Li Tongchen frantically controlled his game character to hide.

The next moment, a violent shockwave slammed into him, shattering the room’s glass and even blowing down the house he was in.

He could even see the fire igniting on his character’s body and feel the scorching wind whip past, as if it were all happening to him.

Looking toward the city center, those near the epicenter of the nuclear blast had been vaporized instantly. Those farther away were blown off their feet and burned to cinders.

Even farther out, people had turned into running fireballs.

The entire city was ablaze. The air was filled with endless screams and the crackling of flames.

Li Tongchen’s character was half-buried in the rubble when his phone screen suddenly went black. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

A jolt of alarm went through him.

’Is the game over just like that?’

’Did I fail?’

But after just two or three seconds, the phone screen lit up again. It was now daytime in the game.

The entire city had been reduced to a ruin, with corpses scattered everywhere.

Li Tongchen controlled his character to struggle free from the debris. He looked around, but all he could see were bodies.

He couldn’t help but shiver.

The scene was rendered so realistically it made him feel like it was actually happening.

He got up from the ground and staggered through the ruins, hoping to find another living person.

He knew the radiation levels here were off the charts and that he would probably die soon from acute radiation sickness, but there was no time to worry about that.

Just then, a sound like distant thunder rumbled from the sky.

Li Tongchen looked up to see several missiles streaking across the sky, heading west.

At the same time, several more missiles fell from high in the atmosphere, their multiple warheads descending toward the distant horizon.

Then came a flash of light.

A nuclear flash.

He was someone who had lived through turbulent times and had even undergone militia training, including anti-chemical warfare drills. He knew this meant the nuclear exchange was still ongoing.

’I wonder what state those distant cities have been reduced to?’

Li Tongchen continued walking through the ruins.

The collapsed buildings in the ruins had formed a narrow, corridor-like path that seemed to be guiding him forward.

When he reached the edge of the ruins and finally encountered another person, Li Tongchen couldn’t help but jump in surprise.

The person’s face was severely burned, twisted and horrific, their original features unrecognizable.

But the other person also seemed startled by Li Tongchen and took a few steps back.

Li Tongchen’s heart sank. He quickly found a shattered car’s rearview mirror to look at himself. What stared back was an equally twisted and ruined face, its features like melted wax.

He was disfigured, too.

The ruined visage was so horrifying that even though he knew it was just a game, the real Li Tongchen couldn’t resist touching his own face.

Thankfully, it was still intact.

Just then, the person he had just met in the game suddenly spoke.

"Who are you? You... Have I become like this, too?"

The voice was electronically synthesized, apparently processed by the game’s system.

Moreover, judging by their lip movements, the other person probably wasn’t even speaking Chinese.

Li Tongchen nodded and said:

"Yes. We’re both disfigured."

’Is this an NPC or another player?’

’The last game, the Stone Statue Apocalypse, was a single-player experience. The only NPCs were those Skinners. This is the first time I’ve met a game character who can talk.’

The other person glanced at the surroundings, then suddenly chuckled and said:

"This looks just like the real thing. The developer must be a goddamn genius... Come on, let’s go check outside, see if there are any hints."

Li Tongchen was instantly sure—the other person was a player!

As he spoke, the man had already started walking forward, his stride confident. He was clearly a very successful person in the real world.

"How did you get this game?" the man asked without turning his head.

Li Tongchen narrowed his eyes, not bothering to answer him. Instead, he continued to survey his surroundings.

The city ruins were a veritable Hell, filled with corpses and fire.

The great fires had not been extinguished; many areas were still burning, and black ash drifted down from the sky.

Seeing that Li Tongchen wasn’t responding, the man didn’t get angry. He just smiled faintly and continued talking to himself.

"It was a three-phase thermonuclear bomb. The outermost layer is a depleted uranium casing. Most of the major nuclear powers’ strike systems use this kind of thing now. The radiation is extremely strong. Under normal circumstances, we’d already be dead from acute radiation sickness."

Li Tongchen said slowly:

"Yes. Acute radiation sickness of this intensity is almost certainly fatal. You’d end up as a piece of constantly bleeding, rotten flesh."

After that, neither of them spoke again, and they continued along the narrow path through the ruins.

Before long, they encountered three more survivors with hideous faces. From the way they spoke, it was clear they were all players, not NPCs.

Soon, they reached the very edge of the city. Turning a corner, they saw an open area ahead. Thousands of people were standing there!

Every single one of them had a scorched face, with no hope of recovery.

However, most of them understood in their hearts that the developer had destroyed their characters’ faces as a form of protection.

After all, their previous game characters had been identical to their real selves.

Although these people conversed occasionally, they were very orderly. There was no shouting or screaming; most of them appeared remarkably calm.

As Li Tongchen and the others joined the group, the entire screen suddenly turned blood-red, and several lines of large text appeared:

"This is a group mission.

Mission 1: Find the true cause of the nuclear war.

Mission 2: Stop the nuclear strikes.

Mission 3: Save the surviving humans and rebuild human civilization.

This mission allows for infinite reloads. Character death will return you to a respawn point.

Completing the missions will yield great rewards.

Mission failure will result in a real-world apocalypse."

Seeing these lines of text, the crowd of players erupted into an uproar. Many could no longer maintain their composure and started cursing loudly.

Li Tongchen’s hand trembled, and he nearly dropped his phone on the ground.

’Mission failure will result in a real-world apocalypse!?’

’What does that mean?’

’Does it mean exactly what it says?’

Remembering the Stone Statue Disease Vaccine from the Stone Statue Apocalypse, Li Tongchen instantly felt that the game developer behind the scenes was not joking!

’And those ’great rewards’ must be moving enough, at least something comparable to the Stone Statue Disease Vaccine.’

Just then, the mission text disappeared. A man with a red bandage tied around his head climbed onto the roof of a wrecked car and shouted:

"Everyone here should have played the first stage, the Stone Statue Apocalypse. I suspect this game’s developer might possess some kind of mysterious power. Add to that the recent Arctic nuclear torpedo incident—we can’t let our guard down! Besides, we’re playing this game to find the truth behind it all. I suggest we get moving immediately!"

At that moment, another man clambered onto the roof of another car and yelled:

"Exactly! Since this is a group mission, we should elect a leader first to solve the problem of differing opinions. If no one has any objections..."

The crowd booed. Clearly, no one wanted to be led by a stranger.

After all, they were all people of high status and power in reality, and thus proud and arrogant.

But reason also told them that wasting time like this was not a solution.

A few others then proposed that the ten thousand people present could temporarily be divided into ten divisions of one thousand, and each division could be further split into squads of one hundred. They could then start scouting in these hundred-person squads.

They believed that a hundred people would be more than enough for their purposes, and so on.

Vasily, who was also controlling his game character amidst the crowd, loudly voiced his agreement with this plan.

And so, the ten thousand people quickly organized themselves into one hundred squads of one hundred.

Afterwards, the crowd also discovered that more than half of them had received military training, or at least had relevant experience.

Many also sensed the accustomed air of authority that comes with high status in the speech and mannerisms of the other players.

But it wasn’t long before their wails of misery began...