Transmigrating Outside Chaos City

Outside the magnificent city gates.

The black-haired young man in a dark blue battle suit staggered forward. Each step grew more difficult than the last.

He looked up at the city gates, just a few dozen miles away. Despair filled his eyes.

A few dozen miles was usually nothing. In an ordinary place, he could cover that distance in two quick dashes. But now, the short stretch seemed farther away than the edge of the universe.

At last, the young man collapsed. His consciousness gradually faded.

Just as it vanished completely, Li Dui jolted awake.

He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn't respond. His hands and feet were completely uncooperative, too.

Earlier, Li Dui had seen a huge ring shimmering with colorful light flying toward him from the sky. The closer it got, the smaller it became. Yet he was rooted to the spot by some force and couldn't take a single step.

When the ring was about to hit him on the head, he woke up. But now he was awake and still couldn't move. Was this sleep paralysis?

He was still puzzling over it when a vast flood of memories suddenly surged into his mind, leaving him stunned.

It took several hours for the onslaught to finally end. Li Dui, who had been overwhelmed by the mass of memories, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Earth, warriors, the Human Race, Luo Feng, the Genius Battle, the Giant Axe Martial Arena, the Virtual Universe Company, Chaos City in the Initial Universe..."

"This isn't a dream. This is the Swallowed Star world!"

Li Dui's eyes flew open.

All he'd done was go to sleep at home. He'd had a dream, and somehow he'd ended up in the Swallowed Star world.

This world really was incredible.

Li Dui laughed without a care in the world.

He was just an office drone who'd graduated a few years ago. Every day, he went to work and came home, with a little entertainment now and then. His life was utterly uneventful.

Whenever he had time, he read novels. Swallowed Star was one of his favorites. Sometimes, before falling asleep, he'd imagine what it would be like to live in one of those exciting novels.

"I can't believe I actually made it here."

He forced those thoughts out of his mind. This wasn't the time to dwell on them.

The Swallowed Star world was an incredible place, but it was also extremely dangerous.

Lying outside Chaos City for several hours was already risky enough. What if a Chaos Beast came along...

Luckily, he was close to the city gates.

Perhaps after several hours of merging with this body, Li Dui could now control it a little. He could open his eyes and move his fingers slightly.

He needed to think of something. He couldn't just lie here.

Remembering that his previous self had sent several distress messages while under attack by Chaos Beasts, and hadn't received a single response, Li Dui couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

"Maybe I should try messaging a couple of other people?" After all, the situation had changed. Before, he'd been in too much danger for anyone to bother helping him. But now he was close to the city. Someone just needed to come and carry him back.

"If that doesn't work, I'll promise them something in return." He was still considering whom to message when he heard a woman's voice behind him.

"Hm? This kid's still alive. Lucky you ran into me, Luliduo."

Then Li Dui's body was lifted into the air, wrapped in some kind of force. The ground rushed past beneath him, and soon he reached the city gates.

They entered the city, turned a corner, and soon came to a building.

Luliduo said, "My lord, I found someone badly injured at the city gate. Please treat him."

"Oh? Heh. All right, hand him over to me, young lady," a deep, slow voice replied.

"Then I'll take my leave," Luliduo said with a smile.

Hey, hey, don't leave yet! Li Dui couldn't speak. He'd been lying facedown the whole time and still hadn't seen what Luliduo looked like. He had to admit, she had a lovely voice.

Nobody cared whether Li Dui was willing. An invisible force took hold of him and placed him inside a transparent vat filled with pale purple liquid. His whole body sank beneath the surface.

He couldn't struggle. All he could do was watch himself disappear beneath the liquid.

Strangely, sinking underwater didn't make him suffocate. Instead, a pleasant tingling warmth spread throughout his body.

After a while, the voices around him fell silent. Li Dui finally relaxed and could calmly think through his current predicament.

According to the memories he'd inherited, his predecessor had the same name as him: Li Dui.

This Li Dui was also from Earth.

The current time was ten thousand years after Luo Feng and the others had taken part in the Genius Battle.

Li Dui had entered the Virtual Universe Company through the recently concluded new edition of the Peak Genius Tournament.

His results, however, had been far worse than Luo Feng's. He hadn't qualified for the final arena battles and had been assigned directly to the last of the Four Great Secret Realms, among its nine hundred recruits.

"There wasn't anyone like this in the original story." Li Dui was certain of it.

He'd read Swallowed Star years ago, but the guy had the same name as him. If the original story had mentioned someone with that name, he'd definitely remember.

Of course, it was more likely that this person really had existed. But look at him: his strength and talent were both limited. Then, after only a year in Chaos City, he'd died.

So it wasn't surprising that the original story had left out such an insignificant extra.

