Honkai Double Transmigration, Taking Xilian to Honkai Impact 3rd

If one had to search for something special, it would likely be the thing that seemed to faintly shimmer before his line of sight—

—a dream.

Everything within his field of vision had been replaced by a dim, dusky yellow.

A desolate wasteland stretched endlessly beneath his feet, and the howling wind tore at the cracked soil over and over like an invisible blade.

The earth was utterly dead.

It had fallen into steel—hard, cold, and rejecting all life.

Jiang Cheng tried to force his body forward, but no matter how long he walked, he saw only desolation. It took half a day before he could vaguely make out the wreckage of a village. Charred beams were thrust into the ground at an angle, looking like broken ribs. The outlines of old fields were still discernible; the ridges remained, but the crops had long since perished.

No, there was not even room for weeds to grow.

Everything in the world had withered into a dry, sickly yellow.

Further away, he could see a churning, boiling blackness, spreading outward frantically like a tide.

He looked up.

Above the endless heights was an absolute black. That darkness wrapped around half the firmament, as if a colossal entity had opened its maw and was devouring the sky bit by bit.

On the other half, the sun hung suspended, but it was far more twilight-stricken than anything seen from the ground—dim, withered, like a candle flame ready to extinguish at any moment.

...Aili Secret Pavilion?

In his sleep, he thought instinctively.

A person in a hazy state lacks the ability for clear thought or reaction, capable only of making the crudest judgments based on instinct.

But even so—the next moment, Jiang Cheng rejected his own guess without hesitation.

It wasn't because he spotted any detail that differed from the Aili Secret Pavilion—even that endlessly spreading black in the distance seemed similar to the peerless Black Tide of his memories.

"The black tide surging from the horizon swallows the fields, drowns the roads, and even dyes the sky in an ominous color."

However—

The Black Tide was absolutely not this terrifying.

Jiang Cheng stared at the distance more intently. The surging blackness was spreading and expanding every single moment.

Yet he could confirm that there was absolutely no life here for it to consume—that black tide was not expanding because it had infected life; it was expanding continuously even when there was nothing at all.

Perhaps everyone has had such an imagination in their childhood: when a snowball rolls down from a mountain peak, it gathers other snowflakes along its path, making its volume grow larger and larger. So, if you placed a snowball on a sufficiently large mountain, as its volume increased exponentially, the size the snowball added per second would also increase at the same exponential rate.

And now.

—Fantasy had stepped into reality.

The barrier between truth and falsehood had never been so fragile.

And this terrifyingly spreading blackness still possessed the same, or perhaps even more thorough, Erosion capability as the Black Tide.

A vague perception from "The Hunt" told Jiang Cheng that once one fell into it, they would be polluted and turned into the same thing.

"Terrifying... what on earth is that?" Jiang Cheng could hardly comprehend his own feelings.

If that were a river, it would surely be a torrent countless times more rapid than the Yellow River. An individual falling into it wouldn't even have a moment to struggle—no matter how he lowered his head, he could only see a uniform, endless black.

Spreading.

Spreading.

Those black floods drew closer, and closer, and closer—

Until the moment they were so near that he could almost see the structure of the water, Jiang Cheng finally saw the essence of that darkness clearly.

"—Bugs!"

A biomass torrent composed of countless bugs replacing every drop of water, countless bugs replacing every wave of the tide!

He could not comprehend the quantity!

He could not comprehend that distortion!

Just like the noise of those flapping wings—"Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz—"

It had filled every space his hearing could perceive!

This unspeakable distortion was so sensory and clear that it could no longer be explained by a mere dream!

Rather, Jiang Cheng was now even awakened to a sliver of clear consciousness, beginning to wonder—

"Why haven't I woken up yet?!"

Compared to the scene before his eyes, all the natural disasters in this world seemed like nothing.

Tornadoes, sandstorms, typhoons, thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes—even gamma-ray bursts and supernova explosions...

Those words that had sounded terrifying in the past now seemed so feeble, so childish.

A place like this was...

--The. Real. Hell!

Move!

Move, damn it!

He struggled desperately, driving his body with all his might—wanting to turn around immediately, wanting to escape, wanting to run away!

No matter how pathetic he looked!

--It was impossible.

No matter how desperately he ran forward, he could never outrun the surging swarm, just as a human could never outrun a monstrous flood on foot.

"----!"

The Black Tide covering the sky fully revealed its true form. That nest of extreme disgust and distortion swept over him.

