1: Crossing without warning

The world of Toril, the continent of Ferun.

North of the Sword Coast, the long coastal cliffs, like sections carved by gods and demons, stood towering to the east of the churning Treasure Sword Sea.

Three hundred feet below, the waves ceaselessly crashed against the rock face, and the splashing salt spray refracted tiny rainbows in the midday sun.

In this perilous place, known locally as “Bonebreaker's Bluff,” a majestic gray tower pierced through the clouds.

The salty sea breeze, carrying the cries of seabirds, swept over the spire.

Inside the tower, a man sat at an oak desk by the window, writing something.

He had a handsome face but looked weary, with traces of blood on his lips and chest, and several damaged areas on his wizard's robe.

Some parts were stained red with blood, while others bore scorch marks.

The lingering smoke carried a sulfuric smell, seemingly from the fiery attacks of hellish demons.

As the quill glided across the book, accompanied by the faint roars echoing from the base of the tower, the scratching sound of writing filled the room.

This was a thick notebook, half-written. If you were to read it from the beginning, you would discover it was a diary.

The book began with these words—

I never thought that one day, such an absurd story as transmigration would hit me like an object falling from a great height.

In this wondrous and diverse world, planar travel is not uncommon.

The City of Doors in Sigil welcomes countless travelers, the Githyanki's silver warships glide through the Astral Plane, and even the Bards in Waterdeep's taverns sing legends of “visitors from other realms.”

But my hometown is so far away that even the gods have never heard of it—

After I scoured "Abernathy's Chronology of Time and Space" and "Klamvor's Astral Notes" at Candlekeep, I finally confirmed this suffocating truth.

To this day, I still haven't found any clues that could lead me back.

The moment before the transmigration happened, I was walking on the sidewalk, just a normal walk, one step out, and as my toes touched the ground, I arrived in this world.

There were no cheap special effects to set the mood, no bizarre light and shadow phenomena occurred, and there were no omens whatsoever.

It was like watching TV, and suddenly someone used the remote to change the channel; the scene before my eyes completely changed.

The difference was that it wasn't just the visual scene that changed.

The light, scent, sound, touch, temperature, and everything else in the environment became entirely different.

Even—my own body.

A sudden sense of weightlessness made my heart skip a beat.

When I opened my eyes again, the lingering sensation of a sweater on my skin had turned into the prickle of dead leaves.

My thirty-seven-year-old, sub-healthy body was gone, replaced by a slender, youthful physique.

As my fingertips trembled, brushing over my pointed ears, I felt an unprecedented confusion… and shock.

Sunlight filtered through layers of broad leaves, casting eerie patterns on my pale skin.

The earthy smell of humus entered my nostrils, and a peculiar sweet, honey-like fragrance permeated the air.

It was like honey mixed with rust, or the ozone before a summer downpour.

“Awooo—!”

Suddenly, a piercing howl tore through the silence.

Hundreds of meters away, several writhing dark figures leaped out from the forest.

Their fur was matted like mops drenched in acid rain, and their exposed crimson muscles twitched grotesquely with their movements.

When one of them suddenly snapped a wrist-thick tree trunk with its reverse-jointed lower limbs, I turned and ran wildly.

This was definitely not any creature I had ever heard of on the Blue Planet!

Actually, I later learned that these creatures, which looked like demons, were scientifically named Mutated Mad Apess.

But at that moment, all I knew was that yellowish-green viscous fluid was dripping from their jagged fangs in their wide, blood-filled mouths that stretched to their ears.

The sensation of bare feet crushing dead leaves was incredibly clear, and the stinging pain of thorns scratching my ankles only made me more alert.

This new body was incredibly light.

I ran faster than at any other time in my life.

However, this high-speed running could not last too long.

When I started to slow down.

The vibrations behind me grew closer, and the stench of decaying flesh licked the back of my neck like a hot, wet tongue.

“Rip!”

My right shoulder suddenly burned with pain.

As I twisted my head, I glimpsed the flesh hooked by claws arcing through the air, and crimson blood droplets splattered onto the ferns behind me.

The intense pain made my vision blur, but what was even more terrifying was that I found these monsters were laughing.

In their sunken eye sockets, their cloudy yellow pupils contracted into vertical slits, and a human-like hideous grin appeared on their tumor-covered faces, while a guttural tremor emanated from their throats.

My lungs felt like they were being seared by a branding iron, and my legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

As I stumbled out of a hemlock grove, the sudden sunlight stung my eyes, making it impossible to keep them open.

Once my pupils adjusted to the light, despair washed over me like ice water.

Just a few steps ahead was a cliff, and the waves three hundred feet below crashed into snow-like foam on the rocks.

Behind me came the crisp sound of dry branches breaking.

The leading beast stood upright, bone blades springing from its reverse-jointed lower limbs, and viscous fluid dripped from its fangs, corroding small holes in the rock.

Its deep yellow vertical pupils narrowed into slits; it was the expression some predators wore when toying with their prey.

I stepped back half a pace, and loose stones rattled down the cliff edge.

The monster suddenly arched its back and leaped, its bone blade cutting a pale arc in the sunlight.

“Am I going to die here?”

The anticipated intense pain did not arrive.

A thunderclap suddenly exploded in the clear sky, and a blue-white electric light precisely struck the monster in mid-air.

The smell of charring mixed with roasted meat assailed me, and burning chunks of flesh rained down.

The remaining monsters let out screams like infants crying, scrambling back into the forest on all fours.

Before I could even rejoice, a second lightning bolt pierced through my chest.

In the intense pain, my vision was filled with blinding blue-white light, and a burning smell emanated from my skin.

But strangely, my consciousness did not dissipate; instead, in the electric current, I “saw” an incredible scene—

Countless golden runes flowed through my blood vessels, forming some kind of precise circuit that completely devoured the violent lightning.

“System rebooting… Energy charging 12%… 17%…”

When the mechanical voice sounded inside my skull, I was face down, sprawled at the edge of the cliff.

The rough texture of loose stones came from my fingertips, and salty sea wind filled my mouth and nose.

The last image before I lost consciousness was the silhouette of a group of figures slowly approaching in the distance.