The night fell over the vast mining camp, heavy as a slab, and in its stillness hid a void that gnawed at the bones. The sky, usually a mantle of soot, was ironically clear. As if by a cruel whim of the heavens, the stars peered out tonight, not as beacons of hope, but as cold, distant eyes.
At the mouth of the mine, where the earth spewed its poison, a small figure lay sprawled against the ground. His hands, black with dust, brushed the gravel as if seeking an anchor in a sea that was swallowing him. A thread of saliva slid from his parted mouth, glinting in the broken light, and his eyes, wide open, caught fragments of bright constellations in a world that was crumbling. There was no sound in him, only a faint gasp, an echo of life slipping away like sand through fingers.
Beyond, at the edges of the camp, the air reeked of metal and slow death. The rocks creaked under a silence that was not silence, but the sum of all that had been torn away: laughter, names, futures. Only the song of a few owls accompanied the night. But in the motionless body, in the heartbeat that still resisted, there was something more: a spark of certainty, not of salvation, but of an end approaching with the calm of the inevitable. He was, in fact, about to die.
"Stars? Where am I? Am I dead?" thought Liu Hanbing. "It's here." Just moments ago, he had been in a hospital bed, his body ravaged after five years of battling lung cancer, the result of a relentless addiction to tobacco. He was weary. His tranquility was rooted in resignation. Watching his family grow numb, arguing with doctors, nurses, and insurers, had made him give up. He had awaited the end.
"It's beautiful." The starry sky dazzled his eyes. So much so that he was unaware of the reality of his situation, the environment around him, the searing pain of a body contaminated by the remnants of minerals and gases expelled by the mine, the hunger that seemed to grip his insides with a voracious force intent on devouring him, the chill of occasional gusts of wind caressing his face, which shouldn't have been in a hospital room. Nor did he notice the small white letters flickering in his peripheral vision. Until a sharp, tinkling sound, like a tiny bell, snapped him out of his stupor.
[Congratulations, Liu Hanbing! You have died! As a reward, xxxx grants you a Shura Amulet, redeemable in the shop for a Divinity-type reward. Choose wisely.]
[Liu Hanbing. Lvl: 0]
[No title]
[Class: No class]
[Spells: No spells]
[Cultivation: No cultivation]
[Erosion: 7%]
[Amulets: Shura Divine Amulet]
[Coins: 0]
[Shop] [Exit]
"What is that?" he reacted, emerging from his daze. "So I've finally died. Is death just a game, then? I hope I can live like in a novel in the next life," he thought ironically. With a movement of his eyes, he focused on the bottom option: [Shop]. A wide array of choices appeared.
[Titles] [Classes] [Spells] [Techniques] [Resources] [Stories] [Modifiers]
[Amulets: Shura Divine Amulet] [Coins: 0]
He browsed through each section, but all were empty. "Not even in the afterlife do I have money," he thought bitterly. The only section with options was [Titles]:
[Cultivator]: Three amulets.
[Blacksmith]: One amulet.
[Elementalist]: Three amulets.
[Painter]: One amulet.
[XXXX]: Two divine amulets.
[XXXX]: Two divine amulets.
[XXXX]: Five divine amulets.
[XXXX]: Seven divine amulets.
[Try Your Luck!]: One divine amulet.
[Amulets: Shura Divine Amulet]
He didn't hesitate. What did it matter now? "Let's see if I have any luck in the heavens," he thought. He directed his gaze to [Try Your Luck!].
[Are you sure you want to redeem [Try Your Luck!]?]
He accepted immediately.
[Congratulations! You have randomly acquired the title [Namer]! Enjoy it!]
A torrent of invisible light surged into Liu Hanbing's mind, as if a bolt of lightning had pierced the veil between worlds. The system flickered in his peripheral vision, confirming the acquisition with a triumphant chime, but what followed was not euphoria, but a whirlwind of energy swirling within him. From the dusty floor of the mining camp, where his body—a child's, exhausted and poisoned—lay motionless, he felt something ancient awaken. It wasn't pain, not exactly; it was a current flowing from his bones to the core of his being, rearranging fragments of his soul like pieces of a forgotten puzzle. The hunger and cold faded momentarily, eclipsed by this force invading him.
