The deafening blare of a horn pierced his ears.
Liu Wei turned his head to the left and his eyes widened perfectly. The blinding headlights of a container truck were only three meters away from his body. Tires screeched violently against the wet asphalt, but it wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough.
He could see the driver's face behind the windshield—eyes bulging, mouth open in a silent scream. Everything moved in slow motion. Time itself seemed to crawl.
"This…" Liu Wei thought, feeling something strange blooming in his chest. Not fear. Not regret. But a bizarre, impossible clarity that had no business existing in a moment like this. "Is this… the end?"
He was only twenty-three. Still in his final semester of university. Still dreaming of opening a small bakery after graduation. Still owing his friend 5 million rupiah for online cake-selling capital. Still…
A thunderous impact.
Excruciating pain exploding through every inch of his body.
Then… silence.
Liu Wei felt himself floating. Or perhaps it was just an illusion from a brain starved of oxygen? He didn't know. What he did know was that he could see his own body from above—sprawled in the middle of the road, bright red blood pooling across the asphalt, people screaming, the truck driver stumbling out with trembling hands.
"Oh," he thought flatly. "So this is what dying feels like."
He had expected a white light at the end of a tunnel. Or maybe an angel of death. Or at the very least, one of those quick life-review montages people always talked about on near-death-experience forums.
But what he got instead was…
Darkness.
Not ordinary darkness. This darkness was alive. Liu Wei felt himself being pulled, twisted, stretched like dough. His consciousness spun in a vortex he couldn't comprehend. Seconds. Minutes. Or perhaps centuries? Time lost all meaning.
And then—HE SAW.
The sky split open.
Not figuratively. The sky literally tore apart. A colossal fissure stretched as far as sight could reach, vomiting blinding light that hurt to look at. Below it, an ocean of fire scorched a fractured earth. Above it, titanic figures clashed.
Liu Wei witnessed the battle of gods.
Or perhaps beings beyond gods.
They had no human shape. Some were pure vortices of energy. Some were darkness studded with thousands of eyes. Some were light streaking faster than logic should allow. But the most terrifying thing was their voices—not words, but vibrations that sank straight into the soul, making Liu Wei's entire existence tremble.
"INTRUDER!"
"RETURN TO THE VOID, CHILD OF DARKNESS!"
"I WILL BURN ALL REALITY TO ASHES FOR FREEDOM!"
The voices collided, creating shockwaves of annihilation that erased stars from the firmament. Liu Wei watched planets burst like soap bubbles. Suns winked out in an instant. Galaxies shattered into fragments.
And he—a tiny, insignificant soul—was dragged right into the middle of it all.
"What… what is this?" he thought, if he could still be said to think. "Is this hell? Heaven? What the hell is going on?"
A single eye—only one eye, as large as a moon—turned toward him. Liu Wei felt his soul freeze solid. The eye belonged to a being whose entire form was a swirling abyss edged with violet. The being smiled. Or at least, Liu Wei felt that it smiled.
"Little soul," the voice appeared directly in his mind. "From a world without qi. From a cursed realm. You are lost, my child."
"I-I died," Liu Wei answered, not knowing how but somehow doing it. "I got hit by a truck. Is this the end?"
The being laughed. A laugh that shook reality itself.
"The end? No, no, no. This is only the beginning. Do you know how many souls like yours wander here every moment? Millions. Billions. And do you know how many survive?"
Liu Wei waited.
"None. Not a single one. Until today."
A blinding white light.
Liu Wei felt something pulling him—not from the direction of the dark being, but from the opposite side. An invisible hand seized his soul and yanked him away from the vortex of destruction.
"WHAT?!" the being roared. "NO! HE IS MINE! I FOUND HIM FIRST!"
But the pull was too strong. Liu Wei was dragged away from the battle of gods, away from the shattering galaxies, away from the eye that stared at him with madness.
And another voice emerged.
Calmer. Older. More… human?
[PANDORA SYSTEM SUCCESSFULLY IDENTIFIED COMPATIBLE SOUL]
[INITIATING EMERGENCY RESCUE PROTOCOL…]
[OPENING TRANSMIGRATION PORTAL…]
[DESTINATION: LAYER-7 REALITY – MORTAL REALM SECTOR – AETHERIS CONTINENT – YUNLAN CITY]
[TIME REMAINING UNTIL SOUL COLLAPSE: 3 SECONDS]
Liu Wei didn't understand what was happening. One second he was in the middle of a cosmic war. The next, he felt himself entering something—a tunnel made of light and sound.
And behind him, the dark being was still roaring.
"I WILL FIND YOU, LITTLE SOUL! I WILL FIND YOU NO MATTER WHERE YOU HIDE! THERE IS NO ESCAPE ACROSS ALL 999 LAYERS OF REALITY! I WILL—"
The voice faded.
Liu Wei woke up.
The smell of blood.
That was the first thing he noticed. The metallic tang mixed with wet earth and something burnt. Then the pain—not physical pain, but existential agony. As though every cell in his being was screaming.
He opened his eyes.
A wooden ceiling. A dilapidated roof. Cracks everywhere, revealing a night sky with three crescent moons hanging in a row.
"Three… moons?"
Liu Wei tried to sit up, but his body felt like it had been hit by a truck—again. He let his head fall back onto the pillow—or whatever passed for one. It was a sack stuffed with straw.
He looked down. Small body. Small hands. Small feet. A child's body.
"What…"
[PANDORA SYSTEM SUCCESSFULLY ACTIVATED]
The voice appeared directly in his head. Not a physical sound. But a clear, undeniable presence in his consciousness.
