The orbs

The putrid stench of decay hung heavier in the stagnant air as dawn's crimson light seeped through cracked windows. Jack Li's eyes snapped open to Tony's wet, gurgling coughs. The writer lay pinned like a specimen, a meter-long obsidian blade protruding from his abdomen - its hilt engraved with three characters glinting maliciously in the sickly light: 七黑剑.

"Qī Hēi Jiàn..." Tony's blood-frothed lips shaped the words like a curse. His trembling hand clawed at Jack Li's sleeve, leaving rust-colored smears. "This sword... shouldn't exist... not here..."

Barrett's tattoos rippled as he lunged forward. "Who did this?! Speak, man!"

The writer's reply came as a death rattle, eyes locking on Jack Li with desperate intensity. "You... must remember..."

Then stillness.

Lawyer Liu's stiletto heels clicked across stained concrete. "Convenient timing, Mr. Li. Our sole witness dies implicating you moments before dawn."

Jack Li ignored her, fingers tracing the blade's serrated edge. The metal thrummed with unnatural coldness, its surface swallowing light like event horizon. With Barrett's help, he wrenched the weapon free - muscles straining against its impossible density. The sword hit the floor with seismic finality, cracking cement.

"Observe the crossguard." Dr. Lee adjusted cracked glasses, forensic instincts overriding revulsion. "Oxidation patterns suggest medieval origin. Yet the fuller shows molecular alignment only achievable through..."

"Enough!" Officer Liu's service pistol - miraculously preserved through their ordeal - appeared in trembling hands. "We're not debating metallurgy! Someone murdered a man with a two-hundred-pound relic in a sealed room!"

Crouching over Tony's body, Taylor's surgical gloves peeled back the victim's collar. "Look here." Her flashlight revealed necrotic tissue spreading from the wound in fractal patterns. "This blade carried some form of accelerated decay. His organs liquefied within minutes."

The bull-masked sentinel across the street chose that moment to turn its head - a full 180 degrees - horns glowing with bioluminescent fungus. From its throat emerged a sound like grinding tombstones that shook loose plaster from the ceiling.

Jack Li's migraine struck with surgical precision. Visions cascaded - a white-clad girl laughing through bloodstained teeth, the sword screaming through eras, Tony penning novels in a language of swirling darkness. He clutched the dao orb in his pocket as golden light seeped between his fingers.

"Seven Black Sword..." The words tore from him unbidden. "Forged from a dying star's core. The blade that severed Yama's chains during the Kalpa of Dissolution."

Eight pairs of eyes locked on him. Even the clerk paused her gruesome meal prep, placenta-smeared ladle dripping onto cracked linoleum.

Barrett's chuckle held no mirth. "Since when do grifters moonlight as mythic scholars?"

The dao orb's glow intensified, etching Tony's final moments across the walls in golden hieroglyphs. Scenes flickered - the writer scribbling frantically in a void, the sword materializing through his chest from some higher-dimensional plane, his dying eyes recognizing the weapon's true nature.

As the visions faded, Jack Li's voice emerged changed - resonant with borrowed authority. "This isn't murder. It's curation. The Loom removes flawed threads." He raised the pulsating orb, its light revealing countless identical blades embedded in the building's structural beams. "We're not players. We're raw material."

Outside, the bull-masked figure began to laugh.

Barrett cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing through the derelict convenience store. "Oi copper, you really wanna know what's coming?" His Cantonese-accented Mandarin thickened with frustration. "That sword's got more history than your police academy textbooks."

Jack Li ran a finger along the obsidian blade's fuller, where strange glyphs pulsed faintly. "Dr. Lee's medical bag - check the inner pocket."

The physician paled. "How did you—"

"While you were 'treating' Tony last night," Jack Li interrupted, "I noticed your fascination with his wound patterns. Those fractal necrosis marks match case studies in your stolen research papers from Shanghai General."

Emma gasped, backing toward Officer Liu. The detective's service pistol wavered between Jack Li and Dr. Lee.

Taylor stepped forward, surgical mask doing little to filter the metallic stench. "The sword manifested through dimensional superposition. Tony recognized its quantum signature from his unpublished novel drafts." She tapped her temple. "His final words weren't accusation - they were warning."

A wet chuckle echoed from the staff room. The skeletal clerk emerged clutching her grisly bundle, blackened teeth gnawing on something that might have been a femur. "Seven Black cuts through worlds," she crooned, ichor dripping down her shift dress. "First the writer, next the liar, then..." Her milky eyes locked on Emma. "...the mother."

Outside, the bull-masked sentinel's horns flared crimson. Across the ruined cityscape, a thousand identical obsidian blades materialized through walls and pavement - each impaling one of the clerk's horrific offspring.

Jack Li's dao orb flared golden as reality itself began unraveling. "We're not in a game," he said, watching the clerk's form shift into something with too many joints. "We are the game pieces."

The final scream came from Dr. Lee as fractal patterns consumed his left arm. "The necrosis! It's contag—"

Barrett's fist silenced him mid-word. "Save the drama for the next round, yeah?"

As the survivors fled into the bleeding dawn, the Seven Black Sword's mournful harmonics pursued them - a death knell for whatever remained of sane reality.

The dim light filtering through cracked warehouse windows cast long shadows across piles of moldering crates. Candy stepped inside, the dao orb's faint golden glow reflecting in her hollow eyes. The door clicked shut behind her with finality.

Outside, the rat-masked gamekeeper hummed a nursery rhyme off-key, her claws - no, gloves designed to resemble claws - tapping rhythmically against the rusted doorframe. "Four minutes fifty seconds," she chirped.

Barrett pressed his ear to the corroded metal. "Hear anything?"

"Nothing." Jack Li's hand drifted to the remaining dao orb in his pocket. "Which is the problem."

Taylor's surgical mask bobbed as she spoke. "Warehouse dimensions don't match the exterior. That building's larger on the—"

A bloodcurdling scream cut through the silence. Not Candy's - this was a chorus of voices, ancient and layered. The warehouse walls began to bleed black ichor, the stench of rotting grain overwhelming.

"Time's up!" The rat-masked girl clapped her hands in delight as the door creaked open.

Candy emerged unscathed, holding two pulsating dao orbs. Her vacant smile mirrored the gamekeeper's. "Found them."

Jack Li's grip tightened on his orb. "There was only supposed to be one."

"Special bonus round!" The rat-girl's mask shifted, revealing too many teeth. "Finders keepers!"

Barrett grabbed Candy's shoulder. "Since when do you read Mandarin?" He pointed at the fresh tattoo now circling her wrist - glowing characters spelling 赌命 (gamble with life).

The warehouse collapsed inward with a roar, revealing endless corridors of identical rooms stretching into the crimson horizon. Candy's laughter echoed through the labyrinth as she vanished down an alley, the rat-girl skipping behind her.

Taylor tore off her mask, retching. "The orbs... they're not currency. They're tracking devices."

Above them, the corroded loudspeaker crackled to life. "Current dao count: 3/3600. Leading player: Candy Zhou. Special penalty applied for uneven distribution."

The bull-masked sentinel's horns flared across the plaza as every door in the city began to rattle. Somewhere in the bleeding distance, a familiar clocktower chimed thirteen.