Arrival!

Blue Star Calendar, 2045.

Although the Deep Blue Network had long conquered brain-computer interface technology and ushered human society into an era of universal holography, an insurmountable Wall of Sighs had always stood before every game developer—75% realism.

This was a biological firewall set by the human brain to keep self-awareness from descending into chaos. Whether it was Penguin Empire's Metaverse or Blizzard's Titanfall, the moment they tried to break through that threshold, players would be forcibly disconnected due to cerebral overload.

Until that night, when a pitch-black pop-up violently tore open that wall.

Magic City, downtown. Cloud Apartment.

The neon lights outside the window reflected off Chen Feng's pale face. He leaned wearily inside the million-yuan Silver Wing life-support pod, his hollow gaze fixed on the electronic diagnosis he had just received on the holographic screen.

"Synaptic Reaction Delay Syndrome..."

Chen Feng muttered, his fingertips trembling slightly. To ordinary people, it was nothing more than the occasional shaky hand; but to him, once at the pinnacle of the God's Domain professional league and hailed as the God of Combat, it was a death sentence.

His APM had fallen from six hundred at his peak to three hundred, worse than even a second-tier trainee. The fall from the clouds into the mud was more painful than death.

"Ding."

With a soft chime, a pitch-black pop-up abruptly covered the diagnosis's glaring black text on a white background.

[Do you want to understand the meaning of life?]

A cold, self-mocking smile tugged at Chen Feng's lips, his eyes filled with gloom. "It's already 2045, and someone is still using this ancient virus meme to scam people?"

He raised his hand, intending to close the prank. But just as his finger was about to touch the close button, he stopped.

Those words seemed to possess some kind of magic, like a needle piercing his long-numbed heart.

His career was already ruined. Could life possibly get any worse? If it was a scam, then let it scam him. At least it was better than facing that diagnosis.

With the reckless resolve of someone who had given up on everything, Chen Feng pressed the confirmation button glowing blood-red.

The next second, there was no anticipated loading bar.

The life-support pod beneath him suddenly emitted a low roar unlike anything it had ever made before. Then an irresistible torrent of data instantly flooded his consciousness. There was no dizziness, no nausea—only the weightless sensation of his soul being ripped away in an instant.

At the same time, Jingdu City First People's Hospital.

The intensive care ward was filled with the faint scent of disinfectant late at night. Li You lay in bed, struggling to move her eyes.

After three years of high-level paralysis, her world had been cruelly compressed into this three-square-meter hospital bed. Even the most advanced holographic equipment could only let her "float" through the online world by tracking her eyes and faint brain waves. It could never simulate the sensation of her feet touching the ground.

"Can I really... run again?"

Li You stared at the pop-up projected onto her retina, her heart pounding violently. It might be a lie, but to a drowning person, even a straw was something she would desperately clutch.

She closed her eyes and sent out that longing cry in her mind: Confirm.

The instant his consciousness returned, Chen Feng thought he had died.

He floated in a pure white space, surrounded by flowing liquid light, warm as a womb. Before him, four enormous gene spirals slowly rotated, each radiating a powerful aura that made his heart tremble.

A vast, solemn voice sounded directly in the depths of his soul:

[Please select your evolution path]

Chen Feng's gaze swept across the options.

The [Divine Guard] was heavy as a mountain, the [Life Weaver] brimmed with vitality, and the [Spirit Pivot Envoy] crackled with lightning. In the end, his eyes locked firmly onto the second option.

[Hunter] (Prototype: Killer T-Cell)

Role: Extreme-speed Assassin, weak-point breaker.

Description: An executioner who walks in the shadows, slaughtering only rebels.

"Extreme speed... Assassin..."

Chen Feng looked at the sleek black bone blades, and the passion that had long died within him reignited from the ashes. The reaction speed he had lost in reality, the thrill of controlling his own body—he would reclaim them here!

"I choose this." Chen Feng's voice was hoarse yet firm. "This time, I'll take back everything I lost!"

Meanwhile, in another corner of the white space.

Li You stared blankly at her "legs."

They were a pair of inhuman limbs covered in white exoskeletons, streamlined and filled with strength. She cautiously issued the command to lift her leg.

It moved.

There was no delay, no resistance.

Li You tried jumping in place. Her body rose lightly into the air. When she landed, the vibration from beneath her feet was so clear, so real.

"Wuh..."

