Chapter 4-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
A month later, [Tyrant] finally set foot on the Arctic permafrost. Magnificent auroras drifted across the sky of the endless polar night. By now, [Tyrant] had reached Level 89.
She had killed two Great Ruler-level monsters and obtained several SS-Tier items including [Hunting Arrow], [Fengdu Tiger Tally], and [Delusional Dream Realm], along with various equipment buffs. This time, she had made it far.
Just one more level until she could unlock her Talent's fourth Skill—a Skill that could very well determine her odds going forward.
At this stage, Bai Shan grew even more cautious.
Her inverted sleep schedule should have left her body weak and exhausted, but perhaps sustained by sheer determination, her physical and mental condition had actually been improving—brimming with an inexplicable vitality.
Bai Shan planned to take a day off and get some fresh air, but when she spotted a certain elderly woman holding a baby and waiting for the elevator in the hallway, she wanted to retreat back home.
"Are you going to the supermarket? The nearby supermarkets are pretty much cleaned out. It's dangerous outside right now—don't go out."
In the cramped elevator, the old woman warmly cautioned the younger generation. Bai Shan glanced at the child in her arms and asked rather bluntly, "Where are you taking Xinyi? You're both in the high-risk group for infectious diseases."
"Xinyi and I are both blessed by God. We're not afraid of a little cold. Last time Xinyi had a high fever, if those people hadn't barged in, she would've been fine after drinking some holy water—it wouldn't have dragged on so long!"
"...Xinyi is truly blessed." It's a miracle she's even alive at one year old.
Bai Shan cast a sympathetic glance at the chubby-cheeked Chen Xinyi, who was nestled in the old woman's arms, curiously staring back at her.
"I can see you're a blessed child too. Would you like to—" The old woman's cloudy eyes gleamed as she looked at Bai Shan, who quickly cut off her proselytizing. "No thanks! My blessings are already overflowing."
The old woman's kindly expression vanished instantly. Even the curve of her lips turned mean as she hissed, "Hmph, you people with no spiritual sense—blessings offered to you and you won't take them. You'll get your comeuppance sooner or later..."
"Oh, and was it you who called the police last time?!"
Bai Shan expertly ignored the old woman's nonsense. She made a funny face at Chen Xinyi, and as the elevator doors opened, she strode away to the sound of the baby's giggling laughter.
"The time before last was me."
If it weren't for the fear that a death next door would tank her family's property value, Bai Shan couldn't care less whether the neighbor's kid lived or died.
Bai Shan figured she should move somewhere else. Her floor was too high, the building too old, and security vulnerabilities were everywhere. If something happened, she'd have no way to escape.
Although according to the game's storyline, she was destined to be the chosen one after the world's transformation—but what if something unexpected happened along the way?
She needed to find a safe place and move within the year.
After a month of settling in, Bai Shan's acceptance of "the game world will invade reality and upend her life" had grown considerably. She could now examine it with a much calmer, more rational attitude.
Previously she'd been focused solely on fighting monsters, but during this period of digging deeper into the game's lore, she could confirm that the protagonist was not the only surviving human after the world's transformation.
Throughout the game, the various maps modeled after reality bore plenty of traces of humans fighting against mutated monsters, providing her with many critical clues.
And the mysterious voice that communicated with her through the earpiece and issued missions—there was very likely a human team behind it.
Bai Shan wasn't sure whether reality would follow the exact same trajectory as the game world, but even if she truly ended up as the last human on Earth, exploring the unknown would be her hope and purpose for survival.
When Bai Shan committed to something, she went all in. Once something piqued her interest, she would see it through to perfection.
She'd even drawn up a fitness plan and ordered over a dozen reference books online, determined to transform herself from an under-exercised homebody into an agile, survival-savvy outdoor expert before the game descended upon reality.
...That sounded even harder than beating the game. Even a late-night trip from her bedroom to the kitchen fridge to grab a snack was a high-difficulty route for her.
Bai Shan sighed. At least there was still time.
[Tyrant] would reach Level 90 in three days at most. Unlocking the fourth Skill would bring a qualitative leap, and Bai Shan was confident she could reach the truth's location indicated by the mission within two weeks.
Once she figured out the game's intentions, she'd have plenty of time to train herself.
In the ground-floor lobby, the delivery locker screen was playing a fan-funded celebrity endorsement ad. The new security guard lay back in his chair wearing a mask, his phone blasting short videos at full volume.
"The former de facto leader of continental Europe returns to polit—"
"Come on, come on, click link number one!"
"America gets slapped in the face? This small nation reclaimed its..."
