Night King (35K)

Roar!

Strange howls echoed endlessly through the empty city streets, accompanied by shrieks no human could possibly make.

They were the most primal roars of living creatures.

The soldiers guarding every major transportation route, sealing off nearly the entire heart of Tokyo, gripped their rifles tightly, their nerves stretched taut.

Though they had been strictly ordered to keep the information confidential, once they reached the front lines, they had more or less learned that the central districts of Tokyo—including Chiyoda Ward, Shibuya, Chuo Ward, and Minato Ward—had been completely occupied by monsters.

Countless civilians had been killed or injured, and the economic losses were impossible to estimate.

The area had even suffered a nuclear strike, followed by the rampage of an unknown giant beast. It could be said that the place they were now defending was possibly the most dangerous battlefield humanity’s military had ever encountered.

A force like the Self-Defense Forces simply could not handle combat of this intensity.

Damn it, why weren’t those Americans and their garrison showing up at a time like this?!

The negative emotions kept piling up. Coupled with the scattered Wight assaults occurring everywhere, many soldiers were already nearing their breaking point.

Bai Cangshu stood atop the fallen Tokyo Tower. Behind him stood four White Walkers, along with over ten thousand Wights.

These White Walkers had clearly been created by reincarnators using Dragon Glass and the magic of the Children of the Forest. They possessed a degree of dark magic, capable of raising the dead as Wights. Their bodies had likewise been altered by dark magic, and only specific items or certain types of energy could kill them.

Ordinary gunfire could not kill White Walkers.

Of course, Bai Cangshu estimated that the White Walkers’ immortality was not of a particularly high level. Powerful explosives or extreme heat could still kill them.

White Walkers and Wights alone could not destroy human civilization in the Gantz world.

That Ancient Alien God, the god of darkness, death, and cold that stood in dual opposition to the Old God, the Lord of Light, and the Red God R’hllor in A Song of Ice and Fire, also possessed immense divine power.

Even when creatures such as White Walkers and Wights were created by reincarnators, they would not serve the reincarnators alone. Once created, these creatures carried the mission of consigning the world to eternal ice and cold.

Winter is Coming. That was the sign of the Ancient Alien God’s impending arrival.

Now, as a God’s Favored of the Ancient Alien God, Bai Cangshu could communicate with this evil god to a certain extent through Divine Thought. Though he could not freely borrow divine power as he had in the B711 Secondary World, the ability to create White Walkers and conduct sacrifices was enough.

Among the milestones Bai Cangshu had obtained, there was indeed one related to this.

Outer God’s Favored (Extremely Rare): Activate more than three Outer God Factions (1/3)

Moreover, the Reputation Shop of the hidden faction, Outer God Abode, contained quite a few powerful items. At the very least, the items that formed a set with the Crown of the Outer God all possessed formidable divine power.

Naturally, Bai Cangshu began commanding the White Walkers and Wights of this world through his identity as the Outer God Patriarch.

The next moment, Bai Cangshu waved a hand.

The four White Walkers behind him simultaneously raised their ice swords, their blades pointing directly toward Shinjuku.

The Wights roared. Tens of thousands of bodies without pain, possessing only cold, silent flesh, charged madly toward Shinjuku.

Bai Cangshu and the White Walkers walked at the rear. The massive procession, like an ice-blue tide of corpses, passed straight through the heart of Tokyo.

The scattered survivors hiding in various places covered their mouths and noses, not even daring to breathe. Such a horrifying sight was something they had once seen only in horror movies.

Helicopters circled overhead, recording the scene and transmitting it to various locations in the rear.

Inside a high-rise building somewhere in Shinjuku, several men wearing Gantz Reinforcement Suits sat before computers. Watching the scene, their expressions were tense.

They reported through a telephone beside them.

"Yes, the corpse tide is heading toward Shinjuku. It seems the government has joined forces with that monster and is preparing to seize your Gantz…"

A mocking laugh sounded from the phone.

