Chu Cheng sat slumped in his seat, chin in palms, looking half-dead as he yawned for what must have been the fifth time in as many minutes. His listlessness didn't break until the line generation teacher abruptly called his name, snapping him back to the present like a defibrillator jolt.
"Still half-asleep?" his deskmate muttered, side-eyeing him.
That deskmate was Wei Futong—an old classmate from junior high. Back then, they'd barely been acquaintances, but fate had a twisted sense of humor. They'd ended up in the same university, same major, and—through late-night banter and covert trips to the bathroom—slowly morphed into real buddies.
Men's friendships are often forged in silence and toilet queues.
Though not in the same homeroom, they'd cross-referenced their timetables before the semester started and picked all the same electives. It had become an unspoken rule—whoever arrived first, saved a seat for the other.
"I stayed up a bit too late," Chu Cheng said between yawns, eyes struggling to stay open.
Wei Futong glanced meaningfully at Chu Cheng's hands—specifically his fingers—and raised a knowing brow. He leaned in with faux subtlety. "Got some new resources?"
"Huh?"
"Don't play dumb. You stayed up late—what, some spicy downloads? A new 'collection'? Share it with your bro, c'mon."
"…No." Chu Cheng let out a hollow chuckle.
"Seriously, no." He rubbed his eyes. "I was playing a game. It just… went late."
Wei Futong's disappointment was instant and theatrical. He rolled his eyes, muttered something about "geeks with no taste," and went back to scrolling on his phone.
He was also a gamer, but unlike Chu Cheng, who enjoyed immersive single-player games, Wei Futong preferred competitive mobile titles—the kind with fast matchmaking, flashy skins, and most importantly, a disproportionate number of female players.
Chu Cheng had passed midnight glued to his screen, but sleep never came easily after what he'd seen.
The first level of the game had been an absolute gut-punch. Right after the tutorial, the tone shifted—suddenly you're thrown into a thunderstorm, darkness slicing through the sky like a cracked whip. It was cinematic, like watching The Dark Knight's Hong Kong tower abduction scene—but interactive. And somehow… wrong.
Despite his veteran status as a player hardened by horror games and gore-fests, something about it unsettled him deeply. Not since he first watched the original Ring had a piece of media left him this shaken. That film, with its flickering CRTs and ghostly Sadako crawling from the screen, had scarred his younger self for life.
It was so bad, he'd once refused to sleep in a room with a powered-off television. Even years later, that irrational fear clung to him like static until a slightly deranged friend lent him a parody manga. In it, Sadako got stuck trying to climb out of a protagonist's cheap TV—her generous… anatomy too large for the frame.
That manga had cured his trauma instantly. Not just PTSD—obliterated.
Since then, no horror game had truly fazed him… until last night.
Even now, fragments of the opening cutscene played on loop in his brain. Batman diving off a rooftop. A grappling hook whistling through the rain. Enemies screaming in ways too visceral. Too human.
And then—
"Shit."
Wei Futong, still scrolling, muttered with that uniquely national intonation that could mean anything from "I forgot my homework" to "World War III just started."
Chu Cheng leaned over. "What?"
"You know the Klein Group?"
"Nope."
"A biotech firm down in Lower City. They say..." He lowered his voice. "The entire board of directors died last night."
"...Died?" Chu Cheng blinked.
He'd been in this world—Polar Star—for about a month now. Nothing in that time had suggested real danger. All his inherited memories from the original owner painted a picture of calm, order, and routine.
This felt different. This felt… heavy.
"How?" Chu Cheng asked.
"Here." Wei Futong passed over his phone. "Guy who posted it says he's a Klein employee. Heard it first thing this morning. Details are fuzzy, but apparently there was some kind of attack."
Chu Cheng wasn't listening anymore.
His eyes had locked onto the image attached to the post.
A black high-rise loomed under the sun, cordoned off with yellow tape. Police drones buzzed overhead.
At first glance, it was just a building.
Then his breath caught.
No way. This… this was the building.
Last night, he'd spent nearly twenty minutes navigating that structure as Batman. Grappling to ledges, disabling cameras, stalking guards. He knew its layout intimately—the ventilation shafts, the glass walkways, even the cracks on the upper façade. And now here it was, in broad daylight, looking just like it did in-game.
He remembered the in-game boardroom. Remembered Batman bursting in, interrogating a man in a suit. He'd looked up, terrified—too terrified. The other NPCs had gone berserk. Some tried to run. Others… well, their heads had popped like grapes under pressure. At the time, Chu Cheng chalked it up to dramatic game design.
But now…
What if they weren't NPCs?
What if that hadn't been just a game?
A chill traced his spine like a finger dipped in ice. He felt the air in his lungs turn to lead.
Was it possible… that what he played last night wasn't virtual? That he, somehow, remotely participated in a real event?
He remembered the start-up glitches: how the game briefly failed to load, then auto-corrected itself. The system message flashing across the top of the screen: "New map system loaded successfully."
What if that 'new map' wasn't a game map at all?
What if the system had scanned and adapted to this world—Earth Star—as its new setting?
Could Avengers VS Justice League: New Era have become… a conduit? A bridge?
He shook his head.
No. It was too wild. Too sci-fi. Like something out of a web novel where the protagonist gets a cheat system by tripping over a rock.
Still… the timing matched. The setting matched. And that building—he couldn't unsee it.
With trembling fingers, he tried to scroll for more updates.
But just as he was about to refresh, a crimson X filled the screen.
> The post you visited does not exist.
"What the hell?" he whispered.
Even online censorship had followed him to another world?
He exhaled slowly.
Somewhere, deep inside, a whisper took root—cold, quiet, and relentless.
If Batman really did break into that building last night, and Chu Cheng was the one behind the controls…
Then who exactly was wearing the cape?
And what came next?