***
Bonus chapter! Thank you to --- for the donation! ^^
***
The storm raged on without end. A bolt of lightning split the sky, briefly illuminating the sea for a fleeting moment.
Something monstrous seemed to churn beneath the waves—oppressive and deadly.
A cruise ship sailed through the tempest. Despite its massive size, it appeared pitifully small against the boundless ocean, as though the sea might swallow it whole at any second.
Yet the ship held firm. Though tossed by the waves, it pressed on, inching deeper into the heart of the storm.
No one aboard knew that ahead lay a monstrous whirlpool, devouring the ocean itself. If the ship didn’t change course, within five days, it would be dragged into that bottomless abyss—
—vanishing without a trace.
The passengers remained oblivious to their impending doom. Even if they knew, there was little they could do. They couldn’t even handle the dangers in front of them.
Monsters crawled onto the deck from the sea, an endless tide. Unless the access points were sealed, the ship would soon be overrun, leaving no chance of survival.
But the players had no time to shut the passages or hunt for the control system. The crew had already begun activating the ritual array.
Once the summoning of the Evil God commenced, despair would only deepen.
They had to stop it.
After the shipwide sweep, the crew hauled the required sacrifices to the third floor. The remaining players, still free, stealthily followed.
The third floor had been the first hit by the monsters. Now, it was a charnel house—bloodstains and mangled corpses littered the floor, some half-eaten, a nightmare made flesh.
Ran Jia clutched her mouth, her face ghostly pale. The stench of the slaughterhouse floor hit her like a physical blow; she nearly vomited on the spot.
She’d hidden on the tenth floor, evading the crew’s notice—but that also meant she’d lost contact with him, the top player.
After searching in vain, she had no choice but to team up with the others.
Crouched in a shadowed corner, she whispered to a suited male player creeping toward her, "...Still no sign of him?"
The man said nothing. Just a grim shake of his head.
Ran Jia’s face fell. Dread and uncertainty coiled tighter in her chest.
No one knew where Qi Yi had gone, and the "big boss" still hadn’t been found. With just a few players left, how could they possibly stop the summoning?
Time was running out. After the staff carried the sacrificial offerings to the third floor, they mercilessly slit their wrists, letting blood spill across the floor.
As the blood flowed endlessly, it began to gather unnaturally, slowly forming the outline of a pattern—the sigil to summon the Evil God.
Once the pattern was fully formed, the ritual would begin.
The staff watched the sigil take shape with fanatical expressions, their faces twisted in a way that sent chills down the spine.
The array was enormous, and it would take time for the blood to fill it completely. Perhaps fearing interference, the workers kept their distance when dumping the offerings, never daring to touch the sigil itself.
This gave the players an opening.
When Ran Jia saw the staff leave after delivering another victim, she glanced at the other players, silently asking if they should act.
The others nodded. They had no choice. If they didn’t intervene now, the players with slit arteries wouldn’t last much longer.
Once the coast was clear, the group approached the bloodied array.
The pattern was already partially formed, the crimson lines writhing unnaturally. Without hesitation, one player raised a foot to scuff the design—
But the blood didn’t scatter. Instead, it crawled up their leg, as if trying to swallow them whole.
The player paled, yanking at their trapped limb—but their body had gone stiff, completely paralyzed.
Another player grabbed them and hauled them back, breaking the blood’s hold. The moment contact was lost, the liquid settled back into the sigil, undisturbed, as if nothing had happened.
But the players couldn’t pretend they hadn’t seen it. Their hearts sank as they stared at the flowing blood, a sense of dread creeping in.
This summoning array wouldn’t be so easily destroyed.
And indeed, no matter what they tried, the sigil remained intact. Their only option was to rescue the living sacrifices while the staff were absent, buying a little more time.
Qi Lintian was among the captives—but strangely, he bore no wounds. Only his limbs were bound, his body limp in unconsciousness.
They had to find a way to stop the summoning.
However, likely because of their escape, the cruise ship was locked down again—this time with a swarm of staff meticulously searching every floor.
Under pressure from both the crew and the monsters, the players could barely protect themselves, let alone halt the ritual.
In the end, many were captured, including Qi Lintian.
As Ruan Qing watched Qi Lintian get dragged away, he pressed his lips together. Without a word, he vanished into the shadows.
***
Though the players found it strange, they still prepared to rescue everyone together.