Gantz had felt novel and terrifyingly advanced when they first acquired it, but after possessing it for so long, they had come to feel it was nothing special.

Technology was ultimately just technology. Only those who controlled it stood above others.

Whether aliens or the Black Ball Team, they were all merely part of their game.

They were the true spice in the dull lives of the financial conglomerates.

"Heh. Since that idiot Sugahide Hito refuses to recognize his place, then let’s play a big game…"

"Recall the Tokyo Team, Osaka Team, and Kyoto Team, then deploy them all to Shinjuku. Let those people see that so-called monsters and corpse tides are completely meaningless before technology that can endlessly replicate warriors and weapons with just a small expenditure of resources…"

"Ha! As long as we want to, we can change the state of this world whenever we please."

The three Black Ball Team members responsible for operating Gantz looked at one another, their expressions full of pain. Yet bombs implanted by Gantz existed in their brains, and the financial conglomerates behind the scenes could kill them at any time.

They had no choice. They could only keep altering the Black Ball Team’s orders, leaving those pitiful people just like themselves unable even to control their own lives and deaths.

They entered the commands and quickly discovered that every member of the Osaka Team had gone dark.

"The Osaka Team has been wiped out. Should we collect new recruits, or…"

"Is that even a question? Who has time to let newcomers grow now? Just replicate that previous batch directly. What a bunch of trash…"

The next moment, as the three controlled Gantz through their computers and issued new orders, the Black Ball Team members discovered that they were once again being transported to a new location.

These repeated mission changes and redeployments had already made Kei Kurono and the others feel that something was deeply wrong. Having learned the truth about Gantz, they had also realized that Gantz’s purpose had now changed.

They were no longer fighting real aliens. They were being used to… protect those financial conglomerates.

Daizaemon Kaze remained silent and sat cross-legged. This battle had made him lose his reason to throw punches. He was a fighter, a Martial Artist. He fought to pursue strength, and he fought to protect the weak.

But now, all those reasons were gone.

"Sorry, everyone. My journey ends here."

He had made up his mind. Even if Gantz killed him, he would no longer fight for that kind of thing.

Masaru Kato and the others looked equally lost. Oka Hachiro and the others, who had been revived and transported here together, merely cast a sidelong glance at the Tokyo Team and paid them no mind.

The Osaka Team’s equipment and strength were both greater than the Tokyo Team’s. Having lost the memories of their previous deaths, they were merely joking among themselves.

The Kyoto Team’s Black Ball Team was about as strong as the Tokyo Team. More than twenty Black Ball Team members gathered on the streets of Shinjuku, listening to the tide-like footsteps as they raised rifles and cannons before them.

Kei Kurono clenched his fists. He did not want to die, but he was furious about all this. The intense conflict of emotions left him feeling as though his head would split apart.

In the darkness, he suddenly saw a demonic tree. Groups of people constantly worshipped beneath it, while a vast, ethereal figure leaned down from above the tree. That cold, silent feeling instantly drowned his anger, hatred, and pain.

Within that coldness, he felt a relaxation unlike anything he had ever experienced.

Tap, tap, tap… rustle, rustle, rustle…

Faint footsteps emerged from behind the Black Ball Team. Hanaki Kyo quickly noticed them, turned around, and used the X-ray scan on his single-wheel bike to see numerous figures approaching from behind the block.

But after scanning them and finding that they were all ordinary humans, he paid them no attention.

"It’s fine. They’re all humans."

Hanaki Kyo turned back and continued aiming ahead. The corpse tide had already appeared in sight, but it had not yet entered the range of Gantz’s weapons.

Click, click.

Reika Shimohira felt deeply uneasy. She leaned against Bonnie, while Bonnie looked up at the darkening sky. The moon might rise soon.

