2026-04-09 05:35:32Li 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: 12
Agility: 13.5
Vitality: 11
Intelligence: 13
Mana: 8
Luck: 8
Skills:
• 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 scuttled across the street ahead, chasing a lone woman. She screamed and ran straight into a dead-end alley. Li Ming followed at a safe distance, staying just inside what he judged was fifty meters.
The scuttlers swarmed her. Claws tore. Her screams cut short fast.
Four deaths, no, five if the monsters killed each other in the frenzy. Only the human died. The monsters turned on the corpse.
Li Ming stopped at the alley mouth, thirty meters away. The absorption hit clean and strong.
[Throne Absorption triggered.]
[Absorbed: Basic Sprint (Active Lv.1) – Short burst of speed, 10-second cooldown.]
[Absorbed: Fear Resistance (Passive Lv.1) – Minor reduction in panic effects.]
[Stat bonuses: +1 Agility, +1 Vitality]
A useful active skill at last. Li Ming tested it immediately in the empty street. His legs surged with energy for a few seconds, carrying him ten meters in a blink. Good for escape or closing distance.
He smiled thinly. The woman’s death had paid for his upgrade.
The scuttlers were still feeding. Li Ming weighed the risk. Five monsters, all around level 4. He could probably take one or two now with his new sprint and bat mastery, but all five? Stupid.
Instead, he picked up a loose brick and hurled it hard at the group. It cracked against one scuttler’s carapace. The creature hissed and charged him, leaving the others behind.
Perfect.
Li Ming sprinted into the next alley, leading it away. When it lunged, he used the new burst of speed to dodge sideways and brought the pipe down on its head. The bat mastery helped, his swing landed cleaner, cracking the skull on the second hit.
[You have killed a Spined Scuttler (Level 4).]
[Experience gained: 55]
[Basic Loot: 1x Minor Healing Pellet, 10 Copper Coins.]
[Throne Absorption triggered – close range.]
[Absorbed: Scuttler Venom Resistance (Passive Lv.1)]
[Stat bonus: +1 Strength]
Four more scuttlers still back at the body. Li Ming circled around using the buildings as cover and approached from the other side. He stayed at forty meters and waited.
One scuttler wandered closer while feeding. Thirty-five meters. He threw another brick. It charged. He killed it the same way, sprint dodge, pipe smash.
Another absorption. Another small passive and +0.8 Strength.
By the time he finished the last one the same way, luring them one by one, the night had grown deeper. His arms ached, but his stats had climbed again.
Strength: 14
Agility: 15
Vitality: 12
He dragged all five corpses into a pile behind some dumpsters and looted them fully. More coins, a few pellets, and one rusty dagger that felt better than the pipe.
Li Ming wiped sweat from his forehead. The 50-meter range had forced him to be smart, positioning, kiting, never fighting fair. Exactly how he wanted it. If the range had been bigger from the start, he might have gotten lazy.
A new global message flashed.
[Safe zones will shrink in 60 minutes.]
[First Monster Tide begins at dawn. Prepare or perish.]
Li Ming checked his anchor. Still stable. He decided to move closer to it, setting up for the night. On the way, he passed the park again. The four loudmouths from earlier were still there, now with two more recruits. Six total. They had built a small barricade with benches and were roasting something over a fire, probably scuttler meat, thanks to that useless cooking skill he’d absorbed.
The leader was bragging again. “By morning we’ll be level 10. Then we form our own guild. Call it Qingyun Kings.”
Li Ming stayed hidden across the street, fifty meters exactly. He could feel the edge of the range. One of the new recruits wandered a bit closer while taking watch.
Twenty meters now? Close enough.
Li Ming waited.
An hour passed. The safe zone warning flashed again. The group started arguing about who would take first watch. Tensions rose. One guy accused another of hoarding pellets.
A fight broke out. Fists, then the bat, then the knife.
Two died in the scuffle before the others pulled them apart.
Li Ming felt the strong pulls.
[Throne Absorption triggered.]
[Absorbed: Group Coordination Fragment (Passive Lv.1) – Slight boost to working with others, but useless alone.]
[Absorbed: Brutal Intimidation (Active Lv.1) – Short shout that can stun weaker enemies for 2 seconds.]
[Stat bonuses: +1 Strength, +1 Intelligence]
He almost laughed. The intimidation skill could be useful. And they had killed each other for him.
The remaining four patched up and went quiet, suddenly more careful.
Li Ming slipped away toward his anchor at the fountain. He was tired, but satisfied. No big risks tonight. Just steady gains.
He sat against the fountain base, ate one of the healing pellets, and rested. The night air carried distant howls. The first tide was coming at dawn, bigger monsters, bigger chaos, bigger deaths.
He planned to be there, not in the front, but close enough, so he can harvest, and also, every death would feed the Throne.
Li Ming closed his eyes for a short rest, pipe across his lap.
Tomorrow he would test how much power one good tide could give him.
And if he died in the process?
He’d simply come back stronger.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
The Warehouse Door
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
The Warehouse Door
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
Echoes in the Streets
Li Ming left the sports field behind without looking back. The five bodies were hidden well enough behind the bleachers. By the time anyone found them, the blood would have dried and the dungeon door would still be his alone. He jogged toward the city center at an easy pace, new stats eating the distance. The leather vest he’d looted from the leader fit better than the old one, tougher, less noisy.Stats had settled after the kills.Strength: 54Agility: 42Vitality: 43Level: 17The Throne was getting greedy. Each death fed it faster now, like it was waking up.Qingyun City’s main roads were waking up too. Groups of survivors moved in packs of ten or twenty, dragging carts of scavenged food and weapons. Makeshift camps had sprung up in the wider intersections, guarded by guys with bats and knives. Li Ming kept to the side streets, fifty meters from the biggest crowds. Close enough to listen, far enough to stay invisible.A global announcement rang out as he passed a burned-out bus st
Second Run
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
The First Door
Li Ming walked the quieting streets of Qingyun City as the last of the monster tide faded. Dawn light cut through the cracked sky, bodies lay everywhere, human and monster mixed together like trash. The global system chimed once, loud in every survivor’s head.[First Monster Tide complete.][Casualties on Floor 0: 1,847,392 (global).][New dungeons spawning in low-population zones. First beginner dungeon detected within 3 kilometers.][Safe zones have shrunk 30%. Next tide in 6 days.]He didn’t stop to count the dead around him. His own body felt different now, stronger, tighter, the lizard scale fragments making his skin itch less against the new vest. Stats had settled after the reincarnation boost.Strength: 34Agility: 27Vitality: 25Intelligence: 15Mana: 11Luck: 10Level: 9The Throne had turned one stupid death into real progress. He tested Spiked Charge on a lamppost as he passed. The metal dented deep. Good.Most survivors who lived through the night were hiding or forming
First Reaping
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
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