It All Begins with Athena

"Overwatch system activation initiated, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%..."

Li Wei jolted awake from a nightmare, his attempt to roll over resulting in a painful tumble off the bed.

The icy floor brought him instant clarity. He rubbed his eyes and scanned his surroundings, his expression shifting immediately.

The familiar screen was gone, the computer desk had vanished, and the room was no longer filled with his collection of figures and models.

In their place was an unfamiliar room. There was no computer here, and to his shock, a poster of Captain America hung on the wall!

"Have I been kidnapped?"

Li Wei struggled to recall what happened before he drifted off to sleep. He remembered sitting at his computer right after work, skipping dinner to boot up Overwatch.

Oh no, wait—Overwatch.

It was a payload match on King's Row, and they were on the attacking side. They had been unstoppable at first, pushing all the way to the final point. But in the closing stages, they faced a fierce counterattack. The enemy's Bastion and Torbjörn turrets were relentless, Pharah was harassing them from above, and a Genji kept diving their backline.

The countdown began, and time was running out.

At the critical moment, Li Wei piloted his self-destructing D.Va from the sky, securing a quad-kill to win the match. In his excitement, he knocked over his lemon tea, drenching himself and splashing the liquid all over his keyboard and power supply.

And then, Li Wei met his tragic end...

Li Wei was certainly not the first person to be electrocuted while gaming, and he surely wouldn't be the last.

When he woke up again, he had arrived in this strange place.

His intuition told him something was wrong. He scrambled off the bed and stood before a large floor-length mirror. He stared at his reflection and exclaimed in astonishment, "Who is this guy?"

The person in the mirror had refined features, light blonde hair, and blue eyes. He looked quite handsome. This appearance was definitely not Chinese, unless the guy was wearing a wig and colored contacts.

In other words, this was a foreigner, and judging by his looks, a young man of European or American descent.

"Did I transmigrate?" Li Wei touched his face. Just like in the movies and novels he had read, he realized that after his death, his soul must have traveled to another world and possessed someone else's body. But who was this person?

"William..." Li Wei whispered the English name. A tidal wave of memories flooded his mind—memories that didn't belong to him, but to a man named William.

The unlucky soul he had possessed was William Lister, an ordinary guy who had grown up in the Brooklyn district of New York. His mother had passed away from illness years ago, his father was a gambling addict currently serving time in prison, and he had a younger brother attending high school in another state.

His current job was delivering pizzas. His monthly salary was pitifully low; after daily expenses, he still had to send half of it to his brother for school... In short, he was dirt poor.

As for his love life, his history was practically non-existent. Li Wei couldn't help but cover his face. He never expected that even with such a handsome face, the guy couldn't land a date.

"From today on, I am William Lister," William said to himself. Since he had arrived in this new world, he had to let go of his past name and accept this new identity to survive.

Uh, wait... first, he needed to fill his stomach.

William tore his room apart, but aside from a broken television and two pairs of knock-off sneakers, he found nothing of value. The owner of this body didn't even have a laptop; he really was a pauper.

"My D.Va, my Overwatch... what a waste," William thought with a pained expression. He didn't know if this world even had the game, but even if it did, what did it matter? He couldn't even afford a computer.

"98%, 99%, 100%!"

Suddenly, a sound echoed in his ears—or more accurately, it wasn't something his ears heard, but a sound that appeared directly in the depths of his mind. William felt the voice was familiar; it was the same one that had woken him up.

As the mysterious voice emerged, white specks of light appeared before William. They danced in the air before settling on the back of his left hand, forming a tattoo-like mark.

William froze. It was the Overwatch logo!

Speaking of Overwatch, one has to mention its iconic game icon.

The Overwatch logo is actually a combination of an uppercase 'O' and 'W', the abbreviation for "Overwatch." Because the game features FPS elements, the icon also resembles a gun's crosshair.

However, William's favorite explanation was the rumor about the "Overwatch butt"—if you look closely, doesn't the icon look like a pair of buttocks?

Ahem, enough nonsense.

William stared at the Overwatch mark on his hand. Unable to curb his curiosity, he reached out and touched it. To his surprise, the game logo lit up, and the dazzling white light transformed into a series of breathtaking scenes before his eyes:

These scenes were combat clips of Overwatch characters: Soldier: 76's Tactical Visor, Pharah's Justice Rains from Above, Reaper's Death Blossom, McCree's High Noon, Roadhog's Whole Hog...

The heroes from Overwatch were so vivid, it felt as if they could step right out of the images at any moment.

Finally, all the images merged into one, forming a vast, seemingly endless world. In the center of this world, a giant Overwatch logo was slowly rotating.

"I am Athena. Welcome to the Overwatch system."

Accompanied by the familiar Overwatch background music, a gentle voice echoed in William's ears.

Athena? This Athena wasn't the Saori-sama who was constantly being kidnapped by enemies in Saint Seiya, but the artificial intelligence from the Overwatch universe—ATHENA.

In the Overwatch lore, ATHENA is a powerful AI. She appeared in the tutorial and could also be seen on the computer screens at the Watchpoint: Gibraltar base.

Players had always speculated that her true form might be the sexy white robot seen in the official animations, but that hero had never been released.

William rubbed his temples. The amount of information was simply too much for him to process at once.

He had just been electrocuted while playing a game, and his soul had transmigrated to another world.

Upon waking up in this world, he had unlocked the Overwatch system. He had read plenty of transmigration novels, and usually, the protagonist would receive a "golden finger."

Like an old man living in a ring, a sealed demon king, or an invincible system. So, was this Athena his golden finger?

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