"Roar—"
A deafening roar exploded like a sudden thunderclap on level ground.
The sound was laced with the unique chest resonance of a massive creature, shaking the leaves until they trembled and making the very air seem to shiver within the violent soundwaves.
Alice woke up with a start from her light sleep.
Her body reacted faster than her brain; she almost subconsciously tried to kip-up and flip onto her feet, her right hand instinctively reaching for her waist.
A Glock 19 or a tactical knife should have been holstered there.
But she grasped at nothing.
Her touch only met rough, cracked bark and the silk hem of a skirt beneath her, so dirty its original color was unrecognizable.
This momentary sense of displacement caused Alice's pupils to contract slightly. Her originally tense muscle lines—though this body currently possessed no muscle lines to speak of—slowly relaxed.
Lying face-up on a giant tree branch over thirty meters above the ground, she rubbed her bleary eyes hard, wiping away the small amount of tears secreted by physiological instinct.
When she opened her eyes, it wasn't a familiar ceiling, but a canopy of green so vast it was unsettling.
Giant broad-leaved plants layered over one another, blotting out the sun.
Golden sunlight, like threads and strands, struggled to project down through the gaps in the branches and leaves, forming Tyndall beams.
The air was thick with humid water vapor, and dust particles danced silently in the light beams like glowing elves.
The scenery was extremely beautiful, filled with primitive, wild, and vibrant life.
But in Alice's eyes, this overwhelming greenery represented only two things.
Danger, and slaughter.
She stretched lazily, her bones making faint cracking sounds.
Then she sat up cross-legged, a trace of World-weariness and coldness flashing in her deep blue eyes that was completely inconsistent with her youthful appearance.
"Gah, gah, gah..."
Just then, a strange cry came from the horizon.
The sound was neither a bird's chirp nor a Beast's roar; instead, it sounded like a chicken and a duck being strangled at the same time, a mockery forced out from deep within the throat—sharp, piercing, and carrying a bone-chilling metallic quality.
Alice's fingers, which were smoothing her skirt, paused slightly.
The next second, the lazy girl vanished.
In her place was a jungle wildcat, startled but not panicked.
Moving on all fours, her actions were somewhat soft due to a lack of physical strength, but her technique was terrifyingly precise as she nimbly shrank herself into the gap between the shadow of the massive branch and the parasitic vines.
Holding her breath and focusing her mind, she even deliberately controlled her heart rate to become slow.
Just as she hid, the sky above darkened, as if a large dark cloud had instantly covered her head.
It wasn't a cloud, but the shadow cast by some colossal creature passing over the canopy.
The gale bent the treetops, and countless leaves were swept down like flying daggers.
After a long while, when the sense of pressure had moved slightly further away, Alice carefully pushed aside the broad leaves in front of her, poked out half her head, and peered at the sky through the gaps in the lush branches.
The first thing to catch her eye was a flock of unknown large white birds.
They flew past in a group, their forms elegant, with wingspans of at least two meters, slowly flapping their wings against the biting sea breeze high in the air.
Sunlight spilled onto the pure white wings, reflecting a holy radiance.
Their soaring posture was relaxed and graceful, like ballet dancers in the sky, performing a movement titled "Freedom" for this primeval forest.
However, this peaceful and serene picture lasted for less than three seconds.
From within the high-altitude clouds, a black bolt of lightning shot out at an angle, accompanied by a whistle that tore through the air, crudely shattering the order of the sky.
Alice's pupils reflected the appearance of that monster.
It was an aerial overlord that existed only in textbooks and museum fossils.
A Pterosaur!
It possessed a fierce, bright red bony crest, and its long, narrow beak was filled with hooked fangs. Its massive leathery wings spanned ten meters wide, showing dark red vascular patterns under the sunlight, looking like a small fighter jet mounted with biological missiles.
It had no feathers, its entire body covered in tough, leathery skin, and its tail was like a spiked spear, maintaining a deadly balance in the air.
"Gah—"
The Pterosaur shrieked and, like a hungry wolf entering a flock of sheep, crashed into the white bird flock with the terrifying kinetic energy of its back.
The bird flock instantly exploded into chaos, fleeing in panic in all directions.
But in the face of absolute power and speed, escape seemed utterly futile.
With just a light snap of the Pterosaur's fang-filled beak, a mist of blood would explode and dance in the air.
It didn't even need its claws; simply by rampaging with the blade-like edges of its wings, it sliced the fragile white birds into pieces.
Alice looked up, watching this tragedy occurring a hundred meters high with an expressionless face.
Suddenly, she felt a slight coolness on her cheek.
She reached out a slender finger and wiped it gently; on her fingertip was a startling smear of bright red.
After an unknown amount of time, the sounds of slaughter in the sky gradually faded. The sea breeze continued to whistle and the white clouds continued to drift, as if the bloody scene from just now had never happened.
But the girl knew that in this corner forgotten by civilization, in this wild World, this gamble between life and death within the food chain was happening every single moment.
Alice withdrew her gaze and turned to look at the rough bark beside her.
There, a row of horizontal bars carved with sharp stones could be seen—some deep, some shallow, some oxidized black, and some brand new.
She reached out her finger and silently carved another mark next to the last one.
The thirtieth mark.
"A full month now."
Looking at the dense row of marks, Alice—or rather, the soul that used to be—was slightly lost in thought.
It had been exactly one month since she had transmigrated and been reborn into this World.
In these thirty days, she had drunk turbid mud water, eaten sour and astringent wild fruits, and even swallowed beetle-like larvae raw when she was extremely hungry.
Although she had managed to survive, she still found it difficult to physiologically adjust to the wildness, primitivity, and savagery of this island.
In fact, one month ago, she was a 'he'.
However, fate loved to play these kinds of low-level jokes.
A game of PUBG.
As a result, in a moment of excitement, he knocked over his Coke, which seeped into the computer case, and a blue electric arc flashed.
When he opened his eyes again, the man with the iron will and powerful physique was gone.
In his place was the current her.
Alice Mason, from the United States of America, a mere 15-year-old white middle school girl.
This body possessed an enviable beauty.
Blonde hair like a waterfall, skin as white and delicate as porcelain, and features as exquisite as a doll's.
But in contrast were those delicate wrists that felt like they would break with a little force, and a lung capacity that would leave her gasping for air after running eight hundred meters.
Through fragmented memory pieces, she pieced together what had happened to the original owner.
One month ago, Alice followed her wealthy parents on a global trip aboard a luxury yacht named the Charlie.
It was a journey that was originally supposed to be filled with champagne, sunshine, and laughter.
However, when the yacht entered this unknown sea area, it encountered an unprecedented superstorm.
Giant waves over ten meters high tore the yacht to pieces like crushing an ant.
Her parents died on the spot, but Alice miraculously survived, supported by a wooden plank, drifting at sea for two days and nights before finally being washed onto the beach of this strange island by the waves.
The original owner had already perished during the drifting; the one who woke up was a soul from another time and space.
The milky white morning mist had not yet completely dispersed, looking like a mysterious veil draped over the forest.
On the canopy over thirty meters high, the girl, dressed in a tattered dress and with bare feet covered in small scratches, sat alone on the tree trunk.
Facing the sea, she looked into the distance.
As far as the eye could see was an endless primeval forest.
Ancient trees reached for the sky, vines were like pythons, extending continuously to the end of her vision, vast and wild.
Living here were countless species that only existed in prehistoric museum fossils or in biological textbook conjecture diagrams.