Anthony was dead.
Whether a pair of furry soul-escorts would show up to receive him in the afterlife — Anthony had no idea. He hadn't seen anything like that.
Though he figured he should have at least seen the River Styx by now.
He stared at the immense river stretching before him — a torrent that seemed to flow toward infinity, its countless tributaries branching endlessly outward — and crouched down, gazing at his own reflection in the swirling, kaleidoscopic surface of the current.
Then he gave the back of his head a good smack.
Wait. The Styx was supposed to be connected to the Underworld, wasn't it? And there should be spider lilies all around it.
So... where exactly was he?
Anthony raised his head and peered toward the impossibly distant horizon. A moment later, he looked back down at his own body — faintly, disturbingly translucent.
He still remembered the truck. The heavy-duty eighteen-wheeler that had somehow launched itself up twelve stories and sent him flying clean off his toilet seat — he was pretty sure he'd never forget that for as long as he lived.
Not that this life of his had much longer left in it.
Come to think of it... he really, really missed sitting on the toilet.
He had no idea why he could still think after dying, but Anthony had a more pressing question on his mind right now.
Logically speaking — logically speaking — wasn't a normal person who'd just died supposed to get whisked away by some mysterious goddess and reincarnated in another world?
Or at the very least, a rebirth. A little *ding*, and your System awakens... Pure memory-based rebirth was way too advanced for him though — he hadn't memorized any lottery numbers. He had absolutely nothing to work with.
If all else fails, just hand me a cheat code right now! Anything will do!
[Dimensional Dead Chat Group has been loaded for you]
And then, out of nowhere — *ding* — Anthony's drifting thoughts snapped back together. He stared, dazed, at the vivid blue holographic screen floating before him.
...Huh? There's actually one?
[Detecting that the majority of group members are in a state of critically failing consciousness, souls dissipating… Stabilizing souls]
And so, in the very next moment, Anthony felt his consciousness slowly, steadily sharpening — like waking up with a gasp from a long and heavy dream——
On pure instinct he bolted upright. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead. The memories of his life began flashing before him, one scene after another.
*Are you sure you're stabilizing my soul, and not actively trying to kill me?*
*How on earth did you manage to trigger a life-flashing-before-my-eyes sequence?!*
But in the very next moment, as the memories from his life grew clearer, so too did his thinking. Only then did Anthony realize that his consciousness had genuinely been dispersing all along — slowly scattering, until it would have vanished entirely.
Huh. Guess I almost died just now.
He scratched his head, thought for a moment, then finally looked down at the chat group interface floating before him.
*There's actually a cheat. This is real.* So was he supposed to say...
"Chat group — give me some stat points?"
[Welcome, group member Lord of the White Holy Throne, to the group chat]
[Group Member · Lord of the White Holy Throne (Anthony)]
[Cause of Death: Struck by a truck while seated on the toilet]
[Current Status: Soul Form (Fragmented · Extremely Unstable · Brittle)]
[Remaining Lifespan: 72h 59min]
[Abilities: None]
[Points: 0]
Staring at his remaining lifespan entry, Anthony simply could not hold it together.
He'd just been telling himself he almost died — and he'd thought this golden cheat of his was pretty damn powerful, something that would just wipe his lifespan problem cleanly off the board——
And it turns out all it did was kick the can down the road a little?!
*I'm still going to die?!*
Fine... at least it pushed "dying in the next second" all the way out to "dying in three days." And judging by the whole setup of this chat group, there should still be a chance to survive, right?
Honestly, Anthony didn't particularly want to die.
Not wanting to die was the only sane stance to take.
At the very least, he figured, all those hours grinding away as a grizzled Soulsborne veteran had given him something. He genuinely had that *heh, I'm definitely going to survive this* mentality baked bone-deep into him.
Alright, alright. Let's check who his groupmates actually were first...
He'd read plenty of chat group web novels. The standard script from here was: all the groupmates are absolute powerhouses from worlds with insane power levels, and they'd carry one small, practically-dying nobody like him all the way to the top. Right?
Then he'd snag an ability here, grab a special item there, and from that point on become the mightiest force across ten thousand realms... He'd read this kind of story before. He knew how it went.
So Anthony scrolled down.
[Welcome, Lord of the White Holy Throne, to the group chat]
[Welcome, "AAA City Female Ghost," to the group chat]
[Welcome, "Founder of the Golden Spirit," to the group chat]
[Welcome, "Wordsmith of the Great Yan," to the group chat]
[Welcome, "Let Night City Burn," to the group chat]
[Let Night City Burn: Hm...? Aren't I... dead?]
[Let Night City Burn: Why does my body look so... translucent?]
Wait.
Hold on.
Reading those messages, Anthony felt a cold sweat trickle down his spine — nonexistent as it was.
It was only now that he finally remembered what this chat group was actually called.
Dimensional Dead Chat Group.
So everyone in this godforsaken chat group... was dead?!
Anthony immediately scrolled back through the group member list and confirmed two things.
First: yes, they were all dead. And with near-certainty, just like him — freshly dead and immediately dragged up by this chat group to work overtime.
Second: his groupmates were probably all in roughly the same sorry state as he was. You could tell just from the usernames.
"Let Night City Burn" — based on their messages, that had to be David from Edgerunners.
"Wordsmith of the Great Yan" — the newly released Arknights character, Suipianji?
"Founder of the Golden Spirit" — that was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, the last true gentleman of the Joestar bloodline, Jonathan. No question.
"AAA City Female Ghost"... *Oh god.* Please don't let that be Carmen from Yuèjì.
If these people had still been alive, Anthony would have said: *we've got this in the bag — just watch my play.*
After all, every single one of their worlds was packed with incredible things — all perfectly suited for the classic chat group power-up fantasy... But the problem right now was that they were all a bunch of dead people. What the hell could any of them actually do?!
Were they supposed to rely on soul-borrowing a corpse?
Dead people didn't even get to participate in the plot!
Anthony's already ashen face seemed to grow even more helpless. But after a moment, he sighed and opened up the group chat anyway.
No choice. He had to check. Even if the situation was dire, he had to see if there was any way out.
Three days left to live. He had to survive, no matter what——
Even in his current state as a tattered remnant soul.
He still wanted to win the resurrection match!
[Founder of the Golden Spirit: Hm? Where is this? Why can I still...]
[Wordsmith of the Great Yan: ...]
[AAA City Female Ghost: Is this some new Singularity within this city? But I clearly died from severing my own wrist... Something capable of reaching the consciousness of the dead... surely that must violate a taboo?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Um... hi, everyone?]
He hadn't finished typing when Anthony stopped himself.
He'd just spotted the announcement posted by the group.
[Group Announcement: To all who have died — welcome to the Dimensional Dead Chat Group. Within this group chat, souls who have perished across the infinite dimensions have a chance of being captured and stabilized, thereby becoming group members.]
[This chat group allows members to earn Points through a variety of means: missions, daily check-ins, trading, and rewrites. Members who accumulate Points will have the opportunity to extend their own lifespan, exchange for rewards, and ultimately earn a chance at resurrection.]
Anthony quietly deleted the message he'd been composing.
Seemed like there was no need for him to explain anything after all.
And at that very moment, the messages flooding the chat group erupted into life once more.
____
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