He found himself slumped over the computer desk in his cubicle, wearing the crisply ironed suit he had put on to meet a client.
"Did I just fall asleep?"
He rubbed his sleep-blurred eyes. His mind was a muddled mess, as if he had forgotten something incredibly important.
"Raine, slacking off again, are we?"
A shrill, ear-piercing voice suddenly rang out from behind him.
Raine turned toward the sound, his heart skipping a beat. Standing behind him was his direct supervisor, Manager Liu.
But... that face. Dark green skin, pointed ears, beady eyes glinting with cunning, and a comically oversized nose—it was unmistakably the face of a Goblin.
"Was Manager Liu always a Goblin?" he wondered.
Suppressing his confusion, Raine replied calmly, "I was just rubbing my eyes. I stayed up too late catching up on work last night."
"Good. Don’t try to pull a fast one on me."
The Goblin manager tilted his head back, barking orders in his shrill voice. "Is the proposal for the Fenglang Interactive project done? The client is pushing hard. It must be on my desk before you get off work today!"
"Before I get off work today?"
Raine frowned deeply. "Manager Liu, that proposal involves market research, competitor analysis, and establishing a preliminary framework. There’s a massive amount of data. It will take at least two days just to finish the first draft, and that doesn’t even include the later revisions."
He tried to reason with him; it was a fair assessment based on his professional expertise.
"What? Do you not want your bonus this month?"
The Goblin manager narrowed his beady eyes, a threatening glint in his gaze. "Profits have been poor lately, and the company is planning to ’optimize’ away some of the underperforming employees."
Raine ignored him and sat back down at his desk in silence, opening the nearly blank presentation file.
The sudden, crushing workload intertwined with an inexplicable sense of wrongness. It made him feel thoroughly uneasy, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what exactly was out of place.
Just then, a news pop-up appeared in the bottom right corner of his monitor.
Raine caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye, and the content made him freeze.
"Water Bag Fizz opens third public bathhouse today! 20% off baths, free back scrubs!"
"Heroic! Sheriff Empty Sword Scabbard Jason cracks another major Alchemy Materials theft case!"
"Moments of terror! Giant wild boar crashes into Mottled Town market; bystanders including Blind Shooter Matthew, Rotten Wood David, and Flea Gavin wet their pants in fear!"
"What is this nonsense? Where the hell am I? Why are there so many foreign names in the domestic news section?" Raine muttered to himself. "And those nicknames... Water Bag, Empty Sword Scabbard, Blind Shot... What is going on?"
He shook his head, trying to cast aside these distracting thoughts and focus on the proposal in front of him.
But he still felt that something was wrong. It was as if he had genuinely forgotten something extremely important, leaving a hollow void in his chest.
He subconsciously reached for his waist. The motion was so natural, as if something heavy and reassuring was supposed to be hanging there.
But there was nothing there.
"Raine! Still not done? You’re working overtime tonight! Don’t even think about leaving until it’s finished!"
With his hands behind his back, the Goblin manager stood behind Raine once again, appearing like a ghost.
His voice was sharp and grating, his ugly green face twisted with smugness. "You’re delaying the company’s progress and causing huge losses! I’m docking your entire bonus this month! Your salary will also be cut proportionally!"
Spit flew from his mouth as he announced the punishment, seemingly reveling in the thrill of controlling someone else’s fate.
After speaking, as if unsatisfied, he added a threat, "Do you want me to call the Bear Goblin Boss over to teach you a lesson personally?"
"...Bear Goblin Boss? Are you serious?"
Staring at that malicious Goblin face, Raine’s expression instantly darkened.
The memories of nearly dying in the lobby of the Return Inn that night surged back into his mind, breaking free from whatever shackles had bound them.
All the previous inconsistencies—the Goblin appearance of his direct supervisor, the absurd news, the unsettling emptiness at his waist, and the important thing he had forgotten deep down—all came crashing together at this moment.
None of this was real.
