The kings Avater

"Everyone stay still," Midnight ordered sharply, his eyes narrowing as a distant, guttural growl echoed through the dungeon corridors. His voice dropped into a tense whisper. "I recognize that sound. It's an Eixel."

The room fell into complete silence.

"An Eixel?" PhantomX mouthed.

"Yeah," Midnight replied barely above a breath. "It feeds on sound. It's blind, but its hearing is off the charts. One wrong move, one whisper, and we're all done."

"Waw~ someone's been reading the Game Codex like a bedtime story," Skull started to say smugly—only to be violently shushed by the others.

"Skull!" PhantomX hissed under his breath.

Midnight didn't flinch. "Relax. It's not unbeatable. Since it's blind, if we stay quiet and move slowly once it passes, we can sneak out of this zone undetected. Everyone got that?"

"Sure, Cap," they all nodded in unison, their avatars barely twitching.

Midnight smirked faintly. "And by the way, Skull... you're not wrong. I've been studying. Team's been short a brain cell lately, so I figured I'd donate mine to the cause."

"Ouch," PhantomX muttered.

"Ay," said 7thsense9 and StormChaser in sync.

Skull chuckled lowly. The rest rolled their eyes—though the tension in the air didn't ease.

Suddenly, PhantomX's gaze darted toward Cyberdiva. "Wait... is she still—?"

Before he could finish the thought, a long, spindly shadow stretched across the cave's stone walls.

The Eixel had arrived.

Its design was grotesquely stunning—a tall, insectoid creature, crawling on multiple sharp, brittle limbs that scraped against the dungeon floor with the sound of knives dragging across granite. Its face had no eyes, just an unsettling array of twitching ear-like tendrils that flicked around constantly, detecting even the faintest vibration. A pale green bioluminescent glow radiated from the cracks in its bone-plated chest, pulsing with its breath like some sinister heartbeat.

The party didn't move. Not even a pixel.

In this ultra-immersive game, external sounds—from the players' real-world environments—were integrated directly into gameplay through their mic settings. The game's advanced AI could detect noise through both in-game sound mechanics and player voice inputs, making moments like this feel terrifyingly real. Even the faintest background noise could alert the creature.

"Guys, CyberDiva's still AFK," PhantomX whispered in the group chat.

"Shit," Midnight muttered under his breath.

Chan guo's avatar sat completely still, head slightly bowed—just where Ye Qiu had left her.

The Eixel's tendrils twitched. It slowly turned its head in her direction.

The glowing cracks in its chest flared brighter.

It had heard something.

It was moving toward her.

While the others stood completely still, not even daring to breathe loudly, Ye Qiu slipped his headset back on, unaware of the tension in the virtual cave. His screen flickered to life, the eerie darkness of the dungeon glowing back at him. Without hesitation, he casually moved his character forward—completely clueless about the silent agreement the others had made seconds earlier.

The eixel, a grotesque beast with a snake-like head, pale eyeless sockets, and ribbed ears that twitched at every vibration, slowly turned toward him. Its body was tall and spindly like a corpse stretched on wires, its claws dragging along the stone ground, leaving eerie scratches.

"Sh*t," Midnight muttered under his breath, barely audible, as the eixel raised its claw, drawn toward the tiny sound of Ye Qiu's character's movement.

With a burst of speed, the monster lunged—but Ye Qiu reacted on instinct, narrowly dodging the swipe with slick precision.

"Run!" Midnight suddenly shouted, breaking the silence as the rest of the team took off in different directions, scattering like startled pigeons while the eixel screeched and chased after them.

"What the hell was that, Cyber?!" Midnight barked through the mic as they sprinted through the shadowy corridor. "Didn't you hear a damn word I said?!"

Ye Qiu instinctively opened his mouth to speak… but paused. His voice would instantly betray him. It wasn't Chan guo behind the screen right now—it was him. No one could know that.

Instead, he muted his mic and quickly typed:

[Sorry, didn't hear.]

Stormchaser's voice came through, flat and unimpressed. "Ugh, what's with the texting, weirdo?"

[It's midnight here, can't wake the people in my house.] Ye Qiu replied calmly.

"Yeah, and it's mid-afternoon here," Stormchaser said with mocking cheer. "Come hang out with me. I'm having lunch and watching our doom unfold."

Ye Qiu rolled his eyes with a tired sigh and focused back on the game, fingers already dancing over the controls. If only they knew what kind of pro was really behind Cyberdiva's screen… but for now, keeping the act up was more important than flexing his skills.