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 through fire and smoke, catching an invisible rope, whistling on cue, cheeks sucked in, lips pouting.
Deafening, up-tempo music thumped in his headphones while the firelight cast an eerie, feral glow across his delighted face.
[OK.]
The moment Mu Sicheng's little TV shut off, a new poster appeared at the very end of the system's league registration, showing him with one arm transformed into a monkey's paw, eyes unfocused, wearing a fierce, evil expression. In the background, a train teetered on the verge of explosion—a scene from Exploding Last Train, where Bai Liu had stabbed him to the point of a mental breakdown.
In front of Mu Sicheng's small television stood a man, the butterfly on his shoulder flapping imperceptibly, a light breeze sending his long hair down over his shoulder.
Mu Sicheng, on the screen, announced proudly to Bai Liu, "We've made it. Now we're waiting for the league to be won!"
Armand lowered his eyes, long lashes casting a shadow over his face, and turned away, a faint smile playing at his lips.
—Mu Sicheng, whatever game you want to play this time—
I'll be there for all of it, as I was before.
In our last life, our games ended half and half, but we always ended up in the same place.
It won't be easy for you to win over me.
Third on the Nightmare Rising Stars list, behind Armand, was a player wearing a grotesque, self-painted clown mask. He laughed shrilly, firing indiscriminately at both monsters and players with a half-meter toy flare gun, his mask splattered with minced flesh and blood.
In front of the small television, the audience was stunned into silence.
"Well… that's terrifying. Is he crazy? I thought he was still new. How is he grinding this hard? This is the seventh time I've seen him on the Rising Stars list in the past two days. Doesn't he sleep?"
"...I even saw a Kabbalah guild member come into the game yesterday to recruit him, but he killed them outright..."
"Wasn't the Kabbalah guild rounding him up today, too? Man, he killed them all..."
"What kind of skill is this? One shot, and the reserve team members didn't even stand a chance. He's a newbie… how can the skill damage value be over 10,000?"
Daniel emerged from the boarding house entrance, covered in blood.
The surrounding players recoiled in horror—he was the only survivor of the last game. It wasn't that the game's pass rate was low; it was that he had slaughtered everyone else, almost to a pulp.
But Daniel seemed unconcerned by the fear around him. From the first time he logged out of a game like that, he had fallen in love with the sensation of being submerged in warm blood—a feeling that made him feel alive.
Alive before Bai Liu. Alive before his dreams turned into nightmares.
Daniel crushed and discarded the blood-stained homemade mask, turning to see a man standing before him. Half of the man's face was hidden beneath metallic armor, eyes fixed on Daniel, clearly searching for him.
If this had been a normal game, Daniel would have pulled his gun and shot by now. But this was a game lobby. He walked past as if he hadn't seen the man, though the man subtly grabbed his attention.
"Would you like to join my guild?" the man asked.
"The last person who talked to me like that," Daniel's mouth stretched into a grim line, no smile in his eyes, "ended up a blood stain on my mask."
The man was unmoved. He grunted in disbelief. "If I said I could get Bai Liu to take you on, would you work for me?"
Daniel hesitated, then asked, "What's the name of your guild?"
The man seemed to anticipate Daniel's compromise. "The Sixth Guild, the Deer Hunters."
"I don't work with people who hide behind masks," Daniel snapped, sweeping off his own mask. "Remove yours, and then I'll see if you, a coward hiding your face, are qualified to talk about working with me."
"I thought you might like a masked counterpart," the man said mockingly. "After all, there's no monster more afraid to face the meaning of his existence than you, Daniel."
The man was unoffended by Daniel's words. Slowly, he removed the armor from his hands, his right eye sharp and hawk-like, the left beneath the mask an empty black void that made Daniel's scalp tingle.
"Cen Buming, President of Guild 6."
-----------------
Six days later.
[System Alert: Players Bai Liu and Mu Ke have cleared the game Daughter of the Mire]
[System Alert: Players Bai Liu and Mu Ke have qualified for league registration]
[System Alert: The Wandering Circus team has gathered all five basic players and has officially entered the league selection process. We hope you achieve good results in the league...]
Tang Erda looked around at everyone and nodded. "That's fine. Basic panel values are over eight thousand. Let's get in the game pool."
The closed doors of the game pool slowly opened outward, and the colorful lights of the screens reflected across everyone's faces.
The moment the doors closed, the number one spot on the Nightmare Rising Stars list in the small TV section displayed Daniel's face in a clown mask, grinning broadly. "I'm off to play in the league, everyone. Please support me."