[HOST DETECTED: LIU WEI]
[ORIGIN: QI-LESS WORLD – EARTH – REALITY LAYER 999]
[SOUL STATUS: CRITICAL – 27% COLLAPSE]
[NEW BODY: ORPHAN – 12 YEARS OLD – YUNLAN CITY – AETHERIS CONTINENT]
[CULTIVATION LEVEL: NONE (QI DETECTED: 0.0001%)]
[COMMENCING SOUL INTEGRATION…]
[WARNING: SOUL INTEGRATION WILL CAUSE EXTREME PAIN]
[RECOMMENDATION: ENDURE THE PAIN FOR MAXIMUM INTEGRATION EFFICIENCY]
Liu Wei wanted to scream, but only a weak groan escaped. The pain he felt when hit by the truck was nothing compared to this. It was as if his soul was being torn apart and stitched back into a body that didn't fit.
[SOUL INTEGRATION: 10%… 25%… 50%…]
His mind began to flood with information. Memories of this body—a boy named Kael. An orphan whose parents died in a monster attack five years ago. Living alone in this crumbling shack. Surviving by scavenging and occasionally stealing.
His face… Liu Wei (or now Kael?) caught his reflection in a bucket of dirty water. The same androgynous features as his original face—perhaps even more so. Delicate bones, pale skin, large eyes framed by long lashes. He looked like a beautiful girl who had dressed up as a boy by mistake.
"This…" he thought, feeling a painful irony. "Even after death, I still get stuck with a girly face."
[SOUL INTEGRATION: 100%]
[WELCOME TO LAYER-7 REALITY, HOST.]
[PANDORA SYSTEM READY TO SERVE.]
[PROVIDING CRITICAL INFORMATION…]
[UNIQUE TRAIT DETECTED: HOST SOUL RESONATES WITH 9 DIFFERENT REALITY LAYERS]
[PROBABLE CAUSE: HOST DEATH OCCURRED DURING A RARE REALITY CONVERGENCE – 0.001% PROBABILITY]
[EFFECT: DAO COMPREHENSION ACCELERATION – 1,000,000%]
[EFFECT: ABILITY TO SEE REALITY LAYERS – LOCKED (REQUIRES SPECIFIC CULTIVATION)]
[EFFECT: CONNECTION TO DARK ENTITY – UNKNOWN]
Liu Wei—no, from now on he had to get used to being called Kael—read the information with weary eyes. His gaze caught on the last line.
"Dark… entity?"
He remembered that eye. The moon-sized eye staring at him. The being that said "I will find you."
[WARNING: SAID ENTITY HAS MARKED HOST SOUL]
[ENTITY IDENTITY: UNIDENTIFIED – OUTSIDE SYSTEM DATABASE]
[THREAT LEVEL: MAXIMUM – ???]
[RECOMMENDATION: GROW. GROW. GROW. BEFORE IT FINDS YOU.]
Kael swallowed, even though his throat felt like sandpaper.
"So… this is my new fate?"
[ANSWER: NO. THIS IS NOT FATE. THIS IS OPPORTUNITY.]
[PANDORA SYSTEM WAS DESIGNED WITH ONE PURPOSE: TO CREATE A BEING THAT TRANSCENDS THE LIMITS OF LOGIC.]
[HOST IS THE 9,999,999th SELECTED HOST.]
[PREVIOUS HOSTS: 9,999,998 FAILED.]
[ONLY ONE REACHED MAXIMUM LEVEL.]
[HE IS NOW KNOWN AS…]
The name didn't appear. The system seemed to deliberately censor it.
[INFORMATION LOCKED: REQUIRES MINIMUM HEAVENLY LAYER 3 CULTIVATION]
Kael sighed, then winced as his ribs protested.
"So," he thought, trying to summarize. "I died. Got transmigrated into a cultivation world. Received a system. But also got marked by a devouring dark entity. And I have to grow insanely fast before it finds me."
[SUMMARY ACCURACY: 97.8%]
"Then… what do I do now?"
[MAIN MISSION UNLOCKED: SURVIVE]
[OBJECTIVE: LIVE THROUGH THE FIRST 24 HOURS IN THE NEW WORLD]
[REWARD: UNLOCK BASIC SYSTEM FEATURES]
[FAILURE: DEATH]
"Refreshing," Kael muttered sarcastically.
But before he could think further, the door of the shack creaked open.
A girl entered. About fifteen years old, long black hair tied in a simple ponytail. Her clothes were patched and worn, but her eyes—her eyes shone with a warmth that felt utterly foreign to Kael after everything he had just been through.
She carried a bowl of warm porridge.
"Kael! You're awake!" she cried, rushing to his bedside. Her eyes glistened with tears. "I thought you wouldn't wake up anymore! Three days of fever! I was… I was so worried!"
Kael looked at her, matching her face with the body's memories.
Lily.
His neighbor. Also an orphan. The only person in this world who cared about him.
"I…" Kael's voice came out hoarse. "I'm okay."
Lily let out a relieved breath and held out the bowl. "Here. Eat. You need to recover."
Kael took the bowl, feeling its warmth against his palms. Simple. Yet somehow, amid all this chaos—death, transmigration, system, dark entity—this small warmth felt like…
[WARNING: EMOTIONAL BONDING DETECTED]
[EFFECT: TRIGGERING SYSTEM BUG – STATUS: UNKNOWN]
[ADVICE: BE CAUTIOUS OF EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS IN THIS WORLD]
[NOTE: 78.3% OF PREVIOUS HOSTS FAILED DUE TO EMOTIONAL BONDS]
Kael read the warning, then looked at Lily smiling at him.
He smiled back.
"Screw the statistics," he thought, taking a sip of the warm porridge.
Outside the shack, three moons glowed faintly in the night sky. Somewhere, in an unimaginable layer of reality, an eye opened.
"I have found you…"