Gobada Plane, also known as the "Plane Prison," was a savage land existing behind the material planes. It was a prison for the strong, and a place of endless torment.
In this universe, material planes were scattered everywhere like stars. Behind every material plane lay a "Gobada," and in every "Gobada," countless "sinners" struggled to survive.
There was no alternation of day and night, no change of seasons—only eternal gloom, eternal desolation, and eternal silence and slaughter. These formed the backdrop of the deepest reaches of the Gobada Plane Prison. This was no plane fit for habitation, but a cage forged by the world itself. Even the air, the earth, and the sky were chains that kept its prisoners confined.
In one such "Gobada," the soul flame of a living being was gradually fading, while another soul, having crossed over, passed through the barriers of the universe and took over the body that was about to wither away.
"Uh... where am I?" The man slowly opened his eyes and looked at his dim surroundings.
"I'm not dead? I got hit head-on and sent flying by Truck-sama, the strongest being across all the myriad worlds, and I'm still alive?" The man gave a self-mocking smile, but a moment later, he felt as if his head were splitting apart.
They were scattered memories. By the terminology of this world, they were soul fragments.
"What is this...? Uh, I'm... Barn?"
Though the impact of the soul fragments lasted only an instant, the terrifying amount of information brought by the original owner's nearly two thousand years of life inevitably affected the soul that had crossed over.
"No, my name should be Yang Sen..." Clutching his head, the man sat up. "Whew. Oh, I've crossed over. I took over this body. Its original owner was named Bane Boley."
The flood of complicated information had left his sense of self somewhat disordered. Even the more than twenty years of his previous life seemed to belong to a time long, long ago.
"Deep breaths. Calm down..." It took a long while before the man gradually adjusted to his current state.
"Bane Boley, Tiger-pattern Warrior family, Yulan Continent, hunted by the Radiant Church, Gobada Plane..." At last, he sorted out his thoughts. "I've crossed over into the Coiling Dragon World, the world from that novel."
"Truck-sama truly is the envoy who guides transmigrators. The transmigrator seniors weren't lying to me." After sighing, he thought of his predicament. "I wonder if Mom and Dad will be sad."
After mulling it over for a while, he finally chose to accept it. "All right, Barn. From now on, that'll be my name! I'll enjoy this new life of mine!"
Barn's situation was dire. For some reason, he had been thrown into Gobada, the prison plane. He had just survived a brush with death and was hiding in a secluded cave.
As Barn continued sorting through the jumbled fragments of memory in his mind, a delighted voice rang out. "Barn, you're awake!"
Barn looked over. A hideous monster stood at the cave entrance.
"Aaaaaah! A monster!" Barn scrambled backward into a corner.
The monster spoke. "Barn, have you lost your mind? It's me, Declan!"
Barn calmed down a little, then remembered: this was the original owner's contracted magical beast, and now his own—the Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon, Declan.
"Oh, Declan, my partner. I just woke up, so my head's a bit muddled."
"It's all right, it's all right. As long as you're awake." A trace of relief appeared on Declan's hideous face. "You must be hungry. There's still a piece of meat here. Hurry up and eat it."
"Huh? Meat?" Barn blanked for a moment. Then hunger swept through his body, and he remembered where he was: Gobada.
The world's far side, a land forsaken by the Overgod, a place where sinners languished—Gobada.
The entire space was shrouded in a set of laws. Under their influence, all life was constantly sinking toward the abyss of "decay." Even elemental power seemed affected by these laws, becoming "dead matter" that living beings could hardly absorb.
As a result, Gobada had sparse elemental power, chaotic space, and barren land incapable of nurturing life.
As a Saint, one could rely on one's own level of cultivation to forcibly resist the laws and prevent one's own death, while consuming spiritual power to forcibly draw the sparse elemental power into the body.
Yet even a Saint could only sustain the most basic needs of life this way. They could still go hungry!
To eat and to lust were human nature. Hunger, the most primal negative emotion of life, was not unbearable, but it kept the mind in a constant state of tension. This hunger relentlessly tormented the souls of the "sinners." A year, ten years, a hundred years—given enough time, even the most steadfast Saint would go mad!
Yet precious plant fruit was beyond the reach of low-level Saints like them in Gobada. The only thing they could eat was one another.
Saints driven mad by hunger would kill and devour each other. Those who escaped hunger would never want to suffer that pain again. They would go on killing and devouring, until a stronger Saint devoured them.
Barn was ravenous, but he had only just crossed over and hadn't yet let hunger cloud his mind. He looked at the dark red meat and slowly took it, unable to bring himself to eat.
Declan looked at Barn and sighed helplessly. "All right. You've just recovered from a serious illness, so you can afford to be extravagant this once."
Then he opened his dragon's mouth and breathed a thin stream of fire, which landed precisely on the meat in Barn's hand. In the blink of an eye, the dark red chunk was seared on the outside and tender within.