She covered her mouth as tears streamed uncontrollably down her face. She jumped and danced through the space, laughing like a madwoman, before finally pointing with trembling fingers at the class called [Life Weaver].

Since heaven has given me another chance at life, I'll use these hands to mend and heal it all.

Coordinates: Heart Core Sanctuary

BOOM—!!!

Chen Feng felt as though he had been stuffed into an intercontinental missile and slammed hard into the ground. The violent impact made him stagger, but he quickly regained his footing.

When the dust settled and he saw the world before him clearly, the former professional legend was completely speechless.

"This is... way too insane..."

It was a vast, dark-red world. The sky was a dome woven from countless gigantic crimson tubes. Those dragon-thick pipes were translucent, and within them, one could vaguely see golden-red torrents surging with thunderous roars.

The air carried a scent he had never smelled before—like rust, yet also like highly concentrated ozone. Breathing it into his lungs gave him an almost intoxicating sense of excitement.

But the most awe-inspiring sight was the scarlet sun floating in the center of the plaza.

It was a gigantic heart core, beating violently.

"Thump... thump..."

With every beat, Chen Feng could feel the ground beneath his feet tremble, even his bones resonating with it. This wasn't sound design at all. This was the heartbeat of a god!

Chen Feng lowered his head and looked at his jet-black claws, polished like obsidian. He swung them hard through the air.

RIP—

The sound of air being torn apart was crystal clear. There was no delay, no lag. His body was even ten times more sensitive than it had been at the peak of his condition in reality!

"Is this really a game?"

A surprised female voice came from beside him.

Chen Feng turned and saw a petite female character carrying a huge mechanical backpack, crouching on the ground with a dark-red fragment in her hand.

It was Li You. Her face was flushed with excitement. "Look! This floor's material! The system says I collected 'Trace Myocardial Fiber'! And I just pinched myself—it really hurt, but it was the kind of pain I could bear!"

At that moment, white light flashed continuously across the plaza as a thousand first-test players descended one after another.

Some had become [Divine Guards], standing two and a half meters tall and clad in heavy white bone plate armor, crashing their chests against one another like the Hulk to test the collision physics. Others had become [Spirit Pivot Envoys], blue arcs of electricity crackling around their bodies as they tried to zap their teammates' hair with their fingers.

Just as these "country bumpkins" were still marveling at the era-defying physics engine and graphics, an abrupt change occurred.

[Warning! Warning!]

[Hostile lifeforms detected! Coordinates: Pericardial Defense Line, E3 sector.]

The piercing alarm instantly drowned out the majestic heartbeat in the background.

The crimson sky above the plaza suddenly split open, as though a wound had burst apart. A mass of black mist spread rapidly like ink dropped into clear water.

ROAR—!!!

Accompanied by a teeth-grating shriek, the first monster charged out of the black fog.

It was a black arthropod creature the size of a calf. Green pus flowed over its body, and its compound eyes gleamed with bloodthirsty red light. The moment it landed, its sharp mouthparts corroded a huge crater into the fleshy floor, sending up sizzling white smoke.

It was a Void Locust, a pathogenic bacterium within Gu Yuan's body.

The system's cold, majestic voice exploded in every player's mind:

[Server-Wide Epic Quest: First Blood]

[Objective: Eliminate the Void Locust vanguard invading the Pericardial Defense Line (0/500)]

[Reward: Unlock pain regulation system. Open Bio-Energy exchange list.]

There was no cutscene, no NPC rambling. The monsters came straight for their faces!

The foul, bloody stench rushing toward them made many players turn pale. A few timid ones were so frightened that they collapsed onto the ground, their legs going weak. This overwhelming sense of pressure was far beyond anything those old games behind a screen could compare to.

But some people's eyes changed.

Chen Feng lowered his center of gravity. Beneath his black chitin mask, the eyes once filled with exhaustion and gloom now burned with raging fire.

This feeling... this feeling of a racing heartbeat and surging adrenaline...

"This is what I wanted..."

A savage grin split Chen Feng's lips. The bone blades on his arms snapped out with a crisp mechanical click.

In reality, he was a cripple who could not even hold a cup steady.

But here, he was a Hunter.

"As long as you dare show a health bar, I'll kill even gods for you!"

The instant that locust pounced at a player frozen with terror, Chen Feng transformed into a streak of black lightning and cut straight into the battlefield!