[Leave your brains here...
The author is new, so please forgive any rough writing.
Feel free to leave any suggestions here.
The modern world where this book's protagonist lives is also a parallel world.
Although he travels between two worlds, the focus will be on the world of Tales of Demons and Gods. The modern world will only get a light touch.
This is a Tales of Demons and Gods fanfic. Nie Li and Ye Ziyun will stay together.
Multiple heroines! Multiple heroines! Just making that clear.]
Xiao Tianhao was a recent university graduate who had yet to find a job. He was also a lonely bachelor who had been single for all twenty-three years of his life.
Three months after graduation, he still had not found work. Now he lay staring into space in a shabby room he rented in Shencheng.
"Ugh, those shitty HR people can come up with any damn requirement."
Xiao Tianhao felt helpless. He came from the countryside and had finally managed to get into university, but all he had was a bachelor's degree. Everywhere he went looking for work, he hit a wall, leaving him utterly frustrated.
With no money, he naturally could not find a girlfriend either and remained single.
"Ugh, I'll go out for a walk."
As he wandered, Xiao Tianhao ended up at the antiques market and decided to go inside to see if he could snag a hidden bargain.
On that midsummer July afternoon, the antiques market steamed with a sticky heat like melting asphalt.
Xiao Tianhao wiped the sweat from his forehead and crouched in front of a street stall, rummaging aimlessly.
Corroded copper coins, chipped porcelain bowls, thread-bound books with faded lettering... nothing but dust-covered junk.
He had not really expected to find any treasure, until his fingertip brushed something warm and smooth.
The bead lay at the edge of a counterfeit blue-and-white porcelain plate, utterly unremarkable. About the size of a longan, it was cloudy as cheap glass, its surface covered in fine, spiderweb-like cracks.
The stall owner was an old man with a pipe clenched between his teeth. He could not even be bothered to lift his eyelids. "Fifty each. Take whatever catches your eye."
As if moved by some unseen force, Xiao Tianhao paid.
The instant the bead touched his hand, an indescribable warmth spread from his fingertips, as though he were holding a miniature sun. His heart gave a jolt, and he instinctively tightened his grip.
Getting home meant passing through an old residential neighborhood. The peeling apartment blocks looked like faded building bricks. Clothes drying on the balconies dripped water, spreading dark patches across the concrete below.
Xiao Tianhao was studying the bead in his palm, trying to make out whether some kind of mineral veining lay deep within its cracks.
"Whoosh-bang!"
A shrill scrape of plastic hurtled down from above with a fierce rush of air! He instinctively turned his head, but a palm-sized alloy toy car still slammed hard into his temple.
Agony exploded, and warm liquid immediately ran down his brow.
"Hahaha! Got him!" A child's shrill laughter rang out from the second floor, triumphant at the successful prank.
The sudden blow left him dizzy and reeling. He had no time to deal with the child who had thrown it.
Dazed, Xiao Tianhao staggered and braced himself against the wall. His right hand instinctively wiped across the wound, smearing sticky blood over his palm.
In the confusion, the bead he had kept clenched in his hand was stained scarlet too.
The instant his blood seeped into the spiderweb cracks, the bead jolted violently! Pinpoints of golden light erupted from deep within the fissures, and it grew so hot that he nearly dropped it.
The light flashed for only an instant before vanishing without a trace. The bead fell inert again, as though what had happened were merely a hallucination beneath the blazing sun. Only the very real throbbing at his temple and the half-congealed blood in his palm reminded him that this was no dream.
Panicked, all he wanted was to get away.
He pushed open the iron door of his rented room, and stale air thick with the smell of instant noodles and dust hit him. In the cramped room, the only thing that could qualify as "furniture" was a creaking camp bed.
Xiao Tianhao hastily treated the wound at his temple and stuck a piece of gauze over it. The bleeding stopped, but the spot where he had been struck still throbbed painfully.
He held the strange bead beneath his desk lamp.
The cheap bulb cast a dim yellow light. The cloudy bead reflected none of it, and dark red traces of blood that he could not wash away remained in its cracks.
He turned it over and over, even finding a file to try scraping off a few fragments. But the metal rubbing against the bead produced only a teeth-grating screech, without leaving so much as a white mark.
"What the hell is this thing..." Exhaustion and his lingering headache finally won out. He shoved the bead beneath his pillow and collapsed into sleep.
Darkness, thick and sticky as ink.
A point of golden light suddenly pierced the chaos and expanded rapidly! The bead hovered in the void, its spiderweb cracks now flowing with light like molten gold.
Countless tiny motes of light drifted from the cracks and spun, tracing out a vast, magnificent nebular vortex.
At the vortex's center, an enormous rift spanning heaven and earth slowly opened-beyond it, the gnarled branches of towering ancient trees pierced drifting clouds, and the roars of giant beasts shook the cosmos.
On this side of the rift, neon flashed along streets bustling with traffic, and a forest of steel stood cold and stark.
The two worlds warped and collided at the edges of the rift, their thunderous symphony resounding!
"Ah!" Xiao Tianhao jolted upright, his back drenched in cold sweat.
It was already dark outside. Neon light pollution in the city's night sky coated the room in an eerie purplish red.
His heart hammered inside his chest, almost hard enough to shatter his ribs. That dream had been far too real. The tremendous noise of heaven and earth tearing apart seemed to still echo in his ears.
Panting, he reached beneath his pillow. The instant his fingertips touched the bead-
Hum!
The bead shot into his head and passed inside it.
A deep, mighty vibration exploded directly within his skull!
