1: Chapter 1 Edge World

[A Note Up Front: Having dabbled in Warhammer painting and played some Warhammer games, I barely qualify as a lore enthusiast. Most of the Warhammer background here is researched, and since the official lore often retcons itself, some discrepancies are normal. Friendly discussion is welcome! (The 11th edition rulebook is coming soon. Blind guess: Sanguinius returns or Corax comes back?)

Secondly, this book borrows many ideas from classic 'The Fourth Calamity' genre works like 'This Game Is Too Realistic' and 'Super God Mechanic'. If you're interested in this subgenre, I highly recommend checking them out on certain platforms. They're really good reads.

Finally, this story isn't about starting out invincible. It's about gradual development, eventually becoming a force that can influence the galaxy.]

Main Text

"So, in this universe, humanity is ruled by a church, and that church worships the Emperor?"

"Besides that, there are alien races like the Aeldari, Necrons, Orks, and so on in the universe?"

"And the things chasing me out there are Squigs and Gretchin from an Ork tribe?"

Inside the cement structure reeking of old mold, Lin Li fired off these three questions in one breath.

In front of his mud-caked shoes, something sat quietly.

The thing was only about the size of a regular washbasin.

Its dull-grey shell was covered in bullet marks and claw scratches.

To look at it, it was the spitting image of a long-suffering robotic vacuum cleaner plucked from a trash heap.

But at this moment, a crimson optical lens at the center of this robotic vacuum cleaner was flickering with a cold light.

"Correct."

The synthesized mechanical voice echoed within the empty cement watchtower, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

The robotic vacuum cleaner, which called itself the Man of Iron designated STC-73, slowly rotated its red-glowing 'head' and continued in that same flat, unmodulated tone:

"However, here I must correct a fatal error in your understanding."

"The so-called Emperor, from a purely genetic perspective of the Golden Age, is merely a human mutant possessing immense psychic power."

"And the current subjects of the Imperium, whether those Adeptus Mechanicus devotees plugged full of tubes or the Space Marines stuffed into Power Armor, their genetic sequences have long been riddled with corruption from the Warp and crude technology over the vast stretches of time."

STC-73's red lens tilted slightly upward, focusing on Lin Li's weary yet undeniably handsome face.

The red light in the lens suddenly intensified, as if some underlying code had been fully activated.

"But you, Mr. Lin Li."

"Your body shows no traces of Warp corruption, no shoddy mechanical implants. Your DNA double helix structure presents an absolutely perfect, pristine Earth-human genome."

"You are the last pure-blooded human Creator in the entire Galaxy."

"Only you, and you alone, possess the absolute legitimacy and qualification to lead this now-mutated humanity forward."

The air fell silent.

Apart from the howling wind across the wasteland wilderness outside, the cement watchtower was deathly still.

Lin Li stared expressionlessly at the red-glowing hunk of metal in front of him, his gaze fixed for a full ten seconds.

Then, he raised his right hand, crusted with dried blood, and rubbed his throbbing temples hard.

"Insane."

Lin Li sighed, his lips twisting into a mocking smile uglier than a grimace:

"This damn machine has definitely gone crazy. Can AIs even get cyber-psychosis?"

He couldn't be blamed for the complaint.

If it were any other 23-year-old modern youth who lived a routine life on Earth, spending their days gaming, reading web novels, and ordering takeout,

their first reaction upon hearing a robotic vacuum cleaner proclaim them the sole savior of all humanity would undoubtedly be to call the mental hospital.

However, Lin Li didn't even have the privilege of calling a mental hospital.

Because he had crossed over.

And in the most pathetic way possible: a physical transmigration.

Just one month ago, on an ordinary weekend night, Lin Li had pulled an all-nighter just to beat the highest difficulty of a hardcore survival game.

When he opened his eyes again, the Simmons soft bed was gone, the fluorescent light overhead was gone.

Replaced by a toxic, dark-red sky and an endless, radiation-scarred wasteland littered with colossal metal wreckage.

At first, Lin Li thought he had simply crossed over into some post-apocalyptic world.

Like *Fallout* or *Mad Max*.

Although the start was extremely hardcore, at least he had a modern mind.

He even traded the smartphone that had crossed over with him, still with eighty percent battery, to a wandering scavenger for three whole days' worth of rations.

