1: Chapter 1 Su Wu

Canglan Base City, Sector F.

The dim yellow setting sun looked like a pool of old blood that wouldn't dissolve, smeared across the alloy city walls that towered into the clouds.

Outside the walls was the wilderness of Vicious Beasts, filled with earth-shattering roars; inside the walls was a steel jungle with a strict hierarchy.

"Hey! What are you standing there for? The Corpse-Devouring Beast fluids over here haven't been wiped clean yet!"

An impatient shout broke the silence.

Su Wu clutched a rag covered in foul-smelling filth, his body hunched over as he laboriously wiped away the residual flesh and blood of Vicious Beasts from the crevices of the city wall. Hearing the shout, his whole body trembled. He hurriedly straightened his back, which should have been as upright as a spear, and a fawning smile appeared on his face.

"Coming, coming, Young Master Liang! It'll be ready in a moment!"

Standing before him was a clean-looking young man wearing a brand-new nano-combat suit named Liang Qi. He was the nephew of the City Defense Team's Third Battalion Captain and also the group leader for this area.

Liang Qi covered his nose in disgust and kicked the iron bucket of dirty water next to Su Wu with the tip of his boot. "Old Su, I've got an appointment with some buddies to go drinking at 'Elysium' tonight. You'll take my night shift patrol. You're just an old bachelor anyway, you've got nothing to do back home. Earn some more overtime pay to buy medicine for that trash son of yours, right?"

Su Wu's movements stiffened for a moment.

Overtime pay? According to usual practice, this money would only end up in Liang Qi's pocket. If he could even get a tenth of it, it would be because Liang Qi was in a good mood today.

But could he refuse?

He couldn't.

Although Liang Qi was a playboy, he was at least an Early Stage Qi and Blood Realm Martial Artist, not to mention the uncle backing him. Whereas himself...

Su Wu lowered his eyes, concealing the fleeting sharpness deep within them, and bowed humbly. "Yes, yes, yes. It is my honor to do things for Young Master Liang. Please go and enjoy yourself. I'll guard this section of the wall and guarantee not even a fly will get in."

"At least you're sensible." Liang Qi sneered and patted Su Wu's oil-stained shoulder like he was patting an obedient old dog. "Work hard. In this world, if you don't have strength, you have to accept your fate."

After saying that, Liang Qi hummed a little tune and turned to walk toward the maglev train station in the brightly lit wealthy district in the distance.

Su Wu stood in place, watching Liang Qi's departing back. His originally bent spine straightened for a brief second, but immediately after, a sharp pang of phantom pain came from his Dantian, forcing him to hunch over again.

"Accept my fate... Heh, accept my fate."

Su Wu muttered bitterly to himself, looking at his rough, cracked, and calloused hands.

Who would have thought that these hands, which could now only hold rags and shovels, had once shattered a mountain peak with a single punch twenty years ago?

And who would have thought that this middle-aged man, who was timid and subservient at the foot of the city wall and endured countless cold glares, actually didn't belong to this time and space at all.

He was a Transmigrator.

Originally, he lived in a technological world called Earth.

After transmigrating to this high-martial parallel world, he had once been full of vigor. Relying on the resilient Heart-Nature of a Transmigrator, he had cultivated into a Grandmaster Realm expert respected by all in just twenty years!

That was a Grandmaster!

Controlling the air with thought, able to kill with a plucked leaf or a flying flower. If he were in the current Canglan Base City, even the City Lord would personally welcome him as an honored guest.

Unfortunately...

Su Wu turned his head to look at the deep and boundless starry sky, a flash of unforgettable pain in his eyes.

All glory had vanished into thin air on that night 18 years ago.

To protect that woman, his Dantian was shattered and his Meridians throughout his body were snapped with a single casual palm strike from that terrifying man from the depths of the starry sky.

"Ant."

Those were the only two words that man had said to him.

From then on, the generation's Grandmaster Su Wu fell, turning into a cripple who only had the Late Stage of the Body Refinement Realm. His wife was taken away, his newborn daughter was snatched, leaving only him and his son in swaddling clothes, Su Yu, to struggle for survival in this cold world.

"Whew..."

Su Wu exhaled a breath of turbid air and picked up the rag again.

Don't think about it anymore.

No matter how much he thought, he couldn't go back. Now he was just a father bowing for a few scraps of food; he still had a son to raise.

...

Twelve o'clock midnight.

The neon lights of the bustling city gradually went out, leaving only the holographic billboards in the distant wealthy district still flashing tirelessly.

Su Wu dragged his exhausted body back to the old tenement building located in the Sector F slums.

The air here was filled with the sour smell of sewers and the scent of cheap synthetic food. The wall plaster was peeling, and electrical wires were tangled in the corridors like spider webs.

"Beep, identity authentication successful. Welcome home, Tier 3 Resident Su Wu."

A cold electronic voice sounded, and the rusty security door opened with a creak.

The space inside was cramped, only thirty square meters, yet it was kept spotless. Although the furniture was old, it was arranged very neatly.

Su Wu closed the door quietly and skillfully opened the old-fashioned freezer that had accompanied the father and son for ten years.

Inside were two lunch boxes; those were the dinner his son Su Yu had left for him.

He put the food into the heating box. The "sizzling" sound of heating was exceptionally clear in the quiet of the late night. Su Wu slumped onto the fabric sofa, whose springs had already collapsed, his bones aching in protest.

He habitually looked up at the mottled white wall in the living room.

That was the most "luxurious" place in this home.

The wall was covered with certificates from childhood to the present—"Merit Student," "First Place in Martial Dao Theory," "Full Marks in Basic Fist Technique Assessment"...

And right in the center of these certificates hung a slightly yellowed photograph.

In the photo, a gentle and beautiful woman like jade was leaning in the arms of the young and handsome Su Wu. Her eyes were so gentle they seemed capable of melting ten thousand years of ice.

That was his wife, Lin Waner.

She was also that noble woman who possessed the Starry Sky Divine Clan bloodline.

“Waner, our son has grown up...” Su Wu looked at the photo, a layer of water mist appearing in his bloodshot eyes. This was the most relaxing moment of his day. “Little Yu is very promising, better than I was back then.”

Although Su Yu hadn't fully inherited his mother's Heaven-Defying God Race talent, among ordinary people, he was already a rare Genius.

Seventeen years old, Body Refinement Realm Perfection, only one step away from entering the Qi and Blood Realm.

In this resource-scarce slum, to have such an achievement was entirely dependent on the child's day-and-night bitter cultivation.

“As long as Little Yu can get into a key martial arts university, even if he doesn't become a Grandmaster in the future, if he can reach the Innate Realm, he can stand tall as a man in this world...”

Su Wu was planning in his mind that after he got his salary next month, he must go to the black market to buy an Elementary Qi and Blood Potion for his son to break through the bottleneck.

Suddenly, there was a "click."

The bedroom door opened.

Su Wu quickly hid the exhaustion on his face, putting on a cheerful expression as he turned his head. "Little Yu, not asleep yet? Are you hun—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Su Wu's smile froze on his face.