"You! You're talking nonsense!" Someone snapped back to their senses—their condition for clearing the level was the shop manager's rating. But if Fang Zhiyi was going to nitpick like this, there was no way they could pass.
"Fang, I was wrong!" Another immediately begged for mercy. "My wife and kids are in their hands—I was forced into this!"
Others stood frozen, wide-eyed and clueless, like Ning Yi'an.
Fang Zhiyi waved his hand with a laugh. "Relax, I was just joking. Do I look like that kind of person? I guarantee you'll all pass." With that, he clapped his hands and walked into the back storeroom, leaving the eerie shop manager to grade the players.
First up was Hanks. Seeing he was already unconscious, the shop manager stepped on his chest and tore off one of his arms with a brutal yank!
The excruciating pain jolted Hanks awake with a scream. The manager grinned. "Excellent!" As he gave the rating, Hanks vanished amid his agonized shrieks.
The players and the live-stream audience shuddered in realization—they now understood what Fang Zhiyi was planning.
Losing an arm or leg still meant clearing the level. The fog-shrouded city would be saved. But for these players, it was a death sentence—no nation's higher-ups would allow a crippled player to represent them in future games, doomed to die.
"Fang Zhiyi!" Ning Yi'an struggled to her feet. The next second, the manager reappeared before her, his unnaturally long fingers brushing her cheek with an icy touch.
The livestream broadcast the bloodiest scene since the game began.
Ten players in total were dismembered, their severed limbs handed out as rewards to the veteran employees.
Fang Zhiyi didn’t reappear until all the players had vanished. Then, slowly, he stepped out of the shop and onto the street.
The distant fog hadn’t lifted yet—apparently, it needed more time.
But Xiao Hei could clearly sense one thing: It was furious. This game hadn’t satisfied its thirst for spectacle, especially since not a single person had died.
"Host, isn’t provoking it like this a bad idea?"
"What, should I keep playing its stupid games forever?" Fang Zhiyi stared at the ashen sky. "Besides, with you here, nothing can go wrong."
Xiao Hei fidgeted nervously, silently pumping himself up.
This time, after just seven days, players worldwide were gathered at a mountain villa—a large-scale multiplayer dungeon called Misty Manor.
But soon, people noticed something was off. That damned capitalist wasn’t here.
Panic set in immediately. They’d paid protection fees! What was the point if Fang Zhiyi didn’t show?
Meanwhile, Fang Zhiyi’s livestream was at an all-time high. Viewers saw him sitting in a parlor, facing a gaunt, hollow-eyed old man.
"You’re different. That’s why you can’t keep ruining my fun."
Fang Zhiyi smirked. "Didn’t expect the game master to summon me under the pretense of placing an order."
The old man’s aura surged violently. "A god cannot descend upon the mortal world, or insects like you would be crushed to dust! This is my mercy!"
Fang Zhiyi scoffed. "You? A god? More like a lunatic."
Before the old man could retort, Fang Zhiyi lunged, slamming into him and driving his claw-like fingers into the man’s throat, crushing it.
The old man’s mouth gaped soundlessly. "You... ugh... heh..."
Then, stillness.
The livestream audience couldn’t hear the audio. They only saw Fang beat up an old man and kill him.
Fang Zhiyi stood and headed for the door—but the moment he pushed it open, the stream cut to black.
Viewers assumed the worst. Had Fang Zhiyi been ambushed? Was his rule different? An instant-death trap?
Chaos erupted in the chat.
But Fang Zhiyi had stepped into a void—a space where everything was grotesquely distorted, radiating an unsettling aura.
Then, an overwhelming pressure bore down on him.
"Mortal, you murdered my avatar. Now you have my full attention."
In the distance, a twisted throne held a shapeless, writhing mass.
"Uh... you look that abstract?" Fang Zhiyi asked.
A crushing force slammed into him, nearly driving him to his knees.
After a dizzying chorus of maddening whispers, the thing spoke again. "Mortal, you slew a god’s incarnation, insulted divinity, and still refuse to repent?"
Fang Zhiyi squinted, forcing himself upright despite the blood trickling from his lips. His organs felt squeezed to bursting.
"A coward hiding in the shadows calls itself a god? Pathetic."
A bloody spit flew—not hitting the thing, but striking a nerve.
The mass convulsed, sprouting countless flailing tentacles. "Mortal, today I shall deliver divine punishment myself!" One tentacle lashed out, hoisting Fang Zhiyi into the air.
"Pfft. Too scared to show your real face." Gritting through the pain, Fang Zhiyi kept taunting. "You’re a god? The abyss could cough up a hundred like you before breakfast."
"Mortal! You dare mock me?!" The thing raged. Then, a small figure crawled up from behind the throne—a scaled, frog-like monstrosity with claws.
"No one insults me. No one insults a god!" it roared at Fang Zhiyi.
"You? A god?" Fang Zhiyi sneered.
The thing seemed to puppeteer the tentacled beast. Under another verbal assault, its form warped, morphing into Fang Zhiyi’s likeness.
Seeing Fang Zhiyi’s widened eyes, it gloated, "Now you see, insect? You’re just pawns to amuse my endless existence. And in my mercy, I grant you miracles... Hm?"
The "Fang Zhiyi" double suddenly frowned, scrutinizing the real one. "Where’s your divine blessing? Hm?"
Fang Zhiyi grinned—but not at it. When the thing whirled around, it faced a gaping maw.
The nameless horror was swallowed whole by Xiao Hei. The tentacle holding Fang Zhiyi slackened—mindless, but instinctually aware of who was stronger.
As Xiao Hei curled into a ball, Fang Zhiyi spat blood.
This bastard was cautious. If not for Xiao Hei’s confirmation, he’d have mistaken the tentacle beast for its true form.
Back in Misty Manor, players on the brink of death suddenly flickered, turning translucent.
"What’s happening?"