Li Tongchen paused for a moment, found a sofa and sat down formally, took a deep breath, and tapped the screen.

He didn’t know where this game came from or what was behind it all. He only knew that it might be related to the Petrification Disease virus.

That was enough.

He was desperately hoping this was a lifeline.

A mix of doubt and terror churned within him as he then saw two options:

Start

Load Game

There was also a line of text: Revealing game information to non-players will result in a permanent ban from the game.

Li Tongchen immediately pressed the "Start" button.

The next instant, a flash of white light burst from the screen, revealing that his game character had appeared in an empty room.

A line of narration flashed across the screen:

You have now entered the Stone Statue Apocalypse. The Petrification Disease virus is infecting your body. You need to complete the following missions within one week:

"1. Find the cause of the large-scale Petrification Disease outbreak.

2. Find the Petrification Disease Patient Zero virus and the final vaccine.

3. Survive.

This is a one-time game. If your character dies, you will lose your chance to play forever."

The final Stone Statue Disease Vaccine!

Li Tongchen felt his heart pound wildly in his chest.

The developer behind this game was the same person who had sent out the Petrification Disease data as an early warning. They also had information about the Stone Statue Disease Vaccine!

’Who on earth is this person?’

’If they really have the vaccine, why not just release it? Why use this method, making me play some game?’

Li Tongchen was puzzled, feeling a faint, instinctual resistance.

But when he thought of how terrifying the Petrification Disease virus was, he hesitated for only three seconds before immediately controlling his character to walk out the door.

The scene on the street outside startled him.

Statues, so many statues, stood erect on the street.

Each statue was incredibly lifelike, as if carved by the world’s greatest sculptor.

But Li Tongchen’s face showed no joy at seeing these masterpieces. Instead, his expression was grim, and his eyes were slightly red.

He understood. These were all victims of Petrification Disease!

Every single sculpture had once been a living, breathing person.

And now, they had become corpses of cold stone, their eyes frozen in despair.

Although it was just a game screen, Li Tongchen felt as if he could hear the desperate wails of these patients before they died.

Their vocal cords and throats had also petrified rapidly, so they could only make hoarse noises, like cries of anguish from Hell.

In a daze, he felt as if he were back on the front lines of the pandemic, in the wards, watching helplessly as patients died.

Taking a deep breath, Li Tongchen calmed himself, his expression becoming much more composed.

’From a rational perspective, this is a good thing.’

’The more realistic the bodies of these Petrification Disease victims are, the more it proves that the developer behind this knows the disease extremely well. The promise of a Stone Statue Disease Vaccine is also more likely to be true.’

As a veteran doctor with over thirty years of experience, Li Tongchen knew immediately where he should go. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

To find the cause of the Petrification Disease outbreak, he had to go to the city’s disease control center!

After controlling his character to find a map and some necessities, Li Tongchen headed for the disease control center.

As he played, he marveled internally at the power of the organization behind this game.

The open-world nature of the game alone left him astounded.

The character he controlled could interact with every scene and object. It also had to eat, drink, and relieve itself, just like a normal person.

As he walked, Li Tongchen began to examine his surroundings.

Judging from the level of damage and decay on various objects, the apocalypse likely happened about ten years ago.

Many plastic items had started to become brittle and turn to dust, but fortunately, most metal objects were still fine.

He had his character grab an iron pipe and some food, quickly found the disease control center building, and pushed the door open.

Just then, a shrill cry echoed out. A dozen skinless, blood-red monsters leaped out from the dark corners of the building and lunged at his character!

Li Tongchen was shocked, but he reacted in an instant. He first smashed the head of the monster in front with the pipe, then controlled his character to run for his life.

’I can’t die. If I die, all hope is lost!’

To his surprise, the monsters didn’t chase him out. Instead, they howled at his character from the gloomy hall, their mouths forming hoarse, indistinct words:

"Burn... him..."

"Kill... me..."

