"Who would have thought?" the driver said, shaking his head. "Mt. Sage was a volcano all along."
"Were you up there for a delivery, sir?" Ren asked.
"Yeah, just finished dropping off a load at the summit gift shop when the ground started dancing. I had to floor it... Poor truck." The driver winced as the sound of falling ash and small stones pelted the roof like hail.
"In a situation like this, getting out alive is what matters. Whoa—watch out!" Ren shouted.
A volcanic stone the size of a small car streaked through the air like a catapult bolt from the Middle Ages. It slammed into a one-story house on the right side of the road. With a deafening boom, the building collapsed like a crushed eggshell.
The driver didn't freeze. He slammed his foot on the accelerator and sped past the falling debris just in time. Part of the house fell onto the road behind them, forcing the cars following them to screech to a halt.
After that close call, neither spoke. The driver focused entirely on the road, weaving through the chaos. Twenty minutes later, as they put distance between themselves and the mountain, the rain of ash finally began to thin out.
As they talked in fragments, Ren realized he was lucky. The driver was a veteran who had served in a military transport unit in the southwest; his reflexes and calm under pressure were the only reason they had made it out of the mountain passes.
By the time they reached the main highway, the sky had turned as dark as night. Every vehicle on the road had its headlights on, many flashing their hazard lights.
Police cars with sirens blaring sped in the opposite direction. Suddenly, a low, rolling sound like muffled thunder echoed behind them, drowning out the sirens. The ground vibrated. Ren looked back to see a fountain of golden-red lava exploding from the summit of Mt. Sage. Against the pitch-black sky, the fire looked like a horrific firework display.
The molten rock spilled over the rim and began to crawl down the slopes like a river of blood. As it touched the trees, massive walls of flame and blacker smoke billowed up. The forest was being consumed.
Ren felt a sense of relief. Any evidence of the cave he had found would be buried under tons of cooling rock. His secret was safe.
"What's happening back there?" the driver asked, unable to turn around.
"The full eruption," Ren said. "Lava is flowing down. If anyone is still up there, they're in real trouble."
"Hold on. I'm speeding up," the driver muttered, pushing the van to its limit.
They eventually reached the outskirts of the city. Thirty kilometers away from Mt. Sage, the immediate danger had passed. The sky over Lingshou remained a hazy, bruised grey, but it wasn't the total darkness of the eruption zone.
Ren hopped out near a bus station, thanked the driver, and caught a local electric bus. The city was on edge. People stood on street corners pointing west, where the horizon glowed a deep, ominous red. Emergency vehicles were everywhere.
Ren reached his shack at 4:00 PM. He dropped his bag on the desk and collapsed onto his bed, his body aching so intensely he could barely move.
Five minutes later, he forced himself up. He ordered some food via an app, then stripped off his ash-covered gear. His clothes were battered but intact.
He washed himself with a basin of water and discovered several wounds. His knees were scraped raw where his trousers had worn through, and the edge of his left palm was gashed. His right shoulder throbbed with a dull pain from the fall in the fissure.
He cleaned the wounds with alcohol and iodine, bandaging the worst of them. He slapped a few medicated patches on his shoulder. While waiting for his food, he checked the news.
A "Breaking News" headline caught his eye:
Global Crisis: Simultaneous Volcanic Eruptions Reported Worldwide.
At approximately 11:30 AM on October 30, dozens of volcanoes across the globe began showing signs of activity before erupting in unison. Reports indicate that many of these were long-dormant "dead" volcanoes, and several had no historical record of ever erupting. As of now, 36 major eruptions have been confirmed across all continents. Experts are baffled by this unprecedented geological event. Casualties and property damage are currently being assessed...
Ren sat on his bed in a daze. His wish had caused a global cataclysm. He had achieved his goal, but he had opened a door to a world that was far more dangerous than he had anticipated.
He checked the Wish Book one last time.
Wish: I wish to return home safely and successfully.
Status: Fulfilled.
Cost: 3,000 Wish Points.
His balance was now 32,613. He needed to find a way to get more points, and soon.
He spent the evening reflecting. Why had it "only" cost 20,000 points to fundamentally change the world? Perhaps the world had always been supernatural, and his wish had simply "reawakened" it.
He ate his high-protein dinner and spent some time on a real estate app. He was a millionaire now; it was time to leave the slums. He found a high-rated agent and sent over his requirements for a new apartment.
The next morning, his body was stiff and sore. His right arm felt like a lead weight. He realized his body was too weak for the path he had chosen. He needed to train.
He washed up and went out to get breakfast. The sky was still overcast, but the red glow in the west had faded. As he walked toward a local bun shop, he heard the sound of wailing and ritual chanting.
He followed the sound to the tailor's shop. A small white funeral tent had been set up outside.
"Mr. Jiang," Ren asked a neighbor, "what happened? Who passed away?"
