Naval cannons thundered in unison, and the entire shoreline was blanketed by artillery fire. Severed limbs and broken arms littered the ground, and cries of agony rose and fell in waves.
A black-haired female soldier wearing a red scarf scrambled desperately toward a long blade, kissing it fervently as a tear traced the corner of her eye, before she was completely swallowed by the smoke and fire of the artillery...
In a resplendent and magnificent palace, a queen wearing a crown and exuding a majestic aura stood at the front gates, surrounded by hundreds of firearms. Ignoring the hundreds of guns pointed at her from ahead, the queen looked far into the distance instead, her gaze filled with a complete sense of release, and the next second the hundreds of guns fired...
A man hovered in the void, his entire body covered in electric arcs and crackling with thunder. Resembling the figure of the God of Thunder, he let out a soft cry and abruptly radiated countless bolts of lightning, transforming into a blur as all human facilities around him exploded into ruins.
Thousands of tall giants ahead of him all blasted apart, and civilians within a radius of dozens of kilometers were all reduced to dust in despair by the lightning that filled the sky. A bustling modern metropolis was instantly reduced to a dead city, permeated everywhere by the weeping of surviving women and children, and the desperate and resentful wails and roars of surviving youths...
"I'm counting on you."
Chen Si opened his eyes abruptly, scrambling to his feet as he gasped for breath. Covered in cold sweat from head to toe, he felt his mind drifting in a daze and experienced a lingering, piercing pain in his heart.
"Such a realistic scene..." Chen Si steadied his forehead, trying hard to recall the fragments of his dream just now, leaving behind only the fear that remained in him and the anger filling his chest, though the images had already become blurry.
Chen Si wore a melancholic expression; that long, drawn-out nightmare felt just like living through an entire lifetime over again.
Chen Si touched the corner of his eye and found it soaked with tears, realizing that for some reason, his emotions were racked by waves of pain.
"Heh... Damn Hajime Isayama... making me have a nightmare..." Chen Si clutched his forehead with a slight headache.
Chen Si gradually woke up from his grogginess, finding himself in a completely unfamiliar environment.
"What the hell!" Chen Si climbed abruptly up from a wooden bed.
He was unexpectedly in a rather backward and rustic small wooden room. Looking around, aside from a small cupboard, there was a wooden rack next to it with a small pink jacket hanging on it.
When Chen Si subconsciously touched his chin while lost in thought, he suddenly paused, then touched it carefully again-why was it so smooth?
Where were the pimples on his face? He looked down at his own body and stretched out his hands; his skin was delicate and tender. Letting out another exclamation of shock, he leaped fiercely down from the bed with a bang, his two feet instantly piercing straight through the floorboards as wood chips flew everywhere.
"Fine, I haven't woken up yet, back to sleep I go." Chen Si determined that he had not woken up from the dream yet and prepared to lie back down to sleep.
Then he stretched with all his might, his hand brushing against the clothes hanger hanging nearby, which snapped directly with a crack.
Seeing this, Chen Si punched fiercely toward the wooden floorboards beneath his feet, which shattered instantly as he struck the flagstone floor underneath.
"Well, not bad, still a superpower dream, except it hurts a little." Chen Si nodded in realization.
Chen Si looked at the loose school uniform and trousers on his body, along with shoes that were instantly five sizes too large. Although abnormal, it was already a dream anyway, so what did this count as?
At that moment, the door of the small room creaked open, and a pretty little girl first stepped in to reveal half her body before walking slowly inside.
How cute! Chen Si's eyes lit up.
This isn't right, is it? How could I possibly have a dream like this? This is a little girl, right?
"Are you hurt? My name is Mikasa Ackerman, and this is my home."
With that, she turned her head and shouted:
"Mom, Dad, that boy has woken up!"
Mikasa Ackerman? It seemed the aftereffects were too strong, causing him to have a dream about Titans; Chen Si could not help revealing a wry smile.
Chen Si walked over to Mikasa and examined her small, delicate face closely, unable to suppress a wave of sentimentality.
Mikasa blinked her large eyes, not knowing what Chen Si was going to do.
Her cute appearance caused Chen Si to instinctively reach out and pinch Mikasa's face in a flurry.