"Be careful, Annie, Miss Reika. The movement behind us isn’t normal…"

Lotus had excellent mental fortitude. Though Lancer had killed him instantly during the team battle, after being revived, he had quickly accepted the reality that he had died. His thoughts were clearer than the others’ now. In such an abnormal environment, ordinary people who had survived in Shinjuku should not have gathered together so calmly.

Those terrified humans, even if the military blockade prevented them from fleeing, should have gathered in small groups. And out of fear, people would constantly engage in meaningless conversation.

They would not be this quiet, this silent.

Lotus looked back toward the corner behind them. Sure enough, the next moment, a group of people emerged onto the street. Every one of them kept their heads lowered, their bodies covered in blood.

More bizarrely, each of them had intestine-like tentacles extending from their backs, connected to somewhere unknown.

Lotus lightly patted Bonnie on the shoulder. Bonnie turned around, and her pupils quickly became catlike as she entered a combat state.

"The corpse tide is here! Time to farm points, baby!"

Shimaki shouted excitedly. The Wights ahead were running wildly. Many had already lost hands or feet, but it did nothing to hinder their mad charge.

Bzzzt—

A high-energy particle beam struck the foremost Wight with a bang. Two or three seconds later, the Wight exploded into chunks of flesh.

The next moment, countless high-energy particle beams fired continuously, while the Wights charged forward without awareness.

Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt—

Bang, bang, bang…

Flesh and blood flew everywhere in an instant.

Masaru Kato clenched both fists, his expression tense. One moment, he looked at Daizaemon Kaze, who sat on the ground as if he could not see anything before him; the next, he looked at Bonnie, who had entered a combat stance.

At a loss, Masaru Kato unconsciously asked the hero in his heart.

"What do we do now? Fight?!"

Kei Kurono, who had been standing there in a daze, suddenly turned around. The ice-blue color in his eyes made Masaru Kato’s heart skip a beat.

The next moment, the veins of Kei Kurono’s Reinforcement Suit bulged. He abruptly leaped seven or eight meters into the air, landed atop a small building, then made several more continuous jumps before vanishing from everyone’s sight.

What puzzled the others was that Kei Kurono’s head did not explode despite leaving the mission area.

From the sky, Bai Cangshu looked down upon everything. He withdrew his gaze from the direction Kei Kurono had chosen, where a special White Walker had caught his attention.

It was a woman, frozen in ice inside a room.

The entire apartment building had been enveloped in frigid air, yet living people continued entering it in an endless stream. Their intestines then connected to something inside the room, while they lowered their heads and walked toward the Black Ball Team.

From this White Walker, he sensed powerful dark magic. The Ancient Alien God’s divine power was exceptionally evident upon it.

Perhaps this could already be called… the Night King?

Bai Cangshu entered the room and saw the woman nailed to the wall with Dragon Glass, as well as several White Walkers beside her, entirely frozen in ice.

You have triggered Faction Event: Winter is Coming

Event Description: The Ancient Alien God wishes to claim this world, spread faith in the Ancient Alien God, guide the Ancient Alien God's descent, and have winter sweep across more than 50% of the world's area.

Reward: Greatly increase Outer God Abode reputation; randomly obtain Outer God Abode reputation item x1

What Bai Cangshu had not expected was that the White Walker, comparable to the Night King, did not speak words such as "Winter is Coming," nor any Divine Oracle of the Ancient Alien God.

"Child… my child…"

It was a mother who had captured countless humans while searching for her own child…

Bzzzt!

A Gravity Field descended, instantly crushing the controlled humans to pieces.

The woman seemed to feel pain as well. She suddenly threw back her head and howled.

The next moment, the White Walkers in the room all broke free from their icy seals and rushed out.

The battle between the Black Ball Team and the White Walkers had officially begun.

At the same time, new White Walkers were born beside nearly every altar, each accompanied by even stranger abilities.

The Ancient Alien God seemed capable of descending independently even without relying on Bai Cangshu.

Bai Cangshu had thought of that possibility as well. The smile at the corner of his mouth slowly turned cold.