[The plot will be a bit of a slow burn. My writing ability is limited, but I will try my best to write the hunter world as I envision it. I will try to follow the original settings as much as possible; please bear with me if there are any inaccuracies. The protagonist is decisive in killing...]
"Do you think Chairman Netero could win if he fought the Ant King at his Peak?"
The light from the phone screen reflected on Leo's face. His thumb swiped rapidly as he watched the messages constantly refreshing in the group chat.
"High probability he wouldn't win. With the Ant King's terrifying physical strength and learning ability, the Chairman could at most heavily injure him, but he would still lose in the end!"
"No matter how strong the Ant King's defense is, he still died from poison. His magic resistance is zero!"
"I don't think so! Strictly speaking, the Ant King was still a premature baby. If he had been fully developed, the poison might not have been effective on him."
"No need to argue. Only Lord Sukuna is the strongest! One Space Slash and everyone dies!"
"Only your Sukuna is the strongest? Then what does that make our JoJo?"
"Good question. If you're not convinced, come fight me!"
The corners of Leo's mouth curled up; he was all too familiar with this kind of scene.
His fingers tapped on the screen.
"Sukuna? What big talk! You're completely disregarding us Ultraman fans! Any random Ultraman could stomp you with one foot, and not even slag would be left of you, Lord Sukuna. Do you understand the weight of 35,000 tons?"
As soon as the message was sent, someone immediately replied.
"You guys are all too weak. Oma Zi-O can restart the Universe with a wave of his hand!"
"Don't make Brother Li laugh. Oma Zi-O? A King of Time who can be time-stopped? Emperor is the strongest!"
Leo walked down the street wearing headphones, head down, looking at his phone. The group chat exploded instantly, the messages scrolling so fast it was dazzling.
He watched and laughed. These guys were always like this; once the topic of power scaling came up, they would drag any work onto the same table to argue.
Putting one down to elevate another, fighting tooth and nail—it was the game this group was most passionate about.
He analyzed everything from the Nen Ability system in hunter x hunter to the Domain Expansion in Jujutsu Kaisen, and chatted about everything from Ultraman's beam skills to Kamen Rider's form changes.
"If you could Transmigrate, which world would you choose?"
Someone in the group suddenly asked, and the topic shifted instantly.
Some chose the One Piece world, longing to eat a Devil Fruit and roam freely on the sea; some yearned for the Pokémon world, dreaming of adventuring with a partner like Pikachu; others wanted to go to Frieren: Beyond Journey's End to learn magic and explore the mysteries of a thousand-year journey.
If he could Transmigrate... Leo didn't stop walking, but that answer surfaced in his mind.
He would choose the hunter world.
The system built by Yoshihiro Togashi was too fascinating—the intricate classification of the six Nen Ability types, the risk-reward gambles of Vows and Limitations, and that bottomless Dark Continent.
It was the most rigorous and imaginative power system he had ever seen. Every character had their own path and choices; there was no absolute good or evil, only collisions between different stances.
Just as he was preparing to elaborate in detail, a piercing screech of brakes tore through the air.
Leo looked up abruptly. A yellow car rushed toward him from the entrance of a 4S dealership, its hood reflecting blinding light in the sun.
Time seemed to slow down. He could see the driver's terrified expression and his own distorted reflection on the car's hood.
A dull thud of impact.
The world spun. His phone flew out of his hand, tracing a parabola in the air.
His back slammed hard against the ground, and pain surged like a tide. The edges of his vision began to blacken, and the exclamations of the crowd grew distant.
"It's over... it's over, my brand new car!" A man's voice carried a crying tone.
Leo's vision gradually blurred, and the last thought that flashed through his mind was absurd yet clear.
"If I had known, I wouldn't have been looking down at my phone..."
Then, darkness swallowed everything.
Cold.
This was Leo's first sensation upon regaining consciousness.
Not the softness of a hospital bed, but some kind of hard, rough surface; it felt like stone.
He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as heavy as lead.
After a few attempts, his vision finally cleared—a towering dome, mottled stone, with cracks spreading like spiderwebs.
Daylight leaked through several collapsed gaps, and dust danced slowly in the beams of light.
"I... didn't I die?"
He discovered he was lying on a cold stone platform, beneath him were some rough, chiseled textures.
His voice caused a slight echo in the empty space.
Leo found himself lying on a circular stone platform, about three meters in diameter, with the surface covered in strange characters.
The strokes were curved like vines, with occasional sharp turns, glowing faintly in the dim light.
This was an altar.
He rolled over to sit up and looked around.
The stone hall was empty, with six thick stone pillars surrounding the altar. The pillars were embedded with glowing crystal-like minerals, emitting a milky white light.
But the stone pillars were severely damaged, the reliefs on their surfaces blurred; only the base parts still showed animal-like patterns.
The air was filled with the smell of stale dust, mixed with the fresh scent of soil after rain.
Memories rushed back like a tide: the arguments in the group, the out-of-control car, the moment of impact... and another fragment of strange memory: a 17-year-old boy named Rexa, living alone in a small town, who fell into a spatial rift while out hunting...
"Rexa... Leo..."
The two memories intertwined and collided in his mind, pain piercing his skull like needles.
Leo held his head, his fingernails almost digging into his scalp.
For a long time, the pain gradually subsided, and the memories began to merge.
He understood—he had soul-transmigrated into the body of this boy named Rexa.
And Rexa's last memory was falling into a suddenly appearing rift.
"Transmigrated..."
Leo muttered to himself, his voice echoing in the stone hall.