A nameless rage, mixed with the resilience of his memories from two lifetimes, surged up from the depths of his heart.
He abruptly stood up. His chair slid backward, making a harsh screech.
No longer hiding anything, he met the Goblin manager’s gaze with icy directness.
"W-What are you doing? Do you think you’re in the right for delaying company business?"
Startled by Raine’s imposing aura, the Goblin manager shouted, all bark and no bite.
Raine said nothing.
His answer was a tightly clenched iron fist. Sweeping up a gust of wind, it smashed ruthlessly into that loathsome, ugly green face!
BAM!
A muffled thud was followed by the faint sound of something shattering.
Under the force of the punch, the Goblin manager’s face twisted and deformed. Like an ink painting splashed with water, it was sucked into some sort of spatial vortex.
Immediately after, the entire office scene began to violently distort until it completely dissipated before Raine’s eyes.
Thick, freezing black mist enveloped his senses once more, and twisted, resentful screeches echoed in his ears again.
Raine gasped heavily, finding himself still standing a short distance from the Ash Flower. His heart was pounding violently in his chest.
He instantly understood what had just happened. He had been trapped in an illusion created by the Black Tide Embers.
That damned thing was digging up and amplifying his deepest fears.
In his previous life, he had feared financial struggles, workplace pressure, and a life of mediocrity.
In this life, he harbored a deep-seated, unforgettable fear of the cunning and danger of Goblins.
The combination of the two had given birth to that absurd workplace nightmare of the "Goblin Manager."
"Thank goodness I possess memories from two lifetimes."
Raine forcefully suppressed the last trace of panic in his heart. It was exactly this blend of memories that had planted the seeds of unreality in the illusion from the very beginning.
The subsequent news pop-ups, the hollow feeling at his waist, and the various absurd manifestations of the two worlds merging had layered upon each other, exacerbating his cognitive dissonance.
When the illusion tried to play the "Bear Goblin Boss" card to trigger an even deeper fear, it became the final straw that crushed the fake reality instead.
His blended memories gave him a level of discernment that transcended a single perspective, so it was no surprise that he saw through this meticulously woven trap of fear.
"Cheap tricks."
He gathered his focus. The cold touch of the bow in his hands cleared his mind further as he re-evaluated the desperate situation before him.
At this moment, he was only a few steps away from the writhing, ash-spewing Black Tide Embers.
However, the condition of his three teammates nearby was far from optimistic.
Sodden still maintained his forward stance with his shield raised, but his stocky body was trembling slightly. His face beneath the Horned Helmet was twisted as if he were resisting the charge of a massive army, and continuous, unconscious whimpers escaped his lips.
Kaelin was half-kneeling on the ground, leaning on her Longsword. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her long eyelashes trembling uncontrollably. Her face was a mix of pain and struggle; she seemed to be trapped in an inescapable Nightmare.
Winnie, meanwhile, was curled up on the ground. She clutched her head with both hands, her delicate shoulders shivering. In the shadows of her hood, he could faintly see that her tightly bitten lower lip was oozing blood.
His teammates’ complexions were visibly turning ashen, and their breathing was growing fainter. These were the symptoms of a rapid drain of their Life Force.
Cold sweat instantly soaked Raine’s back.
Only now did he fully realize why this core area had no heavy guard.
The Black Tide Embers itself was the most terrifying guard of all.
It clearly possessed immense confidence, relying solely on the black mist’s erosion of life and the terror it induced. This was enough to drain the life of any living trespasser in fear and despair, ultimately turning them into nutrients to nourish itself.
If he hadn’t woken up, the entire squad would probably have been drained dry very soon.
A surge of fury shot straight to his head, replacing his lingering fear.
It had to be destroyed. Now! Immediately!
Forcing down all distractions and fighting through an increasingly severe sense of weakness, Raine fixed his sharp, falcon-like gaze onto the bizarre Ash Flower once again.
Its weakness—where exactly was its weakness?!