Day 1 They called it the "Red Dusk." The sky bled that evening as Yamino emerged from the eastern ravines, his eyes soulless, a dark mist clinging to his frame like the shadows of the dead. For the first time, the players saw him clearly—no longer hidden by divine veils or system interference. His body, now fully materialized, cast a long shadow over the rocks, and his weapons gleamed with eerie crimson and obsidian.
That night, he entered the camp known as Havenfield. It held 300 players, mostly B-rank squads, known for cooperating and trade. He didn't speak. He didn't threaten. He simply walked in, pistol in each hand and sniper across his back.
The first bullet took the watchman. The second hit the medic. Panic followed. By the time ten minutes passed, 230 were dead. The last 70 tried to flee. None survived. Grim Weapon made every shot a curse. The fragments of their dying souls lingered, clinging to his frame, bolstering his senses and speed.
He slept under their corpses. Not for rest. For strategy.
Day 2 He moved west, into the forest line. Twelve scouting squads. Each thinking they were hunting him. They thought wrong.
Yamino used the terrain. Tree roots became traps. Shadows became his cloaks. One by one, he dismantled them. The Grim Weapon ability made his bullets curve unnaturally, trailing purple and black energy, sometimes even exploding mid-flight with soul-piercing shrapnel.
At mid-day, he activated Death Night for the first time.
The forest fell into silence as light vanished. Screams pierced the void. In sixty seconds, all seventy enemies were torn apart. When the veil lifted, only Yamino stood, his body covered in faint blue soul flames. He didn't even wipe the blood off.
Player count dropped to 9400.
Day 3 He attacked the fortress of Gildenshade, a steel-barricaded town built by ex-military players. 800 residents. They had artillery, drone scouts, detection barriers. They believed themselves untouchable.
Yamino stood on the cliffside and watched.
He spent the first night sniping every scout, one bullet at a time. The Grim Weapon ability gave him a passive feedback loop: every kill fueled the next. After 42 sniper shots, they stopped sending scouts.
Then, at midnight, he activated Death Night.
He walked through the gates without resistance. He fired, slashed, moved like a phantom. The shinigami within him had awakened. There was no sound, no color, only death. Entire families tried hiding underground. He found them. He didn't spare.
The sun rose on a graveyard. Player count: 8550.
Day 4 He found a hidden dojo in the Skywood mountains. A-ranked martial artists. 200 elite fighters.
They bowed to him. He killed them anyway.
Hand-to-hand, blade-to-blade. He used his pistols to disarm, his sniper as a bludgeon. He tested something new: merging Grim Weapon with melee.
His blade now had soul-consuming venom. It didn't just slice. It erased.
By nightfall, the mountains echoed with whispers. Yamino's name was forbidden. They called him the "Crimson Phantom."
Player count: 8000.
Day 5 He headed underground. The Mole Guild—a faction of 400 players that built a city beneath the earth, surrounded by illusion barriers. No one could find them. Yamino didn't need to.
He saw a dying scout run toward a rock wall and vanish. He followed. Inside was a labyrinth.
He marked walls with soul-blood. Left false trails. Herded them.
It became a slaughter maze. Ten, twenty, forty at a time. They ran. They begged.
He never said a word.
He left the underground city as it collapsed from internal explosions—triggered by panicked players trying to kill each other, hoping to avoid his wrath.
Player count: 7100.
Day 6 He rested.
Not from fatigue, but to write a single sentence in blood near the ruins:
"This world belongs to death. Your system won't save you."
Then he moved south.
Day 7 Desert ambush squads tried to trap him with mirage barriers and flame fields. A coalition of 900 players formed a circular ambush formation.
Yamino didn't run. He didn't hide. He simply walked into the center.
He activated Death Night.
From the outside, the desert vanished. Inside, it became an abyss.
He used his sniper like a scythe, pistols like claws. The shinigami blade roared with black flames.
The moment the veil lifted, only 40 players remained. He didn't chase them. He wanted word to spread.
Player count: 6100.
Day 8 Yamino moved like a ghost, jumping between regions. He killed a leader of a top 10 guild during a public speech. Sniped her through 3 walls.
He broke into a sanctuary guarded by divine constructs, slaughtered the worshippers mid-prayer.
He killed 600 people this day alone.
Every bullet. Every swing. Every slash fed his soul.
Player count: 5500.
Day 9 No one fought him now.
They ran. They hid. Some even begged to be spared.
Yamino entered a tech dome controlled by cyber-fighters. They launched EMPs, hacked the system interface, tried to shut him down digitally.
None of it worked.
The Grim Weapon laughed at their code. The shinigami essence turned every machine into ash.
He danced through digital flames, bullets bending around him.
300 more died. Player count: 5200.
Day 10 He returned to the central plains.
Once filled with towns, trade hubs, farming guilds. Now it was a ghostland.
He hunted in silence.
Picked off groups of 10, 20, 30.
He cut their lines. Killed their leaders. Burned their supplies. Every village he passed became a ruin.
By the time the sun set on Day 10, the system rang out:
> [Player Count: 5000] [System Alert: Massacres Detected. Balance Protocol Triggered. World Moderation Imminent.]
Yamino stood beneath a dead tree. His weapons glowed dimly. His cloak tattered, soaked in layers of blood—his and others'.
His body pulsed with soul fragments. His eyes looked upward, hollow yet calm.
Ten days. Ten thousand lives.
No remorse. No hesitation.
Just death.
The madness had begun.
And it hadn't ended yet.