The terrifying majesty of the black hole swirling lazily in the dark sky did not evoke panic in Zhou Yuxuan.
His unique psychological detachment, the fundamental wiring of his mind that kept him entirely numb to ordinary human dread, became his greatest asset.
He did not freeze in terror; instead, his sharp, calculating analytical mind immediately began searching for survival patterns.
He stood at the edge of the sprawling, twilight marketplace.
His body throbbed with a dull, heavy ache—a lingering reminder of the brutal beating he had received at the hands of Ling Meilin’s thugs back in his own world.
His clothes were stained with dried blood from his nose and mouth, and his stomach twisted with a hollow, burning hunger.
Yet, his gaze remained focused, scanning the bizarre architecture and the murmuring crowds moving smoothly through the alien streets.
Suddenly, a heavy, calloused hand descended onto Yuxuan’s shoulder.
The physical touch was abrupt enough to send a jolt of adrenaline through his aching muscles.
He turned his head mechanically, meeting the gaze of an elderly man standing close beside him.
The old man was wearing a stark white lab coat over a plain black t-shirt, paired with white trousers that were disturbingly smeared with dark red splotches in several places.
“What happened to you?” the old man asked, his voice carrying a rough, raspy edge.
He peered closely at Yuxuan’s blood-stained shirt and foreign features.
“Are you hungry?
And…
you’re not looking familiar around here, are you?”
Yuxuan’s mind whirred, assessing the man’s odd attire and the red stains.
He chose his words with deliberate care.
“No, I’m not from this country.”
The old man tilted his head, a flicker of intense curiosity passing through his weathered eyes.
“Uh?
Country?
Okay…
let’s go to my home.
Let’s eat some dinner, okay?”
Under normal circumstances, a stranger inviting an injured, bleeding outsider into their home would trigger massive red flags.
But Yuxuan’s stomach clawed at him with a desperate, weak hunger, and his ribs ached severely.
He needed a place to rest, gather information, and map out the rules of this broken reality.
The risk was a calculated one.
“Uh…
okay,” Yuxuan murmured quietly, nodding his consent.
The old man turned and led the way through a maze of narrow, cobblestone alleyways.
He guided Yuxuan to a half-broken, ancient brick house that sat precariously squeezed between towering, decayed structures.
The architecture felt suffocating, as if the buildings themselves were slowly leaning inward, attempting to crowd out the dim light of the blackhole overhead.
They entered through a creaking, weathered door.
The interior was dimly lit, cast in a flickering, orange glow.
Beside a small, crackling room fire sat an elderly woman in a worn armchair, her features obscured by the dancing shadows.
The old man stepped inside, gesturing toward Yuxuan with a dramatic wave of his hand.
“Honey, look here.
Here is our new—”
Before he could finish, the old lady stood up, her face twisting into an unsettling, overly enthusiastic grin.
“Welcome!
Welcome!
Oh, little, sweet boy!
You’re looking healthy, but not fat!
Oh, come, do you wanna eat some dinner?”
“Okay…” Yuxuan replied, his instincts suddenly tingling with a subtle, cold friction.
The air in the room felt heavy, carrying a faint, metallic scent that he couldn’t quite place.
Still keeping his face entirely unreadable, Yuxuan walked over to the wooden dining table and sat quietly on a rigid chair.
The old lady scurried into the shadows of the kitchen and returned a moment later, placing a heavy ceramic plate directly in front of him.
The contents were entirely obscured, covered by a thick, coarse piece of cloth.
Yuxuan reached out, his fingers gripping the edge of the fabric.
He pulled the cloth back.
Instantly, his breath caught sharply in his throat.
Resting in the center of the plate, staring up at the ceiling with milky, unblinking eyes, was a severed human head.
The raw, primal shock of the sight overrode his emotional numbness for a split second.
Yuxuan violently threw the plate away from him, the ceramic shattering against the floor as he stood up, his voice cracking with a rare flash of adrenaline.
“What is this?!”
He looked over at the elderly couple, expecting panic or malice.
Instead, what he saw made the blood in his veins turn to ice.
The old lady and the old man were already sitting at the far end of the table, completely ignoring his reaction.
Without a shred of hesitation, they were casually tearing into the grotesque remains of a headless human body, chewing the meat with mechanical, rhythmic movements.
A heavy, suffocating silence filled the room, punctuated only by the wet, horrific sounds of their feeding.
Yuxuan’s body locked up.
For the first time, a genuine thrill of immediate, heart-pounding suspense seized him.
His muscles refused to move, paralyzed by the sheer abnormality of the horror before him.
This is it, a cold thought echoed through his mind.
Is this my last time.Though i don’t care,at all…
But before the cannibalistic couple could even look up from their feast, a flash of gleaming silver sliced through the dim firelight.
Swish!
A long, exceptionally sharp sword cleaved through the air with terrifying speed.
In a single, seamless motion, the heads of both the old man and the old woman were severed clean from their shoulders, tumbling to the floor with dull thuds.
The headless bodies slumped over the table, instantly silenced.
Standing behind the corpses was a young man gripping the hilt of the long sword.
He had vibrant, fiery red hair and wore a striking, ornate white-and-red costume that seemed to hum with an aura of authority.
He flicked the blade clean of blood and turned his sharp eyes toward Yuxuan.
