Demon Cage

Demon Cage is an infinite-flow online game novel by the web novelist Decadent Dragon, serialized on Qidian from February 17, 2016. About 4.93 million characters long, it was completed in May 2019 and has never been formally published in print. The protagonist, Qin Ran, is an orphan: at fourteen he was diagnosed with a genetic virus disease whose treatment costs three million; at seventeen he learned of a real game that could bring enormous wealth and entered it to fight for his life, hoping to trade the equipment and resources won in its instances for the money that would keep him alive. He himself never expected that this was an underground game without any protection: its realism approaches one hundred percent, and dying in an instance means dying in reality as well. In early beta testing more than a thousand players lost their lives, so the game could never be released publicly; it was taken over by people chasing power, wealth, and thrills and became an "underground game" accessible only to a select few. In the game, Qin Ran operates under the code name "2567." Beginning with the beginner instance "My War," in which he survives seven days among the ruins of a city, he passes through instance worlds of widely varying styles, including "The Unqualified Great Detective," "Island Prison," "The Prowling Beast," "The Medium's Partner," "The Queen's Shield," "Ancient Invasion," and "Demon Metropolis." Relying on a calm and meticulous temperament, his dismantling of rules, and the "Watcher" talent, he keeps breaking through and gradually comes to know companions such as Outlaw, Steinbeck (Mimosa), and Rachel, becoming embroiled in struggles among multiple factions and in the contest for unique titles. As the plot advances, the true face of the great city, the hub where players rest and regroup, is gradually revealed, and the truth behind the game's "Witch" and the cage is uncovered layer by layer. With survival and resistance as its main thread, the book combines stat-based game design, suspense and deduction, and an oppressive, tense instance-clearing atmosphere, and is one of the representative works of "gamified infinite flow."