He carefully slid down from the altar, his bare feet stepping onto the cold stone floor.
The stone hall had only one double-leaf stone door, the reliefs on the door panels worn and unrecognizable.
Leo pushed the door hard, and accompanied by a dull friction sound, the door slowly opened inward.
A wider space appeared before his eyes.
This was the main hall of a palace. Several giant pillars that would require three people to embrace had collapsed or tilted, and rubble and broken columns were scattered everywhere.
The floor was paved with huge stone slabs, with weeds and ferns growing out from the cracks; it was clearly abandoned for a long time.
Leo carefully walked through the main hall. Large areas of murals remained on the walls, their colors mostly faded, only vaguely revealing outlines: one seemed to be a ritual scene, with people kneeling around an altar; another depicted a battle between beasts and humans, with a rough and dynamic style.
"This place... has been abandoned for at least several hundred years."
Crossing the main hall, ahead was the main gate of the palace. Leo pushed open one of the doors with effort.
Strong light rushed toward him.
He narrowed his eyes to adjust for a few seconds, then saw the scene before him—
Outside the door was a wide stone platform, with a half-person-high railing at the edge, broken in many places.
The platform extended forward with dozens of steps, leading to an open space surrounded by a forest.
Further away was an endless, dense forest. The trees were unimaginably tall, some with trunks over three meters in diameter, their canopies like green clouds covering a large part of the sky.
Bird calls, insect chirps, the rustling of wind through leaves... various sounds intertwined into a vibrant natural symphony. The air was filled with the fresh scent of plants and soil.
Leo stood dazed for a few seconds, then slowly walked onto the platform and came to the railing.
Leaning over to look, the palace was built on top of a hill, at a high vantage point, overlooking the surrounding forest.
"Ah Zhen, are you for real?!" He gave a helpless, bitter smile.
"If this is Transmigration, then which world is this?"
He recalled the discussion in the group before he lost consciousness: One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Pokémon, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, hunter x hunter... He had said at the time that he would choose the hunter world.
"No way..." Leo's heart skipped a beat.
He carefully observed the surrounding environment again: the ancient palace, the mysterious altar, the strange forest.
If it really was the hunter world, then this might be the ruins of some ancient civilization.
But all of this was just speculation.
Leo decided to explore the interior of the palace first to find more clues. He re-entered the main hall, this time examining every detail more carefully.
In a corner on the west side of the main hall, he found a relatively intact room.
This seemed to be a collection room, with several broken wooden shelves and pottery shards scattered on the floor. On the innermost shelf, Leo found two relatively intact items.
One was a fist-sized stone, its surface covered with complex natural patterns. Those patterns seemed to have a faint sense of movement in the dim light, as if some kind of liquid was sealed inside the stone.
The other was a rolled-up animal skin, tied with some kind of plant fiber.
The animal skin was well-preserved, with a flexible texture, and regular serrated cutting marks on the edges.
Leo carefully untied the bindings and unfolded the animal skin.
It was a map.
Drawn on tanned dark brown animal skin, the ink had faded a bit, but it was still clearly legible.
The map was marked with forests, mountains, rivers, giant monsters, and symbols for several other buildings. Wavy lines were drawn on the edges of the map, possibly representing the ocean.
Below the map were a few lines of text, using the same strange characters as on the altar.
"I can't understand it at all; it must be some kind of ancient script."
Leo frowned. He carefully rolled up the animal skin, tied it back up, and then looked at the stone.
The stone's patterns seemed to be attracting him. Leo reached out to touch the stone's surface—
The moment his fingertips touched the stone, a strange change occurred.
The golden patterns inside the stone suddenly lit up, pulsing as if they were alive.
Immediately after, the entire stone turned into a pool of dark golden liquid, flowing down from the shelf with incredible speed.
Leo was astonished and wanted to step back, but his body couldn't move—not because he was restrained by some force, but because of an instinctive stiffness, like a freezing reaction when an animal encounters a natural predator.
The liquid spread up along his fingers, quickly covering his arm, shoulder, and then spreading throughout his entire body.
"This—" Leo's question got stuck in his throat.
The liquid had already covered his face, but it didn't hinder his breathing.
On the contrary, he felt a strange sense of clarity, as if every pore had been opened. His vision was shrouded in dark gold, then gradually darkened.
Then, darkness swallowed everything.
In the silent storage room, Leo's body collapsed to the ground. The dark golden liquid had completely merged into his body, leaving no trace on the surface of his skin. A tattoo on his arm pulsed slowly.
Just then—
The altar in the center of the palace suddenly emitted a faint light.
The light seeped out from the engraved patterns, at first just like firefly-like starlight, but then it quickly gathered and intensified, turning into a slender yet solid beam of light that shot into the sky!
The beam of light pierced through the hole in the dome and shot toward an unknown distance. The whole process lasted only a short three seconds before it quickly dimmed and dissipated.
The altar returned to its original state, as if nothing had happened.
At the same moment, somewhere in the distant Urubian Continent.
This was a bustling border town. People came and went on the streets, with the hawking of vendors, the laughter of children, and the rattling of carriage wheels intertwining into a busy urban symphony.
Suddenly, a faint ripple appeared in the sky.
Immediately after, a dark gray stone slab appeared out of thin air, falling from mid-air and hitting the stone road in the center of the town square with a "bang."
Pedestrians stopped one after another, curiously gathering around.
The stone slab was about the size of a palm, about a finger thick, and its surface was covered with strange characters and patterns.
Someone cautiously stepped forward and picked it up, discovering that a simple map and an arrow symbol were engraved on the back of the stone slab.