2045, The Great Mammoth Steppe, a snowstorm in which could be heard an irregular popping noise. Pumf! Pumf! Pumf!

In the centre, where the storm raged most fiercely, Septic Rose was wading through ankle-deep snow. With each belaboured step, she shed a crimson encrustment that was forming as the blood haemorrhaging from her sweat glands froze upon contacting the chilly air – she'd been poisoned. All the while, her night-black naginata fluttered around her, pre-parrying her assailant's next unpredictable attack.

Somewhere out there in the snowstorm, The Cripple was hunting her.

Throughout the battle, he’d been zooming around thanks to his Legendary polar bear coat melting nearby ice and his Legendary sequined pants granting him a . Utilising this speed advantage, he’d been darting in and out, gradually wearing her down with a combination of Legendaries and poisons from his Cutthroat specialisation, Back-Alley Chef.

With visibility reduced so much, with the wind howling in her ears, his whereabouts were untraceable despite her years of assassination experience.

Pumf!

Another pop rang in the distance, muted by the dense curtain of falling snow. Septic Rose, fixing her eyes on the direction of the sound, glimpsed an orange-red dot in the whiteness.

She dove to her left.

Three-tenths of a second later, the snow where she’d been standing became a steaming geyser as it was exploded by a cannonball.

Yes, there were cannons, too.

At some point, The Cripple had used his pirate hat to summon a ghost ship, whose skeleton crew were targetting her with the ship's cannons.

This Legendary item wasn't a surprise to her, who'd spent a week studying footage of his duels in preparation for the hitjob.

Through her research, she felt she’d grasped the cheat-exploiting fighting style that he and he alone called ‘The Strategy of The Resourceful Komodo’. Memorise the Legendaries, memorise his combos, and she should have been able to win with her vastly superior mechanics.

However, that footage, reviewed from the comfort of her bed, her school desk, had failed to convey the style’s true terror, which she'd discovered only after becoming its recipient.

In real-time, the sheer number of Legendaries available to him made it a constant struggle to determine which she would be assaulted with next. She was under a continuous bombardment of decisions, each with multiple-branches of response, some successful, most fatal.

For someone accustomed to finishing her targets in less than six seconds, this extended form of combat was alien, oppressive, taxing, and hope-sapping.

Additionally, she’d sensed a deeper, more foreboding, more tyrannical aspect to the playstyle, but the style itself was consuming all the oxygen of her mental breathing room, preventing her from unearthing its inner secret.

Yet she couldn’t throw in the towel. If it was in her nature to give up, she would never have come this far.

After diving out of the way of the cannonball, she rolled immediately into a sprint, The Cripple having punished her in similar moments previously by shooting her with a poisoned dart.

Pumf! Pumf!

Two more orange-red dots emerged, converging upon her position.

Making a snap decision, she dove backwards along the path of their trajectory, throwing herself onto her back.

The cannon balls collided in front of her, the shower of shrapnel passing above her face like shotgun pellets.

Hidden within the fragments of metal, a dart whizzed along the path she’d been running, close to the ground to snag her if she'd chosen to duck on the spot.

No sooner had she registered her success, a swift-moving jet of water smacked her from the side and a trident hidden inside impaled her chest.

The thrower appeared two metres away, clad in white fur.

Septic Rose, falling to zero health, disintegrated not into soul lights but into smoke.

That body had been a shadow clone created through the Tier-8 skill, . Her real self, having been buried under the snow, ’d behind The Cripple, her sword thrusting up the lightly-armoured butt of his sequined pants.

The tongue of the Primordial Peopleater that served as his belt lashed out, binding the blade of her weapon.

Septic Rose, having already released the handle, punched at him with her sword-hand, while her free-hand formed a spell-gesture.

The Cripple, leaping forward, twisted a ring that covered himself in a golden forcefield.

His reaction late and the move she’d selected unblockable, her fist, covered in a glove of shadow, punched through the barrier, then her fingers extended and wrapped around his throat.

Both of them disintegrated into black smoke, the particles being scattered on the icy-winds.

The Castle of Shadows.

Septic Rose was teleported to a shadowy dungeon room with walls and flooring of grey-black stone. Her health had been restored to full, her cooldowns reset, and the poisons The Cripple’d afflicted her with purged off.

The Cripple himself was standing beside her, his polar-bear coat radiating heat like a space heater.

He gave her a curt nod of approval. “I’ve fought worse.”

She didn’t reply.

Neither could attack, their actions being restricted by an impossibly-powerful force.

With the lull in the battle, she realised that her hands were trembling wildly with adrenaline, her chest heaving. She exhaled to calm her nerves and steady her mind for the coming pursuit, where she would hunt him instead.