It was as if hundreds or thousands of flies had crawled into his collar at once; they writhed on his skin, laying eggs, hatching. A cold, damp sensation carrying the sweet, rotting stench of spoiled fruit crawled from his cervical spine all the way across his back.

Thousands of fuzzy legs moved densely against his skin. They climbed up his spine, scattered into his hair, and crawled into his ear canals--

--!!!

The sensation was like cockroaches.

He even guessed that an entire nest of cockroaches was wreaking havoc inside his body, those ugly, multi-legged creatures currently nesting, tearing, and mating in the deepest part of his stomach.

Disgusting!

Disgusting!

Jiang Cheng didn't know if this feeling was real, didn't know if he was still in a dream, but he could vaguely feel the sensation of their appendages scraping against his stomach lining! He could hear the faint, crunching sounds of them chewing on undigested food! He could smell the stench of mixed stomach acid and insect mucus rising from his esophagus!

At this moment, every inch of skin on his body was twisting.

This was by no means a metaphor; it was physically, visibly being twisted.

--Die!

--All of you, just die!

--You low-level creatures! Disgusting creatures! Vile creatures!!!

In the instant that uncontrollable disgust engulfed his heart, Jiang Cheng's heart began to beat with an unprecedented heat, as if boundless flames were about to consume him entirely.

The "self" was interrupted. In its place was—that peerless, boundless power of destiny!

He first slammed a fist hard into his own chest and abdomen.

He poured his full strength into it, not even caring about his own body.

His fist pressed against his skin, the terrifying impact directly obliterating all those twisted, disgusting insects inside.

"Crunch, crunch, crunch--!"

The sound of bones or carapaces breaking was completely ignored.

He punched his abdomen repeatedly, beating all those things to death—the concept of pain simply did not exist!

Jiang Cheng immediately raised his head, looking at the swarm, uncontrollable rage making him clench his fists. It was as if fire had turned into liquid within his body; that impossibly hot substance replaced his blood, flowing through his veins to every part of him, and near-terrifying power gathered entirely into his fist, until—

He turned, stomped, twisted his waist, swung his arm, and punched!

A single strike tore the swarm directly in front of him to shreds. Every insect in the path of the attack was pulverized, forcibly blasting a gap nearly a thousand meters wide through the black tide!

However, it was filled in the very next instant.

It was truly as endless as the tide; even if he parted the entire ocean, the torrents on both sides would instantly rush back to fill the void.

The number of insects multiplied even more crazily.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz--"

Jiang Cheng threw another punch, and the pitch-black mucus, smelling of rotting fruit, wrapped around his entire arm, as if it had a life of its own and wanted to burrow into his flesh.

He ignited his flames without hesitation—inside his own body, letting the raging fire burn every tissue! Evaporating every black thing into nothingness!

An insect biting him with sharp mouthparts?

"--Die!"

Jiang Cheng backhanded a punch, smashing its head to a pulp before the fire burning inside him could incinerate it.

Indescribable internal tissues were swallowed by the flames.

Not a single trace remained.

The swarm spread, and he charged into the swarm like a madman, throwing punches wildly without any technique, using every part of his body as a weapon, every attack aimed at only one thing—

Kill the bugs!

Crush the carapaces, twist off the heads, snap the long horns.

He performed every action that could kill a bug, driving his strength to slaughter them madly, regardless of the cost.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

He killed to survive!

He killed to fill the rage within his heart!

But soon, larger, more deformed, and more monstrous bugs swarmed in, replacing the weaker swarms and completely submerging him.

"Bang—!"

Jiang Cheng threw another punch, but it felt as if he were striking a heavy sandbag; he couldn't inflict any damage at all, and instead, his own knuckles nearly shattered.

Conversely, every one of the enemy's attacks easily inflicted severe wounds upon him. His muscles were torn, his skin was pierced, and that pitch-black bodily fluid flowed into his body through the wounds once again. Flames were meaningless to them; they simply continued to spread and expand, as if they intended to take root in his cells, constantly dividing and twisting to transform him into something even more disgusting.

—Then explode!

Jiang Cheng extracted every ounce of energy within his body, regardless of the cost, using flames to scorch every single cell in his physical structure.

Even if it meant burning himself to ash.

He absolutely could not tolerate the fate of being swallowed and devoured by the swarm!

By turning himself into a bomb for self-destruction, even an old grandmother could lift a truck if she put her full strength into it.

Burn!

Jiang Cheng commanded himself.

In the next instant, an indescribable energy surged forth with a sense of near-suicidal eruption, and his clenched fist, after a brief moment of gathering power, launched forward like a heavy cannon.