When that scavenger saw the phone screen light up, he knelt and kowtowed a dozen times as if witnessing a miracle, muttering mad praises to the Omnissiah and such nonsense.

At the time, Lin Li just thought the guy was a bumpkin who'd never seen the world. He took the few pieces of bread reeking of machine oil and a pot of murky water he got in exchange and left without looking back.

Relying on the survivalist 'turtle strategy' he'd honed from playing games, he cautiously survived for a month on this desolate fringe planet.

He learned to identify which foods were edible, learned to make traps, even learned to find cover before acid rain fell.

He thought he had figured out the rules of this post-apocalyptic world.

Until two days ago, while scavenging for parts near a huge mountain of metal junk, he accidentally kicked awake this robotic vacuum cleaner, STC-73, buried under the rubble.

And from the moment this self-proclaimed Man of Iron activated, the post-apocalyptic survival filter Lin Li had built up over a month was utterly shattered.

"warhammer 40,000..."

As a filthy gamer, how could Lin Li not have heard of Warhammer?

If there were a hierarchy of transmigration destinations, landing in the warhammer 40,000 universe would undoubtedly be at the absolute bottom.

This was an era of madness where the entire universe competed in awfulness, a suffocating age of despair.

Human life here was worth less than weeds.

In these late years of the 41st Millennium, the Imperium was torn by war, Warp storms raged.

A planetary governor, to meet tithes, could feed millions into the meat grinder.

The Inquisition, to purge Chaos taint, would readily issue Exterminatus orders, burning entire planets to glass.

Not to mention the non-human entities in the cosmos.

The Tyranids, who treated humanity as blood bags;

the Drukhari, who considered torturing humans an art form;

and the Chaos Daemons who could crawl out of the Warp at any moment to devour people alive.

Here, death wasn't even the end.

Because your soul would go to the Warp, leading to eternal, unending torment.

"Fuck..."

Lin Li gritted his teeth, forcing the curse out between them.

His tall, well-proportioned frame trembled slightly now, not from fear, but from the physiological despair brought on by this overwhelmingly oppressive reality.

*Thud... thud...*

Just then, from the distant, parched wasteland, came a faint yet bone-chilling sound.

It was the sound of something with highly elastic flesh hopping, bouncing across the hard, gravelly ground.

Accompanied by a few sharp shrieks that sounded like nails scraping a blackboard.

Lin Li's pupils instantly contracted.

"They're here."

He sprang up from the ground as if electrocuted.

His exhaustion was briefly suppressed by a surge of adrenaline, his mind racing furiously.

For these past two days and nights, he had been hounded like a stray dog by these sounds.

It was a pack of lost Orks. To be precise, over a dozen Squigs the size of watermelons, with gaping maws and two thick hind legs, and a few Gretchin with sickly green skin, wielding rusty scrap metal and bone clubs.

Although Gretchin were the bottom-tier slaves in Ork society, they were cruel, cunning, and held grudges fiercely.

Most deadly were those Squigs. Once those red meatballs full of fangs latched onto prey, even if cut in half, their jaws wouldn't let go.

"Can't just wait to die."

Lin Li quickly scanned his surroundings.

This was a circular cement watchtower embodying a brutal, violent aesthetic, with walls half a meter thick, seemingly impregnable.

Clearly a remnant of some ancient military defense line.

This was also why Lin Li, driven to the end of his rope, had chosen to dive in here.

But the fatal flaw was that this sturdy fortress had no door.

Where a door should have been installed, only a gaping hole remained.

*Gurgle... Gak!*

The hopping sounds outside were getting closer.

The distinct, slimy chatter of Gretchin could already be heard carried on the wind into Lin Li's ears.

Lin Li wasted no words; his body had already formed conditioned reflexes.

He rushed to the edge of the watchtower, his hands gripping a chunk of cement weighing dozens of pounds.

"Urgh—"

The muscles in his arms bulged, veins standing out.

The strength honed over a month in the wasteland was pushed to its limit now.

Hugging the cement block, he stumbled and staggered to the doorway, slamming it down at the base of the opening.

Then a second block, a third.

He also dragged a dead log as thick as a man's thigh from a corner, using all his might to wedge it horizontally across the center of the opening, its ends jammed tightly into gaps in the exposed rebar, creating a makeshift load-bearing point.

Finally, he stuffed every movable rock and piece of scrap metal around into the gaps of this crude barricade.

In less than three minutes, a simple defensive barrier was piled up.

