This time, the journey was different.
Usually, the transition between worlds was a blur of motion, a fleeting teleportation that ended as quickly as it began. But as Li Ke felt himself being pulled away from the dying realm, the expected Arad Continent didn't materialize.
Instead of the familiar light of a new world, he was plunged into an absolute, suffocating darkness.
He wasn't just traveling; he was drifting. Unlike the others who had been safely returned to their homes, Li Ke had fallen into the cracks between realities. He was alone in a void of nothingness, where time and space felt like meaningless concepts.
Surrounded by total, pitch-black silence, Li Ke realized the terrifying truth: This journey had no destination.
"I failed?" That was Li Ke's first thought, but the feeling of traversing worlds hadn't disappeared. A force was pulling him towards another world.
Clearly, his power hadn't failed; it had just become strange for some reason.
However, this darkness wasn't entirely devoid of light.
Not only did he himself radiate light, but countless stars also adorned the darkness.
But for some reason, despite the abundance of brilliant starlight, the area still felt predominantly dark.
Realizing that his ability was still functioning correctly, Li Ke breathed a sigh of relief and couldn't help but turn his head to look behind him, wanting to know...
Then, he saw an unbelievable sight.
In the endless darkness, a glass sphere, devoid of light, was being compressed by two soccer ball-sized beams of light. Countless cracks appeared within the crystal-clear sphere.
He seemed to have just drifted himself from those place.
"So, this was the world of 7 Days to Die all along? No wonder it collapsed so suddenly; it was being crushed between two other dimensions..."
Li Ke pieced the logic together. It was obvious now. Even Rias—who could commune with the Will of the World to some degree—hadn't sensed a thing, which meant this destruction was a total freak accident.
"What a waste..."
A surge of regret washed over him. If he'd had just a little more time, he could have mastered the Secret Arts of Blood Energy. He might have even had the chance to get intimate with Rin Tohsaka, or finally dominate Rias Gremory. Once they were back in their own respective worlds, pinning down either of them would be next to impossible.
"No... I didn't stay behind for that. As long as I can find some peace of mind, that's enough."
Li Ke watched as the glass orb shatter being crushed, then turned away. He was only searching for inner tranquility. Now that the world of 7 Days to Die was gone, no more innocent souls would be dragged into that zombie-infested hellscape. Finally, he could start planning his own adventure.
But just as Li Ke turned his back...
Inside the shards of the glass orb, the faint light began to flicker...
And then, it fragmented into countless shards.
A violent shockwave tore through the surroundings with terrifying speed. Though merely a speck compared to the two massive worlds looming nearby, the force of the glass orb's detonation was enough to shove the two realms apart, forcing them onto entirely separate trajectories.
As the blast radiated outward, countless fragments spiraled into the void. Most were instantly absorbed by the neighboring worlds, while a few flickered out like dying embers, vanishing into the eternal dark.
The raw power of the shockwave caught Li Ke just as he was drifting toward another realm, hurling him through the vacuum at a staggering velocity. Worse yet, several jagged shards tore through the air and embedded themselves directly into his body.
Already battered half to death by the initial impact, Li Ke felt his entire being erupt in a searing, white-hot agony. Distorted symbols began to swarm his vision, accompanied by a mental piercing far more excruciating than any strain he had felt while learning a Skill Book. The pain echoed endlessly through the chambers of his mind.
Even his Cheat Interface began to flicker and warp under the pressure, blurring into static before stubbornly snapping back into focus.
He couldn't comprehend what was happening; the sheer intensity of the suffering had stripped him of his ability to think. Yet, from that absolute agony, a desperate, primal wish clawed its way to the surface.
And then, amidst the Sea of Chaos, a miracle manifested once more.
A single line of text flickered into existence before his eyes:
"Consume all remaining energy to assimilate World Fragments and convert into World Power? [Y/N]"
"Yes!"
He didn't even process what he was choosing; his instincts simply screamed that this was the only way to stop the pain.
In the next heartbeat, his consciousness succumbed to a deep, heavy slumber.
In a daze, Li Ke felt as though he were drifting through an endless dream.
