If you could travel to another world, which would you choose?

[The story will be something of a slow burn. My writing skills are limited, but I'll do my best to portray the Hunter world as I imagine it and stick to the original setting as closely as possible. Please forgive any mistakes. The protagonist won't hesitate to kill...]

"Do you guys think Chairman Netero could beat the Ant King if he returned to his prime?"

The light from his phone screen shone on Leo's face. His thumb swiped rapidly as he watched the messages pouring into the group chat.

"Probably not. With the Ant King's terrifying physical toughness and ability to learn, the chairman could seriously injure him at best. He'd still lose in the end!"

"No matter how strong the Ant King's defenses were, he still died of poison. Zero magic resistance!"

"I wouldn't be so sure! Strictly speaking, the Ant King was premature. If he'd fully developed before being born, even poison might not have worked on him."

"Stop arguing. Lord Sukuna is the strongest! One World-Cutting Slash and they're all dead!"

"Only your Sukuna is the strongest? Then what does that make our JoJo?"

"Good question. Fight me if you disagree!"

The corners of Leo's mouth lifted. He knew this scene all too well.

His fingers tapped across the screen.

"Sukuna? Big talk! You're seriously looking down on us Ultra fans! One kick from any Ultraman and there wouldn't be a speck left of your precious Lord Sukuna. Do you even understand what weighing 35,000 tons means?"

The moment he sent the message, someone replied.

"Those guys are all too weak. Oma Zi-O could reset the universe with a wave of his hand!"

"Don't make your big bro Li laugh. Oma Zi-O? A king of time who can get time-stopped? Emperor Hero is the strongest!"

Wearing earbuds, Leo walked down the street with his head lowered toward his phone. The group chat instantly erupted, messages scrolling so quickly they made his eyes swim.

He laughed as he read. These guys were always like this. The moment power scaling came up, they could drag characters from any series to the same table and argue.

Tearing one down to prop another up, fighting to the bitter end-that was their favorite game.

He went from analyzing the Nen Ability system in Hunter x Hunter to Domain Expansions in Jujutsu Kaisen, then from Ultraman's beam attacks to Kamen Rider's form changes.

"If you could travel to another world, which would you choose?"

Someone suddenly asked the question in the group, instantly changing the subject.

Some chose the world of One Piece, dreaming of eating a devil fruit and sailing freely across the seas; others longed for the world of Pokémon, hoping to adventure alongside a companion like Pikachu; still others wanted to learn magic in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and explore the mysteries of a thousand-year journey.

If I could travel to another world... Leo kept walking, but an answer surfaced in his mind.

He would choose the world of Hunter x Hunter.

The system Yoshihiro Togashi had created was simply too captivating-the intricate division of Nen Abilities into six categories, the gamble of risk behind vows and limitations, and the unfathomable Dark Continent.

It was the most rigorous and imaginative power system he had ever seen. Every character had their own path and choices. There was no absolute good or evil, only clashes between different perspectives.

Just as he was about to explain in detail, the shriek of brakes tore through the air.

Leo snapped his head up. A yellow sedan was hurtling toward him from the entrance of a car dealership, its front end reflecting a blinding glare in the sunlight.

Time seemed to slow. He could see the driver's terrified expression and his own distorted reflection on the hood.

A dull impact.

The world spun. His phone flew out of his hand, tracing an arc through the air.

His back slammed into the ground, and pain surged through him like a tide. The edges of his vision began to darken, and the crowd's cries grew distant.

"It's ruined... ruined! I just picked up my new car!" a man wailed, his voice thick with tears.

Leo's vision gradually blurred. The last thought that flashed through his mind was absurd yet clear.

I shouldn't have been looking down at my phone...

Then darkness swallowed everything.

Cold.

That was the first thing Leo felt when he regained consciousness.

There was no softness of a hospital bed, only a hard, rough surface that felt like stone.

He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as heavy as lead.

After several attempts, his vision finally cleared-a towering dome, its stone mottled with age, cracks spreading like spiderwebs.

Daylight spilled through several collapsed sections, dust drifting slowly through the shafts of light.

"Wasn't I... dead?"

He found himself lying on a cold stone platform, rough, chiseled patterns beneath his body.

His voice echoed faintly through the empty space.

Leo realized the stone platform was circular, about three meters across, its surface covered in unfamiliar writing.

The strokes curved like vines, occasionally turning sharply, and shimmered faintly in the gloom.

It was an altar.

He rolled over, sat up, and looked around.

The stone hall was empty. Six thick pillars surrounded the altar, embedded with glowing crystalline minerals that gave off a milky-white light.

But the pillars were badly damaged, their relief carvings blurred. Only the bases still bore recognizable beast-shaped designs.

The air smelled of stale dust, mixed with a freshness like soil after rain.

Memories rushed back like a tide: the arguments in the group chat, the out-of-control sedan, the moment of impact... and another set of unfamiliar fragments: a seventeen-year-old boy named Rexxar who lived alone in a small town and had fallen into a spatial rift while out hunting...

"Rexxar... Leo..."

The two sets of memories intertwined and collided in his mind, pain stabbing into his skull like needles.

Leo clutched his head, his nails almost digging into his scalp.

After a long while, the pain gradually eased, and the memories began to merge.

He understood-his soul had crossed worlds and entered the body of this boy named Rexxar.

And Rexxar's final memory was of falling into a rift that had suddenly appeared.

"I crossed into another world..."

Leo murmured to himself, his voice echoing through the stone hall.

