The sky was the color of iron, brooding clouds blotting out the sun, and rain poured down in torrents, more waterfall than weather. Thankfully, the cruise ship’s drainage held strong, spilling the water out before it could collect.
On the luminous screen, a countdown for the last two days of the game began—and the surviving players erupted in cheers.
They were all ordinary people once, kidnapped by this game without so much as a warning, thrust into a scenario where, before they could grasp reality, they watched those around them collapse one by one, only to mutate into infected monsters.
But the greatest horror wasn’t the monsters. It was the human heart.
The infected could be slain. Human intent remained unfathomable—a friend could share your bread one moment, then, for the promise of a game item or a scrap of supplies, become your murderer the next.
Chen Fan was no different. If not for his false intentions, Pei Yu would never have suborned him with a few whispered words. One might say his fate was well earned.
Ye Shu’s gaze drifted across the endless horizon; an ill omen stirred in her chest.
Everyone knew the game grew harder as time passed. A light drizzle traced the windows, the sea holding a sinister stillness—she knew this calm was but the thin quiet before the tempest.
She retrieved the inflatable raft she’d hidden in the bathroom, filled it with air, and reorganized the contents of her pocket space—keeping only the barest rations, some anti-inflammatories, and the weapons she’d scavenged from Pei Yu.
Day broke gray and uncertain. The rain intensified; mist gathered at the corners of the world.
Waves rose. The sea, once docile, now hurled water at their fragile vessel from all directions.
Ye Shu dragged the raft to the deck. Her room was furthest from the corridor’s end—it would take too long to reach the exit if things went wrong.
“Sister Ye?”
Chen Meng looked to Ye Shu, her face full of questions.
Even Pei Yu, who’d once made trouble on this cruise, had been dealt with. Yesterday, Ye Shu herself had killed the head of the infected. The lesser monsters had no intelligence—only an endless appetite. For now, they couldn’t break through. Here, at least, was safety.
And beneath the ship, schools of mutated fish circled. There was no need to risk the unknown.
“It’s not the last day yet.”
Ye Shu didn’t spell it out directly, only offered a gentle warning. Chen Meng, as quick-minded as ever, immediately ordered everyone to fetch out their rafts.
As they hurried to haul supplies and prepare for retreat, the ship shuddered violently—a colossal tentacle, dozens of meters long, suddenly burst from the ocean with a resounding crash.
The Royal Voyager, fortress of modern engineering, was smashed into fragments in seconds.
Everyone spilled into the sea as helplessly as dumplings dropped into a pot.
Ye Shu was the first to react; she grabbed hold of Lin Baozhu, plunged the raft far out from the spreading wreckage, and—with Lin in her arms—leapt. By some miracle, though caught off guard, they all were poised for evacuation and suffered nothing beyond a gulp or two of saltwater. But all their supplies disappeared to the depths.
Above, they heard the staccato ‘pupupu’ of aircraft. Visibility was near zero in the dense fog, but Ye Shu was sure of the sound. The planes receded, no rescue forthcoming.
“Mask Hero, you saved me again!”
Lin Baozhu spat water with no trace of fear—there was even a wild glee in her smile.
Ye Shu still wore her helmet, concealing her identity from Lin, who never realized her ‘Mask Hero’ was her own sister Ye.
“Captain Li, this way!”
Chen Meng pulled Li Dahai, still splashing, back onto a raft.
Li Dahai stared, stunned, at the wreckage scattered across the waves. What sort of monstrous creature was this? A single tentacle had reduced the world’s most advanced liner to so much driftwood. Such power strained belief.
Chen Meng was relieved. In her panic, she’d managed to grab hold of a raft; otherwise, she, a landlubber, would’ve already been lost to the deep.
More survivors bobbed to the surface on all sides. In these final days, everyone wore their life vests. Finally—some use for them after all.
Rain still poured relentlessly from the heavens. The tiny rafts quickly filled with water; with little room to bail, the survivors scooped frantically with their hands, striving to keep the boats upright amid the storm.
“Splash, splash...”
Ye Shu wrung out her drenched clothes, elegant brows twisted in frustration. She loathed the sticky feeling of soaking wet fabric—this miserable discomfort was almost worse than fear.
“Mask Hero, let me bail the water. You rest!”
Lin Baozhu, indefatigable as ever, rolled up her sleeves and set to work, sloshing water out by the handful.
Ye Shu didn’t argue—she fished out a piece of biscuit from her pack. Scallion flavor. Her least favorite.
Sitting in the cramped craft, surrounded by a blinding white fog, she couldn’t shake the sense that something—someone—was watching her. Her skin crawled, eyes tracing beads of rain across the dark blue water.
A pattern of ripples spread where the rain hit. Below the surface, Ye Shu glimpsed something—a massive shadow, shifting.
“Run! The monster’s still beneath us!”
Her voice, though not loud, cut clean through the survivors’ panic. All eyes turned to the black shape swimming below, growing nearer by the second.
“Row! Row for your lives!”
“Scatter! Don't cluster together!”
“Mother, I'm never coming home... I leave my debts to the next life!”
The memory of the creature’s tentacle smashing them into the sea lingered in every mind. Despair seeped through the ranks; this was terror, absolute and inescapable.
Ye Shu’s raft was the first to be struck.
The inflatable boat was hurled high, suspended for a breathless second before it smashed down again.
From over ten meters up, Ye Shu fell face-first into the churning sea, her mouth going numb with salt and fear. She had the unmistakable feeling the beast was after her alone—again and again, its attacks ignored the others.
Damn it, she thought, this game must be bugged—again!
She was thankful now for the swimming classes she'd crammed before entering the game. At least she wouldn't drown.
“Whoosh—”
“Pupupu...”
The monster’s head surfaced—a mountainous black mass slick with pustules, caked in dark, bloody slime. Two fathomless eyes glared, tendrils crawling across their inky depths. Dozens of tentacles writhed around it, each lined with pale suckers. It was hideous beyond words.
Ye Shu paddled desperately, only to be dragged back by some invisible pull—again and again, she tried to escape, only to be recaptured, as though the beast’s malice singled her out. There was no longer any doubt.
She whipped a peachwood sword from her dimensional space and dog-paddled straight at the monster, resolved to offer it a sacrifice of steel.
She didn’t notice the fury that seized the monster’s black gaze at the sight of the wooden blade. Its playfulness vanished, replaced by pure, murderous rage.
With agility born of terror, Ye Shu leapt atop the beast’s slick back and severed a tentacle. The creature howled, its eyes darkening with scarlet ire.
That cursed wooden sword again...
A forest of tentacles wound around Ye Shu, tearing her to pieces—her sword snapped in two, a red ribbon of blood blooming in the blue.
Then the enormous body descended, swarming over the survivors like a plague of locusts.
A final wave washed over—and the sea fell perfectly, terribly silent.