“Name?”

“Elliott Harrison.”

“You were the one who made the report?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us what happened.”

Inside the interrogation room, Elliott sat stiffly across the table from the two officers, still pale from shock. Less than half an hour ago, he’d been out with his gold farming crew, eating hotpot.

Out of nowhere, Henry Valen—an older brother figure in the team—started screaming in pain. Within minutes, right before their eyes, he melted into a puddle of putrid, toxic fluid.

Everyone in the room was frozen in terror. Elliott was the first to pull himself together and call the police.

Frowning, Elliott said, “We'd planned the dinner days ago. No one saw this coming. One minute we're eating, the next... that.”

“Before dinner, did Henry seem off in any way?”

“If anything, he looked pale when he showed up. I asked if he needed to go to a doctor, but he just laughed and said he was fine. Then halfway through the meal, it was like he choked out of nowhere—his face went purple, and two, maybe three minutes later, he... turned into that mess. No one dared go near him.”

One officer leaned forward, frowning. “You said a few minutes. Exactly how long?”

Elliott scratched his head. “Uh... two or three minutes? Maybe four. Hard to say. We were panicking. But you can check the restaurant’s security footage.”

“All right. We’ll look into that. From what we’ve gathered, you were closest to Henry?”

Elliott nodded. “Yeah. You probably know I’m in the gold farming business. Henry was half a mentor to me—it was him who got me started. He put in the most money when we formed the Vast Gold Co., I added about a hundred thousand of my own. We worked closely. Had a solid relationship.”

Another officer jotted down notes. “Anything strange about him lately? Said anything odd?”

Elliott hesitated. “Actually, yeah. He’d been detached from the studio lately. He’d only check in at night to split profits with me. During the day, he was completely off the radar—couldn't even reach him by phone. Not like him at all.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s not from Linhe City. Came here a few years ago to make a living. I know he’s paying off a house and a car. His son’s about to start college, and he divorced a while back. Money’s tight. When we first set up shop, he was the most driven person I knew.”

“Did he ever tell you what he was doing lately?”

Elliott shook his head. “No. I asked a few times. He just said there was something big going on, and he didn’t have time for the studio.”

“But?”

Elliott frowned, then said, “One night he got drunk and told me he was gonna hit it big. That once he made his fortune, I’d take over the studio. I thought it was just the booze talking, didn’t take him seriously.”

“Did he leave anything behind for you? This is important. Please answer truthfully.”

“Well... he gave me a few books. And uh, some massage coupons. Does that count?”"...Alright, that's all we need for now. You can go. If anything comes up, we'll contact you. Best not to leave the city for the time being."

Elliott Harrison stepped out of the police station, his face dark and gloomy.

What happened today had completely shattered his sense of reality.

Henry Valen—alive and well just hours ago, a six-foot-tall man—had turned into nothing but a puddle of foul-smelling green sludge in less than three minutes.

This wasn’t some fantasy novel. This was the real world. There wasn’t supposed to be a thing like corpse-melting poison that could reduce a man to liquid in seconds.

Even strong acid wouldn’t do that so fast.

And those cops... during the questioning, they kept hinting—asking if Henry had left him anything.

It was clear they knew something. Knew more than they were letting on.

Elliott stood by the roadside for a good while, letting the wind slap his face back to clarity, then pulled out his phone to hail a cart ride.

As soon as he turned the sound back on, message alerts from the studio’s chat group started pouring in.

“…What the hell happened? How did Henry die just like that?”

“No idea, ask the guys who were at the dinner.”

“Maybe food poisoning? Tainted meat or something...”

“Poisoning? Don’t joke. You ever seen poisoning turn someone into a pile of stinking goo? I nearly threw up on the spot.”

“I think it was a curse. Henry must’ve pissed off the wrong person and got hexed. I’ve read about stuff like this in novels...”

“Come on, what did the cops say?”

