing I ran fast—otherwise, I'd have been whipped to death!"
"Wasn't the Assassin Sequence training in the Snowbound copy lately?! Why the hell are they suddenly in the Ice Age copy today?!"
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow at the drenched, trembling players dragging themselves out of the pool, then glanced at Tang Erda. "-That's what happens, isn't it?"
As he spoke, a long, pale, bony hand emerged from the pool's edge, gripping it tightly and pushing down. A man surfaced like a fish breaking the water—his upper body rising slowly into view.
He wore a simple black shirt and loose work trousers with multiple pockets. In his other hand, he gripped a long black whip that trailed across the ground.
Water dripped from his soaked hair, streaming over his eyes and down his legs. The temperature radiating from him was frigid—just as the fleeing player had said, he must have just emerged from an ice-field copy. The sheer cold kept others at a wary distance.
With one leg hooked over the pool's edge, the man vaulted out with a single fluid motion, landing smoothly in front of Bai Liu.
His gaze flicked over Bai Liu with the same indifferent glance he'd given the dozens of terrified players before him. Then, without another look, he strode forward, brushing past Bai Liu's shoulder.
At the moment they passed, Bai Liu abruptly reached out and seized his wrist. It was ice-cold—almost deathly so.