Lin Tianhao's frown deepened as the breathtaking beauty materialized before him. The air shimmered with unnatural allure, thick with the scent of exotic flowers that felt jarringly out of place in the grimy woods. An illusion, his mind screamed, cutting through the seductive fog. Pure Weasel Spirit trickery. Succumbing was a risk for the weak-willed, a trap for those who couldn't see the monstrous truth beneath the glamour. To resist required ironclad mental discipline, a fortress against sensory deception.
The simplest solution, brutal yet effective, surfaced: Mental Substitution. He ruthlessly overlaid the image of that impossibly perfect form – the cascade of silken hair, the curve of a hip, the inviting smile – with the stark, revolting reality: the three-meter-tall horror of matted brown fur, the yellowed fangs visible in a perpetual snarl, the beady, malicious eyes. He forced his mind to see the Weasel Spirit beneath the illusion, striking a grotesquely seductive pose, perhaps batting nonexistent eyelashes or preening its greasy pelt.
Perfect. And utterly nauseating.
He focused on the illusionary beauty, now coyly beckoning. His mind conjured the creature's true form attempting the same gesture – a massive, clawed paw clumsily curling, the snarl twisting into something meant to be alluring. The sheer, visceral wrongness of it hit him like a physical blow.
Urk—
Bile surged, acrid and hot, into the back of his throat. The sheer grotesqueness was stomach-churning, a violation of the senses. He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to retch. Just the thought was enough.
The illusionary beauty paused, her perfect brow furrowing in genuine confusion. Her head tilted slightly, an unnervingly human gesture. "Does he… prefer men?" the unspoken question seemed to hang in the charged air.
The scene dissolved and reformed with dizzying speed. Gone was the woman. In her place, bathed in an incongruously bright spotlight amidst the trees, stood a flawlessly sculpted young man. Sweat glistened on defined abs as he dribbled a basketball with exaggerated, rhythmic bounces. His movements were fluid, athletic, but imbued with a deliberate, provocative sway of the hips as he leaned closer, a knowing smirk playing on his lips. The ball's rhythmic thump-thump-thump seemed to mock Lin Tianhao.
URGH—
This wasn't just deception; it was mockery. This damned, flea-bitten weasel thinks it can play games with my mind? White-hot fury momentarily eclipsed the nausea. The insult burned cleaner than the disgust.
Thwip!
His reaction was pure instinct, honed by battle. An arrow, imbued not just with physical force but with his focused will to shatter the farce, tore through the air. It wasn't aimed; it was released, a physical manifestation of his rejection. Soul-piercing. True.
Shunk!
-1028!
The arrow struck the dribbling figure dead center. Not flesh, but illusion. The pretty-boy, the court, the spotlight – everything shattered like fragile glass, dissolving into shimmering motes that vanished on the damp forest air. Reality snapped back: the gnarled trees, the damp earth, and the furious, towering Weasel Spirit, momentarily stunned by the backlash of its broken magic.
Lin Tianhao blinked, drawing his next arrow, but his eyes widened fractionally. Ying Sha! The assassin had broken free first. While Lin Tianhao wrestled with nausea and fury, Ying Sha had acted.
Like liquid shadow given purpose, Ying Sha slid low. Not a dodge, but an attack vector. He skidded across the leaf litter, mud streaking his dark gear, directly between the Weasel Spirit's powerful legs. Before the beast could register the intrusion, the assassin's dagger flashed upward in a vicious, practiced thrust – not aiming for a kill, but for maximum humiliation.
SQUELCH!
"YEEEOOOOWWCH!"
The shriek that ripped from the Weasel Spirit was pure, undiluted agony and outrage. Its massive legs clamped shut like a steel trap, its body hunching instinctively. A tiny -85! floated up, negligible against its vast health pool. The real damage was to its monstrous pride. Minimal combat impact, maximum psychological victory.
Lin Tianhao understood instantly, a flicker of grim respect cutting through his focus: Buying time. Drawing aggro. Keeping it busy until that damned Super Armor runs out. Ying Sha was throwing himself into the beast's maw to give Lin Tianhao the opening he needed.
