# Chapter 2: Crimson Anomalies
The Crimson Valley stretched before Xìng Huáng like a wound carved into the landscape. Red-tinged cliffs jutted from mist-shrouded ground, while twisted trees with bark the color of dried blood dotted the terrain. Even by Immortal Destiny's standards, the environmental design was remarkably atmospheric.
What struck him immediately was the silence.
In most new content areas, the background ambiance was carefully crafted—distant monster roars, wind through rocky formations, the subtle sounds that made virtual environments feel alive. Here, there was nothing. Just an oppressive quiet that seemed to press against his eardrums.
Xìng Huáng pulled up his mini-map and frowned. Instead of the usual detailed terrain overlay, he saw only a rough outline of the immediate area, with everything beyond thirty meters shrouded in digital fog. Either the developers had implemented some kind of exploration-based revealing system, or there was a technical issue with the zone.
A soft chime drew his attention to a notification in his peripheral vision:
*Zone Effect Active: Crimson Valley Suppression*
*- Map functionality reduced by 75%*
*- Party communication range decreased*
*- Logout timer extended to 300 seconds*
"Interesting," he murmured. Extended logout timers weren't uncommon in special events, but they usually came with clear warnings and explanations. This felt more... experimental.
He checked his equipment one more time and began moving deeper into the valley. His leather boots made no sound against the strange, spongy ground—another atmospheric touch that added to the zone's unsettling quality.
The first monster he encountered was unlike anything he'd seen before.
It emerged from behind a cluster of crimson rocks about fifty meters ahead: a creature roughly the size of a large wolf, but with too many joints in its legs and a head that seemed to shift and blur whenever he tried to focus on it directly. No health bar appeared above it, no level indicator, no name tag—just raw, unsettling presence.
Xìng Huáng drew his twin daggers, their familiar weight reassuring in his hands. He'd learned early in his gaming career never to engage unknown enemies without proper scouting, but something about this creature's movement patterns triggered his pattern recognition instincts. The way it circled, the subtle tells in its posture—it reminded him of the Shadow Stalkers from the Midnight Caverns, just... wrong somehow.
He activated his stealth skill and began circling in the opposite direction, looking for the optimal engagement angle. But as he moved, the creature's head snapped toward him with unnatural precision, its blurred features seeming to focus despite his invisibility.
"Well, that's new," he muttered, dropping stealth. No point wasting mana on an ability that clearly wasn't working.
The creature lunged without warning—faster than his reflexes should have been able to track. But years of fighting high-level enemies had honed his instincts beyond conscious thought. He rolled left, daggers coming up in a defensive cross-guard that caught razor-sharp claws inches from his throat.
The impact sent him skidding backward across the spongy ground, his arms numb from the force of the block. This thing hit like a level 900+ elite, but his damage assessment skills couldn't get a read on its actual statistics.
He regained his footing just as the creature circled for another attack. This time, he was ready. As it leaped, he activated his signature combo: Shadow Step to get behind it, followed by Twin Fang Strike aimed at what should have been vulnerable joints.
His daggers sank deep into the creature's hindquarters, and he felt the familiar resistance that indicated a successful critical hit. But instead of the usual damage numbers floating above the wound, he saw something else entirely:
*??? Damage Dealt*
*Divine Greed Trait Activated*
*Anomalous Material Acquired*
The creature dissolved into motes of dark red light, leaving behind a small, pulsing crystal that hurt to look at directly. Xìng Huáng approached cautiously and examined the drop:
*Crimson Essence Fragment (Anomalous)*
*Type: Unknown*
*Effect: ???*
*Description: A fragment of something that should not exist. Handle with extreme caution.*
Even the item description was different from the usual game format. Instead of neat categories and clear statistics, everything was vague, uncertain, almost... organic in its presentation.
He pocketed the fragment and continued deeper into the valley. Two more encounters with similar creatures yielded similar results—successful kills rewarded with mysterious drops that defied his understanding of the game's systems. Each time, his Divine Greed trait activated, but the rewards were unlike anything in Immortal Destiny's standard loot tables.
It was during his examination of a particularly strange crystalline formation that he noticed the first real sign that something was fundamentally wrong.
His stamina bar, which should have been slowly regenerating as he rested, was instead flickering between different values. Not the usual lag or display glitch—the actual numbers were changing unpredictably, sometimes showing impossible values like 847/234 or displaying symbols that weren't part of the game's character set.
Xìng Huáng opened his character sheet to investigate and felt his blood run cold.
Half of his statistics were corrupted. Strength showed as "∞-7", Intelligence displayed a series of constantly shifting runes, and his experience points had been replaced by what looked like a real-time countdown: 23:47:16 and decreasing by the second.
"This has to be some kind of elaborate bug," he said aloud, though his voice sounded strange in the oppressive quiet of the valley. "Or maybe it's intentional? Some kind of experimental game mechanic?"
He tried to access the game's help system, but the usual menu interface wouldn't respond. His friends list showed as empty, despite knowing he had over thirty contacts. Even the basic logout command seemed to be grayed out, though the notification had warned him about extended logout timers.
A distant sound made him freeze—the first noise he'd heard since entering the valley that wasn't directly related to his own actions. It was... familiar. Like the sound of other players moving through underbrush, their equipment clanking softly as they explored.
He followed the sound carefully, using terrain features to mask his approach. After about ten minutes of careful stalking, he spotted them: three players in high-end gear, their equipment glowing with the telltale auras of premium enchantments.
But something was wrong with them too.
They moved in perfect synchronization, their heads turning in exact unison as they scanned their surroundings. When one of them spoke, the others opened their mouths at exactly the same moment, creating an eerie echo effect.
"Zone parameters... stable," they said in perfect harmony. "Compatibility testing... proceeding within acceptable ranges."
Xìng Huáng crept closer, curiosity overriding caution. These definitely weren't normal players. NPCs, maybe? But Immortal Destiny's NPCs had never been this sophisticated—or this unsettling.
As he watched, one of the synchronized figures suddenly stopped and turned in his direction. Its face was a perfect replica of a human player avatar, but the eyes were wrong—too bright, too focused, like they were looking through him rather than at him.
"Anomalous player detected," it announced, and the other two immediately shifted into combat stances. "Trait compatibility: Unknown. Initiating containment protocol."
Xìng Huáng didn't wait to find out what a containment protocol involved. He activated every movement buff he had and ran deeper into the valley, the sound of pursuit echoing behind him. But as he ran, a terrible realization began to form in his mind.
The countdown in his character sheet. The corrupted statistics. The synchronized not-quite-players.
This wasn't experimental content.
This was something else entirely.
Behind him, the pursuit continued, but it was the silence that followed their mechanical voices that truly frightened him. In that silence, he could swear he heard something else—a sound like reality itself beginning to tear at the edges.
And somewhere, far beyond the Crimson Valley and the world of Immortal Destiny, the cracks in the sky above the real world grew just a little wider.