Yu did not wake up due to the gentle caress of sunlight, but rather because of a searing pain, as if someone were enthusiastically pulverizing his ribcage with a sledgehammer. He lay flattened against the ground, eyes staring blankly up at a sky so azure and cloudless it was blindingly beautiful - a stark, mocking contrast to the physical body currently staging a violent protest beneath him.
Inhale, and his lungs burned as if scoured by coarse salt. Exhale, and his chest tightened as though crushed by a constricting python. Yu found himself in a damnable dilemma: breathe deeply and suffer agony that pierced the heavens, or breathe shallowly and have his brain scream for oxygen. He lay there, sweat pouring off him like a waterfall, soaking the entire back of his shirt, feeling for all the world like a beached fish flopping about, awaiting its inevitable demise.
Just like that, Yu fell into a hellish loop: waking, fainting, then waking again from the sheer intensity of the pain. During those flickering moments between delirium and lucidity, a colossal amount of memory - chaotic and messy as information garbage - was brutally shoved into his cerebrum, forcing him to accept it without any option to decline.
Yes, the good news was that Yu had finally acquired a physical body - something he had yearned for during tens of thousands of years of drifting. But the bad news? This was not a "gift of life," nor was it a lottery jackpot from the universe. This was a straight-up scam!
The memories of this carcass revealed that some kid, weary of life, had dug up a tattered tome of arcane arts from who-knows-where and gleefully performed an ancient sacrificial ritual. The book claimed: "The sacrificer offers life and flesh to summon the Supreme Demon from the Abyss, one with the power to move mountains and fill seas, granting every wish of the host."
Supreme Demon, my ass!
Yu wanted to spring up and slap this summoner across the face, but his limbs were as limp as overcooked noodles. Open your mortal eyes and look! I am Yu! An eco-friendly spiritual tourist! I love peace! I hate war! I've been drifting for eons just to sightsee, not because I'm some bloodthirsty demon you dragged down here!
This "knockoff" ritual clearly suffered from a severe technical malfunction. Instead of dialing up a three-headed, six-armed demon, it grabbed a passing pedestrian soul - him - and stuffed him unceremoniously into this frail, pathetic vessel. The sensation of forcibly fusing a soul into flesh was as agonizing as being crushed into powder and molded back together from scratch, it was a fate worse than death.
But the wretchedness didn't stop there. This cheap ritual came with an irrevocable "All-Inclusive Contract": Yu was compelled to fulfill the summoner's wish. If he failed, when this body withered, Yu's soul would scatter into nothingness along with it, vanishing from the three realms forever.
Damn it all to hell! Who asked you to summon me? Who asked you to sacrifice yourself? I was living a perfectly happy life as a wandering ghost, and suddenly you force me to shoulder your debts?
Yu lay limp on the grass, his mouth mumbling curses in every language he had accumulated over ten thousand years. He was genuinely panicked. What if this lunatic's dream was to become the overlord of the universe or destroy the world? With a body as weak as a snail, Yu couldn't even sit up on his own, so what gave him the right to go around destroying humanity? Damn it, just thinking about it made him want to spew profanities without end!
Wait, hold on... inside that chaotic mess of memories, there seemed to be the brat's dying wish. Yu tried to focus what little consciousness remained to search for the "assignment." His eyes glazed over as the information manifested clearly:
"Help me... take revenge on the clan."
This wish made Yu freeze in complete silence. Revenge on a person? Maybe Yu could figure something out. But a clan? An entire, massive, powerful clan? Are you kidding me? I haven't even figured out how to walk on two legs yet, and you want me to solo an entire noble lineage? Do you think I'm Superman or a Genie?
A sense of helplessness surged to the extreme. Amidst the desperate screams from the bottom of his heart, combined with the physical pain torturing him every second, Yu felt his future was pitch black. Too shocked, too much pain, and entirely too absurd, he decisively rolled his eyes back and fainted one more time to avoid facing this brutal reality.
...
His eyelids, heavy as though weighted with lead, finally deigned to budge. Yu groggily opened his eyes, bracing himself for the biting cold of the wind or the scorching heat of the sun, but no...
