June 16, 2056, 8:00 PM, Yangzhou City, Yi'an District.
Inside a somewhat dilapidated apartment building, a handsome young man lay unconscious across his computer desk.
Though he was unconscious, his face was twisted in pain.
After an unknown amount of time, the young man's fingers twitched slightly.
"Ugh, that hurts!"
Qin Mu instinctively clutched his head and slowly regained consciousness.
"Where am I?"
Qin Mu raised his head and looked around in confusion.
It was an unfamiliar room. The furnishings were simple: aside from a bed and a wardrobe, there was only a computer desk.
On the left side of the desk stood a photo frame containing an unfamiliar man, woman, and little boy.
It was a family portrait.
The instant he saw the photograph, a string of memories suddenly surfaced in Qin Mu's mind.
The RR virus, evolution, monsters, martial artists.
One crucial memory after another emerged in his mind.
"I live in Yangzhou City, Yi'an District, one of the eight satellite cities of Jiangnan Base City. I'm a high school student."
"No, today is June 16. The college entrance exams are already over, and the results came out today.
"I have a classmate named Luo Feng. Didn't he faint during the college entrance exams?"
"Wait, Luo Feng??"
"This is the world of Swallowed Star?"
As his memories continued to awaken, Qin Mu finally confirmed that he had transmigrated into the world of Swallowed Star!
He touched his face, found a mirror, and stared at the face that was nearly identical to his previous life's, only much more youthful. Qin Mu fell silent.
He had really transmigrated. After falling asleep following an overtime shift, Qin Mu had inexplicably crossed into another world.
The original owner was also named Qin Mu. His father had been a soldier and lost his life eight years ago while resisting a monster tide invasion.
His mother had been a military researcher. Five years ago, she was discovered by monsters while conducting field research, and her entire team was wiped out.
At thirteen, he had become an orphan.
Over the years, he had trained like mad, wanting to become a martial artist and kill every monster.
To become a martial artist, one had to meet three conditions: punching strength of 900 kilograms, speed of 25 meters per second, and powerful neural reaction speed.
Unfortunately, the original Qin Mu's talent was average. Despite training desperately, he was still only an intermediate student at the Limit Martial Arts School.
At his best, his punching strength had only reached 756 kilograms. His talent in speed was fairly good, with a best result of 24.12 meters per second, not far from the Pre-warrior requirement. His neural reaction speed had already reached the Pre-warrior standard.
Unfortunately, due to his insufficient punching strength, he could not even meet the 800-kilogram standard required of advanced students at the Limit Martial Arts School.
That small difference in strength should not be underestimated. Without some special opportunity, it was nearly an impossible number for the original Qin Mu to reach.
Even with frantic training, his strength had not improved for a long time.
In the end, excessive training had left his body riddled with accumulated hidden injuries. Half a year ago, he fainted during a training session and only survived after three days of emergency treatment in the hospital.
After that, whenever he trained, his entire body hurt as if pierced by needles, almost completely cutting off his path to becoming a martial artist.
He had tried every possible method, bought all kinds of medicine, and tested countless folk remedies, yet nothing improved.
His dream had nearly been shattered. Even so, he had not given up and instead placed his hopes on the college entrance exams.
As long as he got into a military academy, he could use its resources to recover. There was still a sliver of hope that he could become a martial artist.
But the score report on the computer screen had thoroughly crushed his dream.
Examinee: Qin Mu Gender: Male ID Number: 426123203705016012 Examination Number: 5878643567890745 Humanities: 211 Science: 228 Mathematics: 121 Total Score: 560 Undergraduate Cutoff: 561
A single point had caused the original Qin Mu to lose all hope.
Overwhelmed by grief and fury, his vision had gone black. When he woke again, Qin Mu from another world had taken his place.
"Only one point short!"
Qin Mu sighed.
The original Qin Mu had actually been remarkable. His will was firm, far beyond that of ordinary people. It was simply fate playing tricks on him.
When he discovered that his body was damaged beyond recovery, he had not despaired. Instead, he had hoped to realize his dream through another path.
Unfortunately, one point marked the difference between heaven and hell.
After carefully sorting through the memories in his mind, Qin Mu finally calmed the excitement in his heart.
Qin Mu had loved reading novels in his previous life, and Swallowed Star had been one of them.
