Ambushed

"Bastard, would it have killed you to hold on for a few more seconds?!" Su Ming wanted to curse, but he didn't even know whom to curse. He had inexplicably come to an unfamiliar place, and who knew what dangerous things might be lurking here?

"No, there's still one chance!" He suddenly remembered the figure. That mysterious person must have passed through this hall!

"The wormhole was probably built by that person-" Su Ming murmured, hope rising in his heart again. Though the mysterious person had been run over by the truck, he could summon bone prisons and create wormholes, so he might not be dead. Su Ming immediately climbed down from the truck bed and crawled underneath to search.

Soon, Su Ming found his target.

The situation was worse than he had expected. The unlucky transmigrator he had pinned his hopes on was wedged motionless in a gap between the wheels at a grotesque angle, like a crushed doll.

Su Ming called out a few times, but there was no response. He worked up the courage to crawl over to the injured man and found an old man with white hair and a white beard. Though he might only look human, at least he wasn't some bizarre alien creature, and Su Ming's anxious heart eased a little.

There was no color in the old man's face, though his skin might simply have been that pale to begin with. Su Ming checked and found no breath or pulse. In this other world, who knew where they were or whether the man even had a heartbeat or pulse, but the blood pooled across the ground and his twisted limbs made it impossible for Su Ming to feel optimistic.

"Rest in peace!" Su Ming decided to give up after all. He pressed his palms together. "Next time you transmigrate, remember to learn the traffic rules first."

With that, he began searching the old man's body, hoping to find something useful. He found a backpack at the old man's waist and immediately began rummaging through it.

Behind him, the old man suddenly twitched, faint markings emerging all over his body. He opened his eyes and raised a stiff arm.

"Get away from there!" A cool female voice suddenly rang out in Su Ming's mind.

Su Ming looked up in surprise and saw that the previously still "corpse" had bent both hands into claws and was reaching for him. "Aah!!!" Frightened, he grabbed a crowbar and struck the old man's head, then scrambled out from under the truck and retreated a good distance away.

Su Ming watched in terror as the old man continued struggling beneath the wheel after taking the blow. "H-he's not dead!"

"No, visitor from another world, Galio is already dead," the female voice said in Su Ming's mind again. "He was badly injured before he crossed over. After your alchemical behemoth ran him over, he died when he crashed back here."

"But he's clearly still moving!" With no time to correct her misunderstanding about the "alchemical behemoth," Su Ming pointed at the old man and shouted.

"Galio had spell imprints engraved on his body," the female voice explained. "They can transform him into a lich after death, to prevent him from being killed by accident."

As she spoke, wisps of gray mist rose from Galio's body. His caved-in chest began to swell, and his broken arms began to knit back together.

"Another imprint, Death Coil," the female voice said. "He's repairing himself."

Spells? Is this a world of magic? Su Ming felt a headache coming on. On Earth, he had at least been a university student, but in a world of magic, he was worse off than someone who hadn't even finished compulsory education.

He was a complete, pureblooded Muggle!

Within the spell's halo of light that was transforming him into a lich, the old mage raised his head and glared at Su Ming with blood-red eyes.

"He's... going to kill me?" Su Ming was puzzled.

"You ruined Galio's plan to cross over and escape, and made him turn into a lich. Of course he wants to kill you," the female voice explained.

"You think we wanted to hit him?!" Su Ming protested. "I'm the victim here, okay?!" He glanced at the crowbar in his hand, wondering whether he should strike first.

"Becoming a complete lich takes quite some time," the female voice said, as though talking to herself. "Although he can repair himself, it would be quite troublesome if his head were smashed."

"Uh, you know what I'm thinking?" Su Ming asked in surprise.

"We're speaking through Mind Synchronization. Otherwise, how did you think we could communicate in our different languages, visitor from another world?"

Su Ming could clearly sense the girl rolling her eyes at him.

"It makes no difference whether you speak aloud or not," the female voice continued. "Of course, don't project anything too convoluted in your thoughts. It would tire me out."

"...Okay."

"In any case, I'm a helpful passerby who was curious and decided to chat with you, to teach a visitor from another world some local common knowledge," the female voice said seriously. "I have absolutely not asked you to do anything detrimental to Galio."

Su Ming had the distinct impression that she was covering her bases.

"Back to what we were discussing. Galio was a powerful dark-element holy magister when he was alive. The good news, though, is that he can't cast spells before the transformation is complete, and his mind isn't clear either. He's only an undead creature with a bit of brute strength."

Su Ming often carried goods and equipment at the factory, and played basketball from time to time, so he could just about be considered strong. He tightened his grip on the crowbar and encouraged himself.

Su Ming had just started forward when a creaking sound rang out. Galio, his arms now fully repaired, braced both hands against the tire and forced a gap between it and the ground.

Then he began wriggling, trying to work his body out from under the wheel.

"Shit!" Su Ming turned and charged at him, bringing the crowbar down on his arms. The blow severely hindered Galio. Seeing that it was working, Su Ming quickly struck him another three or four times with all his strength. Galio couldn't hold on, and the truck dropped back onto him.

Several ribs cracked, but Galio's chest barely caved in.

The truck had eighteen tires, each bearing an average of about three tons of pressure. Yet Galio had only broken a few ribs. Su Ming finally realized how naive he had been.

"Um," he told the female voice, "I can't smash it."

"Sorry, visitor from another world. I was wrong to measure you by the standards of this world's warriors." Disappointment also crept into the female voice. "I thought that since you could control such an enormous alchemical beast, you would at least be as strong as a High-Rank Warrior."

"I'm a weakling! I can't even lift a truck wheel!" Su Ming backed away, but he didn't dare run. If Galio escaped from beneath the truck, he would definitely be dead. "Is there any other way?"

"Hmm-if you climbed onto the truck bed during a fight and jumped down, stabbing with your weapon, wouldn't that do considerably more damage?"

Su Ming hurriedly climbed onto the roof of the truck, leaped down, and stabbed with all his strength, luckily striking Galio's head.

Then the recoil left both his arms numb, the crowbar flew from his grasp, and he fell to the ground. When he looked at Galio again, the latter had only screamed, and the dent in his head was quickly repaired by Death Coil.

"Are even the undead this tough here?!" Su Ming said through gritted teeth. "Just how messed up is the world I've transmigrated to?!"