The waning sun seemed like blood. It spilled blood-red rays on the empty classroom. A young looking teenager lay on the back desk against the window, seemingly fast asleep. A white, slender hand reached over and knocked on the desk.
“Knock knock.”
“Still sleeping, Xiao Li? Lessons are over, go home and sleep.” A gentle voice roused the sleeping teenager.
Waking up from his dream, the teenager lifted his head to reveal a few red marks. His eyes were misty with sleep, light rays shining on the pair of inky pupils, infusing his irises with a vivid hue. His starry eyes blinked twice, betraying emotion and only serving to accentuate his beauty.
His appearance wasn’t very heroic; certainly not one that conveyed a sense of security, but was still undeniably beautiful, his figure slim and delicate, one that easily earned others’ compassion.
The person next to him gazed at him, his breath catching slightly.
A rather handsome young man leaned over him with a warm smile, his demeanor and words betraying a familiar, easy affection.
The information that appeared in his mind inexplicably told him that this was his childhood friend and classmate, who he harbored feelings for and was currently in an ambiguous period with, Ye Lanzhou.
They were both ordinary high school senior students in typical households. Although stress from school prevented them taking their relationship to the next level, their families had already given their blessing, silently acknowledging their relationship.
That day was just another ordinary day. Chu Chenli had stayed up late the previous night at Ye Lanzhou’s home to play video games, then was piggybacked by Ye Lanzhou to school in the morning as usual, and was even able to stay somewhat attentive in the morning. Afternoon periods were subsequently all spent sleeping.
Naturally, Ye Lanzhou was waiting for him so they could go back home together.
When he tried to think about other things,Chu Chenli’s head ached. His mind was a blank void. Ye Lanzhou didn’t notice his discomfort, assuming he was dazedly daydreaming and groggy from sleep.
He offered his hand, softly saying, “Let’s go home.”
His voice, tone, and demeanor were all gentle and attentive. Chu Chenli’s gaze swept across the duty roster next to the blackboard behind him, and his eyelashes trembled slightly. He got the feeling that the scene in front of him was something he had desired for a long time.
And yet…
Chu Chenli’s fingers twitched and reached for something under the table. He gripped it tightly in his hand. Only then did he slowly stand up. Ye Lanzhou smiled.
“Finished yet? Hey, don’t forget to pack your homework—”
Abruptly, his eyes widened, his smile freezing on his face, shock and surprise distorting his expression. The dark barrel of the gun was trained squarely on his forehead.
“Xiao Li…”
Ye Lanzhou’s voice trembled slightly, his shock or fear didn’t seem to be feigned. He sucked in a deep breath, desperately attempting to rationalize with the teenager holding the gun.
“Xiao Li? Don’t joke around, I promised to take you home, didn’t I?”
Chu Chenli wavered slightly as he stared into “Ye Lanzhou’s” eyes. His expression gradually softened, a hint of a dreamy smile playing on his lips.
“Alright.”
The corner of “Ye Lanzhou’s” mouth turned up slightly, as if he had just breathed a sigh of relief.
“So, let’s-”
Bang.
The deafening sound of the gunshot swallowed the rest of his words. “Ye Lanzhou’s” eyes widened in shock and disbelief, his face still frozen in that expression of anticipation. As his blood splattered everywhere, he caught Chu Chenli softly muttering to himself,
“I’ll definitely return to see you again.”
The fallen figure, the classroom still bathed in the waning sunlight, the desks, chairs, blackboard, swaying branches outside the window, and the gun still in Chu Chenli’s hand— all of it rapidly vanished under a white, misty haze.
A cold, mechanical voice sounded in Chu Chenli’s ears.
Congratulations. Level cleared.
–
Chu Chenli had lost track of the years he had spent trapped in this infinite game world. It all began with natural disasters in the real world, communications being cut off, plants and animals mutating into man-eating monsters, and the world falling into chaos. Ordinary humans were powerless to resist, fleeing in desperation, hoping to find a safe haven. And then…
Chu Chenli didn’t know what happened next.
In his bid for escape, he had traveled alongside Ye Lanzhou. Their similarities in age made supporting each other in the face of hopeless adversity easier, and eventually they both fell in love. Maybe it was the influence of this so-called “love” that drove Chu Chenli to do what he did. In the heat of battle, Chu Chenli saw a bullet heading on a fatal course to Ye Lanzhou. He didn’t even stop to think. He threw himself in front of the bullet.