He had read Swallowed Star many times and still remembered most of its plot, even its timeline.
This was an incomparably vast world.
On Earth, countless monsters occupied the skies and oceans, forcing humanity into one base city after another.
When humanity paid an enormous price, nearly wiping out the Human High Command in order to defeat the monsters and leave Earth,
they discovered just how vast the universe was. The Milky Way Galaxy alone had more than two hundred thousand life-bearing planets.
And the Milky Way Galaxy was merely one of the eight star systems controlled by the Silver Blue Empire, an elementary cosmic civilization.
Eight star systems—what an immense cosmic empire was that?
Yet it was only an elementary Universe Country.
Above it stood the Intermediate Universe Country civilization that controlled more than eight thousand star systems—the Black Dragon Mountain Empire.
The Black Dragon Mountain Empire had more than five hundred elementary Universe Country vassal states.
The Silver Blue Empire was merely one of the Black Dragon Mountain Empire's vassal states.
And an entity as vast as the Black Dragon Mountain Empire was only a minor dependency of the advanced cosmic civilization, the Qianwu Empire.
Beyond that lay the territory of the Human Race, countless races, the Primal Universe, the Universe Sea, and the Origin Continent.
The universe was vast, home to countless races and countless powerful beings, along with countless opportunities and dangers.
In this world, even immortal gods were merely a starting point.
Universe Lords who could Control of Space-Time and Universe's Strongest who could create universes were the true powerhouses.
This world was simply too vast. Compared to it, Earth was far too insignificant.
Yet despite its insignificance, Earth was also where the story began.
And he had become a classmate of Luo Feng, the protagonist of Swallowed Star.
If he had not transmigrated and gained a cheat, Qin Mu would have immediately gone to cling to Luo Feng.
The college entrance exams had just ended, and Luo Feng was not even a Pre-warrior yet. Knowing how the plot would unfold, Qin Mu still had a chance to cling to him.
However, Qin Mu had no such intention right now.
Because there was a strange soul link in Qin Mu's mind.
The target of that link was on the right side of the computer desk before him.
It was a palm-sized insect with an elastic shell, resembling a caterpillar.
It was a Zerg larva, a Zerg larva that had slept for countless years yet remained alive.
Through the soul link, Qin Mu knew that it had become his clone.
Just like how Luo Feng would later possess a Golden Horn Beast clone.
Qin Mu could clearly sense and control everything about it.
With a thought from Qin Mu, his consciousness transferred into the Zerg larva's body.
In an instant, Qin Mu found his visual senses becoming strange. The world before him seemed magnified hundreds or even thousands of times.
A giant appeared in his field of vision, startling Qin Mu. But he quickly realized that this was the Zerg larva's perspective, and the giant before him was himself.
The Zerg were a powerful race capable of endlessly devouring, evolving, and mutating.
Zerg also existed in the world of Swallowed Star.
Not only did they exist, they were one of the six peak races that occupied countless territories.
He had transmigrated, and he even had a cheat!
After being excited for a while, Qin Mu forcibly calmed himself down. If he did not want to remain as mediocre as he had in his previous life, he had to consider his current situation.
The college entrance exams were over, so changing his fate through them was no longer possible. His only hope was the Zerg larva before him.
Knowing how the future would unfold, Qin Mu was well aware that Earth was a disaster-plagued planet.
In the near future, Earth civilization would face a calamity that nearly drove it to extinction.
Three years later, on January 13, 2060, the Golden Horn Beast would attack the New York State base in America.
That would officially begin a war that would nearly exterminate humanity.
It was an all-out war between humanity and monsters.
Led by a Golden Horn Beast from the depths of the universe, monsters would breach the vast majority of base cities, including Yangzhou City, where he lived!
Earth's strongest experts, Hong and Thunder God, would fight desperately, burn their souls, and fall unconscious, nearly becoming vegetative.
The protagonist Luo Feng would sacrifice five great experts and burn everything he had, yet still fail to defeat it.
In the end, he would rely on the inheritance left by Hu Yanbo, master of Meteorite Star, to successfully seize the Golden Horn Beast's body and survive the crisis.
Without becoming a martial artist, he would not even qualify to serve as cannon fodder in such a war.
In this world, if he wanted to control his own fate, he had to possess strength. He had to become a martial artist.
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