After doing all this, Lin Li collapsed backwards, sitting on the ground. His fingers, from the excessive strain, were already scraped raw by the rough stones, blood dripping from his fingertips onto the dust in a shocking sight.

He gasped for breath in huge gulps, his lungs feeling like they were on fire, a strong metallic taste filling his throat.

Just as he sat down—

*THUMP!!!*

A dull, heavy impact came from outside the barricade.

The entire barricade shook violently. A fist-sized chunk of rubble tumbled from the top, landing by Lin Li's feet.

*Screech— Waaagh!!!*

Immediately after, a cacophony of excited, bloodthirsty, and chaotic shrieks erupted outside.

Accompanied by the ear-piercing sounds of nails and sharp teeth frantically clawing and gnawing at the cement and rocks, a grating noise that seemed to drill directly into one's brain.

The Squigs and Gretchin had arrived.

*Thump! Thump! Thump!*

The impacts began to grow more frequent.

Those brainless red meatballs were testing the weak points of this wall with their hard skulls and sharp teeth.

Lin Li watched the barricade shedding dust continuously, the light in his eyes gradually dimming.

"It won't hold for long."

This makeshift, slapped-together piece of junk could block these xenos for half an hour at most.

Once that dead log snapped, those bloodthirsty monsters would flood in like a tide.

He would have his throat bitten out by those disgusting Squigs, then be carved up piece by piece with rusty scrap metal by the Gretchin for their dinner.

Thinking of that horrific end where even death wouldn't bring peace, a wave of uncontrollable weariness and despair welled up from the depths of Lin Li's heart.

"Maybe... I should just reset?"

Leaning against the wall, Lin Li muttered in self-abandonment.

Even before crossing over, a dark joke circulated in Earth's Warhammer community:

If you ever transmigrate into warhammer 40,000, your best choice is to find a rope and hang yourself the moment you land.

Because the longer you live, the more horrors you'll experience, and your final death will be all the more miserable.

Resetting seemed the most rational choice now.

Lin Li's fingers slowly reached for the makeshift spear beside him.

But the moment his fingertips touched the cold metal, an image suddenly flashed through his mind.

It was a hidden, abandoned pipeline area underground.

A dozen or so ragged, emaciated humans huddled together for warmth.

Among them, a wrinkled old man missing an arm used his trembling remaining limb to pull out a piece of moldy, pungent corpse-starch from his chest, broke off the cleanest half, and handed it to Lin Li, who was on the verge of fainting from hunger at the time.

And beside the old man, a frail little girl with severe radiation blotches on her face watched him with numb eyes.

That happened half a month ago.

That small human settlement had saved Lin Li's life.

And before leaving, looking at those people starving to death, Lin Li had made them a promise.

"I'll go find food. Wait for me to come back. I promise I'll bring back enough to fill your bellies."

It was the first big talk Lin Li had spoken in the wasteland, and the only debt of gratitude he owed.

"Fucking Warhammer..."

Lin Li's hand gripping the steel pipe tightened violently, his knuckles turning white.

His previously unfocused gaze sharpened again, igniting with a stubborn fury.

"I was a filthy gamer on Earth, that's true. But I'm also a man of my word!"

"If I die here, the old, weak, sick, and disabled in that settlement definitely won't last the week."

"Even if I'm going to reset, I'll repay this debt first!"

He was the type who couldn't sleep well owing a single dollar, let alone a life-saving favor.

Lin Li clenched his jaw hard, forcibly driving the wave of decadent thoughts from his mind.

But... how to survive?

Outside were dozens of bloodthirsty xenos. In his hand, only a rusty steel pipe. His stamina was spent, the barricade about to collapse.

This was simply an unsolvable dead end.

Just as Lin Li's mind was frantically calculating various impossible escape plans—

*Hum—*

That cold, rational synthesized mechanical voice abruptly sounded again within the watchtower.

The Man of Iron, STC-73, which had been quietly stationed behind Lin Li, suddenly levitated slightly, its washbasin-sized body hovering.

A faint blue light emanated from its anti-gravity engines at the base, scattering the dust on the ground.

"Warning: Detected pure-blooded human Creator facing lethal physical threat."

"Threat assessment: Low-level carbon-based mutants. Quantity: 23. Threat level: F."

STC-73 floated slowly to Lin Li's side, its single red optical lens flickering with a cold, reassuring glow.

