A young man with pale skin and slender limbs lay silently in a hospital bed. His dull eyes stared at the screen of his Pearphone 16 Pro Max.
"Ah, why did I have to read that novel? Now I can’t stand the boredom," he complained, staring at the ceiling.
The logo of a bitten pear glowed on the back of the device.
"Why did they have to ban such a masterpiece?" he muttered as he read the article about the ban on the novel [Master Daoist Gu.]
[Due to content policy restrictions, I am forced to stop posting...]
His fingers let go of the phone. It fell to the side.
"I’ll never find anything like this again..."
The door creaked open quietly. A young nurse with a kind face entered, pushing a food cart.
"Mr. Noir, it’s lunchtime," she announced with a smile honed by routine.
She placed the tray on the adjustable table and, as always, began to feed him patiently. Noir Snow could barely chew, and food dripped from the corner of his mouth.
For as long as he could remember, that white room had been his whole world.
He suffered from hyper-IgM syndrome with combined immunodeficiency: a rare disease that caused him to experience constant physical weakness, chronic fever, and minimal contact with the outside world.
His only hobby was reading.
He had devoured books on history, philosophy, economics, and so on. But a few months ago, he discovered web novels. It was an instant addiction.
He spent a lot of money. He came across authors who abandoned their works, and others who presented themselves as geniuses of the ages but churned out trash.
After the nurse fed him, Noir picked up his phone again.
’What should I read now...? Maybe I should ask for a recommendation,’ he thought as he opened the Ghiscord app.
His eyes scanned the servers with more than 99 mentions. Most of them were spam from porn servers.
"I wish someone would recommend a novel that’s just as good...," he sighed. He ignored all that and logged into the server where Master Daoist Gu had been recommended to him.
[I need another novel recommendation. I’ve already finished reading Master Daoist Gu, and I don’t know what to read now].
He waited a few seconds. Someone replied:
[Wow, so you finally finished that masterpiece].
A smile spread across Noir’s face; this was the only way he could communicate with anyone on the outside, and he wrote:
[It was truly amazing; the part that struck me the most was the end of Volume 2. But I’m sad that it was canceled].
Someone else sent a message:
[I heard rumors that the author already has most of the manuscript for Volume 6].
[Huh? You jerk, stop lying! Do you think it’s okay to play with other people’s hopes?].
[Oh! Why would I lie about that? I read it on Keddit. I’ll send you the link where it says that right away].
The conversation quickly heated up as more people joined in, and Noir just sat back and watched the chaos unfold. Until he was mentioned.
[@Shura, why don’t you read "Return of the Fallen Nobleman With an SSS-Rank Talent"?]
Silence.
Everything in the Ghiscord server’s general channel came to a halt, and no one typed anything. Just a few seconds later, a message appeared:
[@Raga has been kicked from the server]
[hahahahaha]
[You shouldn’t have said that, bro...]
[Serves you right]
"Hahahahaha~!... Cough, cough.... What a bunch of bastards!" he laughed and continued typing.
After chatting for a bit and getting the recommendations, he closed the app.
’They told me to read Lord of Mysteries, Shadow Slave, and The Name of the Wind. That’ll keep me busy for the next few months.’
Smiling with satisfaction, he opened the novel app, added the recommended books to his library, and topped up his coins so he could read them later.
But just then, the lights began to flicker. A sharp beep signaled that the breathing machine had malfunctioned. The air grew thicker, and Noir’s chest sank as if it were being squeezed from the inside.
"What’s going on?!" he managed to say, his voice torn by panic.
The door burst open. The nurse rushed in like a whirlwind.
She lifted him onto a stretcher and began pushing it down the hallways as his vision grew blurry. The ceiling lights flashed by like distant sparks.
’Is this how I’m going to die...?’ was the last thing he thought before darkness fell over him like a final curtain.
***
Darkness.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed.
Noir felt as though he were in a strange limbo, unable to move even an inch.
All his memories were as clear as day; he was more than certain he was dead, but...
’I’m bored out of my mind.’
Noir let out a long sigh.
He was so bored that he ended up going through all the novels he had in his mind and, surprisingly, he remembered them all... However, he couldn’t even open his eyes; everything was completely dark.
Then he heard the sound of liquid gurgling.
Thump... thump.
It was the sound of a heart beating with life!
’I’m alive...’
The fact that his life hadn’t ended after one of the ventilators failed was truly moving.
He gathered his strength and tried to move his hands and feet slightly. His fingers touched a solid wall. His fingertips and the tip of his tail also touched the walls.
Wait... a tail?
His heart, which had been beating gently, began to pound with excitement, overcoming his doubt.
Noir, trembling with emotion upon realizing he was alive, began pounding on the wall.
Thud!
The impact reverberated through his entire body.
The surface barely budged.
A sharp pain shot through his limb.
’What the hell...? Why is it so hard?!’
He clenched his teeth.
No.
He wasn’t going to get stuck there.
Summoning all his strength, he struck again.
Thud! Thud! Crack!
His eyes flew open.
A crack.
A faint line of light pierced the utter darkness.
For a moment, he was frozen in place.
Then emotion overwhelmed him.
’It’s giving way!’
He struck again. Cracks spread like spiderwebs, and light poured in from all sides.
Something unfamiliar came with it.
Air and the damp scent of ancient stone.
Instinct took over him.
Noir pushed.
CRACK!
The shell cracked open.
A small limb, covered in dark scales, emerged first, trembling as it touched the outside.
Then another.
Next, a tiny reptilian tail. The entire body lost its balance and fell onto a cold, rough surface.
For a few seconds, Noir didn’t understand a thing.
The world was too bright and too vast.
His breathing sounded strange.
Crystals embedded in enormous walls illuminated a gigantic cavern.
And a voice echoed in his mind.
[Host detected.]
[Devourer System initializing.]