They’d been transferred here by , a Tier-8 ability that helped a Cutthroat isolate their prey. In this castle, Septic Rose would have three minutes to kill him or she’d herself be executed.

Seated before them, at a table composed of shadows, was a shadow man, drinking from a shadow mug of shadow lager. This was a shade of The Skinny Guy, the progenitor God of the Cutthroats; it presided over these hunts, sometimes adding arbitrary restrictions for its amusement.

The shade stared wordlessly at the two, delaying the hunt longer than Septic Rose had ever experienced before.

“Can we skip this?” asked The Cripple. “Send us off; let me die in peace.”

The shade, ignoring his request, wove the shadow of a lantern. This object, when ignited with a matchstick’s shadow, cast black rays around the room, steeping the surroundings in darkness.

Onto the wall behind the shade, a flat projection began to expand of a skeleton-thin man with a pale complexion. He had a moustache with grey hairs despite its owner appearing to only be in his late 20s and a stench of stolen cigarettes.

The Skinny Guy? thought Septic Rose.

She glanced at The Cripple, who shrugged back at her with mock-confusion.

According to her research, The Cripple had ceased using himself two weeks earlier. Had he pissed off their progenitor God? How does a player even get the opportunity to do that?

When the projection had grown to the size of a man, it stepped out of the wall and, shaking its limbs, inflated itself into three dimensions. “Wrinkled bollocks of the bull! Many a bell ‘as tolled since Guvna Lazy Limbs here visited me ‘umble turf, and ‘ee didn’t even ‘ave the decency to bring a plate of nan’s best smelling sons. Bit twisty innit, lad?”

"Fuck you, you emaciated, stinky chav.”

The Skinny Guy laughed, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “Fightin’ words, those are! Let’s check what the ol’ dice ‘ave to say 'bout your rudeness.”

Summoning a craps table, the God rolled a pair of dice, which, with each bounce, displayed a different type of combat condition.

Half time. No spells.

Limitless Boost. Deafness.

As the dice came to rest, the God’s skinny hands darted out faster than either of the humans could detect.

Basic equipment. No Spatial Bracelet usage.

“Bugger me, Guvna Lazy Limbs, once again your crooked luck ‘as cheated you! Seems you’re about to get murked.”

The God snapped his fingers, causing the two to disintegrate again.

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A dumbfounded Septic Rose reformed in the castle’s banquet hall, her equipment having been changed to a simple monster-hide armour with a katana for a weapon. Her character had a Lifethief specialisation, one tailored towards assassination; with it, she could utilise the Cutthroat bonuses that were typically restricted to daggers with any weapon, like ’s armour penetration.

In typical circumstances, the prey would be sent elsewhere in the castle. The Cutthroat would then hunt them down, occasionally pausing to cast a spell that flashed their whereabouts. Today, though, The Cripple stood 20 metres from her, inspecting the pitiful armament he'd been gifted of a blowpipe, dagger, and four starter poisons.

He was rubbish at proper fighting, so one could be mistaken for assuming that he’d never learned a martial art, relying solely on the power of his cheat items. Septic Rose knew this to be untrue, though; he used an esoteric, jack-of-all-trades style by the name of Twenty Tools, the practitioner eschewing mastery of any one weapon in order to develop a functional skill-level in multiple. For someone with so many Legendaries, the style was perfect. With a basic dagger and a blowpipe - useless.

“Attack already,” he said, assuming Twenty Tool's deceptively relaxed guard.

She charged him head-on.

Nearing each other, they both activated bullet-time, both aware that the exchange would be finished before either could exhaust their Boost.

Two of The Cripple’s poison vials emptied out, imbuing his dagger with a Poison of Basic Haemorrhaging and a blow dart with a Poison of Mild Sedation. Raising the blowpipe to his lips, he delayed until she was too close to dodge or parry, then blew.

She responded with , an automated parrying skill that shifted her sword upwards with lightning speed, deflecting the dart and bringing her weapon into position for a downward stroke.

Another of The Cripple’s potion vials, a pink Poison of Petty Blinding, emptied. He disappeared into a smoke cloud of the same colour, which would inflict anyone but himself with the poison’s effect if they touched it.

She negated this with , a shadowy mask of The Skinny Guy’s face manifesting over her own. It, detecting a spell in the vicinity, opened its mouth and slurped up the poisonous smoke.

The smoke’s removal exposed The Cripple, lunging at her lower half for a single leg takedown.

Side-stepping the crude manoeuvre, she flicked her sword down as he passed by, the blade drawing across his throat and severing his Adam’s apple.

Since the Lifethief variation of didn’t require channelling, she continued two paces forward, beyond the retaliation range of his dagger.

The Cripple ate floor behind her.

Turning back, she saw him lying on his stomach, unmoving, his health pool plummeting, a red puddle spreading from his neck.