"Oh, thanks." Barn eyed the dragon roast, which looked quite appetizing, and tentatively opened his mouth.
It tasted excellent. Barn devoured it in a few bites, and still wanted more. He was very pleased with his first feast after crossing over.
Watching Barn wolf down the food, Declan said in a low voice, "Get some rest. Once you've recovered your strength, we'll go hunt some prey. We'll eat roast meat every day from now on. I'll stand guard outside while you recover."
"Okay. Thanks for your effort." Barn was in much better spirits.
After eating his fill, Barn began taking stock of his new life.
"A Tiger-pattern Warrior, and already at the Saint level. Tsk, I'm pretty lucky to have crossed over into a body like this."
Barn knew that the Four Ultimate Warrior Clans of the Yulan Continent were also the Four Divine Beasts Clan of Hell. They carried the bloodlines of Super Divine Beasts and were famous even in the Supreme Planes.
"The bloodline concentration is ordinary. His bloodline was activated by drinking the blood of a Saint-level Thunder-wing White Tiger. That's fine. It's not a big problem."
The advantage of bloodlines mainly lay in their boost to combat strength during the early stages. But Barn knew that in the Coiling Dragon World, the greater one's bloodline talent, the stronger the constraints imposed by the world when breaking through bottlenecks. As a transmigrator starting a new life, he would certainly strive for the peak of this world. A weaker bloodline talent might be a blessing in disguise.
"He's also comprehended the Fate Law! His comprehension has already reached the third tier of the Saint-level peak, on par with Haydson in the original story! This guy's talent is impressive."
Barn was doubly delighted. Before undergoing the ancestral rite, members of the White Tiger Family did not display the Wind Element affinity in their bloodline talent. They could only comprehend laws other than the Wind Element to improve themselves.
The members of the Four Ultimate Warrior Clans generally displayed little talent for magic. That was not because they lacked talent, but because those with magical talent were already one in a thousand, and outstanding magical prospects were one in ten thousand. With fewer than two hundred members across all Four Ultimate Warrior Clans, it was only natural that they produced few mages.
Barn was an exception. Before reaching the Saint level, he had accidentally obtained a fragment of a manual for cultivating the Fate Law through the Great Prophecy. Through it, he embarked on the path of cultivating the Fate Law, and achieved remarkable results.
"And the weapon he has is a Divine Artifact he took from the Pope of Light! What a fantastic start!"
Barn took a pale blue spear out of his spatial ring. Ancient characters were engraved on its butt: Mist Hidden.
It was spoils from when Barn had slain the Pope of Light.
Back on the Yulan Continent, Barn was a Tiger-pattern Warrior who had also comprehended a Law. He was already the strongest Saint Warrior beneath the God level. After seeing the benefits that magic brought to comprehending Laws, he began collecting all kinds of magic and precious sword techniques.
The seven elemental types of magic were easy enough to obtain. Life magic and necromancy, though circulated only in small circles, could also be acquired with enough effort and expense. Only the Great Prophecy proved difficult. While Barn was trying to complete the fragment in his possession, he encountered the reigning Pope of Light.
The Pope was a Saint-level expert who cultivated both magic and martial arts. After failing to seize the manual by force, Barn ultimately killed him and obtained the complete manual for cultivating the Great Prophecy, as well as the spear.
The consequence was that he thoroughly offended both the Radiant Church and the Dragonblood Warrior Clan, which had close ties with it. In the end, ten Saint-level peak experts joined forces to hunt him down. He fled all the way to the Arctic Ice Plains, where the Plane Overseer threw him into Gobada on the grounds that he had "disrupted the order of the plane."
"Too bad I got thrown into Gobada. This isn't exactly a good start."
If he were on the Yulan Continent, or had crossed over to a Supreme Plane, Barn would have dug a hole in the ground and hidden in it for decades, waiting until he was fully accustomed to his body before coming out. But the conditions in Gobada wouldn't let him shut himself away.
"It should be the year 8893 of the Yulan Calendar, more than a thousand years before the original protagonist, Linley, appears... There's a chance!"
According to his memories, Barn had first arrived in Gobada in the year 8750 of the Yulan Calendar. He had spent 143 years here, so it was now the year 8893.
If he hadn't been born in Gobada, Barn might have waited until he broke through to the God level before heading to a Supreme Plane. But now, he could only hope that Linley would pull the Violet Blood God Sword from its sheath as in the original story, and that he would be able to seize the chance to escape.
"Given the current situation, I need to break through to the God level as soon as possible. Then I should first try to find where Dylan is and leave through that weak point in space. If I can't find it, I'll go to Azure Fire City and hope to escape when the passage briefly opens."
Barn stood and walked toward the cave entrance. He needed to talk with his contracted magical beast, Declan, and discuss their plans.
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