What greeted his eyes was not the vast sky or a desolate wilderness, but a strange ceiling. The sensation under his back was stiff, making him feel as though he were lying on a hard slab of rock, but at least he wasn't exposing his corpse on the grass for vultures to peck at. It seemed his time hadn't come yet, or perhaps Lady Luck was out on vacation, so someone "unlucky" enough had picked him up and brought him back.
Yu propped himself up with his hands, sitting up with difficulty to assess his surroundings. This was a house with rather peculiar architecture; at a glance, it looked blocky and solid, carrying the primitive vibe of the Stone Age or some historical drama. However, when looking closely at the walls, Yu realized something was wrong. This material wasn't clay or ordinary fired brick; it was smooth and shimmered with the cold metallic sheen of an alloy he had never seen before.
Where in the world was this corner of nowhere?
"Awake, are you?"
Yu's train of thought was snapped in two. A voice, low and resonant like a cello played in a wine cellar, spoke up unexpectedly, startling him so badly his heart nearly leaped out of his chest.
Yu jerked his head up, looking warily toward the door. A man had just walked in, bringing with him a gust of cold air from the outside. He was tall. No, "giant" was the correct term. This height had to be at least one meter eighty-five, maybe over one meter ninety. He stood like a towering skyscraper, blocking the meager light filtering in from the main entrance.
Due to the backlight, combined with the dim interior of the house, Yu strained his eyes but couldn't see the man's features clearly, only vaguely making out an imposing, massive dark silhouette. But that voice... well, it sounded very masculine, warm, and powerful.
The miracle was that the moment the man opened his mouth, Yu's brain automatically understood the strange language. The memories of this body flooded back like a waterfall, merging with his soul as smoothly as a Windows update. Yu looked at the benefactor before him, cleared his throat, and tried to squeeze out a social smile even though his throat was as dry as a desert: "Did you pick... ah no, save me? Thank you so much, sorry for the trouble."
The man did not approach; he simply stood with his arms crossed, his tone so calm it bordered on indifferent: "I saw you lying half-dead at the forest edge near the coast, so I grabbed you. You don't look like someone from this village. Which direction is your home? Once you're better, I'll take you back."
"I..."
Yu opened his mouth to answer but then froze. Right, who exactly was this "nepo baby" body he was inhabiting?
He closed his eyes, rummaging through the chaotic mess of memories he had just inherited. Ah, there it is. The owner of this body was named Basil Vance, having just reached his twentieth spring, the young master of a filthy rich family on Planet Capitalis.
It sounded impressive, but life is not a dream. The Vance family had an obsessive compulsion with power. They only pampered the tall, dark, and handsome Alpha brothers. Basil Vance, unfortunately, differentiated into an Omega and was treated like a defective product, tossed aside in the corner of the house. The climax of this tragedy was recently, when his dear family decided to sell him off in a marriage alliance to an old man over fifty to gain economic benefits.
Rumor had it that this fiancé had extremely perverted hobbies, specializing in torturing others to find pleasure. Basil Vance might have been gentle, but he wasn't stupid; there was no way he would jump into a fire pit. Harboring resentment, he waited for the bodyguards to let their guard down, stole a mini-spaceship, and fled for his life.
But life is a sea of suffering, you can run from the sky but not the sun. The spaceship was pursued too intensely, the navigation system malfunctioned, and he free-fell into the ocean. The poor young master drifted ashore, dragged himself to the edge of the forest, and exhausted his last ounce of strength.
In those dying moments, a fierce unwillingness surged within him. Basil remembered a forbidden sacrificial technique he had once read secretly in the ancient library and recklessly followed it. Who would have thought that "a blind cat meets a dead mouse" - he chanted some nonsense and actually summoned Yu's soul into his body.
All things considered, this kid's fate was truly miserable, Yu mentally clicked his tongue in sympathy for his predecessor. Fine then, I'll borrow your body, and I'll live the rest of your life properly for you.
While he was busy with his internal monologue, suddenly, Yu's brain felt like it was short-circuited. His entire body went stiff as a stone statue.
Wait... Hold on a second!
What were those keywords in the memory just now? Omega? Alpha? Planet?
Yu swallowed hard, an audible "gulp" as cold sweat began to bead on the back of his neck. Don't tell me... he had transmigrated into that bizarre genre of world often found in those "Danmei" novels the girls in his class used to scream about back in the day? The kind of world where men could get pregnant?
What in the absolute hell is this?!