"Mrs. Yu," the man sighed. "She went suddenly last night. It's a tragedy. She was fine yesterday."
Ren's heart sank. He remembered her kindness and how she had fixed his suit just days ago. He had lived in this neighborhood for years; she had often fixed his buttons for free.
"If you're not superstitious, go pay your respects," Jiang suggested. "You were neighbors, after all."
Ren nodded. He straightened his clothes and stepped into the tent. Mrs. Yu's daughter was kneeling by the casket, her face red from crying. Her husband stood to the side, looking grey and broken. Without his wife's income and companionship, his life had been shattered.
Ren lit three sticks of incense and bowed. He handed the husband a 100-credit bill.
"Mr. Yu, please accept my condolences."
"This is too much, I can't..." the man stammered. In the slums, people usually gave 10 to 30 credits for a funeral.
"Mrs. Yu was a good woman," Ren insisted, pressing the money into his hand. "You'll need this for the arrangements. Please, take it."
Ren left the tent, feeling a profound sense of mortality. This was the first time someone he knew had died since he arrived in this world. A line from a story in his old life flashed through his mind:
"You may have a thousand spells and ten thousand powers. I ask only one thing: Can you live forever?"
Back at his desk, Ren opened his phone and looked at the photos of the inscriptions from the cave. He spent twenty minutes carefully transcribing the symbols onto paper. It was a pictographic script, not an alphabet.
Ren's background in history helped. He knew the evolution of writing in the Great Zhao Empire. He began comparing the symbols to ancient "Divination Runes" used over a thousand years ago. Thanks to the internet, he found a comparative table of ancient and modern characters.
After an hour of painstaking translation, he decoded the message.
"A Great Catastrophe struck. The Sanctuary was ambushed by the kin of the Evil God. My brothers fought to the death to hold them back. I, Yu, am the only survivor. I have fled here, but my wounds are fatal. I know my end is near. My only regret is that our legacy might end with me. I have failed my ancestors..."
"Sanctuary," "Evil God," "Legacy"... Ren felt the weight of these words. The world he had wished for was deeper and darker than a simple martial arts fantasy.
He picked up the jade tablet. Under his desk lamp, he saw the four runes on the back. He translated them: Lishan Sanctuary.
In local culture, a "Sanctuary" or "Grotto-Heaven" was a hidden paradise where immortals lived.
Ren prepared himself. He put back on his hiking gear, laced his boots, and gripped the tablet. He decided on the most classic method of activation: he pricked his finger with his knife and let a drop of blood fall onto the jade.
The stone absorbed the blood instantly. Ren felt a strange connection to the object. A split second later, a powerful suction pulled at his hand. The world around him twisted.
Within three seconds, Ren's room was empty. The lamp on his desk continued to cast a soft glow over an empty chair.
"Gasp... huff..." Ren's lungs burned as if he had just woken from a nightmare. Cold sweat poured down his face.
For a moment, he had felt the universe shatter into a billion glowing shards. Time had stopped. He had stood in a void where he couldn't move a single muscle, paralyzed by a crushing pressure. Then, the shards flew back together at impossible speeds.
When his vision cleared, he was standing in the ruins of an ancient city. Collapsed towers and broken halls stretched out as far as he could see. It looked like a graveyard of a civilization, much older than any ruins on Earth. Some of the exposed wooden beams had turned to stone.
He was standing in what used to be a grand plaza. The ground was made of a heavy, dark stone. He stomped his foot; it felt incredibly solid. Yet, the plaza was covered in deep gashes, as if it had been struck by giant blades or bombed by heavy artillery.
Skeletons were scattered everywhere—some were human, others were monstrous. These "things" were hideous, covered in bone spikes and asymmetrical limbs, looking like something stitched together in a nightmare.
Ren looked up. The sky was a deep purple. A brilliant river of stars cut across the firmament, so bright it felt like he could reach out and touch the light. It was nothing like the polluted sky of the city. It was night here, though it had been day in Lingshou.
This isn't just another location; it's another dimension, Ren realized.
The ruins were silent, save for a faint, ghostly breeze. Ren checked his watch's compass. The needle spun in a slow, useless circle. There were no magnetic poles here.
Ren's palms sweated. He crouched low, drew his tactical knife, and began to move. He didn't use his flashlight; the starlight was enough to see by once his eyes adjusted, and he didn't want to alert any potential predators.
He moved through the shadows of twisted buildings, passing more silver-boned skeletons. The environment was eerie and oppressive.
He reached an open area with a tiered stone platform—an altar or a speaker's podium. He climbed the steps and looked out. The city was built into the side of a mountain. Above him, he could see forested slopes with strange, alien plants. The peak was only a few dozen meters higher than his current position.
Ren decided to head for the top. He climbed down from the altar and began his ascent toward the mountain's summit.
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