Chapter 39 - 37: No Bottom Line

Chapter 39: Chapter 37: No Bottom Line

Sirens wailed one after another across the city. Drones cut through the gaps between buildings, and searchlight beams swept across the night sky in broad, sweeping arcs.

From somewhere in the distance came screams, cursing, gunshots, and the dull thud of something heavy hitting the ground.

It felt like the end of the world was right around the corner.

Only one channel remained on TV, looping the same emergency announcement over and over.

Yin Zhen locked the doors and windows, pulled the curtains shut, then braced herself against the wall and shuffled back to the bedroom. She lay down and opened the Invasion Game forum — and froze the moment it loaded.

At the very top of the homepage, pinned and bolded: [Player ’Want to Kill Someone Today’ has died. Whoever killed them will receive their Identity Card and Items.]

The system actually sends out announcements for this kind of thing?

Yin Zhen tapped the post. The content was straightforward — a simple Explanation stating that Player ’Want to Kill Someone Today’ had been confirmed dead in this world at such-and-such time, and that all Players were hereby notified.

The replies were already piling up — dozens of them.

[Naming is Too Troublesome]: ??????????????????

[Signal]: What the hell??

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: For real? Someone actually died?

[Naming is Too Troublesome]: @Want to Kill Someone Today, bro? sis? You still there?

[Signal]: Obviously not, the system already announced it.

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: Wait, why did they suddenly impose a curfew? The authorities responded faster than any system quest ever has??

[Signal]: I literally came on here to talk about the curfew and then I saw this.

[Naming is Too Troublesome]: It’s a total mess out there on my end — police cars and drones everywhere. I genuinely want to know who tipped off the authorities, because we’re literally unable to tell anyone about the Invasion Game!

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: So can someone explain what’s going on? Did someone go and play the ’hand everything over to the government’ route?

[Signal]: @Winter Night Fire @Heavenly Dao Rewards Diligence @Blossoming Prosperity, are you guys still alive?

[Winter Night Fire]: Follow the authorities’ lead, check in every night at seven, just do what they say.

[Signal]: What does that have to do with ’Want to Kill Someone Today’ dying?

[Winter Night Fire]: I want to know what happened too!!

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: So what does ’receive their Identity Card and Items’ mean? You can loot other Players when you kill them?

[Naming is Too Troublesome]: My guess is that when a Player dies, their Identity Card and Items can be inherited by whoever killed them? Like dropping gear in a game?

[Signal]: You can actually play it that way???

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: So are we supposed to start killing each other now? Don’t you dare come after me — I’m literally cannon fodder, okay o(╥﹏╥)o

[Winter Night Fire]: Don’t overthink it. Focus on staying alive first.

[Naming is Too Troublesome]: @Winter Night Fire, you sound like you know something.

[Signal]: Anyway — does anyone actually know ’Want to Kill Someone Today’? Who were they? Who killed them, and why?

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: Ahhhhh, there are so many cars outside my building right now, fully armed people rounding everyone up, this really feels like the apocalypse, I’m freaking out!

[Signal]: We should get out there and start hunting invaders before the authorities clean them all up — there’s definitely going to be word count rewards this round, and I need those words to survive!

[Winter Night Fire]: I strongly advise against doing anything rash. Wait for the authorities to handle it first. I’m thinking of organizing a meetup tomorrow — anyone interested?

[Want to Eat Mao Xuewang]: No thanks, let’s not meet up. I’m cannon fodder, sure, but I’d still rather not get looted.

[Signal]: Same. I’d rather not test how far people are willing to go.

The replies kept coming, but Yin Zhen didn’t scroll any further.

The way ’Winter Night Fire’ spoke in that thread — measured, authoritative, already organizing things — made Yin Zhen fairly certain it was Nan Jiamu. Trying to get everyone together. To assess them. To build her protagonist’s party, maybe?

It seemed like she had already thrown a wrench in Nan Jiamu’s plans.

Did that mean she’d already started down the villain’s path without even trying — working against the protagonist before the story had properly begun?

Like how the Protagonist Halo Experience Card in her possession seemed to have a passive effect even when unused.

A nudge from fate, of sorts.

Yin Zhen closed the forum, shut her eyes, and began combing through Lucia’s memories for anything related to using spiritual power. She needed to get stronger, fast.

Then she felt herself sinking, and when she opened her eyes again, she was standing in that vast, empty hall — the one she always passed through before each transmigration.

Ancient patterns were etched into the stained glass windows. Silent lightning split the sky outside, startling a flock of bats from beneath the eaves, their dark shapes sweeping past a blood-red moon.

Directly ahead, the towering Gothic door stood firmly shut, a countdown floating in the air before it.

The card table was still there, her Identity Cards and Items arranged across its surface.

On the far side of the room, against the wall — a row of old bookshelves that hadn’t been there before.

