"Ma--gus--"

Night.

A canopy of stars descended, and a campfire burned in the open air within the valley.

The magical animals sat around it, each eating the food Kang De had brought, listening to him brag on and on by himself.

Humans were social animals; they needed company and conversation. Unfortunately, though the animals were all quite intelligent, they couldn't speak, couldn't communicate, and couldn't understand what Kang De said.

Even the parrot could only mimic speech, and it only picked up dirty talk.

They were just listening to Kang De ramble.

"But that's no damn use..."

Kang De sighed. "Traveling back and forth between two worlds, a portal, another world in my backyard and all that—it's straight out of a web novel. Next I should be trading goods between the two worlds, making a fortune, building a harem, reaching the peak of my life and so on. Isn't that how the story should go?"

He took a swig of beer and shouted, "So what the hell? Why did my two-world start turn out like this? I actually ended up on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere in another world. Who am I supposed to sell things to? And that's not even the worst of it. Somehow, Earth has become the middle of nowhere too!"

The parrot cleverly mimicked him. "Middle of nowhere! Middle of nowhere!"

The gorilla beside him took the beer bottle from Kang De's hand and set it aside. The wolverine and the pigeon immediately gave it sharp looks. These magical animals loved the various Earth foods Kang De brought, but that was all it was: love. When it came to alcohol, however, they showed an unusual fondness.

The gorilla was the exception. A Xing never drank and loathed drinking. At every meal, A Xing kept track of how much Kang De drank and was also responsible for subduing the magical animals when they got too drunk and rowdy.

A Xing picked up a cup and poured a small drink for each of the honey badger, the pigeon, and the parrot. These creatures were clearly small animals, yet they clutched their cups with claws and wings like drunks. The cups were as large to them as barrels were to humans, so they raised them like barrels and drank deeply.

"Sometimes I think you're all a lot like people..."

Kang De murmured, "So, are there actually any people in this world?"

This was clearly a mysterious world. Those bizarre black beasts had mysterious crystals in their hearts, and they dissolved into wind when the crystals were removed. Such phenomena completely defied scientific common sense. Based on his "experience" as a veteran web-novel reader, this was clearly a world with magic. As for what kind, he didn't know.

"If intelligent life hasn't appeared in this world yet, then I'm really fucking screwed."

"Kang De the transmigrator, master of two worlds... and a commander without a single soldier."

"But then again..."

He smiled bitterly. "Even if there are people, it doesn't have much to do with me."

This was an uninhabited archipelago. For more than three hundred days, he had climbed to a high point and gazed into the distance every day, but he hadn't seen a single ship. He had no nautical charts and didn't know which direction civilization lay in. Even if he did, it wouldn't have been much use. He had no boat, and these islands were just another walled prison.

However abundant the residential complex's supplies were, they were only everyday necessities and couldn't provide the materials for building a boat. He had no woodworking experience and didn't know how to process timber. To build a vessel from scratch, all by himself under these circumstances, that could safely sail the open ocean...

He might as well keep hunting black beasts to strengthen himself and hope to reach the physical power of the One-Punch Baldy before he turned seventy, then forcibly imitate flight by jumping his way around the world.

"...I think I'd be able to punch through the white fog before then."

He had tried many violent methods to break through that intangible yet substantial white fog. He had rammed it with a car hard enough to set off the airbags, but that hadn't done a damn thing.

He had also set off a gas cylinder, but that hadn't done much either.

In the messages he sent out, he said he had exhausted every possible method. That wasn't true: there was a fuel tanker parked on the northern avenue. Blowing that thing up would definitely pack more of a punch, but fuel was an extremely important and scarce resource. He couldn't bear to use it; if it didn't work, the loss would be enormous.

"A punch more powerful than an exploding fuel tanker... I can't imagine it. I don't even have the power of one gas cylinder yet. The road to leveling up is long and arduous."

After finishing his meal, Kang De lay on his back and cried, "All the gods and buddhas in heaven, have mercy and send me a few people! Can you hear me? Oh, mighty being who sent me here, did you go to all that trouble just to watch me play a single-player game here?"

