Reborn in Another World

Shi Yan suddenly woke, feeling as if his head were splitting apart. His skull felt as heavy as if it had been filled with lead.

He was in a dark stone cavern about the size of a basketball court. Piles of white bones littered the stone floor, and a dozen fresh corpses in strange clothes lay scattered around him. Their clothes were still bright, and they didn't look as if they'd been dead for long.

Where was he? Was he still in the Bahamas, in the Caribbean?

Shi Yan had been a fanatic extreme-sports enthusiast, so obsessed he was nearly insane. He was twenty-seven. His mother had died when he was young, and his father, who had spent a lifetime amassing a fortune, had succumbed to cancer in his prime. Shi Yan had inherited wealth he couldn't have squandered in a lifetime.

The things others spent their whole lives chasing had come easily to him. He'd had them from the very beginning.

He had his whole youth ahead of him, yet he couldn't find a goal. Being rich but directionless left him perpetually gloomy.

Then, at seventeen, he discovered extreme sports, and suddenly life seemed interesting. His immense wealth let him go wild in a sport ordinary people couldn't afford to take part in.

Free climbing, crocodile bungee jumping, low-altitude skydiving, volcano boarding, cliff diving, skating beneath cars—every kind of insane extreme sport became his greatest pleasure.

He loved the danger of teetering between life and death, the thrill that sent his blood rushing until he could hardly breathe!

For ten years, he tried every crazed and perilous extreme sport he could find. Wherever danger lurked, wherever death awaited, that was where he went.

A decade of extreme sports had made Shi Yan exceptionally fit. Hundreds of brushes with death had left his nerves freakishly tough. He used to joke that he was the man who lived closest to the Grim Reaper.

Exploring the blue holes of the Bahamas was to be his final extreme challenge. Some of the blue holes plunged hundreds of meters deep; others were as complex as mazes. Even the slightest movement could stir up the silt on the bottom. No matter how bright your diving lamp was, you'd be completely unable to see where you were going.

That was why every diver, no matter how skilled, had to tie on a steel cable before entering a blue hole. The cable was an explorer's lifeline. When it ran out, that meant they'd reached the limit of their dive. To swim farther was suicide, because no one could find their way out of the "maze" without the cable. According to the Bahamas maritime authorities, an average of twenty expert divers died in the blue holes each year, most of them lost and unable to find their way out.

Facing one of the world's most dangerous explorations, Shi Yan had deliberately discarded the cable known as his lifeline and embarked on a reckless, suicidal adventure. In the end, he'd gotten lost in the mysterious blue hole.

And in a blue hole, getting lost meant death...

Shi Yan lay sprawled on the cold stone floor. Using the strange, flickering light on the cavern walls, he looked over his surroundings. He felt as if a handful of fragmented memories that weren't his own had suddenly appeared in his mind.

They were the memories of another Shi Yan...

That man had the same name as him, but he was only seventeen. A fanatic archaeology enthusiast, he'd been obsessed with investigating all kinds of ancient ruins. Armed with nothing but a tattered old map, he'd brought a few family guards here after enduring half a year of hardship.

Frowning, Shi Yan slowly stood up. His whole body felt weak, frail.

The next moment, Shi Yan realized that this body wasn't his. It belonged to the other Shi Yan, the one who was only seventeen.

His expression changed drastically. He stared in astonishment, frozen like a wooden chicken.

I really did die in the blue hole. No, I'm clearly still alive—alive in a way that defies all explanation!

From the other Shi Yan's fragmented memories, he learned that this place was called the Divine Grace Continent. There was no technological civilization here, only constant warfare and Martial Artists running rampant!

Many people here were born with extraordinary gifts, mysterious talents that showed themselves soon after birth. Some were born with the power of lightning in their bodies; some could control plants; some could burrow through the earth at will; some were born with a wondrous sensitivity that let them communicate telepathically with demonic beasts; and some carried the power of frost within them...

These gifts were strange and mysterious, each more unusual than the last. Nearly everyone born with one became a Martial Artist, and the talents within them were called "Martial Souls."

"Martial Souls" were almost always innate. Only a very rare few could obtain one through some extraordinary encounter, and the odds were so low they could be ignored. That was why this continent was called the Divine Grace Continent: Martial Artists believed their "Martial Souls" had been bestowed upon them by the gods.

Not all Martial Artists possessed a "Martial Soul." In fact, the vast majority did not. Ordinary people could become Martial Artists through cultivation, but they couldn't gain a "Martial Soul" that way. A special "Martial Soul," however, could accelerate a Martial Artist's cultivation, greatly boost their combat power, and grant them special abilities...

As a result, among Martial Artists at the same level, those with a "Martial Soul" were far stronger, and their future achievements would surpass those without one by a wide margin. Those blessed with a "Martial Soul" had every advantage on the path of cultivation.

"Martial Souls" could be inherited through bloodlines, and the chances were high.