She flicked the blood off her sword. “I still expect payment for this job.”

“Are you trying to swindle me?” he replied in a raspy voice. “Where’s the proof? Where’s the target’s head?”

The Cripple disintegrated into smoke.

She jumped back in alarm, raising her sword into a guard, her head spinning rapidly in search of his true body.

How could there be a true body? Shadow clones were incapable of using abilities. A cheat item? But which one had this function?

Hearing a puff of smoke behind her, she spun and slashed.

Her sword blade bounced pitifully off a dagger being supported with the weight of a mountain.

“That greedy geezer...” The Skinny Guy stared at the spot where Guvna Lazy Limbs had vanished, the God’s fist crushing a cigarette he’d been preparing for celebration, "...’ee’s gone and nicked me bracelet, too. Thieving bastard!”

The Great Mammoth Steppe.

Before Septic Rose could ask whether that counted as her win or his, she was returned to the exact spot that she’d departed from, a blowdart piercing her neck.

The Cripple had fired the shot from right beside her, at a range he could not miss.

She lunged at him, but her hand, her arm, her whole body was too heavy raise.

Oh dear, you have been afflicted with Everlasting Paralysis! Debuff will fade in 602 seconds.

About to slump over, she was swept up by The Cripple, who wrapped his arm under her back.

With his smug face inches from hers, her heart lurched in disgust, the sensation growing stronger when she noticed a dagger of bone pointed at her - The Skinny Guy’s Legendary Boneshiv...yet another cheat item.

Pathetic.

Pathetic?

The Cripple, catching her eyebrow twitch with irritation, increased the smugness of his smug grin.

Septic Rose recognised the expression from his duel videos; it always prefaced a corny, prewritten victory speech.

“Is the huntsman, who cannot outwrestle the boar with his bare hands, any weaker because he reaches for the spear? No. Man, in his evolution, has traded the strength of his muscles in order to bulk up in other, more essential domains. We have become the apex predator supreme through the might of our massive brains, our propensity to shape the world to suit our whims, our ingenious use of tools. You, the defeated swine, squeal 'cheating, cheating!'. I say this is merely staying faithful to the legacy of my ancestors.”

As the dagger plunged towards her eyes, Septic Rose was struck by a weird idea.

What if he wasn’t just spouting excuses?

The dagger tip, passing through a slit in her helmet, delivered a delicate incision across her flinching eyelid. The blade, sensing blood, rotated 90 degrees in its hilt.

Rip!

She was instantly flayed of her skin, fat, and muscle, leaving behind an armour-encased skeleton.

Oh no, it seems you’ve died!

Septic Rose, a cloud of soul lights floating above, watched The Cripple bend to grab the necklace she’d dropped after dying (“Another resource for the komodo? If you insist.”). As he stored the prize in his Spatial Bracelet, something caused him to chuckle with childish laughter, then he tramped off, vanishing into the snow.

She lingered afterwards, her racing mind immediately reviewing the duel so she would come out victorious next time.

So caught up was she in this process that only an hour after the system transported her to a Reincarnation Monument did she figure out the cause of his laughter.

That necklace had contained her mount, and the nearest town was 70 kilometres away.

2050, Suchi. The New Suchi Arena. A gazebo.

Having transferred to the recuperation gazebo, Henry and Abigail had managed to calm Rose down.

While the crazy tears were slowly drying on her crazy cheeks, Henry continued to reminisce.

His victory against her on that cloudless day had been extremely easy, with Rose utterly failing to reach either the fourth or the fifth planned stages. The finale would have been the shock revelation of shadow clones three, four, five, and his true true-body. They had all been in underground cavern casting the Tier-9 Cutthroat spell on a herd of dead mammoths to summon an army of blood weapons. But she lost too quickly.

There’d been a wide variation in how the many experts he’d defeated reacted to their losses. Some befriended him, some organised their fans to spam the forums with abusive messages, some called it quits, and some were indifferent. Rose fell into her own special, crazy camp.

Initially, she used the same tactic of many of his Cutthroat opponents, attempting to get close through various disguises before ambushing him. Strangely, though, even after Henry’d killed her several dozen times, she never stopped coming back.

Then, things took a weird turn.

One morning, he'd been eating cereal, snickering while browsing the hateful comments on a duel video he’d uploaded, when he saw her username pop up, not insulting him but threatening to assassinate his detractors.

Very unusual.

Before killing her next time, he paused and noticed that she wasn’t hostile, was just sort of hovering around in the background. When he set an obvious trap to lure her onto a rickety bridge over a lava lake, she walked right onto it, watched him cut the ropes with a smile, and continued smiling while she plummeted and melted.

She was stalking him.