“Are you okay, mr.?” the red-haired swordsman asked, his voice steady and calm.
Yuxuan took a slow, deep breath, forcing his heart rate back down into its usual, flat rhythm.
His mind instantly regained its cold, evaluating edge.
“Yeah, don’t worry,” he replied quietly, stepping away from the shattered plate.
“Who are you?”
The swordsman sheathed his weapon with a sharp click.
“I’m the watch gamer, name—Ronald Denbergh.”
“Thank you for saving me, Ronald,” Yuxuan said, his voice completely level as they stepped out of the horrific brick house.
He paused, realizing he needed a false identity to navigate this dangerous world safely.
“And I’m…Zho —uh, I’m Lie…
Lie Longturm.”
Ronald stopped in his tracks, turning to squint at him under the dim, sapphire glow of the sky.
“Ha?
What kind of name is that?
Anyway, you’re looking incredibly unfamiliar.
You’re not from where you just came from, are you?”
“I am from another country,” Yuxuan stated simply, keeping his tone carefully neutral.
Ronald’s eyes widened in absolute shock.
He took a step back, his hand resting instinctively on the hilt of his sword.
“What?!
There is no another country left?!”
Yuxuan’s analytical mind immediately seized on the word left.
It implied a massive, historical cataclysm.
Outwardly, his face remained a mask of mild curiosity.
“What?
How?!”
Ronald stared at him for a long moment, searching Yuxuan’s vacant expression for any sign of deceit.
Finding none, he let out a harsh breath.
“Okay, let’s go with me.”
They hurried out from the dense, decaying neighborhood.
Ronald led Yuxuan down a widening cobblestone path until they suddenly reached the outer edge of the settlement.
Yuxuan froze, his eyes widening in genuine astonishment.
Rising up from the ground directly ahead of them was a towering, impenetrable wall of dense, churning gray fog.
It stretched infinitely upward into the twilight sky, completely blocking out the horizon.
“What is this?” Yuxuan asked, his voice dropping to a whisper as he felt a strange, humming energy radiating from the mist.
“We call it—the end boundary,” Ronald explained, his voice tinged with a deep, historical gravity.
“Like you said, you came from another country.
It’s true that there was really many countries existed on that planet.
But, one day, when I was only seven years old, this world wall suddenly appeared, squaring in that city.
This is the only city left.
When it happened…”
Yuxuan stepped closer to the churning mist, his mind calculating the geometry of Ronald’s words.
“But, it’s just a wall of fog, isn’t it?
If you go there, there is a possibility that the other cities are still existing beyond it, maybe.”
Ronald let out a bitter, grim laugh.
“No, we tried.
But when the mayor of the city tried to go to the another part, when he crossed through, he just came right back from the opposite wall.
No one can able to go anywhere.
The fog is working like portals.
We also had tried to go over from the fog by planes, but every plane who tried that…
they never came back.”
Yuxuan stared at the swirling end boundary.
The concept of space folding back on itself like a loop resonated deeply with his logical mind.
It wasn’t a natural phenomenon; it was a highly structured, artificial barrier.
“Okay, sorry,” Yuxuan said, shifting his gaze back to Ronald.
“Actually, I don’t know how I reached here.
I was in a toilet…
then I reached here.
And…
what is about the ‘watch gamer’?”
A proud, sharp grin crossed Ronald’s face.
He raised his left arm, pulling back his white-and-red sleeve to reveal a beautifully crafted, heavy steel watch strapped tightly to his wrist.
“Look, this is my watch,” Ronald said, the metallic surface catching the dim, blue light from above.
“It’s not an ordinary watch.
I name it—Red Storm.
It can turn into the items you need.
But, you just have to imagine it.
Not only my watch, every watch of every gamer are same.”
Yuxuan’s eyes narrowed slightly.
An imagination-based materialization tool, he noted internally.
A highly advanced mechanism disguised as a game.
“It’s a game we made by the recommendation of our city’s best scientist, Flora Arghum,” Ronald continued, his tone turning serious.
“Every last day, the wall’s edge comes forward, shrinking our living space.
We can make them go back to their places by throwing a mysterious ball into the fog.
Everyone—every winner’s prize is the ball they threw.
But, the new winner of this year never threw his balls.
So our city is shortening.
It’s suffocating us.”
“Can’t anyone just take the balls from him or defeat him?” Yuxuan asked, quickly identifying the flaw in the system.
Ronald’s expression darkened into one of pure frustration.
“No one can abled to beat him.
His name is Sora Noin.
Whatever…
it’s night now.
Let’s go to my home.
Don’t worry, I’ve only my mom, Nika Rayoma Denbergh, living there.
You’re hungry, and you also have to change your blood-stained cloth.”
Yuxuan looked up one last time at the massive, silent abyss of Sagittarius A* hanging ominously close in the night sky, then looked back at Ronald’s steel watch.
The rules of this world were brutal, tightly wound, and rapidly collapsing.
But a collapsing world was just another complex equation to solve.
“Okay,” Yuxuan said, his voice flat and steady.
“Let’s go.”
NEXT CHAPTER IS COMING SOON!
I SUGGEST TO HEAR THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION IN BRIAN’S TONE, IT’S REALLY PERFECT MATCH.