Space Ring

Linjiang Market, Fengming Road 97.

Lin An strode through the empty street and kicked the front door of a roadside shop.

As Lin Jiang City's entertainment district, this place was practically deserted during the day.

But at night, when the bars and karaoke halls opened, it became extremely lively.

Bang!

His hard leather boot slammed into the Roller Shutter Door, the sound abrupt and piercing.

He showed no restraint.

The symbolic sheet-metal door gave way after a few kicks, splitting open with a gap half a man's height tall.

As a "tea house" used for gambling and transactions at night, even its inner door had been left unlocked by the guards.

After all, this was a Gathering Place for numerous criminal groups. No one dared come here to steal.

"Who the fuck kicked the door? Tired of living?"

Inside the tea house, a middle-aged man with tattooed arms ran over while cursing, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

The slippers half-hanging off his feet slapped against the floor.

The shop was dim, though its decor was quite nice.

Lin An bent down and entered, comparing the surroundings with the location on his phone.

The route overlapped with the marked red dot.

"I'm fucking talking to you! Are you pretending not to hear me?"

"What, are your fucking ears broken?"

"This should be the place."

Lin An muttered to himself, completely ignoring the tattooed man's incoming punch.

After casually putting away his phone, he shifted slightly and easily dodged the fierce blow.

A sidestep, then an elbow strike!

As though he had predicted it, Lin An, armed with rich combat experience from his previous life, shifted his footing and moved behind the tattooed man.

Bang!

The point of his elbow whipped out, his hard elbow joint smashing viciously into a spot three inches along the tattooed man's spine.

A miserable cry of pain rang out.

"Shut up."

His right fist shot out with a howl.

With a casual strike, Lin An knocked him to the ground.

The fallen tattooed man cursed repeatedly. His chin had slammed into the floor and was covered in blood, leaving him in a wretched state.

"You're courting death!"

Filled with resentment and rage.

The tattooed man struggled to prop himself up, reaching toward his waist with his right hand.

Lin An's gaze turned icy as he brought down his foot.

Courting death.

The hard sole instantly stomped on his temple. The tattooed man had no power to resist and fainted in the blink of an eye, the dagger he had just drawn dropping from his palm.

Kicking the body out of his way, Lin An casually surveyed the inside of the tea house.

In his previous life, there had been signs before Doomsday arrived.

Some points where reality overlapped with the Different Dimension had already appeared on the eve of Doomsday.

According to his memories, an exceptionally rare piece of equipment would appear here.

It was a ring fused with Spatial Fragments!

Although Space Rings were standard equipment for everyone in films and novels, they were exceptionally rare in the apocalypse.

Not only that, even equipment itself was extremely scarce.

This wasn't like ordinary games, where every monster dropped gear.

In the Doomsday Game, most Awakened beings, whose strength far exceeded that of ordinary people, might not possess even a single piece of equipment by the time they died, let alone a Space Ring.

In his previous life, this precious Space Ring had been obtained by a small-time thug.

Not only had he awakened a talent through the equipment, but he had also used the ring's storage function to establish a Safe Zone.

The Space Ring could store supplies, preserving them and keeping them warm.

It was practically the perfect tool for murder and arson while away from home!

Lin An searched around with some anticipation.

Half an hour later.

Splash.

With a helpless expression, he dumped a bucket of ice water over the tattooed man's head.

He couldn't find it.

Startled by the cold water, the man shuddered and instinctively opened his mouth to curse.

"You—"

A kick shot out.

Before the tattooed man could finish, Lin An kicked his teeth to pieces.

Blood mixed with broken teeth scattered across the floor.

"I ask. You answer."

"If your mouth isn't clean, then die."

He had no idea where this guy got so many filthy words.

Lin An planted one foot on his neck, his gaze cold.

"Gulp."

"Don't kill me!"

Swallowing hard, the tattooed man seemed to come to his senses and looked at him with fear.

Normally, he threw his weight around and acted like a tyrant by relying on his ties to the underworld.

But when faced with someone truly ruthless, he was genuinely terrified.

"Where's the ring?"

"Or where are things like jewelry kept?"

The tattooed man froze. He had assumed Lin An had come specifically to cause trouble.

Was this theft?

No.

It was robbery?

You should've said so earlier!

The tattooed man felt somewhat wronged.

He had merely played cards too late last night and slept here.

If he had known Lin An was here for something, he definitely wouldn't have attacked right away.

"I don't know. I'm not the owner here."

After hesitating for a moment, the tattooed man shrank back and answered cautiously, though his speech was somewhat slurred.

Seeing that something in Lin An's gaze seemed off, as though he was preparing to kill him, he hurriedly continued.

"There seem to be a lot of things in the second-floor office, but it's locked!"

Bang!

A leather boot struck his face.

Having gotten his answer, Lin An kicked the tattooed man unconscious again.

A lock?

Easy enough.

Having come from the military, he had practiced lockpicking as well.

Time passed. The man on the floor remained unconscious, a dirty shoeprint stamped across his face.

Half an hour later.

Lin An carried a Fire Axe and violently smashed his way through the door.

The anti-theft lock on the expensive wooden door remained intact, but the center of the door was covered in marks where it had been smashed apart.

Click.

After entering, he switched on the light beside the wall.

Lin An carefully examined the room, and something unusual caught his attention.

"Is this a... spatial fluctuation?"

It seemed no one had entered the room for some time. A faint musty smell lingered in the air.

In the corner of the room.

A fist-sized, strange, mysterious patch of black floated in midair.

The blackness seemed to have occupied a patch of empty space.

Lin An took a deep breath, his eyes fixed tightly on a flash of silver-white within the darkness.

He was overwhelmed with delight.

That was... the Space Ring!

This ring had caused quite a stir in his previous life.

Everyone in Lin Jiang City knew that the thug had made his fortune here.

He had gone from an ordinary person to an immensely powerful Awakened being.

Only afterward had he established a Safe Zone outside the city.

The legendary equipment was right before him!

Lin An decisively reached for the ring, only for the sensation at his fingertips to vanish.

Ignoring the abnormality, his expression sharpened. He thrust half his hand directly inside and fished out the ring.

Buzz! Buzz!

Continuous ripples instantly spread out, and an unsettling aura emerged from the Black Hole.

Roar!!

A roar suddenly came from within the Black Hole as dense Death Qi desperately spread outward.

Run!

Lin An grabbed the ring and sprinted away!

He had no idea what it was, but it looked as though he had provoked something he couldn't afford to provoke.

There hadn't been any news of this in his previous life, had there?

He didn't know whether it was because he had taken the ring early.

Lin An had no time to think. With a burst of speed, he rushed out the door.

The silver-white ring was clenched tightly in his palm.

"Beep."

"Doomsday Game Player detected."

"Beep. Detection failed. No datafied body detected."

"Warning!"

"Warning!"

The piercing alarms echoed through his mind, filling him with inexplicable unease.

Behind him, the dense Death Qi was like vines from the Abyss, crazily extending outward as though alive.

There was nowhere to run!

Lin An's expression hardened. He simply smashed through the glass and leaped from the second-floor window.

The moment he landed, extreme weakness and darkness flooded his entire field of vision.

His consciousness vanished, and he instantly lost consciousness.

The ring in his palm slowly faded away and merged with him as One-Body Theory.