"Creator, please cease this inefficient and meaningless emotional turmoil."

The Man of Iron's voice was still as sarcastic and condescending as ever, but to Lin Li's ears, it now sounded like heavenly music.

"According to my deep scan of the underlying knowledge base, twelve meters beneath this ancient watchtower lies a concealed creation, a project secretly initiated even before the Golden Age."

STC-73 rotated in mid-air, as if resonating with the structure on a deeper level.

"If you grant me authorization with your pure-blooded genome, I can immediately awaken that thing for you."

The Man of Iron's electronic eye fixed directly on Lin Li, its tone surprisingly tinged with a trace of fanaticism electronic tremor.

"That creation can not only effortlessly crush the xeno Rubbish outside like insects,"

"but, under your great leadership, it even possesses the full potential to serve as a cornerstone for the true pure-blooded humans to rise again among the stars!"

*CRASH!*

A more violent impact than before came from outside. The dead wood atop the barricade let out a teeth-grinding crack, and wood chips flew everywhere.

But Lin Li could no longer hear the sounds from outside.

His heart skipped a beat in that instant, then pounded wildly in his chest like a war drum.

A creation from before the Golden Age?

Easily deal with the aliens outside?

Even bring about the revival of humanity?!

Lin Li's brain, always prone to sarcasm, was now like an overloaded CPU, frantically processing these few lines of explosive information.

He snapped his head around, staring fixedly at the STC-73 hovering in midair, his dry lips trembling slightly.

"You... why didn't you say so earlier!"

A unprecedented will to survive and extreme curiosity burst forth in Lin Li's eyes.

"A nuke? A Titan? Or an orbital strike beacon from a starship?!"

In this desperate situation, even if the cleaning bot claimed to be the Old Ones, he would have to believe it.

Lin Li grabbed the battered shell of the Men of Iron in excitement, his voice hoarse as he growled, "No matter what it is, dig it out right now, immediately!"

"Correcting your erroneous term, Creator. It does not need to be dug out; it has always been at your feet, awaiting orders."

STC-73's cold mechanical voice sounded particularly jarring amidst the violent impacts.

On the surface of its basin-sized body, several extremely precise metal seams suddenly split open.

Then, a fan-shaped scanning beam of deep blue light shot out from the seams, enveloping Lin Li's entire body without bias.

"Beep—Commencing deep overwrite verification of pure human gene sequence."

"Estimated time required: one hundred twenty seconds."

"What? One hundred twenty seconds?!"

Upon hearing this number, Lin Li nearly spat out a mouthful of blood onto STC-73's red-glowing lens.

Two minutes!

Normally, that might just be enough time to soak half a bowl of noodles.

But on the wasteland of warhammer 40,000, with over a dozen enraged Squigs and Gretchin frantically smashing the door, let alone one hundred twenty seconds, even one hundred twenty milliseconds would be enough for those green-skinned scum to chew him into a pile of minced meat!

"BANG!!!"

As if to confirm Lin Li's despair, the thick dead wood lying across the doorway—the core load-bearing point of the barricade—let out a shrill cracking sound.

"Crack—"

Wood chips mixed with rough cement fragments flew like bullets into the watchtower interior.

A piece of gravel the size of a fingernail grazed Lin Li's cheek, instantly leaving a trail of blood.

The barricade had collapsed halfway.

"WAAAGH!"

Through the collapsed gap, an adult Squig, half a man's height and covered in hard red tumors, forced its large, fang-filled head inside.

A strong stench of blood, mixed with nauseating Ork fungal spores, hit him like tangible poison gas.

The Squig's eyes gleamed with cruel feeding desire. Its bloody maw opened wide, and corrosive, stinking saliva dripped onto the cement floor by Lin Li's feet, instantly corroding several sizzling pits.

"Creator, an extremely lethal threat has been detected. It is recommended that you perform tactical evasion. Current gene verification progress: five percent."

STC-73 hovered in midair, maintaining the blue scanning beam while reporting in a rational tone.

"Evade my ass!"

Lin Li cursed loudly.

But his hands moved without hesitation.

Cursing aside, as someone who had scraped by on this wasteland for over a month, Lin Li's mind entered a state of calm in this moment.

He suddenly fell backward, dodging the fatal bite from the Squig as it lunged forward by inertia.

