A Call in the Darkness

"Hammer, get some rest early."

"Got it. Drive carefully on the way back, see you tomorrow." Shi Jingchui waved goodbye, watched his colleague's car disappear from view, and only then turned to head upstairs.

The evening gathering had been quite enjoyable; he had drunk a fair amount of alcohol and spent a long time as the karaoke hog, so his steps were a bit unsteady now, leaving him in a semi-intoxicated state.

After returning home, washing up, and lying on the bed, Shi Jingchui habitually picked up his phone to play with it.

This was a new phone he had bought not long ago; despite some minor flaws, the user experience was excellent, and its performance in every aspect surpassed that of major foreign brands.

His fingers swiped across the screen, flipping through books for a while, checking the news, or clicking on a few silly videos, letting out a few foolish laughs, and occasionally rolling over on the bed like a salted fish.

Unknowingly, the alcohol and sleepiness swept over him, and Shi Jingchui fell asleep while clutching his phone.

In his sleep, Shi Jingchui's body gave a sudden twitch; he reached out and grabbed nothing, and as he rolled over, he felt a sensation of falling, subconsciously thinking: Damn it, I'm going to fall off the bed!

Splash...

The next second, Shi Jingchui felt himself fall into water. Water rushed into his nasal cavity, choking him uncomfortably, and as soon as he opened his mouth, more water poured into his throat.

The agony of suffocation pulled him out of his semi-conscious state instantly. He thrashed about in a panic, but his head felt as if someone had struck it with a brick, throbbing with pain. His entire body ached, as if he had just tumbled down several flights of stairs.

"What is going on? How can I fall into water while living on the twenty-third floor?"

Boundless fear surged into his heart. Fortunately, Shi Jingchui had learned to swim, and his skills were quite good.

The desire to survive drove him to force his eyes open. It was pitch black underwater, and he couldn't see a thing. He struggled to move his limbs, using both hands and feet, and fought his way toward the surface based on instinct.

With a splash, Shi Jingchui poked his head out of the water and realized he wasn't too far from the shore.

He swam desperately toward the bank, using his last ounce of strength to crawl onto the land. With the lower half of his body still in the water, he lay on his back and spat out a large mouthful of sewage, breathing greedily, lacking even the strength to stand up.

"It feels so good to be alive!"

This was the only thought in Shi Jingchui's mind at that moment. Only now did he have the energy to think about what had happened to him.

The surroundings were silent, the night was deep, and only a crescent moon hung in the night sky.

Moonlight pierced through the clouds, allowing him to roughly see that he had crawled out of a wide river, and beneath him was a riverbank overgrown with weeds.

Looking into the distance, there was a faint outline of a city, flickering with sparse lights.

"What the hell, where is this place?"

Shi Jingchui's mind was in chaos, his eyes dazed, thinking he was still in a dream.

A cool river breeze blew by, and a sharp pain flared at the back of his head. He reached up to touch it, his hand coming away stained with bright red blood. He couldn't help but wince in pain; his head was injured, no wonder it hurt so much.

Suddenly, Shi Jingchui froze as he looked at his right hand.

As a single man over thirty, Shi Jingchui would never misidentify his own "wife." The calluses on his hand, the winding palm lines, and the scar on his index finger from an old injury—they were all gone.

Under the dim moonlight, although the hand before him looked slender and well-proportioned, and also had calluses from long-term gripping of something, Shi Jingchui made a judgment at a glance.

"This is not my hand!"

He fumbled over his wet body in a panic and immediately discovered that not only was the hand not his, but the body wasn't his either.

"I took a nap, how did I switch accounts?"

Before Shi Jingchui could figure out what was going on, a burst of intense pain erupted in his brain, as if someone had split it open with an axe and then violently stuffed in a large amount of foreign matter that didn't belong to him.

These foreign fragments were chaotic, appearing to be the life experiences of another person, intertwining with his own memories. His brain felt like a boiling pot, trying to forcibly stir and mix two completely different things together.

"Ah..."

The terrifying pain made him clutch his head and cry out, and soon he could no longer hold on and lost consciousness.

In the darkness, Shi Jingchui vaguely heard a low, greasy whispering. The voice didn't know where it came from; it sounded like it was whispering right in his ear, like the most disgusting and filthy existence in the world, making one feel nauseated. It also sounded like sharp metal scraping back and forth on glass, emitting a shrill, screeching sound that caused extreme agitation and trembling, triggering the deepest malice and madness in his heart.