"It's been a whole year. Aren't you sick of it yet? I'm sick of it, bro."

"I'm ready! Hurry up and let me start my journey to build a harem and conquer another world!"

This was probably another way of venting his stress.

After all, there wasn't a single person to talk to in this godforsaken place. The magical animals sometimes listened to him ramble, but apart from A Xing, the other beasts often looked at him with the kind of pity reserved for the mentally challenged.

That was why he always felt these animals had become spirits.

Praying or chatting to "all the gods and buddhas in heaven" was how he had been relieving stress lately. As he went on, the conversation would gradually drift off course, the subject would gradually twist, and all sorts of dirty talk would pour out.

"Hey, don't ignore me. Didn't I say yesterday that I'd sacrifice the leftover braised eggplant to you? Are you angry? How about I offer something else instead? Once I've conquered the world, I'll build you a temple and find a bunch of people to sing your praises, how's that? It's really too boring here. I've even worn out one of my pocket pussies..."

"Ah, I came all the way to another world and I'm still using a pocket pussy. What a miserable transmigrator I am."

"Hey, are you laughing at me?"

"Don't tell me I have to sacrifice every chance I'll ever have to get laid before you'll answer my request and send a few people to take me somewhere inhabited? Are you a single dog too? Is it really okay to treat me like this? Fine, I guess I'll reluctantly sympathize with a fellow sufferer. I'll agree, all right? So..."

Just then, a brilliant bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the sky.

Its radiance illuminated the heavens, lighting up the world.

The light lasted a full six or seven seconds. When the sky darkened again, a terrifying peal of thunder shook heaven and earth, as though the world itself were roaring, as though the world were answering.

It was the loudest thunder Kang De had ever heard in his life.

He was so startled that he sprang to his feet.

Ever since transmigrating, he had degenerated from a committed atheist into one of the backward, superstitious masses. After encountering so much crap, anyone would have questioned their life. The thunder was unusually loud, and it was easy to connect it to what he had just been saying. If that was the case...

Kang De shuddered and hurriedly forced a fawning smile at the sky.

"Well... bro, bro, I was only joking just now. Please don't take it to heart..."

Another serpent of lightning shot across the sky. Before Kang De could wonder whether big bro was angry, another followed. Lightning flashed and thunder roared, shaking heaven and earth.

By the bright lightning, Kang De saw dark clouds gathering.

He also felt bean-sized raindrops falling, one by one.

"...Oh, it's going to rain."

He gathered the bowls, chopsticks, and plates from the ground as fast as he could, then got up and ran. "It's raining! Bring in the laundry! Everyone go home, wash up, and get to bed. Good night!"

But as he turned and hurried away, he didn't know that the magical animals had all raised their heads in unison to gaze at the storm gathering in the night sky. They actually exchanged glances.

Perhaps only they understood what those looks meant.

Kang De opened the keypad door and took another look outside to make sure nothing had been left behind.

Closing the door shut the interior off from the world outside. The cold wind was kept out, and the sound of it whistling through the cracks gave him an inexplicable sense of security.

A small room to shelter from wind and rain: this was the feeling of home.

"When it rains, there's no sun, so the solar panels are useless. Good thing I still have a gasoline generator."

He sat down at his computer and stretched.

"What should I play today? Hmm, time to deliver packages in the Mojave Desert..."

The sound of fierce wind and rain came faintly from outside. It really was a downpour unlike any he had ever seen.

"Good thing I already dug some drainage ditches."

Kang De pressed a button to turn on the outside light and peered through the peephole. The wind drove the rain, and a tremendous rushing filled the world. He had been here for almost a year and had seen quite a few heavy rains, but never a downpour of this magnitude... Fortunately, he had made some preparations in advance.

"The house gets damp easily when it rains, but the doorframe's sealed with rubber strips, and there's still laundry detergent and dehumidifier left. At worst, I can run the air conditioner for a while to get rid of the moisture... It shouldn't be a big problem."