From the depths of his being, Liu Hanbing felt the transformation as a spiritual rebirth, an ethereal fire burning away the impurities of his blood and dying soul. It was as if his spirit, until then a faint echo in the fading body, expanded. Lying there, his eyes fixed on the indifferent stars, he felt his consciousness rise, transcending the physical pain of hunger, toxins, and weakness. A subtle warmth spread from his chest, weaving invisible threads that bound him to reality in a new way.
Suddenly, a spasm tore him from the reverie. His torso jerked upright from the ground, and he sat up, gasping as if he had emerged from a deep ocean. The cold air struck his face, but the searing pain he should have felt—the toxic minerals, the hunger twisting his insides—had vanished, replaced by a dull weakness, a void roaring within. He looked at his hands: small, bony, covered in black dust he didn't recognize. These weren't the hands of a middle-aged man, marked by years of tobacco and illness. They were a child's hands, fragile, unfamiliar.
"What happened to me?" he thought, his mind a whirlwind. "Who am I? Where am I?" He turned his head, seeking answers in the gloom. The camp stretched around him, a sprawl of tattered tents and dying fires, wrapped in a silence broken only by the distant song of owls. The stars, cold and relentless, watched from above, offering no comfort.
A shadow loomed before him, imposing against the starry sky. It was a man, tall and robust, with shoulders that seemed carved from the mine's own rock. His eyes, sunken in a weathered face, regarded him with a mix of surprise and suspicion. He spoke, his voice a growl in a language Liu Hanbing didn't understand, a torrent of harsh syllables resonating like pickaxe strikes. The man pointed at the boy, then at the ground, then at the sky, as if he couldn't believe he was alive. Liu, still gasping, tried to respond, but his throat produced only a broken, dry sound, like the dust surrounding him.
Without warning, the man grabbed him by the hair, his thick fingers pulling hard. Liu cried out, more from surprise than pain, as the man dragged him across the ground, shouting unintelligible words that rang with fury and confusion. The camp passed in a blur: hunched figures barely glancing up, piles of debris, the smell of metal and sweat permeating the air. Weakness made him stumble, and hunger, though less ravenous than before, still gnawed at his insides like a starving wolf.
They reached a giant tent, a structure of filthy canvas rising like a sleeping beast at the camp's center. The man shoved him inside, and the stench hit him like a fist: a putrid smell, a mix of sweat, blood, and something more. Inside, dozens of bodies lay sprawled, slaves sleeping on the ground, their heavy breaths filling the air with an unsettling hum. Some coughed, a wet sound that recalled the hospital he had left behind. Others, motionless, seemed more dead than alive.
The man released him, letting him fall onto the packed earth. Liu collapsed, his mind reeling. "I'm not in China," he thought, panic swelling in his chest. "This isn't my body." At the edge of his vision, what looked like a game system flickered again:
[Liu Hanbing. Lvl: 0]
[Tittle: Namer]
[Class: No class]
[Spells: No spells]
[Cultivation: No cultivation]
[Erosion: 1%]
[Amulets: 0]
[Coins: 0]
[Shop] [Exit]
The putrid stench of the tent enveloped him, a mix of rancid sweat, dried blood, and something deeper, as if despair itself had rotted in the air. Liu, sitting on the ground, tried to grasp a coherent thought, but his mind was a whirlwind of fragments: the hospital bed, the beeping machines, the taste of tobacco, and now this young, fragile body that didn't belong to him. Hunger roared in his stomach.
A rustle snapped him out of his trance. A small figure approached, moving with timid, almost fearful steps among the sleeping bodies. It was another child, no older than the body Liu now inhabited, his face covered in black dust and his eyes shining with a mix of relief and confusion. The child whispered something, a rapid murmur in a language Liu didn't recognize, his hands gesturing as if trying to explain something urgent. Liu blinked, dazed, and shook his head. "I don't understand," he wanted to say, but his throat only produced a hoarse sound, as if he'd forgotten how to speak. The child persisted, stepping closer, his voice rising, a torrent of words sounding like pebbles falling into a dry well.
