Echoes of the End: Seven Days of Sinister Games!

Ten-Day Countdown: A Deadly Game of Life and Death

A mottled bronze lamp hangs in the center of a secret chamber, its dim light flickering like the dying breath of a man. Eight lacquered wooden chairs stand in a circle, each carved with a broken trigram. When the midnight bell tears through the silence, the strangers slumped over the table jolt awake

Their clothes are stained with dust, and a scarlet character, “Gui,” is branded on each of their wrists. Their only exit is sealed by a colossal bronze door. Its carvings twist into what, on closer inspection, are countless faces contorted in agony, each holding a bloodstained page from an almanac in its mouth. On the pages, the words are unmistakable: “Seven days until annihilation. The guilty return to the void.”

The Rules Are Hell, and Tradition Hides Deadly Perils

“Welcome to the game, ‘Nuwa’s Fragmented Scroll.’” A man in black wearing a Nuo opera mask steps from the shadows. A stack of bluish bamboo slips slides from his sleeve. “First night: Awakening of Insects.”

Before he can finish speaking, the ground splits like a snake shedding its skin, and vines coil around the fattest man. His screams mingle with the sound of bamboo slips breaking. One depicts the Thunder God beating a drum, while the back is inscribed in small seal script: “As all things awaken, evil is born. The greedy feed the spring.”

To survive, they must use blood as ink to complete the trigrams, but the divination board has only seven pieces. More deadly still, a “calamity seed” lies buried in every person's body. Peach branches sprout from one person's palm, sucking away the life force of their companions; another's eyes turn into a compass that can reveal the date of their death.

Reincarnation Is No Destiny, and the Human Heart Is a Prison

The hunchbacked old man suddenly bursts into laughter. “I've seen this game before! Last time, a starving tailor took the fall for me!” He rips open his shirt, revealing seven old knife scars across his chest, arranged like the Big Dipper.

But when everyone follows their “experience” to break the deadlock, black mist seeps from the bronze door. Old visions appear in the mist: it is him