Leo sat deep in the obsidian shadow of a lunar crag, code cascading across his retinas.

  He had hijacked the Ring’s broadcast relay nodes along the pilgrimage route.

  In the tent behind him, the "Holy Trinity"—composed of three heavily modified carbon-based lifeforms: Vivian, Miranda, and Isabella—had remained catatonic for over ten hours.

  Leo glanced at the biometric telemetry.

  The lactic acid buildup in Vivian's quadriceps had long since breached the tolerance threshold of a normal human, yet she maintained her kneeling posture. An overdose of dopamine was blocking her pain receptors. Or rather, a religious fervor named "Faith" had hijacked her nervous system, keeping her in standby mode for a signal that didn't exist.

  Since Dante vanished, the three of them had been locked in an infinite loop of theological debate. He had tried giving them a history lesson, but it was useless. They were stuck in a deadlock—as if believing that if they just sat still long enough, God would be moved to manifest a sequel.

  "Idiots," Leo muttered, his temples throbbing.

  He had no choice. To prevent these three fools from fossilizing in prayer—and to secure that ship—he decided to reboot the "Demon" System. He would satisfy the Fire Keepers' surplus desire for martyrdom. And, incidentally, figure out the gameplay mechanics of this Lunar Rite reality show.

  It was a new toy. And novelty was the only thing keeping him sane.

  ...Holographic Engine: Online... Hard-light Constructs: Reassembling... Haptic Feedback: 100%...

  With the final command, compressed gas flooded the temporary force field. Photons were forcibly twisted into matter.

  A twenty-meter-tall "Three-Headed Chimera" materialized from the data stream. Its roar was a low-frequency bass drop that penetrated the rock, vibrating in Leo's chest cavity.

  The Fire Keepers' reaction time was superhuman.

  In less than sixty seconds, they burst from the tent.

  "Demon! The Demon is upon us!"

  On the monitor, Vivian's adrenaline spiked into a vertical red line. Her pupils dilated to the point of defocus. She completely ignored the cheap, jagged anti-aliasing on the monster's textures. She raised the alloy staff Leo had welded for her—the Staff of Retribution, designed solely to stop her from nuking everything with Holy Fire—and charged like a berserker ready to smash the world.

  After a brief hesitation, Miranda and Isabella rushed into the fray like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

  Leo shook his head, his eyes filled with the exhausted patience of a special education teacher.

  He cut into the public network and opened the livestream floodgates.

  After a brief silence—the Great Manhunt must have been on a commercial break—connection requests sprayed in like a high-pressure firehose.

  Leo minimized the comments to the background and piped the crowd noise and sound effects into the arena, creating the illusion that the entire solar system was witnessing their Holy War.

  Sure enough, hearing the roar of the "crowd," the three Fire Keepers fought with renewed fanaticism.

  Vivian was even casting legendary prayers.

  Leo tweaked the backend: Prayer Effect = +15% Attack, +Health Regen.

  But the data stream in the chat room soon made Leo frown.

  Beyond the monotonous, brainless praise of the Silver Believers, the chat was a cesspool of polarization.

  "...High-energy reaction detected! It's the Holy Spirit's Gamma Ray Burst! Burn those prosthetic trash who rely on chips! Flesh is Law!"

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "...Is the upstairs user's cerebral cortex as smooth as a mirror? That's obviously a photon array. Flesh is a burden; Ascension is the only solution."

  "...The Chimera's three heads symbolize the Tri-Power of Patriarchal Violence! We are witnessing a Gender War!"

  And, inevitably, the pornographic demands.

  "...Adjust camera angle 3! I need to see the texture of Isabella's thighs!"

  "...Simping for Vivian! Tear the skirt slit higher!"

  Xeno-Limb Pain flared. Leo slammed his hand onto his thigh.

  In this world, most people were just protein sacks run by exclusionary algorithms and reproductive impulses.

  Endless cycles of opposition, conflict, and division.

  Too low-level. Their only value is as experimental biomass.

  Leo killed the downstream data, blocking the sycophants and the trolls. The world returned to silence.

  He lit a cigarette Crow had left him. He didn't want to rage. He just wanted to find a quiet beach before he died and feel the sun his mother spoke of—the kind with color.

  But this world insisted on dragging him into the mud.

  Perhaps the need to preach is humanity's most terminal disease.

  In the distance, stripped of the audience, the Fire Keepers' battle didn't slacken. It became... vivid.