This indescribable whispering sounded like a call from the abyss.

He tried to cover his ears but couldn't find where they were. The sound went straight into the depths of his soul, and although he didn't understand the meaning, he was deeply drawn in after hearing just a few words.

His mind fell into an abyss of pain, wanting to find the source of that call.

Suddenly, with a tremor, Shi Jingchui's reason and intuition told him that he could not keep listening.

"Hahahaha..."

The low voice suddenly amplified countless times, turning into a burst of crazy laughter. The whole world shook violently, shaking Shi Jingchui until he was in such pain he nearly went mad, on the verge of collapse.

In the darkness, terrifying giant mouths emerged, and the laughter came from within them.

Every evil mouth was filled with jagged, saw-like teeth, and viscous black liquid flowed from between the teeth. The black liquid quickly squirmed and expanded, forming hundreds of thousands of greasy tentacles that surged over like a tidal wave.

Just as this terrible nightmare was about to end in tragedy, a red light suddenly flashed from somewhere. Eight red lights, like flower petals, swam rapidly, forming a spherical space that surrounded Shi Jingchui.

The shelter formed by the petals looked fragile, but it was actually indestructible. It instantly blocked all the incoming black tentacles, like a reef in a huge black ocean—seemingly small, yet unshakable.

This layer of red light not only protected Shi Jingchui but also isolated the corrupting whispers, slowing down the pain and the evil thoughts of madness.

Countless tentacles lashed out for who knows how long, emitting bursts of crazy sounds, before finally retreating into the darkness, unwilling.

The eight petals shrank and returned to a ball of light. Upon closer inspection, inside the light was a blooming Little Red Flower, composed of eight petals of varying sizes. The core of the flower contained a hidden golden light, making the whole thing look like a glowing sun, appearing quite abstract.

"Why does this pattern look a bit familiar..."

Just as Shi Jingchui was wondering, the darkness suddenly receded like a tide, and the light bloomed, causing him to wake from this long and oppressive nightmare. He suddenly sat up straight and let out a loud shout.

"Ah!"

Blinding light pierced his eyes. Shi Jingchui raised a hand to shield them, and once he had adjusted, he lowered it to see a golden sun rising over the distant horizon, its rays shimmering across the surface of the river.

"It's dawn."

He murmured the words, then froze.

Because this sentence had been spoken in a language that was both familiar and foreign. He had never studied it, yet he knew how to use it naturally, and he knew it was "Aurelian," the official language of the Aurelian Empire, complete with a slight accent from the "Grand Duchy of Longsand."

A massive influx of memories surfaced in his mind. These memories felt shattered, chaotic, and incomplete, though fortunately, they were no longer as agonizing as they had been before he lost consciousness.

A few minutes later, Shi Jingchui let out a long breath.

By now, he understood: he had inexplicably transmigrated to another world. This was no longer Earth!

He didn't know why he had transmigrated. He was just an ordinary office worker at a provincial library; his salary wasn't high, but it was never late, his relationships with colleagues were harmonious, and he lived a life free from contention. He was in his thirties and unmarried, a confirmed bachelor by choice.

He had no desire to marry—what girlfriend could be more fun than a video game?

He usually spent his time after work immersed in games and various hobbies, living a content little life. How did he end up transmigrating?

Shi Jingchui really didn't want to transmigrate, and he certainly didn't want to end up in a dangerous world.

From the fragmented information in those incomplete memories, the civilization of this world had a long and complex history. Its level of productivity was quite high, with some aspects similar to or even exceeding those of Earth.

However, there were far more differences than similarities.

The greatest difference was that this world was home to a vast array of supernatural phenomena and powerful individuals who dictated the development and direction of civilization; they were known as Transcendentals.

As the name implied, Transcendentals possessed power far beyond that of ordinary people and were the ruling class of the entire world.

Only a small number of people could become Transcendentals. Ordinary people who wished to break through their class could pay to enter a Supernatural Academy, which offered a certain chance of promotion, but the probability was very low, and the tuition was extremely expensive.

The name of this body was "Rayne," from a small place called Eagle Marsh Town, and he had previously been a student at a Supernatural Academy.

For the past three years, Rayne had achieved nothing at the academy and remained an ordinary person.