Yin Zhen picked up a candlestick from the table and walked over. The flame swayed, casting its light across the spines of the books on the shelves.

"Fallen Species, Chen Wei, Lucia, Tuner, Sheng Yehan..."

They varied in thickness. Lucia’s was the thickest, followed by Sheng Yehan’s, then Chen Wei’s and the Tuner’s, with the Fallen Species volume being the thinnest of all.

"The Memory Palace taking physical form?" Yin Zhen murmured under her breath.

She reached out and pulled the book labeled ’Lucia’ from the shelf.

The cover was dark brown, with the worn texture of old leather under her fingers. She opened to the first page — it was dense with text, filling every inch of the paper.

Yin Zhen turned through the pages one by one. Lucia’s memories were written in third person: her childhood, the Blood Plague, a long sleep, training, her first kill, her first time leading a team to purge a Fallen Species nest...

Guan City had been in chaos for an entire night.

From seven o’clock until well past one in the morning, things only began to settle — the noise gradually fading, the commotion dying down.

Six hours. Exactly the window during which Blood Clan invaders recovered their memories. Once they had access to the memories of their human hosts, any Blood Clan with half a brain would choose to lay low and blend in.

The next morning, the sun rose as it always did. The breakfast stalls opened as they always did.

Students and office workers received no notice of a holiday, so they crammed onto buses and subways as they always did.

There were additional security checkpoints in the subway stations now, and armed soldiers were stationed throughout — but people squeezed in just the same.

Armored vehicles lined the streets, and drones still circled overhead in large numbers. People kept their heads down and scrolled through their phones, glancing up occasionally, trading a few words with whoever was nearby, getting no real answers, and looking back down again.

The cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

A tabby cat leapt up onto the perimeter wall, a small white flower clamped in its jaws, eyes sharp as it scanned the area.

Yin Zhen had snagged the flower from a roadside planter on the way here. She looked around to make sure no one was watching, then dropped down from the wall and slipped into the cemetery.

She stopped in front of a gravestone.

A photo was affixed to the stone — her father and mother when they were young. Both were smiling, shoulders pressed together, looking genuinely happy.

Yin Zhen set the flower down in front of the grave and gently touched the photo with one paw.

"Mrow..."

A soft, barely-there sound. She didn’t know if they could hear her.

"Mom, Dad — I can stand on my own now. I have the strength to protect myself. If you get the chance to move on, please do. Don’t worry about me..."

A breeze drifted through and nudged the flower.

Yin Zhen stayed crouched there for a moment, then turned and left.

Sheng Yehan’s body had already turned to ash. Everything she’d taken off him yesterday, she’d thrown into the river on her way here.

Last night she’d gone through Lucia’s book twice from cover to cover, and hadn’t found much on the practical use of spiritual power.

Lucia was a combat fiend through and through. Her Extraordinary Ability was entirely close-range, so she’d never bothered with spiritual power in any deliberate way — she just relied on brute, inexhaustible physical force. Even her go-to Weapon was a Hand Axe.

If Lucia had ever taken the time to learn even the basics of spiritual power, she probably wouldn’t have been so easily parasitized by a Mutant.

For Yin Zhen, the situation was different. Her Wisdom stat was already far ahead of everything else, and all that overflow of spiritual power would go to waste if she didn’t channel it into combat capability.

Spiritual power was something like Telekinesis in certain novels and anime — but unlike an Extraordinary Ability, which locked in at a fixed Level the moment it awakened, and unlike an Extraordinary Catalyst, which only had a chance of raising that Level, Blood Clan nobility actually had methods to train and strengthen spiritual power through dedicated practice.

That said, the more pressing problem right now wasn’t mastering spiritual power. It was the fact that she was completely, utterly broke.

She’d drained every last cent of her savings replacing the lights.

Utilities and internet were due in a matter of days. Once she finished the dried noodles she had left at home, she’d be out of food entirely.

Where was she supposed to get money?

Rob from the rich and give to herself?

She was still turning the problem over in her head when a surprised voice rang out in the distance.

"Li Hua?! It’s you again, isn’t it? I recognize your markings!"

Yin Zhen looked up. Bai Qiang was standing far off, cradling a bundle of chrysanthemums in her arms, wearing a long black dress, hair loosely tied back — the same effortlessly disheveled look she always had.

Those eyes of hers were locked onto Yin Zhen, lit up with some strange, intense gleam.

Yin Zhen: ...

How does this woman keep showing up everywhere?

Yin Zhen turned and bolted straight for the nearest patch of undergrowth.

"Oh no you don’t!"

The words had barely left Bai Qiang’s mouth when Yin Zhen found she couldn’t move. Her limbs were locked in place, as if bound by invisible ropes.

Spiritual power restraint. Again.

Yin Zhen seething internally, her inner monologue a stream of creative profanity.

Bai Qiang was seriously using her Extraordinary Ability on a stray cat. Did this woman have any sense of proportion whatsoever?