  They were really fighting.

  Vivian took a hit from the Chimera's tail—a force-feedback drone. She rolled three times across the razor-sharp gravel, looking wretched, but she came up smiling.

  Miranda's arm got pinned. Panic overrode dignity, and she bit the drone with her teeth.

  Isabella's petal skirt was shredded, yet she stood amidst the ruin, elegantly scattering pollen at the monster, trying to "Transmit Fire" to a hologram.

  They were messy. Stupid. But... Real.

  This sweaty, flawed vitality was ten thousand times more alive than the digital void.

  However, the next second, Leo's brow furrowed.

  Occupational hazard.

  "Tsk. Center of gravity is too high." He glared at the holographic Chimera. As a top-tier cyber-surgeon, he was offended by the sloppy combat algorithms. "That attack pattern is repetitive. It lacks aesthetic integrity."

  He flicked his cigarette into the dust. His fingers danced in the air, taking control of the Chimera like he was operating a Da Vinci surgical robot.

  The battlefield became an operating table. The monster became his scalpel.

  On the field, just as Vivian jumped, she was clipped in mid-air by a tentacle drone targeting her center of mass.

  No suspense. She tumbled like a drunkard.

  "Is your vestibular nerve just a decoration?" Leo growled, fingers twitching. "Again! This time, visual blind spot. Learn!"

  The monster transformed into a cold, precise machine instructor.

  The three women were chased across the crater, sweat mixing with moon dust, blinding them. It was a miserable sight.

  But in Leo's data-vision, it was beautiful: Vivian's evasion speed increased by 15%. Superfluous movements dropped by 10%. Miranda's strikes smoothed out. Even Isabella learned to use cover.

  And his own dopamine levels... were rising.

  A trace of self-mockery hooked the corner of Leo's mouth.

  It seems these high-and-mighty Fire Keepers are just like everyone else. They only find the meaning of existence through the pain of being abused.

  Only in high-intensity "Existential Threat" does true life bloom.

  His Xeno-Limb Pain faded. This is... Pain Therapy, he thought.

  Suddenly, Vivian caught a hidden recovery frame.

  Like a furious Valkyrie, she rammed the alloy staff into the monster's core hitbox.

  Miranda and Isabella followed up instantly. The photon array collapsed. Sky-filling stardust scattered like fireworks, breathtakingly beautiful against the high-contrast lunar monochrome.

  The three women hugged each other, emitting the uninhibited, raw laughter of primates surviving the dark.

  Even from a hundred meters away, Leo felt the heat of their life.

  For the next two days, Leo used this method to push the forgotten Lunar Rite forward.

  Dante was making waves elsewhere; two more Earth ships landed in Tycho. The Main Sanctum flashed with energy discharges, followed by deep geological tremors. Crow’s emergency channel remained dead.

  Through long-range scans, Leo saw a massive electromagnetic shield forming over the crater.

  Good. Let them cage themselves. We walk free.

  By the seventh day, the broadcast system was dead. Total signal jam.

  They arrived at an unmarked Wreckage Zone.

  Millions of ship fragments protruded from the gray lunar soil at angles that violated physics, resembling the bleached bones of leviathans on a dried seabed.

  The broken titanium keels did not gleam under the sun. They were covered in a mottled, dark brown filth—"Livor Mortis" left by unknown biochemical reactions.

  Leo, scouting point, stopped dead.

  The environmental monitor on his wrist emitted a continuous, modulating scream. The holographic numbers turned into solid blocks of red warning text, obscuring the terrain map.

  0.12... 3000%... NaN...

  Snap.

  A wisp of blue smoke curled from his wrist. The sensor melted down as if dipped in strong acid.

  The next second, an indescribable fishy-sweet smell bypassed his nasal mucosa and exploded directly deep in his cerebral cortex.

  Oily. Sharp. Malicious.

  Immediately after, he felt his arm being forcibly torn off. Again. And again.

  Every nerve ending screamed the same signal to his central nervous system: Being peeled. Being dissolved. Being chewed.

  Sweat soaked his suit instantly.

  Teetering on the edge of consciousness, overwhelmed by Neural Phantom Agony, he forced himself to take a step back. Then another. Only at the third step did the screaming in his nerves subside.

  He slammed the all-channel broadcast key.

  "Back... everyone back."

  He took a deep breath, his voice cracking with terror.

  "TURN AROUND AND RUN—NOW!!!"