In 2077, the “Phantom Plague” swept across the globe. The mysterious game Heart Abyss forcibly bound itself to human consciousness, dragging players into horror instances built from the collective subconscious. Shadows in ancient mansions, slaughterhouse tools in hospitals, devouring rifts: failure meant having your consciousness consumed and becoming a real-world vegetable.
Lin Jin, a former psychiatrist who could sense shifts in emotion, was classified as a rare “illusion-affinity” type. His starting skill, [Mirror Image], gradually evolved into “Mindscape Illusion” and “Omnidomain Illusion.” He entered Heart Abyss to find his younger sister, Lin Xi, who had taken part in the game's beta test and disappeared after leaving behind notes marked with the symbol “∞.”
Reality and illusion intertwined in the instances: mirror images recreated terrifying memories, rifts in space and time erupted into battles between three factions, and in the illusion maze, the self became a deadly phantom. As Lin Jin and his teammates, Chen Mo, a mechanical expert; Su Xiao, gifted with foresight; and Zhao Lie, a close-combat powerhouse, pursued the truth, they discovered that Heart Abyss was a tool used by an ancient “consciousness parasite” to consume mental energy. His sister had become the parasite's “consciousness vessel.” If it took her over, the human world would sink into a mental wasteland.
The Orderkeepers of the “Purification Bureau” saw him as a threat, the parasites preyed on his mental energy, and the rebels of the “Worldbreak Alliance” saw him as hope. Caught between factions, Lin Jin used illusion to break through one crisis after another. When he reached the core, the “Throne of Illusion,” and faced his controlled sister, he finally learned that illusion could also be a glimmer of salvation. Anchoring himself with memories and wielding emotion as a blade, he could carve a path through the nightmare engulfing every realm and guide trapped minds back to their bodies.
After the light dispelled the black fog of the Lord of Illusion, Lin Jin saw the “∞” symbol again in a patient's drawing one year later, and heard a whisper by his ear. Perhaps the shadow of Heart Abyss had not faded.
