Li Ming slipped deeper into the narrow alley, heart still pounding from the rush of coming back. He could still hear the distant screams from the school grounds mixed with the occasional wet crunch and roar. Monsters were tearing through Qingyun City like it was nothing. He pressed his back against a graffiti-covered wall and pulled up his status for the first time.A semi-transparent window floated in his vision, clean and simple.Name: Li MingLevel: 1Class: NoneStats:Strength: 10Agility: 11Vitality: 9Intelligence: 12Mana: 8Luck: 7Skills: NoneTitles: Reincarnator (Hidden)Throne Anchors: 0/3 (Create first anchor)The numbers looked pathetic. Average high school kid stuff. But the system messages from earlier burned in his mind. Reincarnation. Absorption. Reset. This wasn’t like the global game everyone else was stuck with. This was his cheat.He took a slow breath, forcing his hands to stop shaking. The pain from dying had been real, sharp claws ripping through skin and mu

Li Ming moved quietly through the darkening alleys of Qingyun City. The streetlights were mostly dead now, either smashed or flickering weakly. Only the occasional blue glow from the global system panels lit the way. Screams had become constant.He kept his breathing steady. The new Desperate Survival Instinct helped dull the edge of fear, turning it into something colder, calculation.His current stats after the park gains:Strength: 12Agility: 13.5Vitality: 11Intelligence: 13Mana: 8Luck: 8Skills:• Knife Proficiency (Passive Lv.1)• Street Brawler’s Instinct (Passive Lv.1)• Scuttler Carapace Fragment (Passive Lv.1)• Basic Leatherworking Fragment (Passive Lv.1)• Crude Bat Mastery (Passive Lv.1)• Basic Cooking Skill (Passive Lv.1)• Desperate Survival Instinct (Passive Lv.1)Still weak overall, but the pieces were adding up. He needed better active skills soon. Passives helped survival, but offense would keep him from dying too cheaply.A group of five scuttlers scutt

Li Ming slipped between two wrecked cars, with his dagger low at his side. The second wave of the tide was worse. Bigger wolves howled through the commercial street, and a few spiked lizards the size of motorcycles had joined them. Survivors were down to maybe fifteen now, scattered and desperate. The four loudmouths’ group was gone, only their leader’s fresh corpse still fed the Throne.He stayed on the edges, always moving, always inside fifty meters of the heaviest fighting. Adrenaline Rush was on cooldown, but the new stats made his steps lighter, his swings harder.A wolf pack of three tore into a small family barricaded behind a flipped truck. Li Ming circled wide, staying forty meters back. The parents went down first. Then the kid.[Throne Absorption triggered.][Absorbed: Family Bond Fragment (Passive Lv.1) – Minor boost to protecting nearby allies (irrelevant for now).][Absorbed: Desperate Throw (Active Lv.1) – Accurate projectile toss once per minute.][Stat bonuses: +1 Ag

Li Ming stood on the empty sports field,. The city noise was picking up, shouts, arguments, the clatter of people dragging barricades. Survivors were waking up to the new reality. He didn’t care. His inventory was heavier with coins and the new iron dagger. The Mana Bolt skill sat ready in his palm, a faint blue spark he could feel even without casting.He checked the system again.[Dungeon: Abandoned Warehouse – Cleared][Reset available: Once per week.][Resetting will increase all monster levels by 1. Loot scales accordingly.]One week cooldown, but he could start the second run right now. No point waiting. Every hour the other survivors grew bolder, and someone would eventually stumble on this door. Better to farm it alone while it was still quiet.He jumped up, grabbed the edge, and pulled himself through.The warehouse air hit him colder this time. Lights flickered the same, but the shadows felt thicker. The system updated instantly.[Reset complete.][All monsters now Level 5–8

Li Ming woke before sunrise in the quiet loading yard of the old textile factory. The second anchor felt solid under him, like a hidden safety net no one else could see. He stood, stretched, and checked the global timer out of habit.[Next Monster Tide: 5 days, 18 hours.]The city had grown louder overnight. Distant shouts, he could hear metal being hammered into barricades, and the scream when someone walked too close to a resident pack of shadow wolves or scuttlers. The monsters hadn’t vanished with the tide. They had simply spread out, smaller groups now claimed alleys, rooftops, and abandoned buildings as their territory. The big waves were gone, but Qingyun City remained a hunting ground.He ate a piece of dried scuttler meat from his inventory (the cooking skill fragment actually helped make it edible) and headed straight for the school sports field. The dungeon reset cooldown had nearly ticked over. One more run before the day got too crowded.The black door still hovered above