Another movement in the gloom. A teenager, almost an adult, rose from a corner of the tent, his lanky figure standing out among the shadows. His eyes, sunken with exhaustion, glinted with irritation. He said something sharp to the smaller child, pointing at Liu with an accusing finger. The child shrank back but didn't give up; he pointed at Liu and tapped his temple, a gesture that seemed to say: "He's gone dumb from the toxins." The teenager snorted, his voice a low growl, and crossed his arms, as if Liu's presence were one more burden in an already unbearable night.
A shout tore through the air, followed by the whistle of a branch cutting through the darkness. Someone, invisible among the sprawled bodies, had thrown a stick, accompanied by an insult that, though unintelligible, carried the universal weight of contempt. The small child and the teenager dropped to their patch of earth, their bodies curled against the cold ground. Their eyes, bright in the gloom, locked onto Liu, a silent warning: "Sleep. Don't make noise. Survive." The weight of those gazes, laden with fear and resignation, pushed him to lie back down, though his mind remained a whirlwind. The tent, with its putrid stench and labored breaths, seemed to close in on him. Hunger clawed at his stomach, a talon tearing him from within, and weakness wrapped him like a leaden blanket. He didn't know when his eyelids gave way, but exhaustion overcame him, dragging him into a restless sleep where fragments of his past life—the hospital, the beeping machines, his family's weary faces—mingled with images of a starry sky and a flickering system: [Namer], [Erosion: 1%].
***
A sharp thud yanked him from sleep. The sound of metal against earth echoed in the tent, followed by a harsh shout that sliced the air like a whip. Liu's eyes snapped open, his heart pounding. The gloom still reigned, but it was now broken by the frantic movement of bodies rising, stumbling over each other. A man, different from the one the night before, stood in the center of the tent, striking the ground with a wooden rod that cracked with each impact. His shouts, in that strange, guttural language, were an unmistakable command: "Up! Move!" Liu, still dazed, tried to rise, but weakness made him stagger. Hunger lingered, a ravenous void stealing his breath, and his mind spun with unanswered questions.
A rustle behind him made him turn. It was the child from last night, the one with bright eyes, now with a face taut with fear. He whispered something fast, a torrent of words Liu couldn't understand, but the tone was clear: a warning, an urgency. The child pointed to a pile of tools stacked in a corner of the tent and ran toward it, his steps light but trembling. Liu, heart in his throat, followed, driven by an instinct he didn't comprehend. Reaching the pile, he saw the child grab a metal pickaxe, its handle worn and its tip dulled by use. Liu reached out with a trembling hand and took another pickaxe, its weight almost unbearable for his frail arms. The iron seemed to sap what little warmth he had left, and for a moment, he thought he'd collapse under its burden.
The sound of the rod against the ground grew louder, and Liu looked up. Three men in tattered leather armor had entered the tent, their weathered faces and cold eyes like the stars from the night before. They positioned themselves in the center, watching the slaves with a silent menace, their hands resting on clubs hanging from their belts. The slaves, children and adults alike, quickly formed a ragged line heading toward the exit. The man with the rod kept shouting, striking the ground with a relentless rhythm, his voice a hammer ringing in Liu's ears. The small child, pickaxe already on his shoulder, shot him a quick glance, as if to say: "Keep up or it'll be worse."
Liu, with the pickaxe weighing like a sentence, joined the line behind the child. His legs trembled, not just from weakness but from the confusion devouring him. This body, so young, so broken, wasn't his. The system flickered again in his vision: [Namer], [Erosion: 1%]. Was that what kept him alive? The slaves moved forward, their steps a dull echo against the earth, while the armed men watched, their gazes cutting like knives. Liu clutched the pickaxe to his chest, its weight a reminder of the reality crushing him. He didn't understand the shouting man's words, the slaves' glances, or the purpose of this hell.