Die, Replay, Repeat

“Damn it!” Lu Ziming’s voice broke with fear. “Fang Xiu’s been using Specters to crank out Taoties! That’s why he’s been missing—he’s been growing this army!”

The others caught the drift, their faces going white as it clicked.

“No wonder the Specters around here have been drying up,” Tong Yang mumbled. “It’s him—he’s been scarfing them down to spit out more Taoties!”

“That jerk! We should’ve hit him hard before his army even started,” someone snarled.

“Hit him hard?” Wen Jinglong’s expression turned sour as he smashed a fist into the wall. “I threw my best at him and didn’t leave a mark. How do you ‘hit hard’ against that? We were cooked from the start! He’s unkillable with Specters around—and now he’s running a Taotie mill. There’s no beating this!”

His words sank like a rock in still water. Panic bubbled up, the threat of doom hanging heavy.

Tong Yang spun on Lu Ziming, his tone sharp as a blade. “This is on you, you fool! Why’d you have to poke him? He’s from headquarters, same as you—coworker or not, you didn’t need to stab him in the back! If not for you, we wouldn’t be in this hole!”

Lu Ziming’s hands balled up, veins popping on his forehead. “On me? How’s this my mess? Who could’ve seen this kid strolling into the Land Between like it’s his playground? Damn it! We’ve been clawing our way through here for years, barely hanging on, and he saunters in—not dropping a dime—and starts an army. If you don’t know him, you’d swear he owns the place!”

Wen Jinglong sighed, tired, slicing through the squabble. “Enough. Stop barking and figure out how we stay alive. We thought he’d block the inn or the pawnshop—turns out we weren’t thinking big enough. He’s got all of Whitestone locked down.”

Outside, Fang Xiu stood on a Taotie, staring at the circled town. His brow creased a little.

The Taoties couldn’t cross Whitestone’s edge. He eyed the billions of Specters latched onto his army and figured it out.

It wasn’t the Taoties getting stopped—it was the Specters.

By day, Whitestone had a way of keeping Specters out. The Taotie projections looked like Specters but weren’t quite—psychic creations at heart.

He’d called one up in town before, so that tracked.

No hurry, though. If they couldn’t get in, no big deal. He wasn’t the one stressing—the folks stuck inside were. So he parked the Taotie army to clog the exits and turned off, chasing more Specters.

“He’s leaving! Fang Xiu’s out!” a psychic with good senses yelled, relief spiking his tone.

“So what,” another shot back. “He’s gone, but the Taotie army’s still here. We’re trapped! No way out means no cash. Once our stash runs dry, we’re dead anyway.”

“We could wait for night,” someone tossed out. “Whitestone’s guard drops then. Take a shot, hunt Specters, grab some money.”

“You nuts? Night lets Specters in—and the Taoties too. Hunt? With what—your skull?”

“Look, we’re done,” a flat voice broke in. “Time to say sorry and pay up.”

They hated it, but they were out of moves. Defeat settled in like grit.

What they didn’t see coming? The guy they were ready to beg didn’t even show his face.

One day. Two. Three…

Fang Xiu stayed away. Meanwhile, the Taotie tally hit a jaw-dropping fifty.

Whitestone was a castle under lockdown, squeezed so tight the outer Taoties had to pile up just to squeeze in.

The fourth-tier psychics were crumbling.

Their savings—already slim—were gone. Now they limped along on borrowed money, panic eating at them. They never thought Fang Xiu could be this cold, not even giving them a shot to talk it out.

Lu Ziming gritted his teeth. “That jerk’s trying to bleed us dry!”

The last bits of pride these tough guys held onto faded away.

They’d been plotting ways to patch things up, maybe sweet-talk their way into a small payout and call it quits. Now? Hope was dead.

They’d fork over all they had—heck, take on debt—just to stay alive.

“I’m done!” one fourth-tier psychic burst out, his voice splitting as he jumped up. “I’m flat broke! If this drags on, tonight I’m on the street, and the Specters’ll tear me up! I’m begging him—even if it means being his mutt, I don’t care, I just want to live!”

He rushed out, darted to Whitestone’s wall, and dropped to his knees before the Taoties, smacking his forehead into the dirt. “Sir, please! I was clueless, fooled by nonsense—that’s how this all went wrong!”

One led, another followed. Soon a second fourth-tier was beside him, both pounding their heads in sync. “Sir, take all I’ve got! I’ll owe you a million Spirit Money—just let this stray live!”

Lu Ziming and the rest watched, their faces grim. No one cracked a smile. They knew they could be next.

“What’s the move?” Wen Jinglong rumbled, voice low.

Tong Yang shrugged, giving up. “What else? He’s got a gift for pumping out Taoties—fifty in days! Give him a bit more time, and he’ll suck up every Specter in the Land Between. Then? Forget escaping—he’ll roll over the whole world. Do what you want, but I’m hitching up with him.”

With that, his stocky shape blinked out.

Moments later, a third figure knelt at the wall, crying out, “Sir, since I was a kid, I dreamed of joining headquarters! Even here, I never quit. When I saw your real strength, I was blown away—please, let me follow you!”

Lu Ziming and Wen Jinglong traded a look, then poofed out together.

Soon, a line of kneeling shapes stretched along the wall.

“Mr. Fang, mercy!”

“We’ll pledge ourselves!”

Lu Ziming and the others were out of plays. They couldn’t take him down, and he just kept growing—more Taoties daily. Fight with what? If they’d had even a sliver of a plan, they wouldn’t be bowing down.

They knelt a whole day. Fang Xiu didn’t appear. Nothing shifted—except the Taotie numbers, creeping higher.

“Is he just gonna crush the Land Between like this?” Wen Jinglong croaked, eyeing the circling giants, gulping hard.

The group was numb, their world swallowed by Taoties. The beasts seemed to strangle everything.

Then, finally, the long-awaited Mr. Fang walked up.

In just days, he’d wiped out over a hundred million Specters, pushing his army to almost sixty Taoties.

The Grey Fog in the Land Between had faded under the slaughter.

Time to sort out a way out, he figured. Best case, a steady pipeline—make the Land Between a launchpad, churning Taoties into the real world nonstop.

Sure, the real world didn’t have enough Specters to keep them going forever, but he had a workaround: rotation.

One crew feasts here, fights there, then switches back to recharge while another steps up. Over and over.

If he locked down that pipeline, even as a third-tier, he could rule the planet.

Translator's note: where's Xiao Chuxia and the others? I missed them already.