"Damn it… why does this have to happen to me?" I coughed, and a trickle of blood stained my lips.
24 hours earlier
"Zane, are you insane? You want me to cross that bridge? It looks unstable in those pictures online!"
"Richard, it's a pretty famous tourist attraction. We've got to enjoy our vacation… the one you won in that contest."
"Ha… I had the bad luck of ending up in China. I would've preferred Japan. What crap."
"Come on, come on. We've already been to Mount Tai. I'm sure plenty of people would be thrilled to be here, shouting famous lines at the top of their lungs. Besides, hiking the Mount Huashan trail is thrilling—you can feel your adrenaline spike from the fear."
"You go by yourself. I'd rather see the Great Wall."
"You're such a coward, Richard."
"And you're an idiot."
Present
If I had done what Richard wanted, I wouldn't be in this situation. I can't feel my body. Damn earthquake… I'm so tired, I can barely breathe…
Darkness.
Silence.
Cold.
That's the first thing I remember. Not the kind of cold you feel on your skin… but one that seeps into your soul. I wake up gasping, the air that enters my lungs so frigid it burns.
I blink. My vision is blurry, but slowly it clears: walls of ice, a narrow entrance where the wind howls, and beyond… a gray sky, covered in endless falling snow.
I try to move. I manage it… and then I notice: my body is smaller. My hands—if you can call them that—are thin, translucent, with a faint blue glow. My reflection in the ice stares back with strange, silvery eyes. Long white hair falls over shoulders I don't recognize. A woman's face.
"No…" I whisper. My voice is high, soft… alien.
My heart races. I don't care where I am. I don't care about the cold. I just want answers.
I step toward the entrance, and feel something under my foot—a tremor. The ice cracks, and from it bursts a translucent worm, jaws open, screeching in rage. I don't think; I just react. A blast of freezing air surges from me, instinctive, locking it in ice. Its crystalline body shatters into a thousand fragments.
And then I see it: a white ring, floating above the remains.
A white soul ring.
My stomach twists. I already know where I am. A world I'd only read about in novels. A world where power is stolen, where another's life is just a step on your own path.
A cry dies in my throat.
It's not rage.
It's not fear.
It's pure disgust.
Disgust at the theft of my masculinity.
Disgust at the cosmic joke that brought me here and rewrote me.
"Is this some divine joke? To be born into this world of soul rings, fake god titles… and in the wrong body on top of it?"
A world I always thought was pathetic… and now I'm part of it.
I grit my teeth. Why couldn't it have been another cultivation world, like Against the Gods, Desolate Era, or BTTH? I imagine a Dou Zong walking in here and seeing these ants call themselves gods… it would be hilarious to watch Tang San humbled, his arrogance shattered, realizing he's nothing more than a slightly bigger ant.
I've fallen into a world with a cultivation system that, in other novels, would be considered demonic.
The wind carries away my sigh.
I don't want this fate.
I won't follow their stupid rules.