Predictably, consumed by blinding rage and pain, the Weasel Spirit whirled away from Lin Tianhao, its burning gaze fixed solely on the audacious insect between its legs. It forgot the archer, forgotten everything but crushing the source of its humiliation.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Freed from the immediate threat, Lin Tianhao didn't hesitate. He became a machine of death. The bowstring thrummed a rapid, deadly rhythm. Arrow after arrow, drawn and released with inhuman speed, screamed through the gap, finding their mark with brutal precision. Each one slammed into the exposed back of the Weasel Spirit's skull. CRITICAL! -925! CRITICAL! -941! CRITICAL! -932! Crimson damage numbers bloomed like poisonous flowers against the brown fur.
"GRRROOOAAARRR!"
A guttural roar of pure fury erupted, shaking the nearby branches. The Weasel Spirit spun back, its beady eyes locking onto Lin Tianhao with renewed, terrifying hatred. It knew. Knew it was being played, manipulated, used. The humiliation from Ying Sha, the relentless damage from Lin Tianhao – it was a coordinated assault on its very being.
Its massive head snapped towards its status bar – visible only to itself – where the icon representing Super Armor flickered precariously, its duration bleeding away. Decision made in an instant. Frenzy!
Raw power visibly crackled around the beast. Its muscles bulged, veins standing out like cords beneath the fur. Speed surged. It moved with terrifying, unnatural swiftness, a blur of brown fury aimed not at Lin Tianhao, but at the darting shadow of Ying Sha – the source of its deepest shame.
Ying Sha reacted with the preternatural reflexes of a master assassin. He twisted, rolled, used the trees as momentary shields. But the gap in power was immense. The Frenzied Weasel Spirit covered the distance in a heartbeat. A clawed hand, wreathed in a sickly purple-black energy, snapped up faster than the eye could follow. Soul Siphon!
Phzzt!
The energy lashed out, unerring, unavoidable. It struck Ying Sha square in the chest as he tried to vault a root.
-2150!
The assassin's body went rigid, a strangled gasp escaping him before he crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, lifeless before he hit the forest floor.
His third death today. Twice by Lin Tianhao's hand. This time… for trying to help. A pang, sharp and unexpected, lanced through Lin Tianhao's focus. Gratitude mixed with grim acknowledgment of the sacrifice.
The Weasel Spirit didn't pause. Its burning gaze, now devoid of anything but primal rage, snapped back to Lin Tianhao. Before the archer could fully register Ying Sha's fall, the beast's other clawed hand whipped up. Darker, more insidious energy gathered – threads of shadow and frost coalescing into a grasping sigil. Spirit Puppetry!
Lin Tianhao felt it hit like a physical blow to his soul. An icy vice clamped around his very essence. His vision swam, the forest dimming. A foreign, alien cold seeped into his bones, his muscles, burrowing deep, seeking the core of his will. His fingers, poised to draw another arrow, locked. His legs refused his command to retreat. He was a passenger, trapped within his own flesh, feeling the strings of the Puppetry take hold, his body becoming a marionette for the Weasel Spirit's malice.
NO!
The mental scream echoed in the prison of his mind. Weapon swap! The command was pure, desperate instinct. His mind screamed at his unresponsive hand. Miraculously, through sheer force of will battling the invading cold, his fingers spasmed on his inventory ring. The Thunderstrike Bow vanished. The sturdy, reassuring weight of the Ironwood Treant shield slammed into place on his arm. If he couldn't dodge, he'd endure. And crucially, he wouldn't let this beast use his own hands to tear himself apart. The shield was a bulwark, both physical and symbolic, against self-destruction.
The Weasel Spirit charged, a juggernaut of fur and fury. Distance vanished. A massive, clawed paw, wreathed in the remnants of Soul Siphon's dark energy, hammered down with crushing force onto Lin Tianhao's helmet.
CRUNCH!
The impact reverberated through his skull, down his spine. Stars exploded behind his eyes. CRITICAL! -1512! flashed crimson in his dimming vision. His health bar took a savage chunk.
The onslaught didn't relent. Before he could recover his balance (or lack thereof, as he wasn't controlling it), claws like rusty daggers raked across his exposed throat, slicing through leather and flesh.
