In the absolute pitch of darkness, Li Chen felt an astonishing pressure. It was not a physical weight like a stone upon his chest, but a metaphysical force that seemed to arise from the very depths of the void itself.
As he looked around, straining his eyes, he could not find anything else in his sight except an endless, consuming darkness.
The surrounding pressure was so immense that it rendered him paralyzed; he was unable to move his hands or legs, his body becoming completely stiff, as if he were encased in invisible amber.
Then—a sound.
It was not a voice, not quite. It was more like a low-frequency vibration that rippled through the fabric of space itself, vibrating in his very marrow.
[Initializing…]
[Divine God System Sequence Started] [Loading… 1%]
A golden panel, shimmering with a brilliance that felt like solidified sunlight, manifested before him. The sight of the panel hit Li Chen with a wave of recognition.
It felt exactly like the systems described in the web novels he used to read in his past life—the kind of mystical interface that arrived in a protagonist's darkest hour to bestow overwhelming powers.
Seeing the system, Li Chen felt his heart leap. The crushing sadness of his death as a fawn and the cold emptiness of the void vanished instantly, as if they had never existed.
He noticed that as the system stabilized, the surrounding pressure had also decreased by some extent, growing weaker by the moment until he could finally draw a full breath.
[Loading… 100%] Complete
[Divine God System Awakened]
Soul Integrating: 80%
Host: Li Chen
Current Form: Spirit
Cultivation: None
Skills: None
Faith Points: 0
Analysis comp...
Just as the analysis was about to reach completion, the system panel suddenly flickered violently. A sharp, digital screech tore through the void, followed by a chaotic cascade of incomprehensible noise that felt like needles in his brain.
[———% ERROR ——%] [¤#@%—Δ—▒▒▒—!!]
Li Chen cried out, clutching his head in agony as the golden panel began to crack like falling glass. The originally simple English words distorted into unknown, eldritch symbols that pulsed with a sickening rhythm before they started forming again, rebuilding themselves from the shards of the error.
Just as he felt his consciousness slipping into a faint, the interface finally solidified.
[Divine Origin System Stabilizing…]
[Re-analyzing Host Status…]
The noise receded into a dull hum. The interface reformed, looking dimmer than its original state, its light flickering unevenly with strange hints of both darkness and gold swirling within the frame.
Looking at this new, transformed system, Li Chen asked with a voice that wavered, "What happened to you, System? Are you alright?"
He spoke with a deeply worried look, his eyes wide and pleading, as if his very life depended on the machine's well-being. The system, as if sensing the sheer depth of his worry, pulsed gently.
[Do not be afraid, Host. The system has detected a critical malfunction and has corrected it.]
[There appears to have been a temporal synchronization error,] the system continued, its tone shifting slightly.
[You were selected for reincarnation 100 years ahead of schedule. This discrepancy is likely the root cause of your premature death in the forest and your previous suffering.]
"What did you just say, System?" Li Chen's "worry" evaporated in a heartbeat, replaced by a sharp, calculating indignation. "You mean to tell me that I died, was hunted by an eagle, and suffered all that cold and hunger just because of a glitch? I want to speak to your supervisor! I want to sue you and your entire department!"
Li Chen unleashed a torrent of creative curses at the screen, his arms flailing as he shouted into the void. He began to wail and cry, recounting the "unbearable injustice" he had suffered as a white roe deer, loudly demanding compensation for his mental and physical trauma.
[Okay, Host, stop crying. Look at yourself—you look like a petulant child. Have you no shame?]
"What shame? What child? I don't know her! I want compensation!" he hollered, doubling down on his performance, sensing the system's digital exasperation.
[Okay, okay! Stop! You will seriously cause my software to malfunction again if you continue this racket,] the system grumbled.
[But I must warn you: if you receive this specialized compensation, you cannot back off. There are no second chances.]
Li Chen stopped crying immediately, wiping his eyes with a satisfied smirk. "System, don't you trust me? Do I look like the kind of person who would cheat you?" He blinked rapidly, acting cutesy and innocent.
{Innocent, my foot. I would believe it if someone told me a stone could sing before I believed you,} the system muttered in a low, digitized hum that barely registered in the void.
"System, did you say something?"
[What? No. I didn't say anything. You must have heard the wind,] the system replied in a suspiciously panicked tone. [Newbie gift package uploading. Host, do you want to receive it now or later?]
"Now, obviously! The only person who would want to receive it later is a fool or a martyr. Who waits for free stuff when they've been wronged?"
[Newbie package opened.]
As the package was opened, a brilliant cluster of light erupted, floating before him like five small stars.
System Interface Obtained
System Storage Opened
System Shop Obtained
Divine Lottery x1
Shard of History (Special Compensation)
"Huuu... System, what exactly is this 'Shard of History'?"
[Host, this Shard is your premium compensation. It contains the true history and the primordial information of the world you have entered. It is a gift of knowledge that most beings would kill to possess. Well? Is it to your liking?]
"It sounds acceptable. I want to use this first. Keep the rest of the items in storage for a moment."
After Li Chen gave the command, the darkness around him began to shatter like a broken mirror. Colors—vibrant, terrifying, and ancient—started to bleed into the void. Suddenly, he was no longer standing in nothingness. He appeared on the edge of an ancient, colossal battlefield.
The sky above was a swirling vortex of golden clouds, while the ground below was choked with a thick, silver mist that carried an unmistakable, ominous weight. The very air smelled of ozone and ancient blood; the breath of imminent battle was everywhere.
Li Chen watched as two men—or beings that merely looked like men—exchanged words in the distance. He could not hear their voices, but the sheer power radiating from them made the air tremble.
Before Li Chen could even blink, the conversation ended. It turned into a hardcore, cataclysmic battle that defied the laws of physics. Beings from both sides fell by the thousands, their souls flickering out like candles.
Time in this vision seemed not to exist; it could have been two days of slaughter, or perhaps five.
Then, a sight filled the sky that made Li Chen's breath catch. A light containing thousands of shifting colors descended from the heavens.
Instead of being awed by the beauty of such a spectacle, the armies on both sides seemed to become utterly terrified.
As Li Chen stared at the light, savoring its magnificence, it transformed into a rain that felt both holy and horrific.
Whenever a drop of that light touched the land, the earth seemed to revive, but whenever it touched a living being, they vanished instantly, transforming into the same liquid as the rain and falling silently to the ground.
This scene continued until only two were left—the leaders who had conversed earlier. As the rain began to dissolve them, they turned their heads and looked directly in Li Chen's direction, as if their gazes could pierce through the thousands of years of time and space separating them.
They bowed their heads slowly, a final gesture of respect or warning, before they too disappeared into the mysterious light.
As they vanished, the sky was suddenly smothered by a new darkness. With the light rain gone, the very vitality of the land began to be consumed by this strange, creeping gloom.
Li Chen watched in horror as the same cycle of darkness and decay spread across the entire world, devouring everything in its path.
Suddenly, the space around the vision seemed to freeze.
The darkness gathered, forming a towering figure. Its body was made of pure, pitch-black smoke, and it possessed bright red eyes that seemed to contain all the resentment and hatred of the world. Its eyes scanned the horizon, searching for the strange, foreign source it had detected earlier.
As those red eyes finally landed on Li Chen, the space around him distorted violently. With a gut-wrenching tug, Li Chen was ripped from the vision and brought back to the current world.