KAI CHEN POV
The thing wearing Mr. Zhou's corpse lunges at us with a mouth full of too many teeth.
Ashen moves faster than my eyes can track. One second she's beside me, the next she's between me and the monster, her hand blazing with that crystallized fear energy from my game.
"Stay behind me!" she shouts, slamming her palm into the creature's chest.
It SCREAMS—a sound like metal scraping bone—and flies backward through the hole it made in my wall. But three more spirits pour through after it. Shadow creatures with glowing red eyes and claws that drip black poison.
"This isn't random," Ashen says, her voice deadly calm even as monsters circle us. "They're targeting this location specifically. Targeting YOU."
"Why would they target me? I'm nobody!"
"You just generated SS-rank fear energy in thirty minutes. Every spirit in the Undercity probably felt that spike." She manifests a blade made of pure grief in her right hand. "You rang the dinner bell, Kai. And they're here to eat."
Oh. Oh no.
My game worked too well. The fear energy Ashen consumed was so powerful it acted like a beacon to every hungry monster in the area.
"I'm going to kill them," Ashen says. "You're going to run. Now."
"I can't just leave you—"
"I'm SS-rank. You're E-rank. You'll only get in my way." She doesn't look at me, eyes locked on the advancing spirits. "Go. Please."
That last word—"please"—sounds like it costs her something to say.
I run.
Behind me, I hear Ashen fighting—the sound of her weapons cutting through spirit flesh, her voice cold and efficient as she calls out attack patterns. She's magnificent and terrifying, and I'm a coward fleeing while she protects me.
But she's right. I'd only get her killed trying to save me.
I burst out of my workshop onto the Undercity streets, and it's chaos. People are screaming and running in every direction. Spirits are EVERYWHERE—pouring out of shadows, dragging people into darkness, feeding on panic.
This is my fault. My game created so much fear energy that it attracted a massive outbreak.
I need to fix this.
An idea hits me—crazy and desperate, but it might work.
I pull out my phone and send an emergency message to the only person I trust: Raze, my information broker friend who helped me source the VR equipment.
Need you at old marketplace. Bring EVERYTHING. Emergency.
His response comes instantly: On my way. You better not be dead when I get there.
I sprint toward the old marketplace—a abandoned building that used to be a shopping center before the spirits destroyed it. It's big, mostly intact, and empty. Perfect.
Twenty minutes later, Raze shows up in his beat-up truck, his cybernetic eyes glowing orange with worry. He's thin, always wearing a leather jacket, and talks way too fast when he's nervous.
"Kai, what the HELL is happening? The entire Undercity is under attack, and everyone's saying it started near your workshop—" He stops when he sees my face. "Oh no. This IS your fault, isn't it?"
"Kind of. Maybe. Yes." I start unloading equipment from his truck. "But I can fix it. Help me set up."
"Set up what?"
"Nightmare Studios. Official location. Grand opening." I grin even though my hands are shaking. "If spirits are attracted to fear energy, let's give them so much they can't handle it."
Raze stares at me like I've lost my mind. "You want to open your horror game business in the middle of a spirit apocalypse?"
"I want to create a fear energy generator powerful enough to overload every spirit in the area." I'm already connecting VR pods, running cables, programming the interface at lightning speed. "Ashen proved my game works. One person generated SS-rank energy. What happens if we get fifty people running it simultaneously?"
"We either save everyone or explode. Possibly both." Raze starts helping despite his complaints. "You're insane. I like insane. Let's do it."
We work like demons possessed. Forty-five minutes later, Nightmare Studios has its first real location: three VR pods set up in the marketplace, my jury-rigged power supply humming, and a crude sign that says BECOME POWERFUL - FREE FIRST SESSION.
"Free?" Raze looks betrayed. "You're giving away your revolutionary technology for FREE?"
"We need volume, not money. Besides—" I look at the terrified people running past, the spirits hunting them, the screaming. "—this is my mess. Time to clean it up."
The first person who stops is a woman, maybe thirty, with desperate eyes and a C-rank badge. She's bleeding from a spirit attack on her shoulder.
"Is this real?" she gasps. "You can make me stronger?"
"In one hour, you'll have more power than a week of hunting." I open the pod. "Trust me."
She doesn't have time for doubt. She climbs in.
I start Eternal Midnight.
Sixty-three minutes later, she stumbles out GLOWING with fear energy. Her wound is healing faster, her eyes are sharper, and she's crying.
"That was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced," she whispers. "And I feel AMAZING."