"Ouch! It hurts!" Mikasa rubbed her slightly flushed cheeks, retreated to the side, and looked at Chen Si with an aggrieved and timid expression.
At that moment, a hearty man entered, taking a glance at Chen Si and likewise glancing back down at the floor. He had golden hair and deep, sharp facial features, carrying a distinct European flair.
"Little fellow, are you alright? Madam, can you help me get a medical kit?"
"Coming, coming!" At that moment, another woman walked in who looked graceful and bore a seven-tenths resemblance to Mikasa.
These must be the Ackerman couple. He didn't know when this dream would wake up, so he might as well enjoy it thoroughly.
"Hello, my name is Chen Si. You can call me Chance, or you can call me Chen." Chen Si smiled faintly.
"Little fellow, where are your family members? How ended up lying alone in the forest? That's very dangerous. Fortunately, we still have the medical kit left behind by Dr. Yeager last time; there's some liniment inside."
With that, Mrs. Ackerman picked up Chen Si's slightly red and swollen finger, dipped a cotton swab in medicinal liquor, and wiped it carefully. Then Mr. Ackerman picked Chen Si up and placed him on the bed, and Mrs. Ackerman carefully wiped down Chen Si, who didn't have a single scratch on his entire body.
"You're quite heavy, child." Mr. Ackerman, who had just carried Chen Si, laughed.
"That just means Chen is very healthy." Mrs. Ackerman covered her mouth and smiled.
"I've told you already that the room's floor needs to be replaced! When Dr. Yeager comes over in a bit, he'll be a laughingstock." With that, she cast a glance at Mr. Ackerman.
Mr. Ackerman scratched the back of his head and said honestly, "I've had a few extra orders recently and was busy blacksmithing, so I forgot. I'll go replace it right away." Having said that, he retreated from the room.
As soon as he stepped out, Mr. Ackerman's head popped back through the doorway.
"Little Chen Si, just treat this place as your own home. If you can't find your family, you can treat us as your family." After saying that, he smiled and ran off.
Hearing this, Chen Si felt a warm sensation in his heart; they really were good people.
"About that floor, I'm really sorry, I..."
"Oh, don't blame yourself. It was very old and should have been replaced a long time ago. Besides, it's a good thing you weren't hurt in the fall. Otherwise, if we let you stay at our house to take care of you and ended up getting you injured instead, we wouldn't know how to explain it to your family when the time comes."
Mrs Ackerman smiled without a care, while Mikasa kept rolling her big, cute eyes at the side and quietly watching Chen Si.
Chen Si nodded.
Looking at the eight-or-nine-year-old Mikasa's adorable, big eyes at that moment, Chen Si could not help feeling a deep sense of emotion.
"Mikasa, you're so cute."
Hearing this, Mikasa's face turned as red as a ripe apple in an instant.
"Th-thank you." She lowered her head slightly, not daring to look at Chen Si, but every now and then she shyly raised her head to take a couple of glances.
"I'm sorry, Mikasa, I can only look at you in my dreams, and there's no way I can change your tragic lives."
Mikasa was taken aback.
Snap! The sound of a bone cracking rang out.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
Three days later.
Did I fucking really time-travel?
Chen Si looked at his little finger, which was wrapped in bandages, between laughter and tears.
He gradually accepted the reality that shattered his worldview: the fact that he had truly time-traveled to Paradis Island in the medieval period, a place without the internet or various MSG and sauces.
"It's over, the college entrance examination is in two months, I'm dead, there's no way I can go back, it's over, my life is finished, I'm going to be eaten by Titans." Chen Si curled up in a corner with a giant bandaged little finger and muttered to himself, as if a dark cloud were floating over his head.
By the wall on the other side, Mikasa curiously sized up Chen Si.
"What a strange person." Mikasa watched him as he often talked to himself.
Three days later.
During this period, Chen Si and Mikasa got along very well, often running around in the nearby woods together. He would accompany Mikasa to play hide-and-seek, while he himself was basically in a completely state of doubting life-whether hiding or catching, he would just find a place and space out.
Surprisingly, however, he discovered that his physical stamina almost never flagged, as if he were a perpetual motion machine that never grew tired, and his strength was even more enormous. The unusual strength that he previously thought was a dream seemed not to have disappeared.