He thought he was doomed. To his surprise, he opened his eyes to a vast plane covered in white mist, with a chilling mechanical voice echoing in his ears.
Welcome to the Infinite Survival Game.
One after another, the system sorted players into worlds. Settings differed with each world, schools, deep oceans, cultivation realms, interstellar, all of these were possible. Each world had two missions – the main mission was to change the world settings. Sometimes it involved the player obtaining an object at some point in the storyline. Other times, it would be to find the exit of the illusory world.
Some worlds allowed for team-ups, others calling for a solo mission, like the illusion level Chu Chenli just cleared. But the main objective was always the same: complete the mission within the given time, so you could proceed to the next level with the survivors.
There was an unspoken mission throughout all the worlds. To survive at all costs. At any cost, by any means necessary. Even if it meant sacrificing limbs— upon entering a new world, all injuries were instantly healed.
However: die or fail to clear a level, and you are trapped in the shattered void. Forever.
Of course, clearing levels had its rewards – leveling up abilities, rare weapons and equipment, miraculous medicine, and the ultimate prize – returning to the real world.
Remaining in this dystopia was a wish solely for the suicidal.
Though the real world was plagued with disasters and mutated monsters, people still have the strength to fight back. It generally adheres to scientific principles, and there are companions, family, safe havens, and glimmers of hope could be found everywhere. This world however, was so saturated with death and the supernatural could only be called an endless, bloody nightmare.
As players leveled up and upgraded their equipment, the monsters and illusions in the next levels would also become more challenging— when they first entered this game, there were a total of 100,000 players, but by the time they reached the level where Chu Chenli shot “Ye Lanzhou”, fewer than twenty survivors remained.
They had long stopped in-fighting and formed teams, but were still unable to predict the system. Nobody could anticipate how many people would remain after each level.
Nobody knew when they would be able to completely clear the game and return to the real world.
–
Chu Chenli stood alone, the illusion long faded into white mist. The gun disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, vanishing in a fiery flash of red light. It left a sword in its wake, one almost as tall as a person. It dropped heavily onto his hands, a reward for clearing the level.
Compared to a firearm, the cool steel of the sword felt oddly comfortable in his hands.
Chu Chenli stared at the spot where “Ye Lanzhou” had disappeared for a moment, then reached up to touch his cheek. The sensation of the warm, wet blood splattering against it had felt all too real, but the stains on him had long since vanished.
He hated this feeling, but knew he didn’t have the luxury of dwelling over an illusion devised by the system—he had more important issues to be worrying about.
This “Ye Lanzhou” was fake, but his teammates were real.
Chu Chenli desperately wanted to return to reality to see Ye Lanzhou again, but also prayed for his teammates’ continued survival. He lowered his gaze slightly, took one last look at his recently held gun, and shoved the memory of the illusion into a corner of his mind. Then, he turned to search for his teammates.
From the depths of the mist, there was a flash of green light. A figure stumbled gracelessly to the ground.
Soon after, the coarse, profanity-laden voice of a girl reached his ears. As Chu Chenli approached, he only caught the last sentence: “Goddamned system, go to hell!”
He pursed his lips and couldn’t help but smile. Deep down, he wholeheartedly agreed with his teammate’s words. What remained after was relief. The girl cursing was He Ziyue, the one acknowledged by everyone as the most short-tempered. In this kind of illusion level, she was the most worrying of all his teammates.
But as Chu Chenli got closer, he realized that He Zi Yue’s abdomen had been pierced by a sharp weapon. Blood flowed from her abdomen, thick and relentless. If they hadn’t toughened up their bodies through various injuries, she would have already lost her life.
He Ziyue pressed her hand against the wound. She hissed in pain while cursing at the system. It seemed like she was really angry this time. However, seeing her so full of energy, Chu Chenli couldn’t help but feel relieved.
Not long after they cleared the previous stage, another teammate appeared. As the team’s healer, he didn’t have any external wounds, but his face was pale, lips colorless, and their eyes red. The teammate showed a pained and dazed appearance although he wasn’t as angry as He Ziyue,
It wasn’t until Chu Chenli brought them to He Ziyue for treatment that he managed to regain some consciousness. However, he still seemed spiritless, listening to the casual chatter between He Ziyue and Chu Chenli in silence.