It was only then, as Li Tongchen carefully observed the monsters’ appearance, that he realized they were a group of flayed people!

And a prompt appeared on the game screen:

"New creature discovered: Skinners. Find the origin of the Skinners. Completing the mission will yield a reward."

Li Tongchen thought for a moment, then entered a nearby supermarket, found a large barrel of spoiled gasoline, and began pouring it through the crack under the doors of the epidemic prevention center’s lobby...

「At the very moment Li Tongchen was encountering the Skinners, Edward, a top virologist from the Eagle Country CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), was sitting formally before his computer in the North American Alaska Anchorage City Providence Alaska Medical Center Hospital.」

The office door was locked from the inside. No one was to enter without his permission.

On his computer screen was a scene from the "True Apocalypse Game."

His character, wielding an automatic rifle, had already charged into the building and retrieved an Incinerator Technician’s work log from the body of a Skinner.

He clicked the mouse to have his character open the log. As he read the contents, Edward’s hands began to tremble.

’My God...’

’The Petrification Disease apocalypse... this is a scene straight out of Hell...’

But his gaze also grew firmer.

’Faster, I have to be faster. I have to get the vaccine information before the Petrification Disease breaks out completely!’

「Similar scenes were playing out in top medical institutions around the globe.」

Anchorage in Alaska was already under a city-wide lockdown. An incident this big was impossible to hide, and the leading figures in the medical world had all received similar news.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had even sent virus samples to their labs, seeking help.

And now, through the "True Apocalypse Game," they were finally understanding the true horror of Petrification Disease and had become completely engrossed in the game.

The game’s time was synchronized with real-time. These medical giants never thought they would one day be racking their brains, proceeding with such caution in a game, terrified of any accidental death.

「In the world of the network, Shen Feng and Jingwei were also closely monitoring the players’ progress.」

Although the entire game could be played online, Shen Feng had only enabled single-player mode for now.

Unlike Shen Feng’s own real-life experience, this game didn’t have the ferocious beasts and Brain Apes, but it had more elaborate mechanics involving the statues and the Skinners.

When a character walked past certain statues, the statues would even let out faint moans.

And when certain statues were shattered, they would even scream.

The same went for the Skinners. Some, controlled by a basic AI, could even engage in simple conversation to elicit a player’s sympathy before hunting their character down.

There were also some level-like scenarios where players had to douse a large number of statues with gasoline and set them on fire to block pursuing Skinners and escape safely.

But when these thousands of statues were ignited, they would all let out wretched screams together, like a chorus of howls from Hell.

The Skinners, however, would continue their relentless pursuit. Any hesitation would mean getting caught.

Meanwhile, in a certain city’s disease control center, two survivors who had avoided infection would beg the player to stay and live with them, falsely claiming to have the Stone Statue Disease Vaccine.

In truth, they were just cowards.

Then, on the second day, one of the player’s arms would begin to petrify at an accelerated rate due to infection. They would have to make a decision within thirty seconds—to survive, they had to sever the arm and bandage the wound themselves.

When passing a mass grave of Incinerator Technicians, a prompt would even appear, asking the player to observe a moment of silence.

All in all, apart from the absence of Brain Apes, it was far more convoluted and difficult than Shen Feng’s own experience.

But the players’ reactions were admirable. As expected of an elite group, many of them had better adaptability in certain areas than Shen Feng did back then.

"Are you trying to select benevolent people? Those with a kind human nature? Or those who are rational enough?" Jingwei asked, puzzled, as they watched the game’s levels.

Some levels required sufficient ruthlessness, while others required sufficient kindness.

"No. I need people who will do whatever it takes for this world."

Shen Feng watched the one hundred active game characters, his face expressionless as he spoke.

By the evening of the third day, Li Tongchen had controlled his character to burn several hundred Skinners to death with a homemade flamethrower. He reached the laboratory of the Capital Epidemic Prevention Center in the game and obtained the vaccine information.

It was only a small part of the vaccine information.