Player World—Late Night. Cycle 12.
[PANEL]
Player: Player 0067—Ethan Vale
World: World αK49
Player Rank: Tier 3
Divine Spark: Fully fused (Fusion 20%)
Divine Spark Fusion: 200 / 1000
Mental Power: 22 / 22
Godly Power: Stage One
– Sense plots, malice, and latent threats aimed at you (same world only)
– Disrupt thoughts; dispel or block intent directed at you
– Lower level + weaker intent = easier to interfere
Ethan stared at the last line for a long time.
He’d barely gotten used to the Divine Spark, and now the System had already slapped a new label onto him: Godly Power.
Stage One.
A radar for schemes.
And—if he wanted—a hand on the steering wheel inside someone else’s head.
He tried to test it first.
Xueyu was right there in the living room, perched comfortably by the TV, humming as she flipped channels.
Ethan threw a few intentionally annoying comments her way, hoping to stir up even a hint of hostility.
Nothing.
Not a ripple.
She didn’t even roll her eyes.
“…You’re impossible,” Ethan muttered.
Xueyu only smiled, sweet as ever.
Ethan let it go—and that was when the new power finally showed its teeth.
His awareness snapped sideways, as if someone had ripped open a hidden window in his mind.
A conference room.
Cold lighting. Clean tables. Faces he recognized.
Hazel Wynn sat there with the Minister and a cluster of institute staff.
And on the far side of the table…
A forensic sketch artist.
Across from him sat a man Ethan recognized immediately—Quinn Hayes, the Tier‑3 official player he’d run into inside the Violet Eye instance.
In that instance, the man had used an English nickname.
Perry.
Right now, though, his real name was being used like a tool.
Ethan didn’t hear every word—Godly Power wasn’t a microphone, just a sense for intent—but he didn’t need the details.
A sketch pad. Charcoal. A room full of people trying to pin down Rhine’s face.
So that was their move.
If they got his portrait, it wouldn’t matter how carefully he kept his civilian identity buried. The moment “Rhine” had a recognizable face, every faction on αK49 would start hunting in the same direction.
Ethan let out a slow breath.
“The Minister really is a fox,” he murmured.
But he was a player too.
And he’d just gained something that didn’t belong in a human world.
He reached out with his Mental Power.
Not like telekinesis this time—more like pressing his palm against a glass wall, feeling for cracks.
He touched the thinnest, weakest threads of intent in the room: the sketch artist’s focus, Quinn’s effort to remember, the collective will to drag Rhine into the light.
He pushed.
Not hard.
Just… enough.
In the conference room, the sketch artist lowered his charcoal—
And froze.
His wrist trembled as if the paper had turned poisonous.
“What’s wrong?” someone asked.
“I… I can’t,” the artist said, voice tight. “It’s like… my head keeps sliding away.”
Quinn Hayes frowned, trying to picture the face he’d seen in Violet Eye.
“Rhine…” he started.
The name hit a wall inside his mind.
He blinked, confused, then tried again.
Nothing.
The sketch artist swallowed and glanced around, embarrassed. “Can you describe him? Height? Build? Anything at all?”
Quinn’s expression turned blank.
Seconds passed. The page stayed empty.
Quinn rubbed his temple, forcing the memory.
But the harder he tried, the more the shape of it dissolved.
Finally he looked up, unsettled. “I don’t remember.”
A wave of unease rolled through the room.
Ethan pulled his awareness back, letting the connection snap shut.
He sat alone in his apartment, the air suddenly too still.
His eyes felt heavy, like he’d stayed awake for two days straight.
Mental Power drained fast when he leaned on Godly Power.
So it wasn’t free.
Still…
He’d stopped them.
And they wouldn’t even know how.
A soft knock came at his door, followed by the scrape of something sliding through the mail slot.
Ethan opened it and found a folded sheet of paper.
The writing wasn’t in any modern language.
Jagged strokes. Dense, angular symbols.
Endless Sea script.
He unfolded it.
It was only one line.
[CHAT]
Hazel Wynn: Quinn Hayes is an official Tier‑3. HQ brought in a sketch artist to draw your face—he’s already in Cloud City.
Ethan read it twice.
Despite himself, he let out a quiet laugh.
“Too late,” he murmured. “But… thanks.”
Hazel had tried to warn him anyway.
Maybe it was guilt.
Maybe it was conscience.
Or maybe she simply didn’t want to be the person who lit the fuse on a disaster she couldn’t control.
Ethan leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
The Cloud City Research Institute was powerful, but it wasn’t holy.
He’d seen that kind of place before—in another life, another world.
A research institute in the middle of an apocalypse.
A “greater good” machine that always needed sacrifices.
He was immune to the zombie virus. They weren’t.
And the stowaway called X—whatever it truly was—might’ve been the key to curing the wasteland.
But X was dead now.
Dead because of infighting.
Dead because people got greedy.
Ethan didn’t judge.
He just understood, with a chill clarity, that humans didn’t need monsters to ruin the world.
They were fully capable on their own.
…
That same night, deep under Cloud City, Hazel Wynn sat in the institute’s underground meeting room.
Rhine’s letter—written in Endless Sea script—lay open in her hands.
He wasn’t just warning them.
He was cooperating.
He’d told her what he’d uncovered, what he suspected, what kind of danger Tier‑3 players could become if they went unchecked.
He’d even included what he’d learned about X.
Information the institute cared about far more than they were willing to admit.
Hazel’s fingers tightened on the paper.
She’d been hesitating all evening about whether she should warn Player 0067 about the sketch artist.
Officially, she wasn’t supposed to.
If Rhine vanished, the institute would lose their best chance at controlling the situation.
And if her superiors found out she’d tipped him off…
They’d bury her.
But Rhine’s letter made the imbalance feel unbearable.
He was handing them pieces of the truth.
And they were answering by drawing a target on his head.
Hazel stared at the single line she’d already written in Endless Sea script—the warning.
Once she sent it, she couldn’t take it back.
She hesitated.
With a sharp breath, she sent it anyway.
“Even if it changes nothing…” she whispered. “At least I won’t be the one who stayed silent.”
Not long after, Hazel stood at the conference room entrance, watching the people called in for the late‑night session file inside.
The sketch artist arrived with his board.
Quinn Hayes followed, looking half‑awake and mildly annoyed.
Team Lead Gao’s eyes swept the room. “Let’s do this quickly.”
The sketch artist stepped forward and handed Quinn the board and charcoal.
“Draw him,” the artist said. “Even rough is fine. We can refine from there.”
Quinn took the charcoal.
He looked down at the blank surface.
And froze.
A second passed.
Two.
His brow furrowed, confusion deepening into something closer to fear.
“Rhine…?” he murmured, like testing a word he’d never heard before.
The sketch artist frowned. “Yes. Rhine. The player you met. Focus.”
Quinn swallowed. “I… I can’t.”
Team Lead Gao’s voice sharpened. “Quinn Hayes—are you messing with us?”
Quinn shook his head hard, panic creeping in. “No. I swear I’m not. I just… I don’t remember. I can’t remember anything about him.”
The sketch artist stared at the blank board as if it had insulted him.
Hazel’s mouth fell open.
“What…?” she whispered.
And for the first time since she’d met Rhine, Hazel Wynn understood something in her bones:
They weren’t trying to contain a person.
They were trying to contain a storm.