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 hovere

Li Ming spent the next two days in a careful rhythm.He ran the Abandoned Warehouse dungeon once more at dawn on the second day, pushing the monsters to Level 8–11. The clears were becoming routine now. He finished the guardian in under four minutes, absorbed another chunk of reinforced plating, and hit Level 25. The reset timer reset again, six days until the next available run.Between resets, he moved like a ghost through Qingyun City’s outskirts. He marked safe routes, killed lone monsters for small gains, and stayed just close enough to Azure Fang’s activities to harvest without being seen.The guild had grown to over one hundred members. They had set up proper barricades around the school district and posted guards near the dungeon door twenty-four hours a day. Their leader, who Li Ming had learned was called Captain Luo, was smart. She rotated teams, limited losses, and started sending scouts to map other potential dungeons in the city.But they still couldn’t clear the warehou

Li Ming didn’t sleep that night. He stayed at the textile factory anchor, sharpening the short sword with a piece of scrap metal while listening to the distant sounds of Azure Fang scrambling. Shouts carried on the wind, orders to double patrols, calls for healers, angry arguments about the “ghost kid” who had appeared and disappeared like smoke. By morning, the school district was on high alert. Li Ming moved before sunrise. He circled wide around the sports field, staying in the industrial ruins where fewer eyes watched. His new level and passives made him faster and quieter than ever. He killed three lone scuttlers on the way, absorbing small fragments without slowing down. He needed to see how they would react. From a half-collapsed rooftop two blocks away, he watched the school gate. Azure Fang had tripled the guards. Captain Luo stood in the center of a large group, spear planted, issuing commands. Her voice was sharp. “We treat this as a hostile player now. Not a recruit.

The final day before the second monster tide passed in a blur of calculated violence. Li Ming moved like a ghost through Qingyun City’s edges. He struck Azure Fang patrols at unpredictable times, sometimes at dawn, sometimes deep in the night. He never fought fair. He waited until they were distracted by monsters, then appeared just long enough to wound key fighters and vanish. By midday, Azure Fang had lost another twelve members to injuries or death. Captain Luo stopped sending large groups out. Instead, she pulled almost everyone back behind reinforced barricades around the school district. The dungeon door stood guarded by twenty elite fighters now, but no one dared enter it anymore. Li Ming watched from a distant rooftop as Luo addressed her remaining forces. Her voice carried clearly across the field. “We stop chasing shadows. When the tide hits tomorrow, we hold the school district. Use the dungeon only if we have no choice. Conserve potions. Conserve strength. The real en