Reborn at Max Level?

What... had happened?

Lying on his back in a deserted street on a rainy night, the boy was soaked through by icy rain, yet he felt no cold at all. He simply stared in disbelief at the moonless sky, not moving even when rain fell into his eyes.

Ever since entering the Nightmare World game and becoming a player, Su Bai had gone ten whole years without seeing a night sky free of that red moon. Even one of the most terrifying entities in the Nightmare World could not blot out the red moon in its night sky. That... blood-red full moon stared constantly at every Nightmare World player like the pupil of a devil's eye. And now, the red moon that had always existed alongside the Nightmare World was gone.

He breathed greedily in the rain, drawing in clean air without the slightest trace of blood.

This was not the Nightmare World. It was the real world.

Su Bai struggled to raise his right hand. Beneath his soaked, old school uniform was an incredibly scrawny arm. The uniform was familiar, but he was no longer the awkward student he had been over a decade ago. And this body... Though his ten years in the Nightmare World had never given him the kind of impressive muscles others envied, knocking a few people unconscious had been easy enough. Now, never mind a person-he felt as though his hand lacked the strength to swat a fly. He also did not know whether he had spent too long in the rain, but his body was so weak that even his consciousness was a little hazy.

"I should be..." Su Bai struggled to recall what had happened before he lost consciousness, only to find that even his memories were a blur.

Su Bai forced himself upright and inched beneath the awning of a nearby shop before finally letting out a heavy sigh of relief.

When he looked up, he saw the shopping mall a short distance away at the street corner. An electronic screen hung on the outside of the five-story building. Even at this hour, when the mall was closed, and even under the pounding rain, it continued cycling through glaring advertisements late into the night.

But the year and date displayed on the electronic screen were...

Eleven years ago?

"You've got to be kidding." Su Bai was too weak even to manage a bitter smile. Compared with the ten years he had spent desperately struggling to survive in the Nightmare World, his life eleven years ago had been more like a nightmare.

Back then, Su Bai had been an ordinary, even somewhat timid high school student. His mother lay in the hospital after a car accident, her life hanging by a thread, while every penny the family had was squandered by his bastard older brother, Su Xuan, a compulsive gambler and drunk.

Su Bai's family consisted of only the two brothers and their mother. Their father had died of illness before Su Bai was old enough to remember him, and their mother had endured countless hardships to raise her sons alone. Neither Su Bai nor his mother understood why Su Xuan, the once cheerful, hardworking, intelligent eldest son of the Su family, had fallen overnight into a degenerate gambler who threatened to kill himself whenever he had no alcohol to drink.

After their mother was hospitalized, that bastard had used her urgent need for medical fees following the accident as an excuse to borrow money from relatives and friends, even Su Bai's teachers and his classmates' parents, only to squander it all at the card table.

In the end, even the bastard himself had vanished without a trace, his whereabouts unknown.

As those old memories surfaced, Su Bai closed his eyes in pain. Even though these memories were already ten years old to him, every time he remembered the moment he learned the truth, that despair-the feeling of plunging into an abyss-would wash over him all over again.

After that, everything beautiful that should have been part of Su Bai's life faded away. To keep paying for his mother's treatment, he gave up the university education he had dreamed of. While his classmates were still making their final push for the college entrance exams, he was already searching everywhere for ways to earn money. In the end, however, he could only watch helplessly as relatives holding high-interest IOUs took their home.

Back then, Su Bai had tried everything he could, but his mother still passed away in the hospital, never opening her eyes to look at him again. Perhaps the medical technology had been inadequate. Perhaps the money Su Bai had scraped together at the cost of everything he had still was not enough... After his mother's death, none of it mattered to him anymore. The only thing that might still count as a wish or a goal was finding that devil, Su Xuan, and making his own biological older brother kneel before their mother and beg forgiveness.

A person had to want something, to strive for something, while they were alive. Otherwise, how were they any different from a walking corpse? As Su Bai wandered in confusion, aimlessly searching for that bastard, a rickety last bus on Route 444 carried him, homeless and dazed, into a world illuminated by blood-red moonlight-a terrifying game world known as the Nightmare World!

He became one of the chosen Nightmare World players.

In this Nightmare World, where surviving meant completing horror games, Su Bai did not have to think about his troubles in reality. All he had to do was desperately rack his brains, regardless of anything else, to figure out how to stay alive. Then, step by step, he went from an ordinary person too weak to put up a fight to...

