Chapter 260: New Year's Bonfire: A Soliloquy to All Survivors in the Apocalypse Game

New Year's Bonfire: A Soliloquy to All Survivors in the Apocalypse Game

Today is January 1st of the new calendar.

If this world still had the concept of a "calendar".

I am your author, or more precisely—I am the companion who, beside that bonfire in the apocalyptic wasteland, records the story with blood and Hui Jin.

At this moment I stop my hands from typing—the motion is exactly like your solemnity when you load the last bullet into a magazine in the game. Outside the window there are no fireworks, only the perpetual leaden‑gray mist at the city's edge, just like the sky before the "Blood Moon" described in the book. This makes me dazed: Are we celebrating an invented time point, or are we jointly confirming—we have survived another year.

This is very much the Apocalypse Game, isn't it? Even celebration carries a sense of survival ritual.

First, I want to confess something.

I never imagined that a story titled Killing Book would gather such a group—you are not bloodthirsty revelers, but archaeologists who, under the rules of absolute darkness, persist in seeking the faint glimmers of humanity.

I remember every comment that made my fingertips burn:

When the protagonist first pulled the trigger for self‑defense but dreamed of that person's childhood, someone said: "His talent lies in killing, but his illness lies in remembering people."

When he abandoned scarce supplies in the ruins to save an NPC destined to die within three days, someone wrote: "Look, this is the 'Redundant Action' the system cannot compute, and also the bug that makes us human."

As the pages of the Killing Book piled up and his power grew, he began to fear turning the page; what you left in the chapter comments was not "exhilaration" but silence, then a sentence: "Every stranger he killed turns him into a more alien self."

Thank you for not treating it merely as a "level‑up gratification novel." Thank you for understanding the ringing in the ears behind the gunshots, for understanding the trembling fingerprints beneath the data panel. Every "this hurts" you left in the chapter comments is the most precious warmth in this cold story.

Regarding "apocalypse" and "game," our shared paradox.

We have jointly built a most contradictory domain here: on one hand, we ruthlessly rationally analyze each dungeon's clearance probability, each talent's optimal combination, each betrayal's cost‑effectiveness; on the other hand, we tremble for a line of description unrelated to survival—such as the color of a flower that shouldn't exist in the ruins.

This is much like our reality: one side calculates precisely within life's "game rules," the other side longs for and guards those "useless tremors."

You tell me through this story: true "strength" may not be always choosing the "correct" option, but after knowing what the "optimal solution" is, still having the courage to pick the "wrong answer" that makes your blood boil—just as the protagonist's Killing Book, its strongest skill may ultimately be used not to judge others but to judge the self about to be alienated.

Regarding the new year, and the deeper night.

The old year's countdown has ended, but the night in the game is still long. The Blood Moon will rise again, a new dungeon is loading, and more humanity‑choice questions will be placed before us in a crueler manner.

I promise I will continue writing with near‑brutal honesty—no beautifying survival, no cheaply selling hope. I will let the protagonist keep trudging through the mire, letting the blood on his hands and the rust in his heart grow together, making the kindness he encounters more precious and the betrayals he suffers more bone‑deep. Because you deserve a story that does not cut corners.

This road will only get harder. But when we together reach a certain critical point, perhaps we will see: at the limit of the "killing" talent, there may lie something even the system cannot define—forgiveness.

The final firelight.

If there is any New Year wish.

May you, after closing this book, be able to touch more gently the invisible "scars" on your body—they are proof that you have lived.

May we, in the real "survival game," protect the reverse side of that Killing Book in our hearts, the notes written in invisible ink about "how not to become a monster."

Happy New Year, my dear survivors.

Thank you for, even in the apocalypse, still choosing to be the person who feels pain, feels fear, and in dire straits leaves others a bottle of water.

2026, our bonfire will not go out. See you in the next chapter.

——The recorder beside your bonfire

Appendix: New Year Three Questions (welcome to leave your traces in the comment area)

1. If you were in the apocalypse, what would your "talent" be? (It can be from the book, or your own definition)

2. So far, which choice in the book has kept you awake the most?

3. In the new year, what do you hope the protagonist will "lose" in exchange for what he will "gain"? >