RIIIP!
-1626!
Agony lanced through him, a hot, wet line opening. BLEEDING… the status icon flared. -300… -300… began its relentless tick, a scarlet counterpoint to the pounding in his ears.
Inside the frozen prison of his body, Lin Tianhao raged. He focused every shred of his consciousness, his self, into a single, burning point: REPEL! He pictured the icy tendrils of the Puppetry, visualized his own fiery will surging against them, melting, burning, breaking. Muscles, no longer his own, trembled and strained as the internal war raged. He felt the Weasel Spirit's alien will, cold and predatory, pushing him towards the shield's edge, aiming to turn it against his own face. He pushed back with everything he had, the strain immense, a silent scream tearing through his soul.
Break… damn you… BREAK!
With a final, psychic SNAP that echoed only in his mind, the icy grip loosened, then shattered. Control flooded back – painful, immediate, and desperately needed. He gasped a ragged breath, the coppery tang of blood thick in his mouth. His health bar hovered precariously – he'd lost nearly 20,000 HP in that brutal, helpless barrage.
Instinct, honed by countless near-death experiences, took over. His recently freed leg lashed out in a desperate, powerful kick, connecting solidly with the Weasel Spirit's knee joint.
THUD!
The beast roared, more in surprise than pain, its leg buckling slightly.
Lin Tianhao used the impact, the precious fraction of a second of distraction, to coil and push off. He executed a desperate, slightly clumsy backflip, putting vital distance between himself and the slavering jaws and rending claws. He landed hard, rolling to absorb the impact, shield still raised defensively.
Spiral Shot!
His bow was back in his hands before the thought fully formed. Thwip! The arrow screamed away, spiraling violently. Perfect timing. The Weasel Spirit's Super Armor icon finally, finally, winked out above its head. The spiraling missile streaked unerringly towards its vulnerable throat.
Frenzy still granted it unnatural speed. With a snarl of triumph, the beast's clawed hand shot up, faster than Lin Tianhao would have thought possible. It snatched the spiraling arrow out of the air mere inches from its target! The wooden shaft splintered in its grip.
No panic. Only cold, calculating focus crystallized within Lin Tianhao. The loss of Super Armor changed everything. This was his domain now.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
He became relentless. Arrows flew in a near-continuous stream, no longer just aimed, but orchestrated. He targeted joints, eyes, the base of the skull – anywhere to disrupt, to stagger. The Weasel Spirit parried frantically, claws a blur, knocking arrows aside with sparks and splintering wood. But Lin Tianhao's angles grew impossibly cruel, his timing flawless. He forced it onto the defensive, each shot a calculated step in a deadly dance.
One misstep. A fraction of a second too slow to bring a claw up. A Spiral Shot, aimed low, hammered into the beast's thick thigh, not for damage, but for impact.
THUD!
The Weasel Spirit roared, stumbling backwards, its furious rhythm broken. Staggered!
"Now."
Lin Tianhao's eyes glinted like chips of ice under the forest canopy. The next arrow, drawn and released in the same fluid motion, punched deep into the beast's left knee – the one he'd kicked earlier.
Off balance! The leg buckled violently. The massive creature lurched forward, its center of gravity lost, arms pinwheeling wildly for purchase.
He didn't let it fall. The next arrow was already screaming through the air. Not at the body, but the head snapping forward. Dead center between the furious, beady eyes.
THWACK!
The sound was sickeningly solid. The arrowhead buried itself deep. The sheer kinetic force, combined with the beast's own forward momentum, did the impossible.
The colossal Weasel Spirit, easily weighing tons, was lifted… inches off the ground. Its roar cut off in a strangled gasp.
Airborne.
A feral, predatory grin touched Lin Tianhao's lips, devoid of humor, filled only with lethal intent. Gravity's hold was broken, if only for a moment. The aerial onslaught he'd perfected earlier could begin anew. He nocked another arrow, the spiraling energy already gathering around the tip, his gaze locked on the momentarily helpless, floating mass of fur and rage.