His initial reaction was to kill her more quickly when she appeared, but this had the opposite effect, intensifying her stalking habits. When she wasn’t in disguise—sometimes hovered around with her regular avatar—she started to imitate him. She copied his mannerisms, clothing, and combat style.

The whole thing reminded him of the imprinting behaviours of baby birds, who develop an inseparable bond with the first creature they spot after hatching, following it everywhere and mimicking its actions. Except Rose’s bond seemed to form from being killed a bunch.

He escaped her stalking for a while after beating the game’s best player duellist and retiring from the public light. However, the stalking had resumed shortly afterwards due to her older brother, the former member of Henry’s inner circle, who’d thought it hilarious to act as an informant for his crazy sister.

Unfortunately, Henry couldn’t eliminate the brother because that guy had been the world’s greatest commander and a core guild asset. During Operation Phantom Limbs, the brother had been the war-obsessed fellow who pretended to defect first, marching his troops over the Celaris mountains, subjugating the jungle tribes, and, eventually, safeguarding that end of the continent-spanning canal.

The sister, meanwhile, was an assassin prodigy, so Henry evading her while she was being fed his coordinates was impossible.

Thus, being stalked by Rose was added to the list of nuisances he tolerated in this poorly-designed, poorly-moderated game.

This state of affairs continued off and on through to Saana III until about eight real-life months prior to the present day, when the older brother actually defected, not a ruse, and exposed Henry’s role as The Tyrant to their enemies - a long story, for another time. Following the brother’s betrayal, Rose had stopped her stalking out of a sense of shared guilt. It would have been a lovely change for Henry if it hadn’t come at the cost of now having dozens of spies following him everywhere instead.

But now crazy Rose was back, too, and, apparently, using an avatar with her real-life appearance. The significance of that gesture? Didn't cross his mind once.

-Henry Flower: Abigail, do you think reverse psychology could get her off my back?

-Battered Daisy: Leave me out of this madness.

-Henry Flower: I’m gonna test it.

He squatted down beside Rose and patted her head. “Good girl, good girl.”

Septic Rose was awakened by a vigorous slapping on her forehead.

Her mind foggy, she struggled to peel opened her eyelids, which had the same heaviness of her limbs on that wonderful, fateful day she’d first met Cripple-gege.

When, through her blurry vision, she made out none other than his perfect face staring down at her with a kind smile, she turned aside in embarrassment.

Beside them, Battered Daisy was pinching her brow.

-Zhangmei33: What happened? How did I get here?

How did Abigail's guild leader end up in this position?

Shortly after Septic Rose's arrival, Henry put the weeping girl in a headlock and emptied the memory-wiping poison down her throat.

While carrying the unconscious girl to this gazebo, he'd given a brief summary of Rose stalking him. Abigail need not fear being kicked from her guild, he'd assured, because her guild leader was crazy and would believe pretty much anything he told her.

To Abigail pointing out the bigger issue, that poisoning someone for his personal convenience was sociopathic, he’d replied that he agreed in principle but their relationship was unique. Abigail noted he’d palmed Septic Rose the poison before recognising her. He countered that that situation was also unique because the offer had been voluntary; however, even if it weren’t, his actions would have been justified assuming Rose were a spy - the social contract, the right not to be poisoned, did not apply to one’s mortal enemies.

Moreover, neither Rose nor Abigail, members of an assassination guild, were in a position to moralise, for wasn’t murder a much greater evil than stealing some paltry memories?

Abigail couldn’t refute his arguments, but she still wasn’t convinced.

-Battered Daisy: Ask him.

When Septic Rose looked back at Cripple-gege, he was clutching at his heart in self-reproach.

“Sorry, Zhangmei, this Senior has done you an unforgivable wrong. Since you managed to raise your 1v1 rating so speedily after joining the village, I mistook you for an enemy spy and leaked top-secret information that doesn't belong in your innocent ears. Therefore, I had no option but to erase your memories with poison.”

Septic Rose’s eyelids fluttered, then she smiled as though Henry were merely a classmate handing back a pen he’d mistaken for his own.

“Well, if that’s the case, then I’m sure Senior’s actions were justified.”

“What a charitable soul!" he yelled. "This is indeed the authentic, naive spirit of the foreign exchange student! Look, Zhangmei, I have to continue practising now, but nothing would make me happier than you hovering around.”

Septic Rose’s real expression came out for a second—blank—as her mind short-circuited analysing why Cripple-gege was acting so friendly.

...

......

.........

Whatever, at least she wasn’t being killed.

“That sounds awesome, Senior!”

“Let’s go!”

While Henry extended a hand to help her up, his other arm tucked behind his back, flicking Abigail a victorious thumbs up.

-Henry Flower: See, she’s crazy.

Abigail, shaking her head, followed the insane pair back onto the arena.