Just as Ran Jia was about to untie Qi Lintian’s ropes, she noticed his eyes were open—staring at her with an icy, expressionless gaze.
Ran Jia’s pupils shrank in horror. She stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the person behind her.
Because Qi Lintian’s eyes held not a trace of warmth. They were identical to the monstrous eyes covering the creatures!
The other players turned at Ran Jia’s reaction and saw those same merciless eyes. A collective gasp rang out.
This man… wasn’t human either.
But just as the players tensed, Qi Lintian closed his eyes again, collapsing into unconsciousness as if nothing had happened.
No longer daring to save him—or even approach him—the players swiftly rescued the remaining survivors.
Losing one or two people from the ritual array wouldn’t raise alarms, but losing most of them would be glaringly obvious. The staff would notice immediately.
So the players improvised. They replaced the missing sacrifices with the corpses of those already killed by the monsters.
Since the staff knocked out their victims to prevent resistance, the dead—with their slashed arteries—wouldn’t wake even if cut. At a glance, there was little difference between the living and the dead.
Except for one thing: the corpses had far less blood.
The trick worked—temporarily. The ritual’s activation slowed, but only slightly.
Soon, the staff realized some sacrifices were dead. But with the players’ artery-cutting ruse, they assumed they’d simply beaten the victims too hard. After that, they refrained from using excessive force.
They didn’t even knock people out anymore. Instead, they bound them with ropes, forcing them to stay conscious as their blood drained away.
Worse, this time, the staff left guards by the array, cutting off any chance of rescue.
Frustrated, the players could only retreat into the shadows, watching intently for an opportunity to disrupt the summoning.
Blood spread. The array grew clearer. At this rate, the ritual to call forth the Evil God would be complete within an hour.
Just as desperation set in—
A blinding black light erupted from the array, so intense that everyone, players and staff alike, instinctively shut their eyes.
When they opened them again, the entire third floor was shrouded in a thick, swirling mist—a darkness that swallowed the ritual whole.
Though they couldn’t see what was happening inside the ritual array, a terrifying aura seeped out from it—an inexplicable dread that clawed at their hearts, as if something monstrous was about to descend.
The players hiding in the shadows felt their limbs go weak, paralyzed by sheer terror.
…Had the Evil God’s summoning succeeded?
Only the "staff" seemed bewildered by the scene. One of them muttered, hesitation thick in their voice, "D-Did it work? This feels… different from before."
Wasn’t it too fast? The blood sacrifice didn’t seem sufficient. The array hadn’t even fully materialized—how could it be complete already?
Another staff member trembled with fanatical excitement, barely containing their glee. "Of course it worked! All previous attempts failed—difference is proof of success!"
Yet the first speaker stared into the swirling black mist and whispered, "But…" This didn’t feel like victory…
These "staff" were no ordinary crew but cultists of the Evil God. This wasn’t their first summoning ritual—only every prior attempt had ended in failure, yielding nothing but those grotesque, eye-riddled monsters.
Perhaps the monsters weren’t even summoned. Each time, the sacrificial offerings inside the array became infected by the eyes, mutating into those horrors until the entire ship was infested.
A few, like the cultists themselves, were exceptions. Though parasitized by the eyes, they gained the Evil God’s power without transforming into mindless, devouring abominations.
Thus, the cult was born—fanatics who lived only to usher their deity into the mortal world.
But this time, everything was wrong.
The ritual was shorter. The aura felt alien. And now, this suffocating black mist…
Was this truly a success?
The mist spread from the array, thick with oppressive, indefinable danger. Every hair on their bodies stood on end—a primal, nameless fear.
Even the cultists felt it. And in that dread, their doubts dissolved.
This… was undeniably the presence of their god.
The staff present stared fixedly at the ritual array, their faces and eyes alight with excitement and fervor. They didn’t even notice Lin Zhiyan and the lead staff member arrive.
Even if they had, reverence was the last thing on their minds now. Nothing compared to the feeling of a lifelong dream on the verge of realization—nothing rivaled the descent of the Evil God into their world.
Lin Zhiyan paid no heed to their disregard. His cold, detached gaze remained locked on the center of the array.
As the black mist swirled and thinned slightly, a faint silhouette began to materialize above the ritual’s heart.
Every person present felt their breath catch—
Was this… the Evil God?