"Big brother Xiaoao, I want to buy a purse~ I want yummy food~"
Bai Shan walked past with light, brisk steps—she hadn't even noticed that her body was becoming increasingly agile and powerful.
One of the lobby's two iron doors was propped open. During the day, residents didn't need to swipe their cards to enter. But Bai Shan suddenly stopped, as if something had blocked her path.
"Waaah—"
A baby's piercing cry startled the slacking security guard. He looked up and caught a glimpse of the scene outside the front door, leaping to his feet in shock.
Bai Shan blinked, wondering if her inverted sleep schedule had made her misread the time.
Her phone suddenly vibrated frantically in her palm. Bai Shan lit up the screen and first checked the time—it was 10 AM, not 10 PM.
Her gaze shifted downward. Notifications were exploding across her phone screen. She'd barely made out one line when the sounds of celebrity ads and livestream tips around her were simultaneously replaced by the unified tone of news broadcasts.
Bai Shan turned and fixed her eyes on the nearest delivery locker ad screen. The celebrity endorsement had been replaced by a Central Television broadcast.
["Cheng Yue's January 27th birth—EMERGENCY ALERT! Unidentified creatures have appeared across the nation. Citizens are advised to take cover immediately and stay away from all animals and plants, including domestic pets and houseplants..."]
["Students must maintain proper attitude even during online classes. No switching to smaller scre—EMERGENCY ALERT! Unidentified creatures have appeared across the nation. Citizens are advised to take cover immediately and stay away from all animals and plants, including domestic pets and houseplants..."]
In an instant, every phone video, computer video, and television broadcast switched to the same feed. Every social media platform pushed the same message.
—Unidentified creatures detected. Stay away! Take cover! If in danger, contact the emergency hotline and await rescue!
At 10 AM, most companies and schools had adopted work-from-home and online classes to combat the raging "epidemic." The streets should have been nearly empty.
Yet Bai Shan could faintly hear confused chatter, screams, the sound of running feet... a terrifying tableau of chaos that carried through buildings and across multiple streets to reach her ears, making one's imagination run wild about what was happening outside.
Before Bai Shan's brain could even process it, she saw several people scramble and crawl their way into the building.
One of them rushed toward her like a drowning person who'd found a life raft, gasping for breath as she gripped Bai Shan's shoulders hard. Caught off guard, Bai Shan momentarily forgot to push her away.
"Don't—don't go outside! It's chaos out there, total chaos!"
The young woman was wearing fuzzy pajamas, trailed by a Golden Retriever that wouldn't stop barking.
"What happened? Is it nighttime outside?"
Bai Shan gripped the woman's shoulders in return, but her eyes were locked on the outside. When she'd gotten up that morning, sunlight had still been streaming into her room—yet now it looked completely dark out there.
"What do you mean nighttime?" The young woman glanced back, looking confused.
"It's not nighttime—this building is covered."
The old woman walked in through the front door with a smile, carrying the baby. "What a huge tree—it's growing right on top of the building, blocking out the sun."
Bai Shan froze for a moment. That lunatic had actually taken the child outside!
She seemed to have only stepped out for a quick look before nonchalantly returning, forming a stark contrast with the other residents who were rushing in, panicked and desperate for shelter.
"Liu Chaoyun, stop dragging Chen Xinyi into your death wish!"
Bai Shan called her out by name without any courtesy. But Liu Chaoyun just smiled warmly. She turned to gaze at the dark, chaotic scene outside, her eyes filled with a tenderness that even Chen Xinyi had never received.
"See? I wasn't lying to you. The Great Merciful God would never deceive us."
"This is the apocalypse! Hahahaha! It's really here!"
"Believers live, non-believers die! Every last one of you is going to hell!"
These words stunned everyone in the lobby. Confused, frightened faces froze in place. Liu Chaoyun had repeated these outrageous claims countless times, and everyone in the building had always avoided her like the plague—except this once, her voice reverberated in their minds like a curse.
The lobby security guard looked helplessly between the screens playing on loop and the growing crowd in the lobby—some rushing in from outside, others coming down from upstairs.
Then a man drenched in blood on one side of his body crashed into the lobby. The crowd recoiled in horror. The guard stepped around the man groaning in agony on the floor and mustered the courage to run over and close the iron doors.
"Don't close them! My grandma went grocery shopping and hasn't come back yet!"
"She can swipe her card to get in. The authorities already warned us—what if something dangerous gets in?!"
"Unidentified creatures, unidentified creatures... what the hell are they?!"
"He's badly hurt. Can we still call an ambulance?"