“Even if they knew, don’t expect them to tell us. But seriously, with Henry gone, can our Vast Horizons Studio even keep running? I haven’t sorted rent money for this month yet...”

“Dunno. Better ask Elliott. But he’s still at the station, probably just got out.”

After skimming the messages, Elliott paused, then typed out one of his own: “Henry’s dead. Studio work’s on hold for two days. Pay will be issued as usual. Take the time off.”

“Thanks, Elliott!”

“Thanks, boss!”

Messages flooded in fast. Elliott sighed lightly.

With Henry gone, who knew how long the studio could hold on?

...

Next day, inside a secure meeting room at Linhe City's police station, an internal meeting was underway regarding Henry Valen’s death.

Had Elliott been here, he’d have recognized the two officers who’d questioned him yesterday.

A stern-faced man with a square jaw broke the silence, “Do we have a cause of death?”

A younger officer answered, “Preliminary analysis points to latent venom from a level six monster—Snakebird. This stuff doesn’t show any symptoms at first, and won’t trigger any alerts on the player’s status panel. But if someone ingests the wrong thing—like certain foods—it sets off immediately. Death in minutes.”

“We checked the hotpot restaurant—they were serving pig brains. That’s one of the known triggers for venom activation.”

The senior officer nodded, flipping through the file in his hand. “Can we identify his in-game character?”

“Not yet,” the young officer admitted. “Our intel is thin, and most of the starter villages on the game’s map are inaccessible. The Snakebirds are all over the forests—way too common. That alone’s not enough to pin down who he was playing as.”“But the fact that Henry Valen managed to survive the Snakebird's poison and exit the game safely means he had what it takes to fight it head-on. That puts him at least at level six…”

Charles Reed turned to the two officers. “Joe, Jerry, anything new?”

They were the ones who had just finished taking Elliott Harrison’s statement.

Jerry reported, “Captain, we looked into Henry’s background. Divorced years ago. Only close family is his son, Alan Valen, who studies in Qingshan City and only comes home during holidays. We searched his residence—nothing major turned up.”

Charles frowned. “Nothing major? What did you find?”

“We found unregistered bank cards under Henry’s name. Over three million on them. Turns out, ninety percent of that came from Logan Glancey—another Black Card member.”

A younger officer raised a brow. “Logan again? He’s popped up in several real-world deaths of [Apocalypse] players. Black Card’s nothing but trouble.”

“Did you find his invite code?” Charles asked.

Joe answered, “No. We checked all his stuff—nothing. Captain, maybe his son has it. Want us to head to Qingshan today?”

Charles nodded. “Fine. Go after this briefing. Also, send someone to check his studio.”

When the meeting ended, Charles stared silently at the files in front of him.

He was Charles Reed, a special assignment leader sent from the capital, in charge of all [Apocalypse]-related cases in Linhe City.

Half a year ago, the whole world suddenly had access to the mysterious [Apocalypse] game. No one knew where it came from. The only way in was through an invite code. If you had one, you became a player.

The terrifying part? Powers gained in the game carry over into the real world.

At first, Charles, a trained soldier, scoffed at the idea. But then he got an invite code and entered the game a month ago.

And everything he knew about reality shattered.

Inside the confidential room, Charles lit a cigarette, his gaze heavy.

That world… how to put it in words?

Dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

Players spawn in random rookie villages all surrounded by monsters or strange spirit creatures. Even the weakest ones at the edge could kill a grown man. Most players start with nothing but their bare hands and physical strength carried over from real life.

Even someone like him, a national-level special forces veteran, could die at any second in there. Normal people? Don’t stand a chance.

Anyone who treats [Apocalypse] like a game... will die horribly.

He finished his smoke, rolled up his sleeve, and revealed a string of glowing golden symbols on his wrist.

They weren’t from Earth. No one could decode them. It was his invite code from [Apocalypse].

Charles touched the symbols with a finger. In the blink of an eye, his body flickered—vanished from reality.