The Keyboard Warrior Crosses Over

"Clack-clack-clack-clack..."

In the dim rented room, the keyboard rattled under a furious barrage of keystrokes.

The computer screen lit Lin Fan's face. A veteran webnovel addict, he was locked in a ferocious argument in a Douluo Continent discussion forum.

The cursor flashed across the screen as he hammered out line after line of devastating text:

"Yu Xiaogang is a worthless scumbag who does nothing but lead his students astray! He couldn't break past level twenty-nine, so he just gave up on himself? Being useless himself wasn't enough—he had to steal Spirit Hall's top-secret theories, parade them around as his own treasures, and still have the nerve to call himself Grandmaster? If I were him, with starting resources that absurdly good, I'd go straight into Soul Power compression and Soul Tools! He played a winning hand into absolute garbage. Cowardly and hypocritical—the guy's nothing but a stepping stone in the fantasy world!"

He hit Enter, and the post went live.

Lin Fan picked up the iced cola beside him, gulped down a mouthful, and let out a satisfied breath.

Just then, the computer screen froze in a strange way. A blinding light burst across it:

[Ding! Strong desire for character reconstruction detected. Player emotion threshold reached.]

["Douluo Firmament: Role-Playing Game System" forcibly bound.]

[Loading instance one: Young Yu Xiaogang (departure from the sect).]

[Clear condition: Role-play within the current storyline. When the Firmament tallies the results, earn an approval rating—that is, a vote share—of over 85% from viewers across the continent to clear the current character.]

[After clearing all instances, the player may return to the real world with rewards earned in the game.]

[Game starting now! Loading neurons...]

"Holy shit, what kind of full-dive VR ga—"

Before Lin Fan could finish, his vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

"Snuffle... snuffle..."

He had no idea how much time had passed when something warm began rubbing against his face.

He opened his eyes, and his blurred vision gradually came into focus.

A strange creature that looked part pig, part dog was staring at him with huge eyes, making ingratiating little grunts.

Lin Fan sat up and looked around.

He was in an old-fashioned study, though it was rather messy. Several haphazard Meridian Diagrams hung on the walls, while bamboo slips and parchment filled with Soul Beast research covered the desk.

He looked down. These hands were nothing like his own. Then he glanced at the bronze mirror nearby.

A young man with a somewhat melancholy air looked back at him.

The system prompt arrived right on cue.

[You have entered a single-player role-playing game.]

[Current identity: Yu Xiaogang (age 20).]

[Current point in time: Marginalized by the family.]

[Player guidelines: Act freely, change the character's fate, and earn a high rating.]

The four short lines vanished. Apparently, he had plenty of freedom.

"Did I really cross over into a game?" Lin Fan pinched his cheek. The pain was unmistakable.

There was not a trace of fear in his eyes. Instead, excitement flared in them.

As a top-tier gamer who could work wonders from his rented room, a single-player game this immersive was right up his alley!

"A single-player game? I have to clear it before I can go home? Why does this sound like Sword Art Online? And what's this continent-wide viewer approval rating supposed to be? Did they throw in an affection system for me?"

Rubbing his chin, Lin Fan looked down at Luo Sanpao by his feet.

"Luo Sanpao's failed mutation was basically an energy overload that caused genetic regression! From the perspective of bioengineering on Earth, a collapsed gene chain caused by an acquired mutation could, in theory, be re-edited. But I'll need to run a full examination first to see whether Douluo Continent's Soul Power system even plays by the laws of thermodynamics."

He crouched and gave Luo Sanpao's ear a squeeze.

"But I can settle on an approach now. I'll use meridian techniques to clear the stagnant Soul Power from his body and see whether I can reactivate those regressed Golden Sacred Dragon genes. Yu Xiaogang couldn't play this character, but I can! This character's mine now, so today I'll show you what a real expert's speedrun tutorial looks like!"

At the time, Lin Fan had no idea that the "single-player game" he imagined was actually a live broadcast to the entire real world of Douluo Continent.

Douluo Continent, the present timeline, Holy Soul Village.

The sun had just reached the village entrance. Inside the Spirit Hall Branch at the village center, six-year-old Tang San stood with the other children as Su Yuntao summoned his Lone Wolf Martial Soul, preparing to conduct their Martial Soul Awakening.

RUMBLE—!!!

A deafening crash rang out, like terrifying thunder rolling in from the ancient wilderness!

The once-clear sky was swallowed by boundless darkness.

A vast screen of light unfurled across the entire firmament!

Brilliant starlight flowed over it, and it radiated a majesty no one dared look upon directly. Every living creature on the continent found their attention drawn to it.

From level-ninety-nine Peerless Douluo to ordinary farmers working their fields, everyone raised their heads despite themselves.

"Wh-what is that?!" Su Yuntao was so frightened that his Martial Soul possession dropped away, and he collapsed onto his backside.