Elsewhere… The Grind and the Glimpse
A player, his ID floating cheerfully as 'HubeiStreamer', sauntered through the less-traveled paths near the Newbie Village perimeter. His livestream window hovered prominently beside him, chat scrolling rapidly. He flashed a practiced grin at the virtual camera.
"Check it out, bros! While you're all sweating in Twisted Thicket grinding boar hides," he announced, gesturing expansively at the surrounding woods, "I followed the rumors! Behold!" He panned the camera dramatically. "The elusive Wandering Minstrel! Chilling right over there! Bet my last copper he's sitting on a legendary hidden quest chain. Complete this, maybe snag an Epic item?" He winked. "Who knows? Maybe I'll be rocking the leaderboards like that Snow Emperor dude everyone's buzzing about!"
He adjusted his cheap leather armor, puffing his chest out slightly for the camera as he approached the clearing where the Minstrel usually lingered. "Alright, let's see what secrets this fancy-pants NPC is hiding…" He swung the camera view forward, expecting the dapper, mustachioed figure.
He froze mid-step. His jaw dropped. The practiced grin vanished, replaced by slack-jawed disbelief. "Holy shit," he breathed, the words barely audible. Then louder, tinged with rising shock: "Holy shit." He took another step, the scene fully registering. "HOLY SHIT!"
His viewers, seeing only his stunned, pale face filling the stream, exploded with confusion and lurid speculation:
"WTF did u see Streamer?! Players doing the nasty IRL style??"
"Heard whispers some shady club owner is scouting locations for virtual 'entertainment'… needs player-owned property tho. Perma-ban otherwise!"
"Did you find a secret dungeon? Or… wait… is it BESTIALITY?! WHO'S THE SICKO?!"
"C'mon Hubei! PAN THE CAMERA! Don't leave us hanging!"
HubeiStreamer gulped, his throat suddenly dry. Slowly, almost reverently, he turned the main camera view away from his shocked face, pointing it towards the source of his astonishment.
Silence. The chat froze for a split second, thousands of viewers processing the scene being broadcast: the massive, furious Weasel Spirit, momentarily suspended a foot off the ground; the archer, face set in grim determination, already drawing another spiraling arrow; the aftermath of a fierce battle visible in trampled earth and scorch marks.
Then the digital dam broke. The chat erupted into a cascading waterfall of pure, unadulterated disbelief:
"HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SH—"
"IS THAT A FREAKING BOSS?! STUCK IN MID-AIR?! LIKE A PINATA?!"
"ARCHER MAIN HERE REPORTING IN… I MISS STATIONARY TARGETS HALF THE TIME! HOW IS HE DOING THIS?!"
"The PHYSICS! The TIMING! This is HACKS! REPORT HIM!"
"Mom just asked why I'm kneeling on the floor staring at my screen. Showed her… now she's kneeling too. WTF IS THIS PLAYER?!"
"SNOW EMPEROR! THAT'S GOTTA BE SNOW EMPEROR! LOOK AT THE TECH!"
"Subscribed! Gifted! JUST KEEP FILMING!"
Viewer count skyrocketed. Gifts flooded the stream – virtual fireworks, coins, even a rare 'Dragon's Blessing' effect. HubeiStreamer's grin returned, wider than ever, basking in the unexpected viral chaos. This was pure gold! "You seeing this, chat?! Unreal! The skill! The absolute madlad is juggling a BOSS! This is Gods' Twilight history in the ma–"
His triumphant commentary was cut short. Not by a roar, not by a spell. By a sound chillingly familiar to PvP players: the swift, sharp whisper of a blade parting air… and then flesh.
SCHLICK!
The world dissolved into pain and darkness. HubeiStreamer's triumphant grin vanished, replaced by wide-eyed shock. His screen flashed crimson, then snapped to black.
YOU ARE DEAD.
Resurrection available in: 59 seconds…
Behind his collapsing virtual corpse, already fading into the shadows like smoke, an assassin lowered a dripping dagger. No name visible. No emotion on the hidden face. Only cold, professional efficiency. The livestream cut off abruptly, leaving thousands of viewers staring at a black screen, the echo of that final, wet sound hanging in the silence of their own rooms.