He no longer counted on waking up from this "dream," having accepted reality and thought about how to survive in this "man-eating" world.
Splash! A scoop of clear water was suddenly splashed onto the dazed Chen Si's face.
"Titans! Ahhhhh! What the fuck!" Chen Si cried out in direct panic.
"Titans? Big Brother, what are you talking about?" Mikasa blinked her cute eyes and asked.
Seeing that it was Mikasa, Chen Si immediately heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh, you, Mikasa!" He directly stretched out his demon claws and swooped toward Mikasa's armpits.
"Ehehehe, hahaha!" Mikasa turned and ran far away. Chen Si waited for Mikasa to run a dozen meters away and caught up in the blink of an eye.
"Big Brother Chen Si, you're so fast!"
"So fast?" Suddenly, as if thinking of something, Chen Si glanced at the pond a dozen meters away.
"What the fuck, I am fast!" Chen Si said with some surprise.
"So fast! So amazing!" Mikasa clapped her hands at the side.
Why did that sound so weird? Chen Si was covered in black lines.
"Ahem, Mikasa, look, there are butterflies ahead!" Unable to go on, Chen Si hurriedly reached out a hand to point and change the subject.
Mikasa looked back to see a brightly colored, large butterfly flying past a colorful flower bed. Her crystalline eyes widened, and she opened her mouth wide as she chased after it, but kind-hearted Mikasa did not reach out to catch it, instead closely following the butterfly and watching it quietly.
At that moment, the butterfly began to circle around Mikasa, and she excitedly said, "Big Brother Chen Si, look!"
Chen Si looked at the happy Mikasa, his brows and eyes growing a few shades softer. The repressed hostility from the metropolis before his time travel and the anxiety of worrying about Titan attacks day and night were swept away in that moment, as if they had been healed.
"This must be the charm of two-dimensional worlds... oh no, it's reality now, isn't it?"
"It seems... not bad this way either," Chen Si muttered, watching Mikasa spin around with the butterfly. Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his brain, as if some images wanted to drill into his mind, but vanished in an instant.
"Ugh." The sudden, piercing pain made Chen Si support his forehead and frown slightly, though it dissipated a moment later.
"Why does it feel like there's something I can't remember?" Chen Si knitted his brows tightly and pinched his temples.
"Big Brother Chen Si, these past few days have been so happy. I haven't had any friends since I was little, and this is the first time I've met someone willing to play with me!" Looking at the clear lake beside them, Mikasa revealed a joyful smile.
Seeing this, Chen Si could not help thinking of this world's tragic ending and Mikasa's lifelong experiences, and his heart ached involuntarily.
He gripped Mikasa's hand tight, looked into her clear eyes, and curled the corners of his mouth up slightly as he said, "In the future, you'll meet many friends, and many people will like you. You won't be lonely anymore, and I'll always accompany you."
"Come on, let's go catch some fish!" With that, Chen Si grabbed Mikasa and started running along the lakeside.
Hearing Chen Si's words, Mikasa was stunned for a moment. Apart from her parents, no one had ever treated her like Chen Si did, and these words seemed to be branded into the depths of her soul at that moment.
Mikasa opened her clear, crystalline eyes wide, staring dazedly as Chen Si held her hand, gazing toward the profile of his face as he pulled her forward, her cheeks slightly flushed.
Chen Si did not know that a remark of his-which would not even count as sweet talk in his own world, and could not have been more plain-had stirred up huge ripples in Mikasa's heart.
"Okay!" Mikasa nodded, let Chen Si keep pulling her along, and then kept staring in a trance at the profile of Chen Si's face.
Chen Si came to the riverbank and quietly looked at the face reflected in the water. He had actually become younger and time-traveled; what on earth... on earrrth... was going on here? Developments had their rules and logic; could it be that Earth had bugged out?
Whatever, what's done is done, accept it as it comes. The Titan world... just how should one survive and develop in this world? As Chen Si pondered, he took two light strides and actually bolted seven or eight meters forward, almost tumbling into the lake.
