LOGINThere was a flicker of motion. The Pale Warrior vanished from where it stood, and reappeared already standing in front of the red truck's hood.The bone spear in its hand rose high, its tip glinting with a chilling light.The spear came down. The red truck's proud, heavy armor plating gave way as easily as tofu. Half the cab was sheared clean off, exposing the two men trapped in the crumpled seats inside.Gavin's face was drenched in blood. Gabe had already fainted from the shock.Staring at the Pale Warrior now only inches away, at the spear raised once more for the final blow, Gavin — whose eyes had burned with fighting spirit through everything so far — finally let a flicker of despair show through.He'd tried fighting back. He'd tried running. He'd tried everything he could think of.None of it had worked. None of it."Is this... where it ends?"Gavin closed his eyes bitterly, the hardships of his whole journey flashing through his mind. He wasn't ready for this. He truly w
Fifteen minutes remained before the hidden quest, The Gaze of God, would end.Server-wide survivor count: 71,200.This meant that in this brief fifteen-minute span, more than a hundred thousand people had died.Crucible City, South District.This was the graveyard of the solo players. The Level 6 Pale Warrior wielding the bone spear had already made one full sweep through, moving through the chaos of fleeing vehicles with cold, mechanical precision. It needed no flashy skills. It didn't even need to defend. Because no one could land a hit on it, and no one could break through its defense.All the survivors ever saw was a pale afterimage flicker across their vision, and then the vehicle or the person beside them would be cut clean apart. The wound would look mirror-smooth for a few seconds before the blood finally came pouring out.Despair spread faster than any virus."There's no getting away... we're all going to die here..."Some people broke down sobbing. Some gave up figh
A few seconds later, the fire cleared. Through the drifting smoke, a massive sphere of pale wings slowly unfurled.The Level 6 Pale Warrior hung in midair, faint scorch marks streaking its enormous wings, a thin pale fluid seeping from them. It was hurt.But that was all it was — hurt.An explosion powerful enough to flatten a hundred-meter radius had done nothing more than break its skin. The pale wings trembled slightly, and the wounds visibly closed before their eyes, healing back to normal in seconds.It lifted its head, those flat, unmoved eyes turning back toward Fiona's Level 6 sports car once more — as though the woman who'd just died had been nothing more than a slightly oversized mosquito, not worth the faintest stir of emotion."You monster..."Fiona stared at the unscathed creature, her nails digging deep into her palms.Was that all Scarlett's life had bought — a single layer of skin?But the next second, Fiona wiped her tears away hard. She wasn't going to waste t
But that brief moment of interception was enough to change its target. The Pale Warrior's pale eyes shifted away from Fiona, locking instead onto the red Ferrari sports car. It beat its wings, changed course, and closed in on Scarlett with a suffocating weight of pressure."Scarlett! It's coming for you! Run!!"Fiona screamed into the comm channel, her voice tearing at the seams.Inside the Level 6 red sports car, Scarlett watched through the rearview mirror as the pale reaper closed in at breakneck speed. There was no fear on her face — only a calm she had never felt before.She opened a private channel to Fiona."Fiona." Scarlett's voice was soft, sounding nothing like someone caught in the middle of a slaughterhouse. "I'm leaving the Rose Society to you now."Fiona's whole body shook. "Scarlett, what do you mean — don't you dare scare me like this! We're running together!""There's no outrunning this."Scarlett glanced at the speedometer, already pegged at its absolute lim
[Server-Wide Announcement: Survivor count has dropped below 100,000]It hadn't even been ten minutes since the Pale Kin arrived. The two Level 6 Pale Warriors moved like a pair of erasers, wiping out living lives silently and efficiently wherever they passed.The survivor count had plunged from 180,000 to just 100,000....Crucible City, West District, the Rose Society's camp.The area had turned into an absolute slaughterhouse. Fire lit up the sky, thick smoke billowed everywhere, and the air reeked of scorched flesh and nauseating blood."Aaaah! Help me! Scarlett, help!!""Stay back! Devil! Stay away from me!!"On the internal comm channel, voices that had once been lively and bright now dissolved into gut-wrenching screams and dying wails.Scarlett, the Rose Society's guild leader, drove her prized Level 6 red Ferrari heavy-combat sports car in a mad weave through the ruins. Through the rearview mirror, she caught a sight that shattered her heart.The Level 6 Pale Warrior
"There's more — my other theory was right too."Its precognition only picks up on 'targeted malice.' As long as an attack isn't aimed at it specifically, or comes from the 'environment,' its sense fails to trigger."Just as Desmond was explaining, his body suddenly went rigid.Crack, crack.His joints let out a rusty-hinge kind of creak. His fingers... felt numb. And not just his fingers — his neck, his arms and his legs were all going numb at an alarming rate, growing stiff and unresponsive."Ah, damn it..."Desmond let out a bitter laugh.[Teleport Scroll Side Effect: Marionette Syndrome.][Effect: Over the next 12 hours, the user's joints will gradually stiffen like a wooden puppet's, rendering all physical movement impossible.]The side effect had kicked in. Turning into a wooden puppet in the middle of a battlefield like this was basically the same as being dead already."Jake, my friend... it's all on you from here."While he could still move at all, Desmond sent Jake