Beside him, Tang San pushed his Purple Demon Eye to its limit, but still could not see through the screen in the sky. Astonishment stirred in his heart. Power that can reshape heaven and earth... This is far beyond Tang Sect Hidden Weapons or ordinary martial arts! Could it be a divine miracle?

As panic swept across the continent, a blinding light appeared at the center of the screen.

A sound accompanied it, like someone striking an ancient divine artifact—though it was actually Lin Fan typing on a mechanical keyboard. Line after line of golden characters, each as huge as a mountain, slammed onto the screen with overwhelming pressure!

A grand voice carried the words into the mind of every person on the continent:

[Yu Xiaogang is a worthless scumbag who does nothing but lead his students astray!]

[He couldn't break past level twenty-nine, so he just gave up on himself? Being useless himself wasn't enough—he had to steal Spirit Hall's top-secret theories, parade them around as his own treasures, and still have the nerve to call himself Grandmaster?]

[If I were him, with starting resources that absurdly good, I'd go straight into Soul Power compression and Soul Tools!]

[He played a winning hand into absolute garbage. Cowardly and hypocritical—the guy's nothing but a stepping stone in the fantasy world!]

If the screen's appearance could be called a miracle, then every word of those lines struck straight at the heart!

Yu Xiaogang's heart in particular!

It was far too much information at once!

Enough that many people would need time to digest it!

Heaven Dou Empire, Nuoding City, Junior Soul Master Academy.

In a dim office piled with worn books, Yu Xiaogang held a cup of coarse tea, ready to study the incomplete materials he had found that day.

When thunder sounded from the screen, he frowned and walked to the window. The moment he saw the first line of golden words, his whole body went rigid.

Clatter!

The cup slipped from his hand and shattered. Scalding tea splashed over his cloth shoes, but he felt nothing.

As the words appeared line by line—"stole Spirit Hall's top-secret theories," "gave up at level twenty-nine," "cowardly and hypocritical"—each one was like an invisible palm slapping the face he always kept so inscrutably composed.

Yu Xiaogang's face turned deathly pale.

His breathing quickened. He dug his hands into the wooden window frame until blood seeped from beneath his nails.

"No... That isn't true... Who? Who's slandering me?!" His voice went shrill. His legs gave way, and he crumpled to his knees.

His "Grandmaster" persona, the last scrap of cloth concealing his deep-seated inferiority, had been torn to shreds in the most public way possible, right before the Seven Great Sects, the two empires, and tens of thousands of Soul Masters!

Whispers from students and teachers were already rising from the academy grounds outside his window.

Countless gazes, full of contempt and suspicion, turned toward his office.

If ever there was a moment to die of public humiliation, this was it.

At the same time, in Spirit City's imposing Papal Palace...

A suffocating hush filled the vast, shadowy hall.

Bibi Dong, newly appointed as pope and teetering on the brink of darkness, lounged against the Papal Throne, the symbol of supreme authority. In her hand, she toyed with the Scepter that represented her power.

The instant the screen appeared, Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo, standing guard outside the hall, released their Martial Souls together.

Bibi Dong raised her head. When she made out the words on the screen, shock pierced the lifeless stillness in her eyes.

"Yu Xiaogang... cowardly... hypocritical..."

Those words stabbed into the part of her heart she least wanted to touch.

The image of the once-erudite young man shattered in her mind. She remembered his back as he fled like a coward when Qian Xunji had forced himself upon her.

A fierce purple-black killing intent erupted from Bibi Dong and swept through the entire Papal Palace!

The hard obsidian floor tiles cracked inch by inch beneath the terrifying pressure.

"Please calm your anger, Your Holiness!" Outside the hall, Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo felt that killing intent and dropped to one knee, cold sweat breaking out on their foreheads.

But Bibi Dong's gaze remained fixed on two other lines on the screen.

As she read them, the violent killing intent around her actually faltered for a moment.

A complicated look crossed her face.

What if it was true?

"Empty boasting..." Bibi Dong tightened her grip on the Scepter. Her voice was cold, but a curiosity she had never felt before blazed in her beautiful eyes.

While those few passages sent the entire continent into a frenzy...

The words on the screen high above slowly faded, and the image abruptly shifted to a vivid, live view.

The figure on-screen was Lin Fan, who still thought he was playing a single-player game—or rather, Yu Xiaogang in his youth.

He seized Luo Sanpao by the plump scruff of his neck and flashed a wild grin.

His confident words traveled through the screen to every corner of Douluo Continent:

"All right, game on! Luo Sanpao, quit whimpering like a good-for-nothing. Your old man's going to teach you how to turn from a pig into a Golden Sacred Dragon!"

In the present timeline, Yu Xiaogang's eyes rolled back, and he fainted from fright.

And in the Papal Palace, Bibi Dong rose from her throne and stared at the man on the screen, whose presence felt utterly unfamiliar.