He saw a flourishing world, a civilization that had reached its zenith, only to be reduced to a wasteland in an instant by the fires of war and the greed of men. Bio-weapons leaked, birthing the nightmare of the undead, and the moon itself underwent a grotesque transformation due to their devastating weaponry—emitting a strange radiation that made the zombies on Earth even more hyper-active.
Yet, as long as survivors remained, there was a flickering hope that civilization might endure.
But then, the Anomaly arrived.
Seeking to claim the faith of this realm, a god from another dimension exploited the world's local myths, manifesting upon the earth in the form of a Great Old One. These monsters, nearly impossible to defeat with conventional firearms, quickly forced the remnants of humanity to bow in worship, granting them power in exchange for their souls.
The world's nascent Will eventually sensed this intruder—this thing that had twisted its laws and timeline. But the Will was too weak. It had to literally tear a piece of itself away to cast out the god that had high-jacked its mythology.
In doing so, however, the world's trajectory shifted. It was knocked onto a collision course where two greater worlds intersected.
With its hazy consciousness unable to correct its path, the world was struck to the brink of death. Its instinct was to find a World Lord—a sovereign who could steer the world's direction so the Will could focus entirely on repairing itself.
But fate was cruel. On this stray trajectory, more than just two worlds were clashing. Just as it was attempting to force its randomly summoned candidates to become the World Lord, it was struck by yet another pair of colliding realms.
This time, it didn't survive. Not a single person within its borders had managed to reach the "Max Stat" requirement necessary to even become a Candidate.
That's right—a candidate. Because becoming a World Lord was a gamble that could fail. And failure meant certain death.
The long dream left Li Ke with a throbbing headache, but he finally understood exactly what kind of mess he had stumbled into.
To put it simply: An outer god tried to take over the 7 Days to Die world and got kicked out by the World Will at a massive cost. But in the process, the world accidentally swerved onto the "interdimensional highway."
Then it got T-boned and ended up half-dead.
It tried to find a "designated driver" so it could crawl into the shop for repairs, only to get absolutely pulverized by a new set of oncoming traffic.
That was pretty much the gist of it.
Li Ke finally snapped his eyes open—and in the next heartbeat, he was completely stunned.
Because the world in front of him... was made of blocks.
The sun hanging in the sky was brilliant and warm, but it was square.
The clouds drifting through the atmosphere were a pristine, fluffy white, but they were square.
Even the flora was lush and vibrant; the grass, the flowers, and the towering trees were all thriving, but they followed the same impossible geometry.
The sheep grazing nearby looked lively and adorable, but they moved as animated cubes.
The mountain peaks were majestic and the vast horizon felt endless, yet every single edge was a sharp, perfect right angle.
Everything Li Ke saw was built from blocks. But as he stood there, trying to process this pixelated reality, a sickening sensation began to crawl across his skin. He wasn't just a visitor; he was an anomaly. He could feel it in his very marrow—this world was actively trying to reject him.
It was a profound sense of alienation—a blatant, jarring feeling of being out of place.
How should I describe it? It's like going to the cinema only to realize every single person in the theater is part of a couple except you. It's like joining a tabletop gaming club hoping for some Classic D&D, only to find out everyone else is obsessed with Call of Cthulhu mystery kits.
Or better yet, it's like a heated debate over whether tofu pudding should be served salty or sweet—and then there's you, quietly pulling out a bowl of bitter melon tofu pudding topped with cheese, honey, rock sugar, fermented black beans, chili oil, and pickled mustard greens.
The core theme here was being completely, utterly incompatible.
And in that very first moment, Li Ke knew exactly why.
"Is it because I'm round? Is that why this world is rejecting me? No, that can't be right—even on Earth, there's no such thing as a perfect circle in reality. So why the cold shoulder?"
Li Ke looked down at his own hands—completely devoid of sharp edges—and then back at the world around him, a land of pixelated textures built entirely out of individual voxel blocks. He let out a helpless, weary sigh.
"This is... honestly, I'm speechless. So, I'm in Minecraft?"
Li Ke gazed at the vibrant blue sky and the lush, sprawling greenery—a world so tranquil and serene that it felt like a complete 180 from the bleak, zombie-infested wasteland he had just escaped. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he felt his frayed nerves finally begin to settle.
In this pixelated paradise, he could finally breathe.