He turned off the light and muttered, "But why is the rain so heavy this time?"

Still, it had nothing to do with him.

His life would barely be affected.

Kang De took an ice-cold bottle of gamer fuel from the refrigerator and a tube of potato chips from a nearby cabinet. He turned on the computer and, listening to the wind and rain outside, leisurely began his journey through a virtual world to the sound of bleak, subdued music. Everything was just as it had been on Earth.

At sea.

Waves surged and the wind howled as two sailing ships, their sails fully unfurled, cut through the raging sea.

Sailors bustled about the decks while the navigators continuously barked orders. Everyone wore a grave expression; even the most carefree sailor looked as though facing a formidable enemy. The wind lashed their faces, and spray struck them from time to time as dark clouds pressed in from all sides.

Suddenly, the sky behind them lit up for an instant.

Immediately afterward, the lookout on the mainmast's observation platform screamed a warning at the top of his lungs.

"Ma--gus--!"

A cyan halo of light arced through the air, streaking across the gloomy sky and over dozens of miles of sea. Like a deadly phantom, it hurtled toward the two ships amid the waves.

An uproar broke out among the sailors.

"Evasive action! Evasive action! Hard to port! Don't panic! We can definitely dodge it from this far away!"

The people on both ships desperately hauled on the sails and turned the helms. The ships, sailing side by side, turned left and right respectively. Amid the roaring, raging sea, the pitching vessels struggled to turn broadside and halt their headlong advance, while the cyan magical radiance flew through the night sky, tracing an arc of death.

The sailors cheered as one.

Even someone with no knowledge of ballistics could see that the unknown projectile spell had been fired too far and too high. It would pass over their heads and fall into the sea far beyond them.

Just then, an anxious woman's voice rang out from one of the ships. "Take cover! That's an air..."

The rest of her words were drowned out by a tremendous boom.

The magical light passing over the ships suddenly burst apart.

The cyan magical radiance unleashed a violent tornado, churning the sea and rocking the ships fiercely.

Great sheets of spray surged into the air, forming a cascading curtain of water.

After the tornado, the sphere of light bloomed blue. A frost nova spread through the air, freezing the rising streams of water into countless sharp icicles suspended aloft.

The blue radiance then faded.

The sphere, wrapped in three layers of metamagic techniques, revealed the golden yellow at its very core.

Its effect was the simplest and most primitive of all: a directional explosive blast!

A roar erupted and a shock wave spread. Like a downpour, countless icicles, driven by the powerful force, plunged down like torrential rain, covering a hundred-meter area of sea and engulfing the ship that had turned to starboard. Faster than arrows and sharper than daggers, they crashed down from the sky, cutting into bodies that couldn't dodge in time and raining onto a ship with nowhere to escape.

They shredded flesh and severed limbs. A mist of blood spread, and screams rang out incessantly. The sailors on the exposed deck were all pinned to it in an instant. Masts were severed and sails torn apart. The cascading icicles bored into sturdy wood and shattered fragile windows, methodically killing every person inside the cabins.

Masts broke, water flooded the hull, and the crew perished. In the blink of an eye, a sturdy sailing ship was riddled with holes, its tottering hull left at the mercy of the wind and waves.

The people on the other ship watched it all in silent horror.

A moment later, someone finally broke the silence, and the sailors shouted, "Turn around! Hurry and save them!"

The lookout at the top of the mast roared at the top of his lungs.

"Report! The enemy capital ship Wings of Wayne has deployed its magical attack platform and launched a beyond-visual-range spell strike against the Iron Fist Bane! Captain, the elven navy has found us!"

PS1: Chapter three! It's almost four thousand Chinese characters long too. Today's updates came to nearly eight thousand characters altogether; for someone else, that would be four releases! I posted it early because I need to get to bed earlier. I kept my word, so you have to vote too!

PS2: Also, you guys are still too young. What's wrong with boobs?! Mr. Chen Zhongshi wrote "boobs" this and "boobs" that all the time in White Deer Plain. When cultured people like us write about boobs, can you call them boobs? That's art! Sheesh!