No one had expected it.
Just as they were on the verge of completing the mission, this player snapped.
In a hoarse voice, he said, “Go die.”
Players could kill other players. And doing so allowed them to seize the victim’s items.
“Don’t blame me,” he continued coldly. “Blame yourself for not hiding it properly. That item’s ability is just too damn useful…”
He didn’t get to finish.
The knife didn’t stab Xu Xiao. It sank deep into Xu Zhengyi’s back instead, as the father wrapped his daughter tightly in his arms.
The blade tearing through flesh, blood spraying everywhere—the scene reflected clearly in Xu Xiao’s terror-filled eyes.
“Dad—Daddy!!”
Her scream broke, shrill and desperate.
She reached out, touched him—and her hands came away slick and sticky, soaked in blood. Her father’s blood.
The veteran player yanked the knife free, preparing to finish the job in one go and kill them both.
But Dong Zi had already charged over. Using his Object Movement ability, he snatched the knife away in an instant.
The man turned and fled at top speed.
He’d stabbed the wrong person—but so what? Neither of them were important NPCs. Killing them didn’t matter. This was for surviving future instances. This was self‑preservation. This was so he could live.
Dong Zi immediately gave chase.
Taking advantage of the moment, Fu Changxun shouted, “Xiao Hei—go! Don’t lose him!”
The Black Cat let out an enraged miao‑ao and shot after the fleeing player like a black arrow.
Fu Changxun rushed to Xu Zhengyi’s side as fast as he could, at a complete loss.
The knife was clearly a prop. The wound was deep, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. He tore the hem of his clothes into strips and pressed them desperately against the wound, trying to stem the relentless flow of blood.
“I… I can feel it,” Xu Zhengyi gasped. “My HP dropped to thirty… it’s still dropping…”
“Doctor Fu…” He lay on the ground, blood spilling continuously from the corner of his mouth as he coughed and struggled to speak. “Xiao Xiao… I’m leaving Xiao Xiao to you… My items… you can use them…”
Fu Changxun’s hands were shaking, but he kept bandaging as fast as he could. “Don’t talk. You’ll be fine. You will. Think about Xiao Xiao—she’s still so young. She needs you. She needs you to stay with her…”
At this moment, he had never hated himself more for not being a surgeon.
None of the players present had healing‑type abilities or props. None of it helped.
The blood kept pouring out, soaking through the makeshift bandages. Xu Zhengyi’s face grew paler and paler.
“It’s… too late…”
He coughed up another mouthful of blood—this time mixed with dark, indistinct clots.
Looking at Xu Xiao, he reached out to her. “Xiao Xiao… listen to Doctor Fu… you have to—”
He didn’t get to finish.
[Ding—Player HP has reached zero.]
Fu Changxun’s movements stopped.
He knew there was nothing more he could do.
Xu Zhengyi was dead.
All the deaths he’d faced before had been strangers. This was the first time it was someone he knew.
Fu Changxun didn’t have many friends. Xu Zhengyi had once just been the parent of one of his patients. Outside of Xiao Xiao’s illness, they’d barely spoken.
But ever since this game began, he’d unconsciously placed Dong Zi, Xu Zhengyi, and Xu Xiao within the scope of people he had to protect.
And he’d failed.
Xu Xiao knelt beside her father. The panic on her face dissolved into utter despair as she wailed.
“Dad! Daddy, wake up! I don’t want to play this game anymore—I want my dad back—!”
At ten years old, she already understood what it meant to lose someone forever.
She had just witnessed two NPC sisters separated by death. And in the blink of an eye, she was about to face the same fate herself.
Xu Zhengyi’s body gradually grew cold. When a player died inside an instance, their body could not be taken away—it would be left here forever. Xiao Xiao didn’t know this yet. She cried until her face was soaked with tears, sobbing in broken gasps.
“Dad is dead… It’s all because of me… it’s all, all my fault. If I hadn’t dragged him down—”
“It’s not you.” Fu Changxun pulled her into his arms. “None of this is your fault. Not even a little.” He spoke softly. “It’s my fault. I let myself relax too much. I forgot that this is a game.”
A game that allowed players to kill each other. A game that allowed players to exploit loopholes and murder their teammates.
Xu Xiao’s eyes were bloodshot. “I want him dead!”
“He will die.”
Fu Changxun raised his head, his gaze icy as he looked toward the fleeing veteran player. The man’s figure suddenly halted in the distance—then, after a brief pause, he inexplicably turned back.
The Black Cat let out urgent meow meow warnings.
Fu Changxun’s eyes grew colder still. “Ah Zi—he’s a plagiarist. His ability comes from killing other participants. We can’t let him go.”
Dong Zi replied without hesitation, “Okay.”
He didn’t ask how Fu Changxun knew. He simply surged forward, rapidly closing the distance to the returning player.
“Go help!” Fu Changxun shouted. “Zhao‑jie, I just altered the cognition of every plagiarist present—scrambled their sense of direction. That veteran player is one of them!”
He had never done this before. In that instant, his ability was completely drained.
The veteran player’s expression changed drastically.
Plagiarists—those who gained abilities by killing others—usually concealed their identities at all costs. After all, the world outside the game hadn’t fully collapsed yet. Laws still existed.
Thieves went to prison. Murder was still a crime. That was common sense.
