2026-04-09 05:56:00Li Ming woke to the first gray light creeping over Qingyun City. His back ached against the fountain stone, but the short rest had cleared his head. The global timer blinked in the corner of his vision.
[First Monster Tide: 12 minutes until arrival.]
He stood, stretched, and checked his stats one last time.
Strength: 15
Agility: 16
Vitality: 13
Intelligence: 14
Mana: 9
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)
• Basic Sprint (Active Lv.1)
• Fear Resistance (Passive Lv.1)
• Scuttler Venom Resistance (Passive Lv.1)
• Group Coordination Fragment (Passive Lv.1)
• Brutal Intimidation (Active Lv.1)
Twelve small pieces, but it would be enough to survive the opening wave if he played it right. He swapped the rusty pipe for the better dagger he’d looted and tucked three healing pellets into his pocket. Then he moved.
The residential park was too quiet now. He needed a place where people would gather and die, somewhere the monsters would hit hard but not instantly wipe everyone out. The old commercial street two blocks over. It had narrow lanes, abandoned cars for cover, and enough survivors who thought barricading shops would save them.
Li Ming reached the edge of the street with eight minutes left. Already a crowd of thirty or so had formed. Some had makeshift weapons. Others just looked terrified. A few had formed loose groups, shouting orders like they knew what they were doing.
He picked a second-floor balcony on an empty noodle shop, climbed the fire escape, and crouched behind the railing. Forty meters from the main cluster. Edge of his range. Perfect for watching, not just that, it was also close enough to harvest.
The sky cracked wider overhead. Black shapes poured through faster now, dozens of scuttlers, bigger wolf-like things with glowing red eyes, and a few hulking brutes like the one he’d seen earlier. The tide had started.
Screams ripped through the street.
Li Ming stayed low and watched.
The first wave hit the barricades. Monsters slammed into the crowd. A man with a baseball bat went down swinging. Two women tried to run and got cut off. Bodies fell fast.
The absorption pulls came in quick pulses.
[Throne Absorption triggered.]
[Absorbed: Basic Club Mastery (Passive Lv.1)]
[Absorbed: Adrenaline Rush (Active Lv.1) – 30-second boost to Strength and Agility, 5-minute cooldown.]
[Stat bonuses: +1 Strength, +1 Agility]
Li Ming’s lips pressed into a smile. Good skills. He activated Adrenaline Rush immediately to test it. Power surged through his arms and legs. Stronger. Faster. He’d save the rest for when he needed it.
Down below, the four loudmouths from the park had joined the crowd. Their leader was yelling, bat swinging, trying to look like a hero. Two of his guys died in the first thirty seconds, clawed apart by a wolf-thing that lunged from the side.
Li Ming felt the stronger pulls from the closer deaths.
[Throne Absorption triggered – close range.]
[Absorbed: Pack Hunter Instinct (Passive Lv.1) – Better awareness of group enemy movements.]
[Absorbed: Crude Shield Bash (Active Lv.1) – Stun chance with blunt weapon.]
[Stat bonuses: +1 Vitality, +1 Intelligence]
He was building fast now. The range was working exactly as planned. Stay on the edge, let the chaos do the work.
A bigger brute, level 9, smashed through a shop window right under his balcony. Three survivors tried to fight it. They lasted ten seconds. Li Ming leaned over just enough to stay in range.
[Throne Absorption triggered.]
[Absorbed: Brute Hide Fragment (Passive Lv.1) – Minor blunt damage reduction.]
[Stat bonus: +1.5 Strength]
His body felt heavier, more solid. He checked the timer again. The first wave was ending, but the system message warned a second, stronger one was coming in twenty minutes.
Below, the loudmouth leader was still alive, covered in blood, screaming at the others to follow him. Only two of his original group remained. They started retreating toward the end of the street, straight toward Li Ming’s building.
He cursed under his breath. Not ideal. If they spotted him, they might drag him into their mess.
But they were also bringing deaths with them.
A fresh pack of scuttlers and two wolves chased the group. The leader swung wildly. One of his guys tripped and got swarmed.
Li Ming stayed hidden as the body fell twenty meters away.
[Throne Absorption triggered.]
[Absorbed: Basic Tactics Fragment (Passive Lv.1) – Slight improvement in reading battlefield flow.]
[Stat bonus: +1 Luck]
The other was panicking now. The leader looked up, eyes wide, and spotted Li Ming on the balcony.
“You! Kid! Get down here and help or we’ll drag you down ourselves!”
Li Ming didn’t answer. He just watched.
The leader cursed and charged the wolves with the last guy. He died in the next clash. Absorptions hit clean and fast, more passives, more small stat bumps. Li Ming’s Strength hit 18. Agility 18. He was starting to feel dangerous.
The leader was the last one standing. Bleeding badly, bat broken, he backed up against the wall directly below the balcony. Thirty meters.
Li Ming stood slowly. No point hiding now.
The final wolf lunged at the leader. The man screamed and swung a weak punch.
Li Ming dropped from the balcony, landing with a roll thanks to the new agility. He activated Sprint and closed the last distance in a blur. The dagger flashed once across the wolf’s throat. It dropped.
The leader stared at him, eyes wide with shock and relief. “Holy shit, kid, you’re fast. Join us...we can...”
Li Ming looked at him coldly. The man was at death’s door anyway. Bleeding out. No healing pellets left.
He stepped closer. Ten meters.
The leader tried to smile. “We’ll rule this city...”
Li Ming activated Brutal Intimidation.
“Shut up.”
The shout hit like a hammer. The leader froze for two full seconds, stunned.
Li Ming drove the dagger into his chest. Clean. Quick.
The man gasped once and slid down the wall.
[You have killed a Player (Level 7).]
[Experience gained: 210]
[Basic Loot: 45 Copper Coins, 2x Minor Healing Pellets, Leather Vest (low quality).]
[Throne Absorption triggered – point blank.]
[Absorbed: Leader’s Command (Active Lv.1) – Temporary minor morale boost to nearby allies (useless alone).]
[Absorbed: Full Bat Mastery (Passive Lv.2)]
[Major stat bonuses integrated: +3 Strength, +2 Vitality, +1 Agility]
Li Ming felt the power settle into him like cold steel. His stats jumped noticeably. He looted the body without emotion, then dragged it behind a car.
The second wave was starting. Bigger monsters now. More screams from farther down the street.
He checked his new stats.
Strength: 21
Agility: 20
Vitality: 17
Still not strong enough to fight the tide head-on. But strong enough to keep harvesting.
Li Ming wiped the dagger clean and moved deeper into the chaos, staying on the edges, always within fifty meters of the dying.
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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