August 15, Player World—Night.
“Click.”
Ethan killed the porch light. Then he disabled the door camera feed.
One more quiet breath, and he slipped outside—then vanished as he activated his Infiltrator Skill and stepped into the Shadow Realm.
The world drained to warped black-and-white. A cold breeze slid between buildings. Wet asphalt reflected neon like bruised mirrors.
He moved carefully, avoiding standing water. He didn’t want the rain’s residue soaking into his shoes if he could help it.
On the main road, a street-washing truck was blasting lanes with clean water over and over. At intersections, traffic police in sealed protective suits turned pedestrians back with clipped gestures.
Ethan looped wide around one checkpoint. He couldn’t tell at a distance who was “just” a cop and who was an official player.
After several turns, he reached the small park near his neighborhood—an artificial lake cupped in concrete and reeds.
Earlier that day, he’d used Locate Fishing Grounds, and an image had surfaced in his mind: this shoreline, this angle, this patch of water that felt… wrong.
He’d tested the skill once after returning to the Player World and come up with nothing but a freakish two-headed snake—strange, but not supernatural.
Tonight was different.
If the Blood Rite was seeping in through rain, then the world’s “baseline” had changed. Blood-tainted water could warp ordinary fish into something that counted—something the System would recognize.
And if he could fish them up and kill them…
Flintlock’s fusion would advance.
He was Rank 2, Position 9 as a Hunter. One more step and he’d cross into Rank 3.
That would clear his current Cycle task.
Skye’s warning still echoed in him: the thing behind the Sorrow Theater was close to breaking loose.
So no. He wasn’t letting this opportunity slide.
He held the fishing rod in one hand and Flintlock in the other.
Splash. The hook cut the lake, rippling through the reflection of a dim park lamp.
With his Talent’s boost, the float bobbed almost immediately.
Ethan raised Flintlock, aimed at the waterline, and reeled in.
A fat, wrong-shaped fish broke the surface—
And Ethan fired without hesitation.
Boom.
Smoke curled from the barrel. His sound-dampening field swallowed the gunshot before it could carry.
The fish hit the grass and stopped moving.
[SYSTEM]
You killed a contaminated Frenzied Carp.
Flintlock Fusion Progress +0.1%
Rank 3 Flintlock Total Fusion: 90.1%
[/SYSTEM]
Ethan narrowed his eyes, almost smiling.
So it was true.
The Blood Rite brought a curse… and it brought fuel.
The only problem was what happened after the kill.
A corpse didn’t stay a corpse anymore—not cleanly. Not here.
And he wasn’t about to leave a trail of warped fish bodies for some late-night patrol to find.
He opened his System bag and pulled out an Artifact he’d been sitting on for weeks.
A small white cloth pouch: the Demon’s Corpse Bag.
Its stated “benefit” was a drop of inferior demon essence—useless at best, dangerous at worst.
Its cost was that it had to ‘eat’ dead flesh first.
Ethan had always thought the System’s phrasing was the joke. The cost was the real function.
He spread the pouch’s mouth toward the fish corpse.
The bag puffed on its own, floated up, and a ring of dark light flickered once—like an eyelid blinking.
The fish was gone.
The bag sagged, and Ethan caught it as it dropped back into his palm.
No essence formed yet. The fish was too small to “pay out.”
Perfect. He didn’t want the payout anyway.
He cast again. And again.
One contaminated fish gave him 0.1% fusion.
That meant he needed—conservatively—one hundred of them.
Somewhere beyond the trees, an ambulance siren tore through the night.
Red-and-blue lights washed the road in brief flashes.
Ethan didn’t stop fishing—but he opened the channel with his free hand and skimmed.
[CHAT]
“Hospitals are filling up. High fevers, panic attacks, hallucinations.”
“It’s not just animals anymore. People are getting hit.”
“They’re calling it ‘acid rain exposure’ on the news.”
“Everyone keeps saying ‘it’s just a fever’ until the patient starts screaming about things that aren’t there.”
[/CHAT]
…
Yuncheng First People’s Hospital, that same night.
The emergency wing was packed—patients on gurneys, family members pressed against walls, nurses running on fumes.
In a private exam room, Hazel Wynn worked with practiced calm, hands glowing faintly as she layered a Blessing over a sedated child.
The girl—seven or eight—had arrived clawing at her own skin, sobbing about bugs. Her fever refused to break.
Hazel finished the ritual, checked the vitals again, and felt her stomach sink.
The temperature dipped—barely. Nothing else changed.
She moved to the next patient. And the next.
Hours later, another official player—also a Praylight—met her in the hallway, eyes hollow.
“It’s not working,” he said quietly.
Hazel already knew. If her Blessings were the right key, the lock would have turned. The patients barely reacted.
“We’re treating the wrong thing,” she said. “This isn’t an illness. It’s a curse.”
…
August 16, Player World—Morning.
In a conference room lit by sunlight through blinds, only four people sat at the table: the hospital director, the department chief, Director Gao from the institute, and Quinn Hayes.
A laptop connected the room to a larger meeting elsewhere. On-screen, more faces waited—headquarters, coordinators, analysts.
The department chief gave a detailed report: initial symptoms were fever and disturbing hallucinations. Elderly patients and those with underlying conditions suffered worse.
He hesitated and added, “After three to five hours, most patients enter a second phase.”
“Without medication,” he continued, “the fever begins to break on its own. The hallucinations fade. But they enter a highly unstable mental state—something we have no clinical category for.”
Quinn’s head snapped up.
He knew that description. He knew it in his bones.
The last time he’d seen it, it had been his mentors—six of them—after the Sorrow Theater.
Quinn blurted out, too loud for the room. “I know this—”
The hospital director and the chief stared at him like he’d lost his mind.
Director Gao paused. The video meeting on-screen went still.
Quinn dragged both hands down his face, fighting the surge of panic and relief at the same time.
If the symptoms matched, then the treatment might, too.
And that meant the Player World might actually have a way out.
He forced himself to breathe, then looked at Director Gao.
“Director Gao,” he said carefully, “can we talk privately?”