August 16. Cycle 7, Day 1—the Endless Sea.
Sunlight spilled over Blue Emerald Manor on the outskirts of Windrest City, the sky a clean summer blue.
Ethan sat beneath a garden canopy with Baron Warner, listening to the man retell yesterday’s bear hunt for the third time.
To the baron, it had happened “yesterday.”
In the player world, Ethan had lived fifteen full days since then—days packed with Paper Crane, the Paper Doll Servant, and the Sorrow Theater’s script trying to make him carve himself open.
Compared to that, a monster bear felt like a children’s story.
Still, Ethan nodded politely as the baron spoke, letting the older man savor his relief and gratitude.
When the baron finally paused to open his morning mail, Ethan pulled up his own task list.
[PANEL]
Player Progress Mission
Requirement: Among all surviving players, at least one must successfully advance to Tier 3.
Time Limit: 8 Cycles (deadline: one hour before the end of Cycle 12)
Rewards:
— Cancel one instance of world-merging
— Delay the next player batch for 3 months
Hunter Advancement Mission
Objective: Investigate gargoyles and kill the Gargoyle Mother.
Hint: Windrest Keep
Reward: Advance one full Tier on the Hunter path (in addition to your current rank)
Triggered Mission
Objective: Replace Storm Island’s Governor, Panglos Fell, and become Storm Island’s true ruler.
Reward: Fish the Storm Island that belongs to you.
You will obtain a Creator’s Shard… and a piece of the world’s truth.
[/PANEL]
Ethan reread them, then sorted them the way he’d learned to survive.
Mission One was a pressure valve for every player alive. But Ethan was already Tier 2, Grade 3 Hunter. With five cycles left before the deadline, reaching Tier 3 was achievable.
And if the Sorrow Theater really granted a full grade of power per cleared floor…
…Tier 3 wasn’t a goal. It was a schedule.
Mission Two, though, made him frown.
Gargoyles, the Gargoyle Mother… and the clue pointing to Windrest Keep.
From everything Ethan had pieced together, gargoyles were tangled up with the Black Dragon Queen, with the Lostlands, and with whatever ritual Skye’s mother had tried to complete.
If the core knot of this mystery was in the Lostlands, then the Sorrow Theater wasn’t just a hazard anymore.
It was a lever.
And Skye—Black Dragon, inheritor of that bloodline—was the hand on the lever.
He remembered last night on the first-floor stage: Skye hadn’t even moved. Dozens of hostile ghosts had vanished like dust.
With her, “danger” changed definition.
Mission Two could wait until they wanted it.
Mission Three…
Ethan’s mood went complicated.
“Replace Governor Panglos Fell.”
He’d disliked Panglos from the start, sure. But at first it hadn’t been personal.
Ethan had killed Storm Island nobles. Panglos had tried to trace him because of Faranil’s notes. And worse—there was the Soul-Eater in the shadows, the one who’d sent three apprentices to kill Ethan.
Ethan had used the Seer’s Letter Knife on the Soul-Eater’s connection to the governor.
The result had been simple:
They were allied.
Which meant Panglos wasn’t just “the governor.” He was part of the hand reaching for Ethan’s throat.
At this point, Ethan wasn’t interested in keeping score about right and wrong. Everyone had their reasons.
The arrow was nocked.
Now it came down to who had the stronger grip.
Panglos could mobilize an entire island.
Ethan…
Ethan looked across the garden.
Skye paced beneath a curtain of purple wisteria, lost in thought. Ever since she’d woken from the Theater, she’d been vibrating with restless energy.
She’d gained a grade of strength, yes—
—but more than that, she’d found proof of her mother’s work… and of her ancestors’ secret.
Ethan could guess what she was planning.
Now that she knew how to reclaim ancestor power, she’d want more Lostlands.
More power.
Without Ethan needing to say a word, she’d want Panglos Fell.
Not for politics.
For blood.
Clan debt.
Genocide.
Ethan didn’t argue with that.
He just planned around it.
“Ethan—Rhine,” Baron Warner blurted suddenly, almost shouting. “Something’s happened in Windrest City. Look.”
He thrust a letter at Ethan with trembling fingers.
Ethan scanned it—
—and nearly laughed.
The baron’s business partner wrote that an abandoned lighthouse isle in the dock district had changed overnight. The old, crumbling lighthouse was gone.
In its place stood a new tower—ancient in style, lavish in detail—rising like a monument from the dead stone.
People were panicking. Rumors were everywhere. Ghosts. Sea curses. Something crawling up from the depths.
The last line hit harder:
The Violet Eye delegation had arrived… and their people, along with Windrest Keep, were calling the isle a Lostland.