An irresistible suction erupted from within the bead, wrenching at his consciousness and everything before his eyes!
The world spun! His body felt as though it had been thrown into an ultrahigh-speed centrifuge, every organ jolted out of place.
Countless shattered images flashed past his eyes: the steel jungle collapsed, and towering ancient trees sprang up; the honking of cars gave way to the roars of giant beasts; the murky air was instantly flooded with the freshness of vegetation and a certain... wild, rank odor!
"Thud!" The weightlessness abruptly vanished. Xiao Tianhao crashed awkwardly onto hard ground, dust choking his nostrils. Coughing violently, he propped himself up and raised his head.
His rented room was gone. He was kneeling at the edge of a completely unfamiliar primeval jungle.
Thick humus lay beneath him, and the scents of pine needles and broad leaves mingled with damp earth, washing over his face.
Behind him stretched an endless ancient forest, its canopy blotting out the sky and sun. Thick vines coiled like giant pythons around trunks so wide that several people together would be needed to encircle them.
Ahead lay a relatively open stretch of hills.
Far in the distance, a vast and majestic city lay quietly where heaven met earth, like a sleeping primordial beast.
Its walls rose over a hundred zhang high, built entirely from enormous stones that gave off a lustrous blue-green glow, looming faintly through the thin morning mist.
Countless huge, intricate, mysterious runes flowed across the walls like living things, flickering in and out of sight.
A sense of familiarity washed over him.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Wasn't that Glory City?! Humanity's last stronghold in the Sacred Ancestor Mountain Range in Tales of Demons and Gods?
Xiao Tianhao's blood rushed to his head, only to turn ice-cold with overwhelming shock. He had really... crossed into another world!
"Roar!"
A roar brimming with savage fury erupted without warning from the dense forest behind him to one side! Sound waves swept over him as though solid, stabbing at his eardrums and shaking loose leaves in a pattering rain.
He turned in horror.
Deep in the forest, a blood-red shape was charging toward him at tremendous speed! Saplings as thick as a bowl's mouth snapped effortlessly in its path, and a rank wind blasted his face!
It was a monster resembling a wild boar, but as large as a young calf, its entire body covered in blood-red bristles like steel needles.
Most terrifying of all were the two curved tusks protruding from its mouth, gleaming coldly like poisoned daggers. Drool dripping from its jaws corroded the grass below, sending up white smoke with a hiss!
A Bloodfang Boar! A low-level Demon Beast, savage by nature and hungry for flesh and blood! An image from the Tales of Demons and Gods setting guide, which had devoted an entire page to describing its dangers, flashed through his mind!
Fear instantly coiled around his heart like an icy venomous snake!
Xiao Tianhao wanted to run, but his legs seemed filled with lead, pinning him in place.
Those small scarlet eyes had already locked onto him, filled with the most primal urge to kill!
He couldn't get away!
His survival instinct overwhelmed everything. Almost crawling and scrambling, Xiao Tianhao lunged toward the nearest giant tree and tried to climb with both hands and feet. The rough bark scraped his palms raw, drawing blood.
The Bloodfang Boar had already closed to within ten meters. Its hind legs kicked hard against the ground, and with a rank gust and the breath of death, its tusks speared viciously toward his back like javelins!
It was over! Xiao Tianhao shut his eyes in despair, his fingers digging uselessly into cracks in the bark.
Just as the tusks were about to pierce his body-
Hum!
The bead he had forgotten once again gave a deep, commanding vibration in the depths of his soul, one only he could perceive!
It was as though time's pause button had been pressed for the briefest instant.
A faint yet incomparably pure energy abruptly erupted from within him!
It was not an attack. It was more like the oppressive presence of a higher being, originating from the very source of life and spreading outward in ripples!
Bang!
The charging Bloodfang Boar seemed to slam into an invisible wall.
Its massive, hurtling body abruptly stiffened, and its tiny scarlet eyes instantly filled with boundless terror and bewilderment!
Those two deadly tusks came to a forced halt less than an inch from Xiao Tianhao's back, right behind his heart!
"Awooo..." A whimper of utter confusion and fear squeezed from the Bloodfang Boar's throat.
It glanced at Xiao Tianhao in terror, then sniffed at some invisible presence in the air that made its soul tremble. It actually took two steps backward.
Seizing that split-second opening between life and death, Xiao Tianhao summoned every ounce of strength he had. Only one thought remained crystal clear in his mind-Go back! Back to that cramped but safe rented room!
Dizziness and a tearing sensation even more intense than when he had crossed worlds instantly engulfed him.
The image of the blood-red monstrous boar before him, the enormous ancient trees, the magnificent distant walls... all the sights and lights belonging to the Demon Spirit world once again twisted wildly, spun, and collapsed into a single point of light.
"Thump!" A familiar hard sensation struck him.
He crashed back onto the cold concrete floor of his rented room.
Outside the window, the pink neon of "XX Foot Spa" still flickered listlessly. From next door came the sounds of a couple arguing and the clatter of a spatula against a wok.
Everything was as usual, as though that brush with death in the jungle had been nothing more than another absurd nightmare brought on by the wound at his temple.
But Xiao Tianhao's violently heaving chest, his sweat-soaked T-shirt, and... the tiny wounds in his palms where fragments of bark had pierced them, along with the lingering earthy smell, all silently screamed the same truth-
That bloodstained bead had truly opened a doorway to another world! The world of Tales of Demons and Gods, a world of Demon Spirits, Soul Seas, and Legendary Demon Spirit Masters!
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