This period after completing a solo instance was one of the rare moments they could catch their breath.
He Ziyue: “I can understand how the others cleared the instance already, but why isn’t the team leader the first to complete it?”
Chu Chenli: “They probably got assigned to a different instance, we might meet again in the next instance.”
He Ziyue: “What about Xiao Mu? Isn’t he always in the same instance as you?”
She muttered under her breath, “Who knows where he got that cheat from.”
Chu Chenli shook his head; This time, he really didn’t encounter Mu Yanshen, his closest teammate.
Before entering the next world, they refrained from speculating about unfavorable outcomes.
He Ziyue changed the topic, “How did you guys get out? I initially thought I saw my mom, but later, she was cutting fruits and accidentally cut my hand. I went to my room to get a band-aid, and when I looked up, I was facing a graveyard. That’s when it hit me that my mom had been dead for over ten years. Even if she was a zombie, her body couldn’t be that intact.”
Chu Chenli told her about his own illusion after she finished.
He Ziyue curiously asked, “How did you figure it out so quickly? Was your boyfriend also buried in the school?”
“…He wasn’t dead when I entered,” Chu Chenli paused and added, “He was still alive.”
As for how he realized…
“I didn’t go to school,” Chu Chenli threw his reason out.
He Ziyue thought he was being perfunctory and asked, “And then?”
Chu Chenli replied calmly, “And then he died.”
Bent on defying death, it was only natural that He Yue cleared the instance as well.
She couldn’t hear the details, so she pursed her lips in boredom, but didn’t insist. She turned to pester their teammate Hua Jin, whom she was healing. She proposed an idea, whether she could make it through the next instance without bandaging her wounds.
Chu Chenli saw Hua Jin roll his eyes, and he couldn’t help but smile. He seemed to have regained some spirit now.
Perhaps it was a coincidence that the two teammates who shared a similar illusion zone with him were the ones he had known the longest and had the closest relationship with. Back when they were first dragged into this world, the final team hadn’t been formed yet. However, the three of them had already teamed up.
Before Hua Jin joined them, he was a second-year student majoring in veterinary medicine. However, he came from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, and his awakened ability was in the healing category. He remained the most indispensable healer in their team.
He Ziyue was two years older than him and had just started her senior year internship. She was a genius in computer science, with over a decade of experience in hacking. After entering the infinite world, she continued to develop her skills, even managing to infiltrate the core program of the system. She almost ended this strange infinite game right then and there. It was really unfortunate that she got ambushed when she was so close to achieving that, but she had to exit the system.
Afterward, infiltrating the system had become much harder, but He Ziyue possessed excellent investigative abilities and a somewhat eccentric way of thinking. She often noticed details that others easily overlooked. While her combat abilities weren’t top-notch, she excelled in intelligence work.
As for Chu Chenli, he was the youngest in the team, just turning eighteen when he was first dragged into the infinite world. However, despite his age and his deceptively frail appearance, his combat skills were far from average. While there were martial artists, snipers, and those from martial arts families in the team, no one, even taking awakened abilities into account, could outperform Chu Chenli in combat.
Naturally, he became the team’s number one….fighter.
This zone should have had at least a Mu Yanshen, who had always been the first to clear the illusion instances, but he was nowhere to be seen at the moment.
They didn’t even have time to think as the familiar monotonous completion announcement rang out, startling them.
“Level ninety-nine, ‘Nightmare,’ completion criteria met. Current number of survivors, ten. The gate to the real world has opened. Countdown: one minute, fifty-nine…”
The author has something to say:
Starting a new story~
Brief content warning: The main character has maximum beauty and combat capabilities (later parts). The early part of the story has a fun and somewhat cliché style, but the primary theme is to pamper the main character. I repeat, the main character is pampered, pampered, pampered.
There are more than just the three characters introduced in the beginning. The main character is the team’s favorite, and I won’t spoil the rest; you’ll have to find out as the story progresses.
I won’t set any other warnings. This story probably won’t be too long, and I’ll do my best to update it regularly. Thank you to the little angels for their support! Mwah!