He carefully slid off the altar, his bare feet touching the icy stone floor.

The hall had only one set of double stone doors, their relief carvings worn beyond recognition.

Leo pushed hard. With a dull scraping sound, the doors slowly swung inward.

A larger space opened before him.

This was the main hall of a palace. Several massive pillars, each requiring three people to encircle, had fallen or tilted, leaving broken columns and rubble scattered across the floor.

Huge stone slabs paved the ground, with weeds and ferns poking through the gaps. The place had clearly been abandoned for a long time.

Leo carefully crossed the main hall. Large stretches of murals remained on the walls, their colors mostly faded, leaving only faint outlines: one seemed to depict a ritual, with people kneeling around an altar; another showed a battle between beasts and humans, its rough style full of motion.

"This place... must have been abandoned for at least a few hundred years."

Beyond the main hall stood the palace's front doors. Leo pushed one open with all his strength.

Brilliant light flooded toward him.

He squinted for a few seconds as his eyes adjusted, then took in the sight before him-

Outside lay a broad stone terrace, bordered by a waist-high railing that had broken in several places.

Dozens of steps descended from the terrace into a clearing surrounded by forest.

Farther away stretched an endless expanse of dense woodland. The trees were unimaginably tall, some trunks exceeding three meters in diameter, their crowns like green clouds obscuring vast swaths of sky.

Birdsong, the chirping of insects, the rustle of leaves in the wind... the sounds wove together into a natural symphony brimming with life. The air carried the fresh scent of plants and soil.

Leo stood stunned for a few seconds, then slowly stepped onto the terrace and approached the railing.

Leaning over to look, he saw that the palace stood atop a hill, high enough to overlook the surrounding forest.

"Ah Zhen, you were serious?!" He gave a helpless, bitter smile.

"If I really crossed into another world, which one is this?"

He recalled what the group had discussed before he lost consciousness: One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Pokémon, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Hunter x Hunter... He had been thinking that he would choose the world of Hunter x Hunter.

"No way..." Leo's heart gave a sudden jolt.

He carefully surveyed his surroundings again: an ancient palace, a mysterious altar, a strange forest.

If this really was the world of Hunter x Hunter, then this place might be the ruins of some ancient civilization.

But it was still only a guess.

Leo decided to explore the palace interior first and search for more clues. He returned to the main hall, examining every detail more closely this time.

In a corner on the western side of the main hall, he found a relatively intact room.

It appeared to be a storage room, with several damaged wooden shelves and pottery shards scattered across the floor. On the innermost shelf, Leo found two relatively intact objects.

One was a fist-sized stone covered in intricate natural patterns. In the dim light, those patterns seemed to flow faintly, as though some kind of liquid had been sealed inside the stone.

The other was a rolled-up animal hide tied with some kind of plant fiber.

The hide was remarkably well preserved, supple to the touch, with evenly spaced sawtooth cuts along its edges.

Leo carefully untied the cord and unrolled the hide.

It was a map.

It had been drawn on tanned, dark-brown hide. The ink had faded somewhat but remained clearly visible.

The map was marked with forests, mountains, rivers, enormous monsters, and symbols for several other buildings. Wavy lines along its edges might have represented the ocean.

Several lines of text appeared at the bottom, written in the same strange script as the altar.

"I can't read any of this. It must be some kind of ancient writing."

Leo frowned. He carefully rolled up the hide and tied it again, then turned to the stone.

Its patterns seemed to draw him in. Leo reached out to touch its surface-

The instant his fingertips touched the stone, something changed.

The golden patterns inside it suddenly lit up, pulsing as though alive.

Then the entire stone turned into a pool of dark-gold liquid and flowed off the shelf with incredible speed.

Startled, Leo tried to retreat, but his body refused to move-not because some force restrained him, but because of an instinctive paralysis, like an animal freezing before a natural predator.

The liquid spread up his fingers, swiftly covering his arm and shoulder before spreading across his entire body.

"What-" Leo's question caught in his throat.

The liquid had already covered his face, yet it did not obstruct his breathing.

Instead, he felt a strange sense of openness, as though every pore had opened. Dark gold filled his vision, then gradually dimmed.

Then darkness swallowed everything.

In the silent storage room, Leo's body lay on the floor. The dark-gold liquid had completely seeped into him, leaving no trace on the surface of his skin. The tattoo on his arm flickered slowly.

Only the hide map lay quietly beside him, its edges trembling faintly in the light spilling through the doorway.

Just then-

The altar at the center of the palace suddenly emitted a faint glow.

Light seeped from the grooves of the inscriptions. At first, it was only scattered pinpricks like fireflies, but they swiftly gathered and intensified, becoming a slender yet solid pillar of light that shot into the sky!

The pillar pierced a hole in the dome and streaked toward some unknown distant place. The entire process lasted only three seconds before the light quickly dimmed and dispersed.

The altar returned to its original state, as though nothing had happened.

At that same moment, somewhere far away on the Ulubian Continent.

It was a bustling border town. People filled the streets, and the cries of vendors, children's laughter, and rattling carriage wheels mingled into the busy symphony of everyday life.

Suddenly, a faint ripple appeared in the sky.

Then a dark-gray stone tablet materialized out of thin air, fell, and struck the paving stones in the center of the town square with a bang.

Passersby stopped and gathered around curiously.

The tablet was roughly palm-sized and a finger thick, its surface covered in strange writing and designs.

Someone cautiously stepped forward and picked it up, discovering a simple map and an arrow symbol carved into its back.