August 16, Player World—Evening.
Golden sunlight spilled across Ethan’s floorboards as he scrolled the channel and the wider internet, piecing together what everyone else was only half-seeing.
Two things stood out.
First: a lot of players already knew about Windrest City’s “infection” and cure. The story had warped in transit—translation of an old formula had become “Rhine invented a miracle drug.”
Ethan found it absurd, but not dangerous. Nobody could connect Rhine, Player 0067, and Ethan Vale in the Player World into the same person.
What bothered him was the overlap.
Why did the Blood Rite’s rain-curse produce the exact same symptoms as the Sorrow Theater’s contamination?
And why did the same potion work in both worlds?
His mind went to the simplest answer: the Blood Rite and the Sorrow Theater shared a source.
But the Sorrow Theater’s floors—one through seven—had been erased by Skye. Reduced to rubble and splintered nightmare architecture.
He and Skye had watched it like hawks. Aside from the Violet Eye delegation, nobody else had gotten close.
Unless… someone had made a deal with the thing behind it.
Unless the Blood Rite’s “executor” had never needed to step into the theater at all.
Ethan shut that thought down before it could spiral.
The second thing was impossible to ignore: the changes in the world were no longer subtle.
By noon, with no rain falling, people had gone back outside. Someone walking a riverside path saw something thrash under the surface, tossed in a net, and hauled up a fish that looked like it had been grown wrong.
They filmed it. Posted it. And within an hour, the internet was full of more.
Fish with tumor-bulges. Trees with knotted bark. And that forest ranger’s video—branches growing overnight, trunks bending, the woods seeming to shift like a breathing animal.
Two hours after his upload, silence.
People without context called it “spiritual awakening.”
People with context called it “the Blood Rite getting its claws in.”
Ethan’s own phone was a disaster.
His pen name had trended alongside ‘spiritual awakening’ because he’d once written popular web novels in that genre.
Now strangers were tagging him by the hundreds, demanding cultivation advice, emergency guides, ‘how to start practicing’—some even joking he must be a reincarnator or a transmigrator.
Ethan stared at the notifications and thought: They’re not wrong.
He locked the phone and returned to practical matters. If he wanted to fish again tonight, he needed to prep fast.
He reopened the player chat, looking for anything that mattered.
[CHAT]
“Officials aren’t deleting posts anymore. Too widespread.”
“They’re still calling it ‘acid rain corrosion’ and ‘surface mutations.’”
“Nobody believes that.”
“Mountains are getting sealed off. Rivers too. They’re blocking access everywhere.”
[/CHAT]
Ethan’s hands paused over his gear.
River closures made sense. Too much water to guard, but enough checkpoints and barriers could keep civilians away.
It also meant his fishing window was narrowing.
Someone dropped a message that made him swear under his breath.
[CHAT]
“Someone’s going viral teaching people to eat contaminated fish RAW as ‘medicine.’ And he actually did it on camera.”
“Search this username: ‘I Want to Live.’”
[/CHAT]
Ethan looked it up.
A plate filled the frame. On it lay a contaminated fish—lumpy, asymmetrical, still faintly twitching as if ordinary death rules didn’t apply.
Off-camera hands sliced meat from the body. Chewing sounds followed.
The video shifted to a confession-style monologue. The creator claimed to be terminally ill, abandoned, broke, waiting to die—except for an elderly cat at home he refused to leave behind.
He said a classmate had brought him a mutant fish and promised it could cure him. He ate it with his cat.
Now the cat was suddenly lively. And he claimed the pain in his tumors had vanished.
The emotional beats were too perfect. The cat was too convenient. The ‘miracle’ was too clean.
And yet the question wouldn’t leave Ethan alone.
If this was just for fame, it would be deleted. If it was just for money, there were easier scams.
So what was it really for?
His answer arrived a minute later, stamped in the System’s cold font.
[SYSTEM]
Blood Rite Event Manifestation: +20%
Current Manifestation: 30%
[/SYSTEM]
The channel exploded.
[CHAT]
“Twenty percent in one jump?!”
“It’s accelerating.”
“Is it going to rain again? Everyone get inside!”
[/CHAT]
Ethan moved fast—checked the windows, locked them, sealed the cracks as best he could.
His phone rang.
A landline number. Unknown.
He answered, and a police officer told him to report to the local precinct immediately—he was being summoned for ‘online incitement.’
Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, steadying his breath.
The cultivation-video guy had seen Ethan’s pen name trending and decided to hitch a ride on it—accusing Ethan of encouraging people to gather mutated plants and animals.
And of course the timing couldn’t be worse. The System had just announced another surge. Rain was coming.
The precinct was only a ten-minute walk away. Ethan grabbed an umbrella, stuffed a raincoat into his System bag, and hurried out before the first drops fell.
Clouds swallowed the sunset. The air thickened. A moment later, the rain began.
Inside the precinct, it was chaos—people reporting incidents, officers redirecting crowds, phones ringing off the hook.
Ethan gave a statement in a small room, answering every question straight. It was tedious, but he had nothing to hide.
Behind the walls, the sound of rain grew heavier.
He couldn’t stop thinking: What does 30% rain do to a human body?
The door opened abruptly.
An officer came in wearing an awkward smile. He nodded at the one taking Ethan’s statement, then turned to Ethan.
“It’s been cleared up. Misunderstanding. You can go.”
Ethan stepped into the hall—and saw Hazel Wynn standing by the doorway.
She motioned him out first, expression flat.
Ethan obeyed, moved into the lobby, and listened from a distance.
Hazel’s voice—normally careful—was edged with anger.
She was chewing out a colleague for summoning someone in the middle of a storm warning. For ignoring new bureau regulations. For putting civilians at risk.
The officer on the receiving end didn’t argue. There wasn’t a defense.
Ethan understood then why she’d made him leave the room first: she was saving a coworker’s face.
He opened the player chat again while she finished.
A red System announcement flashed across his screen.
[SYSTEM]
Player 0429 completed an Incitement Quest.
Reward: Undying Servant Body
[/SYSTEM]
Ethan went very still.
So that was it.
Those viral videos weren’t random. They weren’t just stupidity or greed.
They were players completing quests—pushing the public to touch, eat, and spread the Blood Rite’s contamination.
And the System was paying them for it.