Chapter 1: Betrayed by a Scheme

A night of torrential rain! A flash of lightning illuminated the world, sky and earth rendered starkly bright, accompanied by a shrill, bone-chilling crack of thunder. In the pitch-black heavens, lightning sprawled like a spider’s web, branching and writhing without restraint.

A black Toyota Corolla was lodged, its front end wedged firmly between the highway’s guardrails, the tremendous force of impact having twisted it beyond recognition. The right door hung open, the wipers on the window still moving with mechanical persistence, and at the rear, the hazard lights blinked intermittently with each sweep of the wipers, signaling an emergency.

Some ten meters from the car lay a man. He wore a fine checkered shirt and black slacks, sprawled face-down on the sodden ground, seemingly lifeless, letting the wind and rain lash his body.

Another bolt of lightning tore through the sky, and seconds later, amid the rumble of thunder, his legs twitched. Pressing his palms to the earth, he slowly rose from the rain-slick ground.

He had been betrayed! In the Central Axis Universe, standing just half a step from ascending as the new king, he had been outmaneuvered.

Who had orchestrated his downfall? Was it that old man, or one of his own subordinates?

Squinting into the storm, he strained to recall every detail of that pivotal moment—the old man’s unruffled expression, and the four great generals at his side, their faces twisted in shock, panic, or confusion.

Who was the perpetrator?

People always believed the universes were parallel, but they were not. All universes, at higher and more distant dimensions, converged at a single point—a central axis upon which all universes depended, like the blades of a radiator radiating from a hub. This nexus was the Central Axis Universe.

He was to be its new king, a being who towered over every dimension, undying and indestructible. No one could kill him. Precisely for that reason, his enemies did not attempt to end his life—they cast him down to a lower dimension, to this world.

An assault from a higher plane!

Damn it! In the end, he had been outmaneuvered. His fists clenched involuntarily.

The pain of his nails digging into his palm snapped him back to awareness. Only then did he take stock of his situation. No doubt, he was no longer in the Central Axis Universe. Judging by his surroundings, he was now in a three-dimensional realm.

“To have fallen so far in dimension…” He was alarmed, and turned his focus inward.

After a long while, he sighed. His divine core was now tightly sealed, reduced to the size of a small egg. All his former power was locked away inside, swirling and glowing like a nebula beneath a hard shell.

Orbiting the sealed core were ten symmetrical stars, three of which shone with a faint blue light. With these, he could perform only a handful of minor special skills.

What comforted him was that this body seemed highly compatible with his divine core.

Existence in the Central Axis Universe relied on one’s true divine core—the so-called true form, constantly shifting, and the divine core itself, the source of all dimensional power.

Now, having fallen into three-dimensional space, the sealing of his core was only to be expected. If his true power were to be unleashed, this universe could not endure it; the entire cosmos might well be destroyed.

What puzzled him, though, was the almost perfect compatibility of this body—he felt no discomfort at all. Could this be his projection in a lower dimension?

Projections were a common device for higher-dimensional beings entering lesser realms—since their true forms could not adapt, projections, akin to avatars, were used instead.

But when had he ever created an avatar that spanned so many dimensions?

It didn’t make sense.

Yet, if it was not so, how else to explain that, aside from his sealed divine core, he felt no other change when he was cast down? If not an avatar, what could it be?

Lightning continued to weave its silver chains across the sky, thunder rumbled, and the battered Toyota’s wipers clacked back and forth. Everything around him insisted on the reality of his situation.

He closed his eyes, accepting his fate. He had been ensnared and cast into this place—so be it.

Upon his arrival, the injuries to this body had already healed; the blood, washed by the rain, slowly faded away. His eyes glimmered an eerie blue as he watched lightning reach across the heavens.

“I will return,” he murmured. His voice was low, lost amid the wind and rain, but it mattered little to him—he would adapt to what had come.

An avatar, after all, was not quite the same as one’s true self. Still, a smile tugged at his lips. Until he could devise a plan, he would inherit this avatar for now, but his ultimate goal remained unchanged: to return to the Central Axis Universe.

Regrettably, perhaps because his divine core was too powerful or the dimensional span too vast, everything that belonged to this avatar had already been obliterated before his arrival—not even memories remained.

The only thing he could be certain of was that this avatar had died before he entered. In fact, the avatar’s death and his descent into this world had occurred simultaneously.

Pondering this, his gaze grew deeper, casting a blue glow in the darkness.

It was a long time before he exhaled. He had tried to reestablish contact with his original divine core, but it remained completely sealed, leaving only the faintest of connections, no thicker than a single hair.

“Is it the binding force of the dimension, or something intrinsic to this body?” He suppressed the question, a bitter smile on his lips.

He patted himself down and found, in the left pocket of his trousers, a rectangular object. Pulling it out, he saw it was about a centimeter thick, palm-sized, with protruding button-like features at the corners. The surface was riddled with cracks. He frowned and sent a thread of divine power into it.

He was extremely weak now, barely able to extend his divine power beyond a few meters.

“System structure, full analysis!”

In an instant, he understood every detail of the object in his hand. He even sensed a trace of a bio-network, but regrettably, it was only a data network, far from a true biological or spiritual network. He sighed—if it were a bio-network, he could someday invade and control the thoughts of every living being.

Still, this discovery was useful. Clutching the rectangle, he sent out faint threads of divine power, absorbing the fundamental knowledge of this world.

Now, his body and strength were feeble. The knowledge gained in this manner could not be too much—his mind and spirit could not endure it.

“So this is… the world…” After a short while, he slowly opened his eyes, having absorbed the basic knowledge of this place. In terms of understanding, he was now indistinguishable from a native, perhaps even surpassing any individual in sheer breadth. He glanced down at the object in his hand. “So this is a cellphone?”

Lightning flashed again, casting strange shadows across his face.

He gripped the cellphone, then reached to the back right pocket. There seemed to be a wallet. He drew it out.

It held little money, just a few cards, some receipts, and a plastic card.

He pulled out the card and examined it. On it were printed the words: “Xiao Kaitian, issued by the Immigration Bureau of the Island Nation.”