CHAPTER 104: CHAPTER 104: THE BLACK BRIEFCASE BY THE FOUNTAIN

Dolren City, late at night.

The snow outside kept getting heavier. A pine tree outside the ward was quickly buried, creaking under the weight.

"Thud."

A chunk of heavy snow fell from a branch, and a figure flashed past at high speed.

Inside the room, Ethan stared blankly at his hands.

All ten fingers were raw and bloody. Blood kept dripping down, staining the white sheets red.

It had been a full four hours since he suddenly logged out of Dawnfall Online. For all four hours, Ethan had been putting himself through pain.

He could not pass out.

Luckily, the kind of pain that makes you want to die didn’t last as long as he’d feared.

He lowered his head and slowly bit the syringe loose with his teeth.

Just then, a shadow flickered past the window.

Ethan snapped his head up, but saw nothing unusual.

He frowned a little, wondering if the intense pain had made him see things.

After a quick wrap on his fingers, Ethan walked slowly to the window.

His room was on the tenth floor of the cancer hospital. In theory, there shouldn’t be anyone outside the window.

But when he opened it and looked out, his pupils blew wide and his breath stopped.

Right there on the sill was a huge handprint.

Ethan jumped back and quickly searched the room for anything he could use as a weapon.

He forgot this was a luxury single hospital room—there was nothing suitable. With no choice, he yanked the IV stand free and gripped it tight.

Ethan carefully moved closer to the windowsill and looked closely at the huge handprint.

From the snow on the print, he knew he hadn’t been seeing things—someone really had been peeking in from outside the window.

Judging by the size of the handprint, the person was very tall—at least 1.9 meters, maybe even 2.0—like a pro NBA player.

Normally, the bigger someone is, the more noise they make.

But Ethan hadn’t heard anything at all. If he hadn’t caught the window in the corner of his eye, he would’ve missed it completely.

He took out his phone, snapped a photo of the sill, then closed the window.

As he turned around, a drop of thick liquid suddenly fell onto the snow on the sill.

He glanced back on instinct, but still didn’t see anything unusual.

He took a deep breath. A faint sense of danger crept in.

No normal person could climb up to the tenth-floor window without a sound. Could this be the Dolren City "anomaly" that [Grinning Ghost] mentioned?

A monster?

Ethan shook his head, set the IV stand by the bed, and listened carefully for sounds outside.

Just then, footsteps sounded in the hall. Ethan lifted the IV stand without thinking and stared hard at the door.

A moment later, someone knocked. It was the blonde nurse assigned to care for him.

Softly from outside, she asked: "Mr. Ethan, are you still awake?"

Ethan let out a breath of relief. He put the IV stand back and said: "About to sleep."

While Ethan was talking with the blonde nurse, outside a window on the eleventh floor, a man about two meters tall, bare-chested, hung silently against the wall.

Moonlight fell across him, lighting only half his body with a strange pale blue tint. Veins bulged and writhed like worms.

He kept looking down, thick drool threading from the corner of his mouth, and muttered: "No... no. I can’t eat. I’m human, not a monster!"

Suddenly, from the left side of his chest, another strange voice answered:

"Stop dreaming. You’re not human anymore."

"Jake, you’re just a monster now. A complete monster!"

As soon as the words were said, the person hanging on the wall suddenly raised their head, and their whole face was now in the moonlight. It was clearly an middle-aged man.

On both sides of his chest, there were two faces, twisted and ugly.

Jake kept taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. But the two faces on his chest kept whispering to him, telling him that he was no longer human and that he should just eat the young man downstairs.

As he heard the voices in his ears, Jake swallowed hard. Ever since he left the lab, he had been feeling an extreme, unusual hunger in his stomach.

At that moment, the window of the 11th-floor room he was in slowly opened.

Without thinking twice, Jake quickly moved to the side.

A pale, bald little girl peeked out of the window and whispered: "Dad, is that you? I heard your voice."

"Dad, are you there?"

She called out several times, but there was no answer. She bit her lip, and tears immediately appeared in her eyes.

She choked back a sob, then wiped the tears from her eyes and said to herself:

"Dad will come back. He promised me. I need to stay strong and keep getting treated. I can’t cry, I can’t cry."

"But I miss him so much."

In an instant, the little girl couldn’t hold it in anymore and started to cry.

But behind her back, Jake heard the girl’s sobs and couldn’t take it anymore. His hands trembled as he slowly moved toward her.

But just then, the door to the girl’s room suddenly opened, and a night nurse hurried in.

She looked at the girl’s crying back with sadness, sighed, and walked over to the window. She closed it gently and said in a soft voice:

"Today’s temperature is very low. The doctor said you shouldn’t be exposed to cold wind. Be good, let’s go back to bed, okay?"

Outside the window, Jake stopped. He bit his teeth and let go of the windowsill, then his body quickly fell downward.

Just before he reached the ground, Jake reached out again and grabbed the window ledge on the third floor. He landed on the ground and turned around, running away quickly.

At the same time, Ethan had just sent away the blonde nurse who wanted to enter the room.

He hadn’t even reached the bed when he saw a figure quickly fall from outside the window.

Without thinking twice, Ethan ran straight to the window and opened it quickly. He looked down.

In the moonlight, a tall figure was running across the snowy ground at a speed far beyond human ability. In a flash, it disappeared from sight.

Ethan took a deep breath. He was sure—this kind of speed wasn’t something a normal human could have.

It was a monster!

Because of his illness, Ethan’s body had become weak. He knew that if that monster attacked him, he might only survive for a few minutes.

Was this what the [Grinning Ghost] had talked about?

Ethan took another deep breath. His sense of danger grew stronger and stronger.

No matter how high his level was in Dawnfall Online, or how good his equipment and power were, right now he was just a weak patient in the real world.

Even after going through the [Berserk Blood War God] trial, Ethan had used his normal human body to kill ten monsters in the trial.

But now, he wasn’t sure if he could survive if he met a real monster.

Ethan instinctively clenched his fists. His blood quickly stained the bandage, but he didn’t seem to feel any pain. He stared tightly at the footprints in the snow and said slowly:

"I have to find a way to improve my strength in the real world. If that monster attacks me today, I won’t survive!"

...

The next morning, Ethan woke up from his hospital bed.

He didn’t go back into Dawnfall Online. Instead, he took his phone and left the hospital.

At 11 a.m. in a coffee shop near the Dolren City government office.

A middle-aged man, tall and wearing sunglasses and gloves, was sitting by the window, facing away from it. He was drinking coffee and looking down at his phone.

This man was Ethan, completely disguised. He was very satisfied with the special effects makeup artist that Leo had recommended.

Even Leo wouldn’t recognize him now.

Ethan slowly placed his coffee on the table, letting the cup accidentally touch the watch on the table.

Suddenly, the smooth watch face moved slightly, pointing toward the water fountain at the entrance of the government office.

He had been using this method to watch for a while, and there was no sign of anyone suspicious.

At the square in front of the government office, there were only a few kids playing in the snow, their parents, and a hot dog stand.

On top of the fountain, there was a black briefcase, covered with a lot of snow.

Ethan let out a soft sigh. He didn’t know what [Grinning Ghost] was looking for in that black briefcase.

This deal was definitely risky, but Ethan had no choice but to take the chance.

Besides his worsening illness, the events of yesterday had also made him feel uneasy.

Ethan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and entered Dawnfall Online.

A few minutes later, a group of people carrying different flags and banners slowly walked down the street. They went straight to the government office and started shouting loudly.

Soon, among the crowd, a young man in a black down jacket waved a flag and silently walked toward the fountain.