The moment his back hit the ground, Lin Li's legs sprang like springs against the broken barricade wall. Using the reaction force, his body slid half a meter backward across the dusty floor like a loach.

Just as the Squig bit down on a brick where he had stood, Lin Li's hand had already gripped his self-made sharpened steel pipe.

"Die!"

A glint of ruthlessness flashed in Lin Li's eyes.

Instead of stabbing the Squig's hard skull, he gripped the pipe with both hands, and using the explosive power from twisting his waist and abdomen, he precisely thrust the sharp steel tip deep into the Squig's open mouth!

"Pfft—"

The dull sound of steel piercing soft flesh rang out.

The pipe followed the Squig's upper palate, unobstructed through its underdeveloped brainstem, and burst out from the back of its head.

Bringing out a large string of viscous green blood and white brain matter.

"Guh... gah..."

The large Squig convulsed violently twice. Its bloodthirsty eyes quickly dimmed. Its heavy body crashed down at the barricade gap, and stinking blood spread across the floor.

"Huff... huff..." Lin Li gasped for breath. His hands were numb from the Squig's death spasms; the tiger's mouth of his hands had split, and blood slowly dripped down the steel pipe.

But he didn't even have time to wipe his cold sweat.

Because in this cruel universe, Orks knew no fear.

The Squig's corpse not only failed to scare off the monsters outside, but its blood scent acted like a potent stimulant, completely igniting the frenzy of the Gretchin and Squigs outside!

"WAAAGH!!!"

A piercing, alien screech belonging to the lower Orkoid lifeforms exploded outside the watchtower.

Then, three slightly smaller Squigs, stepping on their comrade's corpse, shot in through the gap like three red flesh projectiles.

Behind them, two Gretchin waving rusty metal tools let out sharp laughs and squeezed through the rubble.

"Verification progress: twenty-five percent. Creator, your heart rate has exceeded one hundred eighty. Please be mindful of your cardiovascular limits."

STC-73 continued its cold report, the blue beam locked onto Lin Li.

"Shut up! If I die, your cardiovascular system will be scrapped too!"

Lin Li gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked.

He yanked the pipe out of the corpse, spraying a burst of stinking green blood. With a backhanded swing, he sent the first charging small Squig flying into the wall like a baseball.

"Bang!" The meatball hit the wall with a dull thud.

But the remaining two Squigs bit at him from left and right.

Lin Li could only roll on the ground to dodge. Sharp fangs grazed the hem of his cloak, tearing off a large piece of fabric.

Extreme struggle!

In this cramped, narrow watchtower, Lin Li danced like a madman on a knife's edge.

He used every available terrain feature—broken rocks, sharp wooden stakes, even the dead Squig's corpse—to block the monsters' attack paths.

His stamina drained at a terrifying rate.

The burning sensation in his lungs nearly made him faint. Every time he swung the pipe, it felt like thousands of needles stabbing his arms.

But Lin Li's eyes shone with astonishing brightness.

It was the fanatical gleam that only burst forth when a person in utter despair clutches a lifeline!

He was imagining.

As a veteran gamer, he used his ultimate imagination to frantically pump himself up with mental adrenaline!

"One hundred twenty seconds... just sixty more seconds!"

Lin Li kicked away a Gretchin trying to grab his calf, and mercilessly pierced its chest with the pipe.

"What level of thing could make this arrogant Men of Iron call it a creation capable of reviving humanity?"

In Lin Li's mind, countless grand scenes from games and Warhammer lore flashed wildly.

"Could it be a complete STC factory core?"

Just thinking of that word made Lin Li's heart twitch.

In this 41st millennium era, where knowledge was monopolized by the Adeptus Mechanicus and technology had stagnated or even regressed, if he could own an STC machine that could mass-produce Bolters, Power Armor, or even hovering tanks, what would he have to fear from Orks?

Once the machine started, Lin Li could raise a steel army on this fringe planet in no time!

The Imperial Inquisition, the Tau, the Tyranids—all blown to bits!

"Or... a dormant command hub for a Golden Age Men of Iron legion?"

Lin Li swung his pipe back and smashed a leaping Squig's head, splattering nauseating green slime on his face.

But he didn't care at all.

"If there are hundreds of cold-blooded, hyper-intelligent Men of Iron bodyguards like STC-73 buried under my feet, I'll show those greenskins what a real WAAAGH means today!"

"Progress: seventy percent. Warning: barrier structure completely destroyed."