There was nothing wrong with this identity. In fact, he could even say he'd gotten off to a good start.

Even if he'd only been assigned to the most marginal secret realm, he was still one of the top thousand geniuses selected from across the entire Human Race in each Genius Battle.

Li Dui was a little worried that Chaos City Lord might know he'd taken over the original Li Dui's body.

After all, this was the Initial Universe, where Chaos City Lord was invincible. What would he do if he knew?

But from the way things looked, he probably didn't. He didn't care much about some minor genius from a peripheral secret realm dying outside the city. As long as no one had killed him, it was hardly worth his attention. Of the thousand geniuses who came to Chaos City each time, a hundred or two hundred were bound to die within thirty years.

If he didn't care much, he wouldn't look too closely. Maybe Li Dui could get away with it.

Another possibility was that even if Chaos City Lord took a careful look, he still wouldn't notice anything.

Whatever power or method had brought Li Dui from his Earth to the Swallowed Star world, it couldn't have been ordinary. Faced with such a mysterious force, even an invincible Universe Master might count for little.

Once he'd thought it through, Li Dui stopped worrying. The matter was beyond his control anyway. If he was discovered and Chaos City Lord came after him personally, there was no way he could fight back.

Whatever. Let it be. I'll rest for a while. I'm tired. He stopped thinking and let his mind go blank.

He hadn't rested for even twenty seconds when Li Dui's eyes flew wide open again.

"Holy crap. A Hula Hoop!"

Luckily, he still couldn't control his body. Otherwise, he would've shouted it aloud.

After letting his mind go blank, he'd somehow "seen" the same ring from his dream, shimmering with colorful light, appear in his mind.

He closed his eyes again to make sure, but couldn't find it. Li Dui guessed he might need to clear his mind first.

This time, it took several minutes for him to calm down. Sure enough, the ring appeared again.

Now Li Dui understood. This thing was probably why he'd transmigrated here. And with all those flashy lights, if it stopped spinning, it really did look like a Hula Hoop.

So what was it? A Supreme Treasure? Something else? What could it do?

Based on what Li Dui knew about this world, it probably wasn't a Supreme Treasure. A Supreme Treasure had to recognize its master. He'd never heard of one simply belonging to whoever it hit on the head.

He cleared his mind once more and focused inward. Sure enough, within a minute or two, he "saw" it again. Staring closely at the light around the ring, he noticed that it seemed to be divided into layers. The colors, the range and speed of their movement, even their direction—all of them differed.

When Li Dui focused on a particular layer of light, something inside him seemed to be plucked, giving him a familiar feeling.

What was it? Li Dui didn't even notice that this time, he hadn't lost sight of the "ring" when his attention wandered.

"It feels so familiar. What is it? Where have I seen something like this before?"

"Ah..." After pondering for a long while, Li Dui finally remembered something. It was the thing the original Li Dui had studied for seven days, a year ago when he first came to Chaos City: the Giant Axe Chaos Stele.

The first image on the Giant Axe Chaos Stele showed nothing but a single axe mark. That mark gave Li Dui a feeling much like the one he had now. It seemed to point the way toward the laws.

A Chaos Stele! There were 52 Chaos Tablets in the Human Race.

Every generation of geniuses had just one free chance to study a Chaos Stele.

Even the strongest of the 52 Chaos Tablets, the Giant Axe Chaos Stele, gave him a feeling only somewhat similar to what one layer of light on the ring gave him. And so far, he'd seen at least five layers.

Moreover, based on the little he'd sensed of the ring, the guidance its flowing lights provided for Law Comprehension was at least better than what the first image of the Giant Axe Chaos Stele offered.

Of course, the Giant Axe Chaos Stele had twelve images. The original Li Dui had only gained a slight understanding of the first one. The rest might as well have been a book written in the heavens. For all he knew, the later images carved by Giant Axe might be better than the lights on the ring.

Giant Axe... really was powerful.

But regardless, with the Hula Hoop guiding him, Li Dui could already say with near certainty that he'd eventually become at least an Immortal.

Immortals didn't die of old age. Barring accidents, they could live for a very, very long time. Other races could live for at most three Reincarnation Eras, but Li Dui was human. In the future, the Human Race would have at least two Holy Land Universes: Yuan Zu's and Luo Feng's.

If he could find a way to get into Luo Feng's Miniature Universe, he'd live forever.

As he imagined his bright future, a powerful wave of drowsiness crept over Li Dui without him realizing it.

After all, he was only an ordinary person.

An ordinary person's soul had entered a Star Rank body. Although it had merged with most of the original Li Dui's soul, which had been badly damaged, he might have suffered the same fate as the original Li Dui if he hadn't received treatment quickly enough.

Li Dui fell peacefully asleep in the Healing Pod. Only the occasional bubble rose through the liquid.