>Tip… tip… tip…
Raindrops fell rhythmically onto the empty road as I trudged home from work, my raincoat clinging to me after fourteen exhausting hours. The clock had long passed midnight.
My name is Alex Christopher, twenty-seven years old — a software engineer.
I once had dreams… big ones. I wanted to become someone special. But as the years passed, reality sank its claws into me.
I was an orphan. I never let that define me. I worked, studied, and struggled harder than most — but no matter how much effort I poured in, I never became the man I imagined.
Tring, tring.
My phone buzzed.
"A spam call? Figures," I muttered with a bitter laugh. "Who would even call me at this hour?"
With a heavy sigh, I shoved the phone back into my pocket.
HONK! HONK!
Tires screeched.
BAM!
A blinding light swallowed my vision. The truck driver slammed on the brakes, but it was already too late.
"F–fuck, it hurts!" I gasped. My entire body screamed in agony.
As crimson blurred my vision, fragments of my life flashed before me. Is this it? Is this how I die — alone, forgotten, leaving nothing behind?
My thoughts twisted into rage and regret. I wish I had one more chance… just one chance to change everything.
What a pathetic joke of a life.
Damn the gods! Damn the world! If I ever get another chance, I'll never let anyone chain me again!
I heard a machenical voice as my consciousness faded and darkness devoured me.
(Fate-Defying Fragment detected… commencing transmigration.)
――――
"Huaaah!"
My body jerked violently as I gasped for air. "W–where am I? Didn't I… die?"
I looked around — an unfamiliar room, walls of stone and wood, a flickering oil lamp. Everything looked like it came from a medieval fantasy set.
My hands… they were smaller.
I stumbled toward a nearby mirror — and froze.
A silver-haired boy stared back. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. His skin was pale and flawless, his features sharp and almost ethereal. But what truly caught my attention were his eyes — gemlike, azure-blue, glimmering as if reflecting the entire sky.
That's… me?
"Hwaaaghhh! Aaaghhh!"
A scream tore from my throat as searing pain erupted in my skull.
Images flooded in — memories that weren't mine. I watched them unfold like a movie I couldn't pause: a young noble's life, training, loss, rage.
When it finally ended, I collapsed to my knees, trembling.
So this is it… transmigration.
I had read enough novels and watched enough anime to recognize it instantly. I had died and awoken in a new body, in a different world — a cultivation realm known as the Azure Wave World.
A world where the strong ruled, and the weak were nothing but dust.
And now… I was part of it.
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