First Arrival in American Comics

Chaos, distortion, color, confusion, fusion, monsters...

If tomorrow were the sixteenth day of the week, Cthulhu would descend upon the world...

An ancient demon opened its blood-soaked maw and spat out God and dinosaurs fighting each other...

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode giant toads as they hopped about, while Snow White and Gargamel laughed and chatted...

For the poor, spending money was a crime. For the rich, spending money was a hobby...

The Faceless One not only devoured the dead, but also ate half of its father...

Everyone took flight from furnaces, kissing themselves in midair. Their lips were corrosive, and skeletons fell from the sky one after another...

Severed heads hung from kindergarten desks. The last teacher had AIDS too...

"Ah..."

A cry tore from his lips as a man who looked to be in his thirties jolted awake in bed. His mind had been utter chaos just now, with bizarre scenes appearing one after another, nearly driving him lost and mad.

The room was dark. Chen Xing lay motionless on the bed as the scenes from the dream continued to flash through his mind. Amid the extreme chaos, an old man with wild hair and bulging eyes suddenly appeared and punched him awake.

If not for that punch, Chen Xing suspected he would have been lost in it forever. The dream had been too real—so real that it did not feel fake at all.

His mouth was dry, and Chen Xing reached toward the bedside table to turn on the lamp. After feeling around, though, he realized there was no lamp. Forget the lamp; there was not even a bedside table.

Before he could figure out what was happening, another sharp pain struck his head, and Chen Xing passed out cold.

Within his consciousness, Chen Xing floated through the universe. The wild-haired old man who had punched him appeared again, his eyes unfocused, drool hanging from the corner of his mouth, a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

After the two stared at each other for a while, the old man suddenly transformed into a beam of light and plunged into Chen Xing's brain. In that instant, it felt as though the universe had exploded.

Even while unconscious, Chen Xing still felt as if his head were splitting apart. Countless memories flooded in, his brain neurons began activating at an accelerated frequency, and the neural pathways that had once been sealed off connected one by one. His brain entered a state of rapid development.

Three days later, Chen Xing shakily climbed out of bed. His stomach rumbled like thunder in a drought. Hungry—he felt unbelievably hungry. Yet his mind was remarkably clear, and everything he looked at seemed exceptionally distinct.

This clarity was not because his vision had improved. Rather, he could perceive the essence of things—their principles, trajectories, structures, and more. He could feel his brain processing information at a vastly increased speed. If his old brain had been riding in a wheelchair, then his current one was driving a Ferrari.

And the one who had given him all this was that wild-haired old man. The old man looked somewhat like Einstein, but he was not Einstein. He was Grandpa Rick from the wildly imaginative, highly rated American comic Rick and Morty from his original world—and specifically Rick from the C137 Universe.

Rick and Morty was an American comic with a multiverse setting. In other words, every universe had a Grandpa Rick. Their fates differed, as did their intelligence, but only Rick from the C137 Universe was the strongest—the universally acknowledged smartest man in the entire universe.

No one could match his intelligence. Inventing all kinds of advanced technology was as simple to him as eating and drinking. Invisibility belts, life-save remote controls, neutrino bombs—he could create anything you could imagine and things you could not. He could even use science to analyze magic and then create magical items.

But despite Grandpa Rick's genius, he was cynical, arrogant, and rebellious. Very few people earned his respect. He had single-handedly brought down the Galactic Federation, blown apart the world-destroying demon king while drunk, and even fought Zeus over a woman. Though he had not won that fight, he had still made Zeus bleed quite a bit.

Now, Chen Xing had fused with Grandpa Rick and obtained everything he possessed.

Looking around this utterly unfamiliar home, he finally understood that he had transmigrated. Everything he had experienced over the past three days had been an aftereffect of that transmigration.

He felt around in his pocket and pulled out his driver's license. It read Jude Herbert—not a terrible name. Besides the license, the original owner had also left him some money. After counting it, he found the grand sum of fifty-seven dollars. According to the memories, he also owed the local gang three thousand dollars.

He opened the refrigerator, hoping to find something to eat, only to discover that it contained nothing but cola and beer. There was not even the slightest bit of food to fill his stomach.

"FUCK! I can't become the first transmigrator to starve to death."

Clutching his stomach, he slowly made his way outside step by step. He opened the battered old door, pressed the button for the elevator that looked like it was from the last century, and Jude slowly left the old apartment building.

According to the original body's memories, there was a Mexican restaurant a few dozen meters from the apartment. The burritos and tacos there tasted good, and they were cheap and filling.

He staggered into the restaurant. The owner was a huge fat man weighing over two hundred pounds. Seeing him, the man said, "Herbert, you haven't shown your face for three days. Did you find some job that makes big money?"

Jude found an empty seat away from the others. "Come on, Ceres. What big-money job could there be? I just suddenly felt lost and lay in bed for three days."

"You know, three days. A full three days. Dizziness and hunger filled me up. I thought I'd figure something out, but Motherfucker, I figured out nothing. So now I need burritos and chicken rice, right now!"

Before long, the owner's wife, Anna, came over carrying a tray. After setting down the food, she stared at Jude for several seconds, surprise in her eyes. "Herbert, did drugs fry your brain? Why the hell do you look like that?"

Jude spread his hands. "Okay, okay, I get it. I just look over ten years older. Do you have to be so shocked?"

Jude had noticed it when he looked at the driver's license. His legal age was only twenty-one, but if someone saw him in a mirror, they would probably believe he was forty. After all, one could hardly expect a man with graying temples to be young.

Jude knew perfectly well that this was an aftereffect of fusing with Grandpa Rick. Rick was already eighty years old. Even if their ages were averaged out, he should have been fifty. Looking less than forty meant he had already come out ahead.

Anna left with a frown, while Jude began wolfing down the food like a starving ghost reborn. In just five minutes, a large plate of chicken rice and three burritos had vanished into his stomach. Only then did Jude feel a little better. He slumped in his chair, closed his eyes to rest, and listened to the television.

"We now bring you the latest news from Metropolis. Metallo escaped from prison last night, and police are conducting a full-scale manhunt."

"A crashed fighter jet has been discovered deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed to be a fighter from World War II, and a frozen man suspected to be Captain America was found inside."

"Central City news: the Rogues have robbed seven jewelry stores and two banks in succession. Preliminary estimates place the losses at four hundred million dollars. Central City police are calling for Flash."

"Stark Industries has announced a breakthrough in the field of new energy."

"Mutants attacked a military base in North Carolina. Their motives remain unknown."

"What the hell!"