[Name: Puppet Thread]
[Type: Skill]
[Effect: After parasitizing another player's little finger, you can control their life and manipulate their actions (Evolved to its complete form).]
[Note: 1. You can parasitize one and only one new player in each instance. The parasitized player will be informed of all the skill's information when the effect is activated.
2. The Puppet Master possesses an unlimited number of Puppet Threads, but each puppet has one and only one thread attached to them.
3. The parasitized player will be temporarily designated as "Deceased." If they leave the instance with the Puppet Thread, they will be "deeply parasitized," and the "Deceased" status becomes irreversible.
4. The Puppet Master can parasitize other players through a puppet. The specific method is to touch the target's right hand with the puppet's right hand.
5. A "deeply parasitized" puppet will die in the truest sense if detached from the Puppet Thread. Their existence in reality will be immediately erased.]
...
In the coconut grove, Liu Yuhan carried Zhang Hongfeng on her back, hurrying toward the coast. She followed the deep grooves in the sand left by the other players who had dragged the wooden boat.
"A little faster, I hope we can still make it..." Liu Yuhan repeated to herself, a chill spreading through her heart.
Reason told her that no one would wait for them, but she couldn't bring herself to give up, not until the very last moment...
Liu Yuhan had never been physically strong; even carrying a backpack up a flight of stairs left her breathless. Carrying a grown man was a whole other level of torture. After only a few steps, she felt the weight crushing the air from her lungs.
A thin layer of fish scales now covered Zhang Hongfeng's skin, making it slick and impossible to grip. Liu Yuhan could only clutch desperately at his clothes to keep him steady. The entire weight bore down on her knuckles, twisting her fingers until they throbbed with a sharp, raw pain.
"Don't... move me. Just let me sleep..." Zhang Hongfeng mumbled, his mind already clouded and indistinct.
Liu Yuhan didn't answer, just kept moving forward. The sea breeze sliced into her windpipe like a knife, and she choked back a cough. Each step sank into the sand, her legs as heavy as lead.
The deep green of the grove and the heavy, dark yellow of the sand blurred and twisted before her eyes. Only through gaps in the leaves could she glimpse the distant, azure sea.
That brilliant expanse of blue seemed impossibly distant, yet it hung there, alluring and seductive, as if she could reach out and touch it if she only kept walking.
"Yuhan... put me down," Liu Yuhan heard Zhang Hongfeng mutter from her back. "I'm so hungry now... I think I might eat you..." A sticky liquid dripped onto her neck. It felt like drool.
She clutched the man's clothes even tighter and whispered, "Just hold on a little longer. We're almost through this."
The sea seemed only a few steps away now. The wind carried the roar of the tide, so close it felt like it was crashing right beside her.
Liu Yuhan could see the coastline. White foam traced the edges of the waves as they rolled onto the sand with a slow, steady rhythm.
Her mind drifted to a thunderstorm from her childhood. She had been reading beside the factory where her father worked when she looked up just in time to see a bolt of lightning split the sky. Terrified, she had searched everywhere for her father but couldn't find him. All she could do was run home, alone and in tears.
That evening, his coworkers brought his body home, a mangled mess of flesh and blood. They said he had fallen into a pile of steel rebar behind the factory. He hadn't died on impact; he had bled out over the entire afternoon.
If only she hadn't left by herself, she thought. If only she had taken a few more steps, checked a few more places...
The coconut grove thinned, opening onto a wide expanse of pale sand. In the distance, Liu Yuhan could just make out a few drab, gray figures and a long, narrow wooden boat.
The weight on her back felt heavier now, forcing her to stoop even lower. She could only struggle forward, dragging the man by his clothes as she stumbled toward the boat.
Just ahead, three shadowy figures clambered into the boat one after another. Liu Yuhan could only watch, helpless, as the vessel, which had been resting in the shallows, swayed and drifted away from the shore, floating slowly toward the open sea.
She opened her mouth to shout, but the only sound that escaped was a ragged gasp, like air being forced from a broken bellows.
Her foot caught, and she stumbled, collapsing to the sand. The man on her back rolled off her like a dead weight.
"Clang—" A bell tolled, the sound like a stone dropped into the pool of her mind, sending ripples spreading outward.
Liu Yuhan's head swam. She pushed herself up with effort and turned to look at the space beside her.
But Zhang Hongfeng wasn't there. In his place was a giant fish with human limbs. Its flat, wide head poked out from a dust-covered orange jacket, its enormous, murky yellow eyes staring straight into her face!