The tower’s name, they said, was the Sorrow Theater.
Ethan folded the letter and handed it back, smiling like it was nothing.
“The Violet Eye wouldn’t let something like that sit unhandled,” he said lightly. “If they’re involved, they’ll contain it.”
Baron Warner exhaled, embarrassed at his own fear. “You’re right. I’m overreacting.”
He wasn’t a supernatural. His only child wasn’t, either.
When weirdness surfaced, he reacted the way a practical man did: he imagined it taking what he loved.
His thoughts drifted to his daughter.
A month ago, she’d been sick—so sick no doctor could help. Money hadn’t mattered. Connections hadn’t mattered.
On July 1, she’d suddenly improved. Within days she was well.
And afterward… she’d changed.
She’d become quieter. Politer. Sharper.
At first, the baron had been delighted.
She’d started talking about becoming a supernatural.
That had been a nightmare.
In his mind, she could have anything—anything except a life that involved claws and curses.
They’d argued for days. Eventually she stopped pushing, like she’d accepted his terms.
Now, with a Lostland tower appearing overnight and the Violet Eye in town, the baron’s worry returned.
He had business that required travel soon. Leaving his daughter alone in Windrest City suddenly felt reckless.
His gaze drifted back to the garden—toward Ethan and Skye, who had moved off to speak privately.
Skye, in her “Grand Seer” disguise, was beautiful.
But his daughter was beautiful too.
And he had money.
And Ethan… Ethan had the King’s own honor mark, good looks, and a level-headed way of moving through danger.
Baron Warner stroked the gold-inlaid laurel leaves carved into his cane and murmured to himself, almost pleased:
“A fine candidate.”
***
By noon, Windrest City’s dock district was packed.
The new tower had drawn the curious and the terrified from across the city—and from nearby towns.
Huang Yanyan stood in the crowd.
In this world, she wore an olive silk dress trimmed with gold-thread laurel leaves—her family crest.
“Miss, we should go,” her housekeeper urged behind her. “It’s too crowded. And your father will be back from hunting soon.”
Yanyan stared at the Sorrow Theater and felt a familiar, bitter despair.
When she’d become a closed-beta player of the Endless Sea, she’d imagined doing something big in a backward world.
Official duties, yes—but also real change. Medicine. Education. Pushing back against noble exploitation.
She’d pictured herself as the kind of protagonist Ethan used to write.
She’d awakened in the game world…
…and realized she’d spawned on the “enemy” side.
Nobility.
Worse: she’d inherited a body with a reputation—spoiled, reckless, empty-headed.
To protect her identity, she couldn’t swing too wildly away from that persona.
For someone who hated injustice by instinct, it was suffocating.
Still… not everything was cruel.
Her new-world father, Baron Warner, reminded her painfully of the father she’d lost back home. And he adored her.
That kind of coincidence was rare in the official player data.
She had been lucky.
Unlucky, though, that Baron Warner banned her from touching anything supernatural “for her own safety.”
So she advanced in secret.
A Tier 2 Lightbearer couldn’t afford to be powerless. Not with official tasks. Not with disasters like the Sorrow Theater.
She needed information—on Lostlands, on the tower, on why it had surfaced now.
And while she gathered intel, she couldn’t help the petty thought sliding out of her mouth:
“So it’s only seven floors,” she muttered, squinting up the tower. “That’s… kind of short.”
Her housekeeper gaped. “Miss?”
Yanyan caught herself and coughed. “Nothing.”
***
Not long after, Ethan and Skye returned from the Blue Emerald Forest and came to the docks themselves.
Skye, in cat form, looked up at the tower with pure, wounded disappointment.
“Only seven floors,” she meowed. “That’s it? If it had seventy-seven, now that would be worth it.”
Ethan couldn’t help laughing.
He’d read the line in an old book once: dragons have greed in their blood.
He’d never really believed it until now.
And if he was being honest…
…he wanted seventy-seven floors too.
“You’re ridiculous,” Ethan said, scooping the cat up out of the crush of onlookers before someone stepped on her tail.
His expression sobered.
The Lostland’s appearance and the Violet Eye delegation’s arrival made him uneasy. So did the fact that multiple factions were already ringed around the tower.
Skye had slipped away earlier—”to divine,” as she called it—sniffing out how each power in the city was reacting to the Theater.
Now, with Weavecasters from the Violet Eye, Earth Ring operatives, Violet Goldflower clergy, and Windrest Keep knights all guarding the Sorrow Theater, Ethan asked the question that mattered.
“What’s the governor’s stance?” he asked quietly. “What’s Panglos Fell doing?”