Generally speaking, if one parent possessed a "Martial Soul," their child had a good chance of inheriting that same "Martial Soul." If both parents had "Martial Souls," their child had an even greater chance of inheriting one—either the father's or the mother's. But almost all children could inherit only one.

In such cases, there was also a very small chance that the child would inherit neither parent's "Martial Soul" and be born ordinary. The odds were low: among a hundred couples like this, it might happen just once.

A hundred times rarer still was another possibility—the child could inherit both parents' "Martial Souls"! These were known as "Twin Martial Souls," and those fortunate enough to possess them were called "darlings of the gods"!

The odds were even slimmer in this case. Among ten thousand couples who each possessed a different "Martial Soul," there might be a single such exception.

Shi Yan stood there dazed, continuing to sort through the fragmented memories in his mind...

The original owner of this body came from the Shi Family, part of the Merchant Alliance. The Shi Family possessed the "Petrification" Martial Soul, which could turn the body to stone in battle, making it as hard as a boulder and able to resist some of the invading essence energy. As one's level rose, the "Petrification" Martial Soul grew more powerful, until it could nearly withstand blades and spears without injury.

Unfortunately, this fellow had failed to inherit the "Petrification" Martial Soul. The Shi Family had judged him unfit for martial cultivation, and he himself had no interest in the Martial Way. He'd never studied it, not once, and had devoted all his energy to exploring ruins instead.

He'd come here after enduring countless dangers, all because of a tattered old map. Without the map to guide him, he never could have found this ancient cavern, hidden beneath layer upon layer of thick foliage.

"Woooo... whooooo..."

A sound like a wailing demon suddenly echoed through the cavern. Shi Yan shuddered and whipped around toward the source: a blood pool.

The pool lay in the very center of the cavern and was only ten square meters across. It brimmed with terrifying, bright-red liquid. Bubbles rose and burst with wet pops, releasing dreadful howls like the cries of demons and ghosts. It was utterly eerie.

He knew that the guards who'd recently died around him had gone mad because of the howls from the pool, then turned on one another and perished throughout the cavern. The other Shi Yan had collapsed unconscious under the influence of those terrifying cries as well.

It was all because of the blood pool!

Shi Yan fixed his gaze on the pool, his expression grave. Each howl pierced his nerves and roused a murderous urge deep within him, making him want to kill everyone around him!

His head still felt as if it were splitting apart. The howls from the pool tormented him, making it impossible to concentrate and think.

There had to be something strange about the blood pool!

With a grim expression, Shi Yan steeled his mind. The nerves he'd toughened over years of living on the edge between life and death came to his aid. Though his head still throbbed terribly, he remained calm and began walking toward the pool, one step at a time.

"Crack! Crack!"

Gray-white bones shattered beneath his feet. Shi Yan's face was tense. Judging from the heaps of bones scattered through the cavern, plenty of people had died here before they arrived. The blood pool was the source of all this evil. Wasn't trying to uncover its secrets just asking for death?

The closer he got to the pool, the sharper the howls grew. They stabbed into his mind like knives. The killing frenzy hidden in the cries threatened to shatter every last bit of his reason and composure. If not for the freakish toughness of his nerves, hardened by years of challenging his limits, he would have been unable to bear it long ago.

Bones littered the ground around the pool, and pale-white skeletons could be seen faintly beneath its surface. The small pool was like a sea of blood from hell, and it had swallowed who knew how many lives.

Shi Yan had a vague feeling that this bizarre blood pool had something to do with his soul coming here. Perhaps he could use it to return—to the familiar world he knew, to the blue hole in the Bahamas.

As he drew closer, Shi Yan suddenly noticed something strange. The pool's blood was bright red and thick, yet he couldn't smell even a trace of blood.

On the contrary, the air here was remarkably fresh. There was even a faint, inexplicable fragrance. When he paid close attention, he realized it came from the blood pool!

Filled with curiosity, Shi Yan became even more convinced that something strange lurked inside the pool.

He took a few more steps. Suddenly, an endless sea of blood appeared in his mind. Countless bones piled up into islands, and some were perfectly preserved—fossils of creatures from the Cretaceous Period, each as big as a hill. Amid the sea of blood, a voice kept repeating: "Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Shi Yan held fast to his resolve, but his heart raced beyond his control. A terrifying pressure, like suffocation, bore down on him. He could smell death, a familiar scent. He felt he'd never been this close to it before.

He knew that the next step might be death!

Yet his years of death-defying adventures had never made him afraid. If anything, they'd taught him to savor this moment! Facing death head-on, seeking life within death—that was the true meaning of extreme sports!

One step, then another, and another!

Under the blood pool's all-consuming pressure, Shi Yan finally reached its edge. Staring at the small pool, the reckless side of his nature flared to life, and he roared, "I want to see what's so strange about this little blood pool!"

With that, Shi Yan sneered and leaped into the blood pool.