Pain.Excruciating pain. An unparalleled, agonizing torment, like a Husky tearing up a house inside his skull, ripping apart every single nerve.
Rode was wrenched awake from a deep sleep by the sheer agony.
"Damn it... Why does my head hurt so much? Is someone giving me a brain-opening surgery?" "Seriously, whoever says drinking can prevent cerebral infarction, I'll make sure they get the infarction first..."
Rode opened his eyes, about to sit up. However, in the next instant, he froze.
This wasn't his dorm room, nor his home. His drinking buddies were gone. He wasn't in a bed, but lying on hard, barren ground. What sent a shiver down his spine was the sight of many bodies sprawled haphazardly across the wasteland. They were motionless, utterly devoid of life. They had clearly been dead for a long time.
The hairs on the back of Rode's neck instantly stood on end. Why were there so many dead people? Had he been dumped here? But this didn't look like a crematorium either.
Rode forced himself to calm down. As his eyes scanned the scene, he noticed more bizarre details. The deceased wore strange, non-modern clothing. Their bodies were shriveled and blackened, suggesting an unnatural death. There were signs of destruction around, but as a man who had watched over a thousand episodes of Case Closed (Detective Conan), he keenly sensed that these marks were inconsistent.
But even more eerie was a lamp. It lay at the center of the pile of corpses, clutched tightly by a dry, withered hand. Its exterior was a grille of gray metal, and the inner layer was thick, translucent glass. Through it, a tiny, flickering flame, seemingly about to go out at any moment, could be faintly seen. Yet, the light emitted by this fragile flame illuminated the entire area for a hundred meters around. Beyond this hundred-meter radius of firelight was a constant churn of dense, heavy black fog. There was no night sky, no stars, no moon, and no sun. Only Darkness.
Rode's mouth hung open; he even forgot to breathe. Only the Husky in his head continued its destructive rampage. Undoubtedly, this was not a normal, comprehensible world. If the pain hadn't been constant, Rode would have surely thought he was dreaming.
"Oh no, I haven't been dumped into some bizarre, haunted world, have I... This is the kind of place where you die a terrible death..." Rode regretted having watched so many horror movies. All sorts of terrifying scenarios from his memory uncontrollably flooded his mind: being eaten alive by monsters, being stuffed into a sewer, crushed into a suitcase, made into candied fruit... an unbearable parade of images.
"Calm down, calm down, I need to be rational now." Rode took several deep breaths. "Don't panic. Don't panic. Mr. Lu Xun once said the best way to eliminate fear is to face it. Not all ghost stories end in a total wipeout..." "I must survive. I must return to my world. Zhiling, Rimi, Yui, Meiku, Nana, and Asuka are still waiting for me. I can't let them grieve for me..."
It took a great effort for Rode to quiet his mind. As soon as his rational thought returned, fragments of memory surged from his brain. After spending several agonizing minutes digesting this not-long-but-highly-fragmented information, Rode's heart sank to the bottom of the ocean.
As he had witnessed, this was a world shrouded in black fog. The pervasive fog would erode all living beings, with only monsters roaming within it. The world had fallen; countless nations were destroyed, becoming monster dens. The sun, moon, and stars were rarely seen. The only shelter for humanity was Fire. They called it the Fire of Protection, or the Fire of Light, the Fire of Life, the Fire of Hope, the Eternal Flame. Using it, they established human settlements and survived in this dark hell. The settlements depended entirely on the power of the fire; the stronger the fire, the larger the settlement. The most potent Fire of Protection was the Holy Fire of the King's City, which was also their largest settlement. All villages and townships existed within its sphere of influence, clustered around it. His current location, Red Stone Village, was one such settlement, tasked with mining red stone for the King's City for their livelihood. Naturally, he was a miner. His parents were miners, and so were his grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather. Their life of year-round mining was supposedly boundless joy, until one day, disaster struck.
The world shrouded in black fog was hit by turmoil. The King's City was forced to shrink its boundaries, abandoning a portion of its land and settlements. Red Stone Village was unfortunately among those abandoned. They were forced to relocate. And the bodies on the ground were all members of the Red Stone Village migration team heading toward the King's City.
"This... completely wiped out? And I'm the only one alive?" A strong chill ran through Rode. This was absolutely not a good thing. It usually meant he was about to face even more terrifying and worse misfortune. He didn't know what had happened during the migration, how they died, or how he survived. His memory was fractured, with large blank spaces.
"What do I do? Am I going to die here?" "No, no, impossible." "Observation. I need to observe. Maybe I can find a clue to go home."
Rode looked around and quickly noticed red stones scattered among the bodies. They seemed to have been deliberately arranged, forming a strong directional guide. The center of their pointing was a strange pattern drawn in blood. It was less than half a meter in diameter. The outer layer was a circle, and inside the circle were two intersecting lightning-bolt zigzags. Its intense visual presence made it look extremely aggressive, and the blackened blood made it appear somewhat sinister.
Rode's pupils constricted. For a moment, he forgot both his fear and his headache. The symbol in this pattern... wasn't it the one on the title page of the chapter on courage in the famous psychology masterpiece he was reading before, The Interpretation of Dreams?
His experience before the "crossing" suddenly came rushing back. He was reading in his dorm when his friends called him out for drinks. He hadn't wanted to go, but one of his rotten friends insisted that drinking could prevent cerebral infarction, unblocking the stuck places in his brain, bringing him a spark of enlightenment, and allowing his long-dormant romantic talent to shine again. Reading his treasured secret manuals again after a drink, he could surely transform into a master of romance and a gentle, warm man, whose one line could warm a girl's day, allowing him to easily pursue his dream girl, marry a wealthy, beautiful woman, and reach the pinnacle of life.