He bowed courteously, raising one hand in a precise show-call salute, then lifted his head slightly to reveal a pair of clean, clear apple-green eyes curving up in a smile.
"Otherwise, I'll take my chances and kill anyone in the audience who doesn't support me."
At the same time, the Deer Hunters Guild issued an announcement: [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 Heretic Processing:
Cen Buming walked past Tang Erda's unused office in his uniform, glancing sideways at the empty room. His eyes flickered across the space before settling on the gun on the desk. He was silent for a moment, then snorted mockingly.
"Is it the hunter's destiny to be forsaken by the prophets?"
"Whether it's generation one or generation two, the result is always to become a monster to be observed—it's… sad enough."
He narrowed his brows, hooked the door shut with his foot, and walked away without looking back.
This office, formerly the domain of the First Squad's leader, the Seer, had since become Tang Erda's. On the desk lay a top-secret dossier detectable only by the Seer, alongside the see-through monocle used to access it.
Apparently, Tang Erda had intended to use the monocle to peek into the sealed files before leaving, but ultimately, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
At that moment, a gust of wind flipped the monocle face-up over a particular file folder, the title visible through its convex lens:
—[Heretic No. 0009]
[Heretic Name: Generation Hunter Cen Buming]
[...former deputy captain of the first detachment. With the 0006 world line, it began taking over prophet authority, performing hunter tasks. In the 0317 world line, the spirit was completely downgraded; there was the first riot, revoked from hunter position, outlawed from prophet authority, transferred to second detachment captain, handed to the third detachment captain, second-generation hunter Tang Erda ...]
[...so far, the world line has no intention to harm anyone, shows a tendency to recover, remains on duty under observation ...]
Inside the game pool:
This area was completely different from the small TV section outside. A huge screen was projected on the ground like a massive pool, surrounded by an embankment about half a meter high.
The entire pool area was shrouded in strange, psychedelic, colored light—reminiscent of an underground 1980s dance hall.
The ground screen dazzled with countless game covers rotating rapidly, like a school of carp bobbing in a pond.
Now and then, a player would jump in or out of the screen, creating a fantastical, chaotic scene.
"The lights… they're so bright," Mu Ke rubbed his eyes. "I get dizzy if I stare too long."
"That's for sure," Liu Jiayi said, spreading her hands. "The game pool lights lower mental values slightly, which is also part of the power-up."
Mu Sicheng glanced at her. "Isn't this your first time here, too? Why do you seem so good at it?"
Liu Jiayi paused subtly. "Earlier, Hearts had me use her skill card to become her, so I could train safely and blend in with the pool. Training here is more intense, and I stay inside most of the time."
"No wonder I don't see you on the list outside much," Mu Sicheng said, clapping his hands. "So you've been here all along—I thought you were dead in some game and hadn't shown up for ages."
Liu Jiayi said nothing, choosing to tolerate his foolishness.
Bai Liu stood by the huge floor screen, pondering. "These fast-flowing game posters… they're part of the training, right? Testing dynamic vision and information intake?"
Tang Erda nodded. "Yes. Picking the right games is crucial for newbie teams like ours. Some strong guilds fix certain games for training. We have to avoid those, or we'll run into them immediately…"
Before he could continue, a mass of players suddenly began logging out of the pool.
It wasn't unusual for players to log out, but these crawled out as though fleeing a ghost, cursing and screaming.
"What kind of luck is this? Pick a game at random and step on a mine!""Good thing I ran fast, or I'd have been whipped to death!""Hasn't the Killer Sequence been training in the Snowbound copy lately? Why are they suddenly here in the Ice Age copy today?"
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow at the soaked, crawling players and added to Tang Erda's explanation. "—That's what happens, isn't it?"
As he spoke, a long, bony, snow-white hand gripped the pool edge. A man emerged like a fish, his long upper body rising from the surface.
He wore a simple black top and loose-fitting work trousers with numerous pockets. In his other hand, he held a long black whip trailing on the ground.
He was soaked, water dripping from his hair over his eyes to the tightened legs of his trousers. As the fleeing player had said, he had clearly just emerged from the Ice Field copy—the radiating cold made him untouchable.
With one leg curled around the edge, he leapt out with one hand and stood firmly before Bai Liu.
He gave Bai Liu only a light glance, as he had dozens of other frightened players, and walked past, brushing Bai Liu's shoulder.
At the moment of passing, Bai Liu reached out and clutched his wrist—cold, not a hint of warmth to be felt.