...
"Clang— Clang—"
The wooden boat drifted on the boundless sea, the lonely island shrinking behind it until it was nothing more than a pale gray speck on the horizon.
In the ochre sky, jaundiced clouds hung motionless, like a meticulously painted backdrop. The distance was impossible to gauge. Only the solemn, resounding toll of a bell echoed through the air, one chime after another.
We're so far from the island, so why can we still hear the bell? Bai Yanduan stared blankly at the sky, his gaze unfocused.
On the tenth toll of the bell, his eyes shot wide with terror.
A fissure ripped through the center of the sky. The sickly yellow clouds churned and billowed to either side, clustering around a colossal eye like festering pustules.
The eye stared, unblinking, at the living things on the sea's surface. Its gaze met Bai Yanduan's directly, and in that instant, his mind was flooded with a chorus of impossible sounds.
A cacophony of whispers, as tangible as matter, poured through his mouth, nose, and ears, churning his brain into a viscous slurry. He couldn't think. Instinctively, he tried to turn to Lu Li for help, but his peripheral vision caught only a glimpse of faded, water-soaked, and tattered cloth.
Somehow, he was now alone on the wooden boat.
In the spot where Lu Li should have been, a tattered rag doll lay in his place.
[Name: Substitute Doll]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Swaps positions with the player and becomes their substitute for a period of time.]
[Note: By the time you notice, he's long gone. Ha, ha, ha.]
Bai Yanduan understood everything in an instant.
Soon after boarding, Lu Li had used the Substitute Doll to escape, leaving the other three players behind to dumbly await their doom.
But... why? Why would he do this to them?
[8. The boat must carry four people, and only four people.]
On the system interface, the words of the rule turned a stark, bloody red. Streaks of crimson trickled down from the letters like excess paint.
A rattling sound gurgled in Bai Yanduan's throat, but he couldn't force out a single word.
The wooden boat beneath him, carrying one living man and one corpse, began to sink slowly, disappearing into the depths like a stone...
...
Liu Yuhan sprinted through the coconut grove, her feet sinking unevenly into the soft sand, causing her to stumble and stagger.
A dense, slithering rustle pursued her. Without even looking back, she knew it was the fish-headed monsters.
Her legs were numb, as if they didn't belong to her anymore. Liu Yuhan could only keep running on pure momentum, a mechanical motion.
The sounds behind her grew closer. Gasping for breath, she could almost feel the touch of slime, smell the rank, briny stench of their fishy skin. So this was it. Was she really going to die here? Even after signing that contract, all it had bought her was one extra day of life...
Liu Yuhan glanced at the [Follower of the Evil God] tag on her system interface and twisted her lips into a bitter smile.
She had been too reliant on her skills, leaving her useless once they were spent. She had made decisions too rashly, placing herself and others in danger. One wrong move had forced her to make a series of others just to barely stay alive...
Just as she always did, she began to analyze her mistakes, cataloging the lessons learned to avoid them in the future. But it was too late. Would there even be a future?
Shadows flickered in the grove ahead. More dark figures emerged from between the trees. All of them were covered in fish scales, with tattered strips of cloth hanging from their limbs.
The fish-headed monsters closed in, surrounding Liu Yuhan from all sides. Trapped, she stood frozen in place, her jaw clenched tight.
She heard a whistle of displaced air from just behind her ear. A flash of eerie blue light streaked past the corner of her eye. She saw a black playing card lodged in the chest of the nearest creature, having sliced straight through it.
Before she could even react, two more cards zipped past her cheeks, piercing the two creatures in front of her and clearing a path just wide enough for one person to pass.
Without hesitation, Liu Yuhan dragged her weary legs and plunged through the opening.
The moment she broke through the circle, a figure clad in black from head to toe appeared beside her like a phantom, pressing a wad of damp banknotes into her hands.
"I just tested it," a cool voice explained calmly. "As long as you're carrying enough money, these monsters won't harm you." The words were like a splash of cool water, steadying her frayed nerves.
As if to prove his point, the fish-men that had been relentlessly pursuing her slowed their pace. It was as if they had lost their target; they showed no interest in the two humans and began to wander away aimlessly.
"Thank you," Liu Yuhan said, looking up to see a face half-obscured by a black hood.
She remembered him. His name was Chang Xu, an associate of Qi Si's who had only recently been cleared of suspicion of being a puppet.