Rode couldn't resist his friend's enthusiastic invitation and his own inner yearning. Though he wasn't much of a drinker, he went anyway. It seemed to have worked a little. After drinking and reading books like The Sea King Sutra and The Scoundrel's Divine Art, Rode felt he had grasped the true meaning of life, understood emotional intelligence, and would never again fail to read the room and be disliked by girls. The only thing he lacked was courage. Then, he thought of The Interpretation of Dreams, which he had just been reading, and the symbol for courage. Before falling asleep, he followed the book's instructions, used his hands to form the symbol, placed it on his chest, and peacefully closed his eyes. He had thought that when he woke up, a new, bright path in life would unfold before him. He hadn't expected to become this "peaceful."
The thoughts flashed by, and a notion abruptly sprang into Rode's mind: If all this truly related to that symbol... then, could he go back?
The moment this thought appeared, his blood vessels pulsed wildly, and his heart nearly burst. The urge to go home pulled at him—his family, his best friends, the internet, his keyboard, his wives, real or virtual, present or future—they encouraged him. Infinite courage rose in his heart. There was nothing left to fear.
Rode quickly ran toward the target point. In such unknown danger, a decisive and goal-oriented action might not guarantee a good result, but it was the closest path to success. Hesitation, vacillation, and staying put, which seemed safe, often led to a worse outcome. Although he couldn't be sure, this was his only possibility. Perhaps one touch, and he would instantly teleport home.
Rode leaped, landing inside the eerie pattern.
In the next instant, his body felt hot, as if something scorching had poured into him. Then, his vision went black, and countless images rushed at him. On the dark wasteland, a team walked alone.In the team, a hand was raised high, crushing a black skull. On the back of the hand was a very distinct eye pattern.Disorder broke out in the team. Ghostly shadows moved through them.Everyone died.
The vision disappeared, the strange sensation faded, and Rode regained his composure. The pattern beneath his feet began to evaporate. The black blood steamed up, turning into fine black dust that scattered everywhere. The light dimmed slightly.
"What just happened?" Rode was a bit dazed. What did those images mean? What was that hot, swelling feeling? And this strange symbol... it just vanished? Aren't you going to give me a surprise?
He looked around. The sight of scattered corpses was still unnerving but carried a strange sense of familiarity. Suddenly, a thought leaped out: "Could it be that the images I just saw were the scene of this team's demise?" "And that hand crushing the skull... was the killer?"
But what good did it do to know the killer? Would a portal open on his corpse and send him home if he killed the murderer?
While he was still in a daze, Rode suddenly noticed faint, shadowy figures floating around. A strange wailing sound filled the air, and all the corpses were enveloped in shadow. "What's going on?" "Did I just release some kind of ghostly entity?"
Poof! A monster covered in black fur stepped in from the border of light and dark. The moment the firelight hit it, it burst into blazing fire, and black smoke scattered with the flames. Its movement stiffened for a moment but didn't completely stop, struggling as if wading through a swamp.
"Shit!" Rode jumped in fright, stumbling backward. "What the hell is this thing! I didn't want this kind of surprise!"
Poof! Poof! Poof! More black-furred monsters stepped out of the black fog. The flying black ash and the burning fire made them look terrifying.
Bang! In his panic, Rode accidentally tripped over a corpse. Just as he was about to get up, the corpse grabbed his ankle.
"Holy crap!" All the hairs on Rode's body shot up. He kicked away the corpse's hand and bounced away like a startled rabbit. "The corpse came to life!"
Worse yet, Rode glanced around. Every single corpse within a hundred meters was stirring.
"F***!" Rode was speechless. He had nowhere to run, and no idea where to run to. Is this the end for me?
Just as he was gripped by terror, his peripheral vision caught sight of a shooting star streaking across the distant sky. His mind instantly clicked. Rode immediately remembered—this was a rescuer from the King's City. In his memory, the King's City was the pillar of all their faith. As a human kingdom that could survive in such a harsh, dark environment, they must have their own operational methods to deal with the threats from the dangerous outside world and the invasion of monsters. The migration team lost contact here; they must have noticed the anomaly!
"Hey!" Rode shouted, and hope surged in his heart. It wasn't just the hope of being rescued; there was an even greater hope. He had stepped into the pattern and seen the scene of the migration team's demise. Combining that with the residual traces at the site, he could deduce that this was a deliberate murder. And the killer's feature was a very distinct eye pattern tattooed on the back of his hand.
This was a critical piece of information for solving the case. If he provided it to the rescuers, he should get some kind of reward, right? Based on his experience in the original world, a major case involving the murder of hundreds of people would warrant at least an S-class warrant. Providing vital information for the capture of an S-class fugitive, surely getting an apartment in the King's City wasn't too much to ask? If things could really go as he hoped, at the very least, his chances of survival would increase dramatically.
"I'm here! I'm here!" Rode jumped and waved frantically in front of the lamp. The shooting star in the sky seemed to notice the area and changed course, flying toward them.
"Great! I have hope!"
However, in his ecstasy, Rode suddenly noticed a black mark tattooed on the back of the hand he was waving. Black lines intersected, forming a giant pupil. It was identical to what he had seen before.
No way. Rode froze completely.
This... The killer was actually myself? I report myself, and they reward me with a King's City jail cell?
Bang. The shooting star landed.