To a... strange person who would not hesitate to enter into some unspeakable pact with the Nightmare World's most terrifying entities, so long as it meant he could survive.

In truth, even Su Bai did not know what exactly he had become... after ten years of torment in the Nightmare World.

Did he still count as human?

Forcing himself out of those nightmarish memories and back into reality, Su Bai opened his eyes and repeatedly checked the time on the electronic screen before him, then looked around at the street that felt both familiar and unfamiliar.

This was clearly the neighborhood where he had lived in the real world before losing his family and his home. Before her accident, Su Bai's mother had run a little clothing shop on this street. No matter how long he had been away, he could never mistake it.

Su Bai looked again at his utterly powerless, painfully thin arms, and an absurd possibility surfaced in his mind-

He had returned to eleven years ago. Absurd, utterly outlandish, yet at this moment, there was no more reasonable explanation.

"But if this really is eleven years ago... then..."

Then...

Still sitting against the wall, Su Bai suddenly thought of something. Using the wall for support and mustering every bit of strength he had, he barely managed to stand and looked to the right of the electronic screen ahead. Not far from this street, a red cross glowed in the rainy night.

That was the hospital where his mother had received treatment!

Su Bai clearly remembered entering the Nightmare World game and becoming a player on November 11, ten years ago. That day had also been the first anniversary of his mother's death. If the time on the electronic screen was correct, if today really was October 8, eleven years ago, then...

His mother was still alive!

All this time, Su Bai had held no conviction and wanted nothing beyond "staying alive," which was why the other Nightmare Game players had considered him a freak. But now, he had something he absolutely had to do-

He had to go to the hospital and see his mother again!

Bracing his right hand against the wall, Su Bai gritted his teeth and walked toward the hospital. His steps were unsteady, but this was already as fast as he could go. His body was cold and weak, yet perhaps because he now had something he had to do, or perhaps because something inside him was awakening, Su Bai gradually began to feel less miserable.

He was clearly exhausted, yet the farther Su Bai walked, the easier his breathing became and the lighter his body felt. As the rain stopped, even the chill in his body slowly faded, giving way to warmth.

"There really isn't anyone here." Looking at the empty street, where there was only him and his reflection in the puddles, Su Bai still felt a little dazed. This street had never been particularly bustling, and it was the early hours of the morning just after rain, but was it really normal for there to be no one at all?

In his daze, Su Bai passed a storefront near an intersection. Though he was desperate to see his mother, for some reason, he could not help stopping to glance at that strange shop.

Strange though it seemed, the storefront looked fairly ordinary, even a little small, with a display window and a somewhat weathered wooden door. There was no sign, and it was too dark to make out any merchandise inside. Rather than a shop with some peculiar appeal, it looked more like an empty storefront that had yet to be rented out.

Its only distinguishing feature was a "double happiness" character pasted on the display window. Who knew how long it had been there? Its edges had curled, and even its original red color had faded completely to white. Late at night, it looked rather unsettling.

Yet this very shop had brought Su Bai to a halt, as though it possessed some special power.

Because... Su Bai had already passed three intersections, and at every one, he had seen an identical empty storefront. The display window, the weathered wooden door, the complete absence of merchandise, and that faded, curling "double happiness" character.

The exact same storefront had appeared at every intersection Su Bai passed!

Su Bai's breathing grew heavier, but a second later, he turned and resumed walking toward the hospital. He had experienced countless supernatural incidents in the Nightmare World game. Though this deserted street and the storefront that seemed to follow him like a stalker were deeply strange, his most urgent desire right now was to reach the hospital!

For Su Bai, having a wish was an incredible luxury, so he would hold on to it no matter what.

But the instant Su Bai turned and stepped toward the intersection, a car horn blasted beside his ears. A car sped through the intersection under a yellow light, splashing water over the tops of his feet. Had he not stopped the moment he heard the horn, the car might have hit him and sent him flying before it could brake.

"Are you blind?!" An angry voice came from the direction of the speeding car.

Su Bai looked around in surprise. The street, which had been eerily deserted just moments ago, now had pedestrians in twos and threes and cars passing from time to time. He could even see a few shops along the roadside that stayed open all night.

Faint music drifted from the shops, mingling with the sound of passing cars and the murmurs of young couples out late. Someone working overtime walked past Su Bai while talking on the phone. In the blink of an eye, the silent, eerie world had come "alive."

Su Bai remembered the strange storefront that had kept following him, but soon discovered that the shop with the faded "double happiness" character had vanished as well.