He snapped out of it, somewhat dazed. Without paying much attention just now, the steps he took had actually spanned such a great distance. This speed and strength suddenly increasing by so much was indeed a bit hard to get used to.
At that moment, he saw a ripple on the surface of the water, his gaze locked on it, holding his breath, and he lunged out fiercely, his foot kicking a small pit into the muddy bank as a large fish landed in Chen Si's arms, struggling incessantly.
"Big Brother Chen Si, you're amazing!" Mikasa at the side popped out starry eyes.
She had previously watched her father catch fish, so she naturally knew that catching them bare-handed was not all that easy, because the fish in this lake all swam exceptionally fast and were very difficult to catch without tools, yet Mikasa's praise made Chen Si somewhat smug, causing Chen Si's hand to slip as the fish jumped straight back into the water, darting a great distance away in an instant.
Chen Si felt a bit awkward all of a sudden, and in a flash of exasperated anger, he lunged forward again, diving even further, slamming his palm fiercely into the water to drive the fish straight into a mud pit, while his hand also sank deep into the muddy depths of the lake bed.
Chen Si discovered at that moment that the bottom seemed to be a patch of marshland, and alarm bells rang loudly in his heart as he hurriedly exerted all his strength, wanting to pull himself out, yet he found that he and the fish were continuously sinking together.
"Big Brother Chen Si! It's a marsh!" Mikasa watched Chen Si continuously sinking, shouting with incomparable panic, somewhat at a loss, shaking her head and looking all around before immediately running toward a certain spot.
Chen Si continued to sink as the mire already covered his waist, and his legs were completely unable to move.
Calm down, calm down. What is one supposed to do when caught in a marsh? It seems one shouldn't exert force, as the more you struggle, the faster you sink, but what should you do if you can't exert force? Chen Si realized at that moment that his wilderness survival knowledge was shockingly depleted.
Struggling meant sinking, and not struggling also meant sinking, so he might as well give it everything! Chen Si exerted his full strength for the first time since coming to this world, gritting his teeth as the veins on his arms bulged and the 639 muscles all over his body began to emit a popping sound.
Suddenly, his pupils flashed with a faint blue light that vanished in a split second, and a series of electric arcs suddenly surged over his arms as Chen Si felt his body lighten in an instant, breaking free and tumbling backward through the air all the way back to the bank, holding a charred fish in his hand.
Along with this came a wave of weakness throughout his entire body, suddenly leaving him incomparably exhausted and devoid of strength.
Meanwhile, Mikasa at the side was running back anxiously, hugging a long wooden plank.
Ding, congratulations to the esteemed VIP player for your first kill of an otherworldly living being, activating a one-time VIP beginner tutorial. Remember that this system is a one-time system, and please listen carefully, player. You have arrived within the "Attack on Titan" world created by the author Hajime Isayama. To help the player achieve a better gaming experience, this system has prepared a pending-activation 100% Ackerman Bloodline template for you. This serves as the player's Ackerman Bloodline ceiling, not the ceiling of all Ackermans, and at the same time you will possess the ability to command the power of thunder and lightning. You can integrate the destructive power and speed of lightning into your own strength and speed; of course, using visible lightning abilities directly is also feasible, provided the player possesses sufficiently formidable capability to not fear the gazes of the otherworldly natives, or has an explanation capable of convincing people. The player's current abilities are not in a fully realized state; you need to slay a Pure Titan to fully activate them, while slaying one hundred Pure Titans or killing an Intelligent Titan can elevate the tier of your abilities to gain even greater power. (An improvement can be gained with every single Pure Titan slain.) Player's current strength: equipped with specific gear, you can solo-kill a Pure Titan. Additionally, the player is warned that the terminology of a game is merely this system's mechanism, and you are still in reality. If the player harbors the notion of dying to wake up, bear the consequences yourself. Now, please begin your journey of exploration, player.
"VIP? So there are commoner players?" Chen Si furrowed his brows tightly and asked.
"Commoner players are nourishment for VIP players. In reality, anyone in this world other than you can be called a commoner player," the system responded.
Chen Si frowned slightly and said, "Then why did I transmigrate?"
This time, the system did not respond again.
Seeing that the system was unresponsive, Chen Si focused his attention back onto his own abilities.