Just as Lin Li was immersed in his satisfying imagination, STC-73's emotionless synthetic voice hit him like a bucket of ice water.

"Boom—crash!!!"

With a deafening roar.

The simple barricade Lin Li had painstakingly built finally collapsed completely under the relentless assault of over a dozen aliens.

Massive stones and broken logs crashed down, raising clouds of dust.

In the thick dust, over a dozen pairs of crimson, malevolent eyes stared fixedly at the exhausted Lin Li.

And because of the commotion, something new seemed to be approaching from afar.

"It's over..."

Lin Li's hands holding the pipe hung limply.

He was too tired.

Two consecutive days and nights of fleeing, plus this high-intensity life-and-death struggle, had completely drained the last ounce of potential from his modern human body.

He looked at the monsters howling, drooling, and surging in like a green tide, feeling a suffocating sense of despair unique to the Warhammer universe.

In the face of absolute numbers and savagery, individual will seemed so ridiculous.

"Squelch—squelch—"

The sticky sound of stepping on comrades' corpses grew closer.

Several impatient Squigs bent their hind legs, opening their serrated jaws, the stench of rotting death drawing nearer.

"Is this the end..."

Lin Li smiled bitterly.

In his mind, the hopeful eyes of the little girl from the settlement gradually blurred.

Was he, Lin Li, ultimately just an insignificant joke in this hopeless universe?

"Beep—"

At the last 0.1 seconds before the foremost Squig's fangs would tear into Lin Li's throat!

Just as Lin Li closed his eyes, bracing for the pain of his flesh being torn apart!

A crisp electronic tone, carrying an ancient, sacred rhythm, suddenly sounded from the absolute depths beneath the watchtower.

"Pure human genome overwrite verification complete."

"Match rate: one hundred percent."

"Highest authority identity confirmed: Lin Li."

In midair, STC-73's basin-sized body suddenly blazed with light, transforming from a faint red glow into a dazzling pure blue radiance—the hallmark of the Golden Age's highest technological achievement!

"Authority transferred. Highest clearance defense protocols deactivated."

Lin Li's eyes shot open.

He was horrified to see that the rough, bloodstained cement floor beneath his feet began to change drastically in less than a second!

Layers of complex, cold metallic mechanical patterns flowed wildly beneath the surface as the cement deconstructed.

Then, a massive weightlessness, inexplicable by physics, swept over Lin Li's entire body.

"Hum—"

A piercing ring of blue light burst from the ground, centered on Lin Li!

"Gah?!"

The Squig that had leaped into the air, just a centimeter from Lin Li's neck, was struck by the cold blue beam.

Before it could even scream, its sturdy carbon-based body was erased by some higher-dimensional law, instantly turning into a cloud of fine green dust in midair!

"WAAAGH?!"

The Gretchin outside, ready to swarm in and feast, froze mid-charge, their bloodlust congealing.

Their underdeveloped brains couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

They only saw that human, who moments ago had been cornered and was their prey, along with that strange scrap machine, vanish into thin air in a flash of blue light.

With a whoosh.

And disappeared from the spot.

Leaving behind only a residual pressure in the air—a primal, soul-shuddering sense of something ancient and great that made these Orkoid creatures tremble instinctively!

...

"Thud!"

The weightlessness lasted less than two seconds.

Lin Li felt like a sack of potatoes, gently caught by a soft force field, then dropped heavily onto a floor that was hard and impossibly smooth.

"Cough... damn..."

He clutched his chest, coughing violently, greedily breathing the air.

To his shock, the air here lacked the pungent sulfur and radiation stench of the wasteland; instead, it carried a fresh, oxygen-rich fragrance reminiscent of Earth after a rainstorm.

"Creator, welcome back."

STC-73's familiar voice sounded above Lin Li's head.

But this time, its voice no longer held the condescending mockery; instead, it carried a near-religious fervor and absolute reverence.

And it echoed from all around the space simultaneously.

Lin Li rubbed his eyes, still dazzled by the blue light, and struggled to his feet, propping himself up on the floor.

The moment he raised his head and fully took in the sight before him,

His pupils dilated to the extreme, his mouth slightly open, his breath completely stopped.

His heart felt as if gripped by an invisible hand. An intense, indescribable shock surged like an electric current from the base of his spine straight to his crown!

"What... the hell... is this thing?!"