The lobby erupted into a cacophony. The guard pulled a dusty rubber baton from a cabinet. Some people frantically rushed into the elevator to go home. Bai Shan, meanwhile, slipped silently into the stairwell marked with a green exit sign.
She climbed twenty-five floors in one breath, burst into her pitch-dark room, flipped on every light, and without even catching her breath, practically flung herself at the computer desk.
Staring at the computer screen, for the first time Bai Shan felt the boot-up speed was agonizingly slow.
The internet hadn't even connected yet, but Bai Shan couldn't wait to launch the game.
In the game, the world's civilians remained unaware of the mutations until 2027, when the international community rallied forces against the unknown Arctic entity. This meant that within that year, the mutations hadn't affected most people's lives. The mass outbreak shouldn't have happened until after 2027!
Why had events deviated from the game's storyline? What force was creating this disaster?
Could she have been wrong? Maybe there was no game invasion at all—just a coincidental joke, and she'd been trapped in some laughable delusion she couldn't escape?
The bare-bones game interface showed nothing but a spinning circle. Bai Shan stared at it for a while before realizing the computer still hadn't connected to the internet.
She pulled out her phone and found it had lost network access at some point. Calls couldn't go through either—no signal.
The most recent push notification on her phone was from three minutes ago.
[Citizens of Rong City, please remain calm and stay indoors. Stay vigilant and await further official instructions and arrangements. Let us weather this together!]
[Cheongwadae declares a nationwide state of martial law!]
[At this very moment! Live broadcast of the White House address—]
Bai Shan had a sinking feeling that it wasn't just her experiencing problems—communications had been cut off for all regions and all people.
...She hadn't even had time to send a message to a certain someone far away.
Thud! A dull impact. Bai Shan followed the sound and walked to the glass window.
Outside, the dense foliage blocked every ray of sunlight and obstructed her view. A sparrow had somehow pierced through the green barrier and slammed straight into the glass.
It was wedged between the glass window and the branches. The dense twigs and leaves around it closed in like a sentient green net, entangling it. The sparrow kept pecking at the already-cracked glass with its sharp beak, struggling desperately to stay alive.
Witnessing this, Bai Shan spun around and ran!
In Tomorrow's Dominator, mutated animals and plants were called "Aberrants." They would hunt and feed by any means necessary to fuel their newly evolved bodies, which consumed enormous energy.
Before an Aberrant, an ordinary human like her was no different from that sparrow!
Bai Shan had barely taken a few steps when the entire glass window behind her suddenly exploded. A powerful gust of wind hurled glass shards at her back.
Something screeched and lunged at her. Bai Shan glimpsed her shadow on the floor being engulfed by a far larger dark shape, as if foretelling a certain ending.
In that instant, Death's cold scythe seemed to press against Bai Shan's spine. Her heart nearly stopped.
The noise around her ears howled into the distance. Something deep within her body was trembling—perhaps her pumping heart, or perhaps her soul letting out one final scream.
[——Bzzt bzzt——]
[Loading...]
Just as Bai Shan thought her brief life was about to end abruptly, the dangerous, frigid air around her suddenly froze. Everything seemed to be dragged into a slow-motion vortex. Her sequence of stopping, turning around, and raising her arms to block was broken down into frame-by-frame stills.
At a certain moment, the world pressed the pause button.
......
BOOM—!
When Bai Shan opened her eyes again, her hands were still raised in a guard position at her chest.
A pitch-black creature was sprawled less than thirty centimeters from her, as if stopped by an invisible barrier. Its bloodshot eyes stared fixedly, looking as though they might burst at any second.
Bai Shan stared at the monster mere inches away. It appeared to be a giant bat—already dead. Its body was slowly sliding down the car window.
Bai Shan looked around in disbelief—she was inside a vehicle!
Through the car window, she confirmed she was still in her room. This vehicle had appeared out of thin air and saved her!
"The more I look at this car, the more it looks like..." Bai Shan explored the vehicle's interior in amazement. A answer both insane and entirely expected surfaced in her mind.
Sunlight poured into the room, passing through the sturdy car window to illuminate Bai Shan's pale face. Her expression had calmed, and she had a vague sense of what was about to happen next.
At the same time, people everywhere stopped what they were doing and looked up at the sky in unison. The "Hunters"—creatures in the midst of mutating and killing—also fell still.
Every living being on Earth was forced to listen to the same voice.
[To survive, we evolve.]
[For tomorrow, we reproduce.]
[For civilization, we transcend.]
[For dominance, we slaughter. Welcome to the game—Tomorrow's Dominator!]
A mechanical voice devoid of any emotion announced the game's arrival. Blue holographic screens simultaneously appeared before the eyes of billions!
Comments
Post a Comment