Because the tuition was so high, his father, Bard, was unwilling to continue supporting his enrollment, hoping his son would return to their hometown to inherit the family business—a grain mill. Rayne had flatly refused. After a major argument with his father, Rayne returned to the city of Longsand alone, rented a cheap apartment outside the academy, and tried to find a decent job to save up for tuition. He had only been there for half a month when the incident occurred.

In Rayne's memories, the content was dominated by his life in Longsand.

What shocked Shi Jingchui the most was that the gods of this world were real!

The gods all had their own churches in the mortal realm. Whether in the past or the present, these churches played an extremely important role, driving the course of history and influencing not only the upper echelons of every nation but also the deepest levels of people's daily lives.

Almost everyone was required to worship a deity, or even multiple deities; the godless were considered evil existences that everyone had the right to punish.

As an atheist, Shi Jingchui didn't know how to face this for the moment.

He wanted to return to Earth, but he had no clue how, nor did he even know how he had arrived here in the first place.

"Sigh..."

Shi Jingchui let out a sigh, then thought of something else: he had transmigrated here and occupied someone else's body, so was his own body on Earth dead?

"When everyone finds out I didn't go to work tomorrow morning and can't reach me, they should find my body at home soon enough. It won't get to the point where I'm rotting before I'm discovered."

He thought of his parents, and his heart suddenly felt heavy with grief. His eyes turned red, but he comforted himself: "At least I'm not an only child. My older sister and younger brother will be there to keep Mom and Dad company."

After a long while, Shi Jingchui's emotions finally stabilized.

The sunlight grew more intense, and his throat was incredibly dry. Although his body still ached, it was much better, with only the back of his head still throbbing faintly. He gritted his teeth, stood up, and found a shallow spot in the river. He leaned over, cupped the water in his hands, and drank a few mouthfuls. It finally quenched his thirst, and he splashed his face, feeling a surge of energy.

As he wiped the water from his face, the clear river water reflected a strange face, causing Shi Jingchui to freeze in his tracks.

"What the hell!"

Seeing this face clearly, Shi Jingchui couldn't help but blurt out a curse.

Judging by his appearance, the owner of this face was not yet twenty. His face still held a touch of boyishness, with short black hair. Due to blood loss, his complexion was somewhat pale, but he had thick brows, large eyes, and a straight nose. His features were well-proportioned, handsome, and even a bit delicate. The only drawback was that his gaze was unfocused, and he looked completely listless.

"This is way too handsome!"

Out of the envy, jealousy, and hatred shared by all men, Shi Jingchui muttered subconsciously, then his eyes lit up and he straightened his back: "So I'm this handsome, heh!"

He used the river surface as a mirror, struck a few poses, and carefully observed this face, which was even more handsome than his old one, nodding in satisfaction.

Although he had transmigrated against his will, ending up in the body of a handsome man was a blessing in disguise. It was much better than transmigrating into a woman or some other strange, misshapen alien race.

This world wasn't just for humans; in Rayne's memories, there were at least dozens of non-human races.

"From now on, I am Rayne."

"If I could go back to Earth now, I could make a living on my looks alone, heh."

"I could probably easily get a dozen 'sugar mamas'... and if I didn't want to lose my integrity, I could at least become a cross-dressing streamer or post transformation videos on Bilibili; that would have a bright future too..."

"I look a bit like that foreign actor, Lee Pace, just a bit thinner and not as tall. But that guy seems to be bisexual... pfft, never mind."

Rayne was lost in his wild thoughts, trying to find joy in his suffering, when suddenly a red light flashed before his eyes. He saw his own eyes in the river reflection turn red, and an abstract pattern appeared in both pupils.

The pattern consisted of eight red petals, resembling a blooming flower, with a cluster of golden light at the core containing faint, tiny characters.

Rayne felt a moment of mental vertigo. Isn't this the thing from my nightmare earlier? Could it be more than just a dream?

The pattern in his pupils appeared for only a few seconds before vanishing.

Immediately after, a semi-transparent interface appeared in Rayne's field of vision. It looked so ethereal that it gave him a fright, and he thought he was hallucinating from extreme exhaustion.

He waved his hands in front of his face and turned his head left and right, only to find that the interface seemed rooted in his brain or projected onto his retinas. He couldn't close it, couldn't shake it off, and it remained even when he closed his eyes.

Most importantly, he was all too familiar with this interface.

"Isn't this my phone's startup screen!"