The world came crashing back with a thunderous roar. Yue Xi shook her throbbing head, raindrops stinging her cheeks as she blinked at the churning storm clouds above. Lightning forked through the charcoal sky, illuminating the skeletal outline of a rooftop water tower. This wasn't right - she'd been mid-battle in Second World's virtual arena, her Omni-Elemental Mage avatar casting prismatic spells against the final boss!
Her silk pajamas clung to her shivering frame as she scrambled upright. The rooftop's concrete bit into her bare feet. A glint caught her eye - the simple silver band on her left middle finger pulsed with otherworldly light. Her breath hitched. This was the Arcane Vault Ring, the legendary artifact she'd spent months grinding for in-game.
Before she could react, the ring erupted in a kaleidoscopic flare. Pain lanced through her temples as iridescent threads wove around her body. When consciousness returned, dawn's pale fingers crept across the skyline. Knowledge flooded her mind - incantations, spell matrices, the visceral memory of channeling primal forces.
"Lumos," she whispered. A pearlescent orb materialized, casting long shadows across the derelict stairwell. Each descending floor told the same story: shattered glass crunched underfoot, office chairs overturned in frozen panic, LCD screens spiderwebbed with cracks. The department store's escalators yawned like fossilized serpents.
In the subterranean supermarket, the stench hit first - putrid sweetness mingling with rust. Her stomach growled despite the odor. Cans of lychee jelly clattered as she rummaged through aisles. Then came the dragging footsteps. Hope surged as she rounded the snack aisle, only to freeze.
The creature wore what remained of a pinstripe suit. Milky eyes rolled in a face mottled with necrosis, jaw hanging slack to reveal blackened gums. With each shambling step, maggots cascaded from the gaping wound where its collarbone should have been.