Word spreads faster than the spirits.
Within an hour, we have a line of twenty warriors. Within two hours, all three pods are running nonstop. By hour four, Kai has personally consumed enough residual fear energy to jump from E-rank to D-rank just from being near the pods.
Raze handles the crowd, I manage the equipment, and slowly—slowly—the tide turns.
Warriors who use my game go back into the streets stronger, faster, more capable. They start pushing the spirits back. The Undercity goes from losing to fighting even.
I'm checking pod status when Raze grabs my arm hard.
"Kai. We have a problem."
He points to the end of our line. A man in an expensive suit is standing there, flanked by six heavily armed warriors. He looks completely out of place in the Undercity—too clean, too rich, too dangerous.
"Who is that?" I ask.
"Director Feng." Raze's voice drops to a whisper. "Head of the Spirit Warrior Association. He runs the entire city's defense network."
My blood goes cold. "What's he doing here?"
"Probably wondering why some E-rank kid just solved a spirit outbreak that his entire organization couldn't handle." Raze's cybernetic eyes flicker nervously. "This is bad, Kai. Really bad."
Director Feng walks straight toward us, ignoring the line of warriors. His smile doesn't reach his eyes.
"Kai Chen," he says smoothly. "I've heard fascinating things about you today. A revolutionary fear generation system. Ethical power enhancement. You're quite the entrepreneur."
"Just trying to help," I reply carefully.
"Of course. Very noble." He looks around my setup with cold appraisal. "I'd like to discuss bringing your technology under official Association management. Imagine what we could do with proper funding and resources."
Translation: he wants to control my game. Own it. Probably use it for whatever corrupt purposes he's already running.
"I appreciate the offer," I say, "but I prefer to stay independent."
Feng's smile sharpens like a knife. "I wasn't asking, Mr. Chen. You have forty-eight hours to accept my partnership offer. After that, I'll be forced to shut you down for operating without proper licenses."
"On what grounds?"
"On whatever grounds I decide to invent." He leans closer. "You're very talented. But talent without protection is just a target. Think carefully about whose side you want to be on."
He leaves, his guards following.
I'm still processing the threat when Ashen appears out of nowhere, covered in spirit blood and breathing hard. She fought her way here through the outbreak.
"Kai, I saw Feng leaving. What did he want?"
"To own me. Or destroy me. Possibly both."
Ashen's face goes dark. "He runs the emotion farms. Illegal facilities where they torture people to generate fear energy. If he gets control of your technology..." She doesn't finish, but I understand.
He'd weaponize it. Corrupt it. Turn my ethical system into something horrible.
"We need to—" Ashen starts.
Then every VR pod in my studio explodes at once.
Not mechanically. Spiritually.
Black energy pours out of all three pods like smoke, and it's SCREAMING. The warriors inside are convulsing, and the residual fear energy I've been generating for hours suddenly inverts—turns from power into poison.
Through the smoke, I see something forming. A shape. A presence.
A spirit so powerful the air itself bends around it.
It speaks with a voice like silk over razors: "How delicious. The little human thinks he can control fear. Let me show you what REAL terror feels like."
The smoke solidifies into a beautiful figure in funeral clothes—androgynous, elegant, ancient. Their eyes are empty black holes.
Ashen goes pale. "That's impossible. That's a Progenitor-class spirit. They don't manifest in populated areas—"
"I go where the feast is greatest." The spirit smiles with too many teeth. "And you, little game designer, just prepared a buffet."
They gesture, and the fear energy from my pods—energy I created, energy that was supposed to help people—turns into chains that wrap around every warrior in the marketplace.
Including Ashen.
Including me.
The spirit begins to FEED, draining the fear energy from everyone at once. People scream as their power is ripped away, leaving them defenseless.
"Thank you for gathering them all in one place," the spirit purrs at me. "And for creating such pure, potent fear. I haven't tasted anything this refined in centuries."
Ashen struggles against the chains, but even her SS-rank strength can't break them. "Kai, run!"
"Running won't save him." The spirit floats closer to me, their empty eyes boring into mine. "I've been watching you, reincarnated one. You don't belong in this world. You broke the rules just by existing."
My blood freezes. They KNOW. This spirit knows I'm not supposed to be here.
"What do you want?" I choke out.
The spirit touches my face with fingers that burn like ice. "I want to eat you. Slowly. And when I'm done, I'll use your knowledge to create fear beyond anything this world has ever seen."
They open their mouth impossibly wide.
And everything goes dark.