He didn't get on the boat either?
Sensing her confusion, Chang Xu explained as he walked, "The boat only holds four people. I was the fifth. We'll have to wait on the island for another three days."
Liu Yuhan fell into step behind him, keeping a slight distance. "There was only one boat on the island," she stated, "and they took it. We'll have to build a new one. I'm no carpenter. Are you?"
Chang Xu's pace faltered. "Neither am I."
A long silence stretched between them as they walked, one behind the other, back toward the inn.
Their future was uncertain; they could only take things one step at a time. The only silver lining was that they both had plenty of money left. If they shared a room, they could afford to stay on the island for more than ten days, which gave them time to come up with a plan.
The immediate priority, however, was surviving the night, when the island's monsters were on the prowl.
Chang Xu had always been emotionally detached, and he remained perfectly calm now, mentally reviewing everything that had happened since they entered the instance.
The boat was in the coconut grove, meaning anyone who explored that area could have figured out the escape plan. The clues related to the bell tower and the altar had been far from fully utilized.
The four players who left by boat were likely on the path to a Normal End. That meant there had to be another way, a path to a True End that remained undiscovered.
There was something important at the altar—so important that the Sila Guild members were willing to kill anyone who went near it. But now, everyone else was gone. Only he and Liu Yuhan remained on the island...
With this thought, Chang Xu changed direction. "Let's go check out the altar."
The altar was located midway between the bell tower and the inn. Chang Xu had already memorized the island's layout over the past two days, so he could navigate accurately even in the dense night fog.
He took the lead, guiding Liu Yuhan toward their destination.
The fog on the island grew thicker, a cold, damp vapor that enveloped everything in a silken web, painting the sky, the grove, and the sand in a hazy, milky white.
It felt like walking on the edge of a dream. Things that hadn't been there before now littered the ground: jagged, grayish-white fish bones, foul-smelling crimson entrails, and rotting wood, all drifting slowly past their vision.
In the distance, Chang Xu saw a circular white arc built from marble. Enormous fish skeletons encircled it like the petals of a grotesque flower, their overlapping forms casting flickering shadows on the ground.
He started toward it, but the girl's frightened voice came from behind. "Chang Xu... I don't think all the monsters are affected by the money..."
Chang Xu followed her gaze and saw countless streams of tangible black smoke seeping from the edges of the stone platform. The smoke coalesced into the forms of more fish-headed monsters, and they were closing in on him.
A blue light flashed at his fingertips. He flicked his wrist, sending several cards flying toward the nearest creature, which was entirely pitch-black.
The monster dissolved into black smoke, which seemed to thin for a moment before instantly reconsolidating, as dense as before.
His instincts screamed danger. He acted before he could think, grabbing Liu Yuhan's elbow and pulling her back.
"Run!" he yelled, but the word was torn apart by the sudden tolling of the bell, its layered echoes shattering the sound.
Billows of black smoke surged toward them, carried on an unseen wind.
Chang Xu shoved Liu Yuhan aside, then turned to face the dense black smoke, cards in hand.
He broke the newly formed monsters apart again and again, but they just kept reforming, seemingly without end.
The blue glow at his fingertips grew brighter, shattering the darkness with increasing speed.
It was a stalemate. Neither side could gain an advantage. Their only hope was to hold out until dawn, when the monsters would presumably disperse.
The bell tolled twelve times. Eight more hours until the sleep period ended.
He just had to hold on for eight more hours...
Wait. Chang Xu's breath caught in his throat.
He remembered that the last time the bell had rung, it tolled ten times, signaling the start of the sleep period.
The bell hadn't rung at all in the interim. But this time, it struck twelve.
Something was wrong with the time!
A sudden insight flashed through his mind, but before he could connect the dots, he saw Liu Yuhan fall to the ground in the distance.
Tendrils of black smoke swarmed around the girl, her terrified cries for help muffled by the dark mass.
Chang Xu hesitated for just a second, but it was enough. Countless monstrous hands shot out, pinning him to the sand.
He twisted and threw a punch, shattering the monster that had solidified, but amidst the chaos, he faintly heard soft, unhurried footsteps approaching.
The footsteps stopped right behind him. His head was shoved back into the sand, blinding him.
In the suffocating silence, something cold touched the back of his neck. A familiar, amused voice spoke from right behind him. "Turn off the livestream. If you don't want to die, that is."