He hadn’t even realized he was running in the wrong direction—clearly, his cognition had just been altered.
A vicious resolve rose in his heart. He raised his hand and released a massive net—an ability he’d obtained in his very first instance after killing a teammate.
Dong Zi dodged sideways, simultaneously pulling the knife back toward himself using Object Movement.
The knife wasn’t Dong Zi’s lifetime-bound item—it was something the veteran player had stolen from someone else. Unable to reclaim control over it, the man snarled angrily, “That knife’s got your teammate’s blood on it. You still want to use it?”
Dong Zi gripped the hilt. “Then I’ll add your blood to it—and avenge him myself.”
A flash of malice passed through the veteran player’s eyes. “Fine. Then let’s see if you’re capable of it!”
His own item—[Poisoned Fine Cord]—combined with the ability [Web Weaving], instantly forming a vast, sky‑covering net of lethal poison.
One touch was enough. Without the antidote, death was guaranteed.
The veteran player sneered inwardly as he flung the massive web straight down over Dong Zi’s head. He was convinced his poison would wipe out every single one of them.
A livestream?
What a joke. He was wearing a signal‑blocking item—who could possibly identify him?
With that mindset, he unleashed his ability, utterly unaware that the Low‑Dimensional Selection game had already corroded his sanity, turning human life into a joke.
Though even if he had realized it… he likely would’ve made the same choice.
With his ability exhausted, Fu Changxun sat beside Xu Zhengyi’s corpse, shielding the grief‑stricken Xiao Xiao.
The veteran player dodged Dong Zi’s blade, then suddenly redirected the net toward Fu Changxun instead.
“Hey—look behind you.” He grinned viciously. “Your teammate’s about to die.”
Dong Zi’s expression changed. The blade meant for the man’s throat only slashed across his shoulder—but he didn’t care. He immediately turned and sprinted toward Fu Changxun.
Fu Changxun watched helplessly as the enormous net descended toward him.
The other players’ abilities and items…
Were negligible. Completely ineffective.
The veteran player could already see it—one by one, all of them dying by his hands, himself clearing the instance successfully. The caution on his face melted into smug satisfaction.
But then, the net didn’t trap Fu Changxun. It turned around and trapped the plagiarist himself instead.
A faint red flicker passed through Fu Changxun’s eyes as he silently scrambled the man’s sense of direction again.
“You—you didn’t—” The veteran player’s face drained of color. “Weren’t you already exhausted?!”
Fu Changxun swung the Direction Wheel hard and smashed it into him. “Didn’t you notice? I like acting.”
Entangled in his own web, the plagiarist glared at them with pure hatred and snarled, “If you kill me, you’re a murderer too! Just like me! It’s because of hypocrites like you—players who pretend to be righteous—that this game’s gotten so rampant! Because you’re weak!”
Dong Zi frowned, looking down at him coldly. “What kind of twisted logic is that? You’re the one who got captured alive.”
He didn’t talk much—but when he did, it cut deep. The veteran player was nearly driven mad with rage.
He spewed a stream of filthy curses, clearly trying to disrupt their mental state and find an opening to escape—but after only a couple of words, a sharp pain in his chest made him fall silent.
Xu Xiao was standing there, clutching a pencil sharpener, stabbing with all her strength toward his heart.
Unfortunately, it was a very strange item.
Xu Xiao’s pencil sharpener couldn’t pierce him at all—but it was the only sharp object she had.
Tears streamed down her face as she screamed in fury, “You killed my dad! You killed my dad!”
She stabbed at him again and again, but couldn’t kill him. In the end, she threw the sharpener away, grabbed the Direction Wheel Fu Changxun handed her, and smashed it down on him over and over with all her strength, sobbing,
“Give my dad back… give my dad back…”
After a few frantic blows, she ran out of strength. She scrambled up and threw herself into Fu Changxun’s arms, continuing to cry silently—her tears nearly spent.
Fu Changxun patted her back gently and asked softly, “Do you want to kill him? To take revenge?”
Xu Xiao clenched her teeth. “Yes!”
She was a minor. Even if accountability were pursued, she wouldn’t bear responsibility—much less when this was vengeance.
The little girl took the knife from Dong Zi’s hand and walked resolutely toward the plagiarist.
Seeing that it was only that foolish little child approaching him, contempt flickered across the man’s face. He said lazily, “Letting a kid kill me—now that’s something you people would come up with.”
Xu Xiao ignored him completely, the knife in her hand stabbing straight for his chest to end his life once and for all.
But the man suddenly began to convulse, foaming at the mouth as he struggled to speak. “Quick… give me the…”
His poison!
He’d been tightly bound in netting the whole time—close enough to touch the antidote but utterly unable to reach it. No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t get free.
Fu Changxun made a sound of realization. “Hm? Wait,” he said, stopping Xiao Xiao mid-strike. “No need to kill him. He’s been poisoned.”
Judging from how he looked just now, it had to be something lethal.
Sure enough, less than ten minutes later, the Plagiarist’s HP dropped to zero.
He died—slowly, and in agony.
[Tsk tsk tsk… that’s what you get. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Karma came knocking.[
[So… there’s really no way to kill in an instance without consequences, huh?]
[Holy shit, how can you trust anyone now?]
Everyone who saw the livestream understood one thing loud and clear: never trust unfamiliar players lightly.
This was a lesson written in blood.
