Azure Cloud Continent.
Country of Han.
Xi Xuan Province.
In the Deserted Mountains, where the Dark Forest began, lay one of the many restricted regions in the Country of Han. Only those who had reached the peak stage of Qi Accumulation were permitted to enter the Dark Forest. The entire forest was a place fraught with danger, with demonic beasts ranging from rank 1 to rank 3 roaming throughout its territory.
The deeper one ventured into the forest, the higher the rank of demonic beasts that appeared. Near the edge, where the terrain was mostly barren and deserted, one encountered a greater number of rank 1 demonic beasts.
At the edge of the Dark Forest, a young boy's body silently lay on the ground. His long black hair spread out around him, and he was dressed in grey hanfu clothing. His face, though strikingly beautiful, hinted at a charm that could captivate any maiden. However, despite his appearance, the most noticeable detail was that he had no pulse.
This meant he was dead.
With no blood staining his clothes, it seemed he had been poisoned and discarded next to the Dark Forest, left to be devoured by demonic beasts.
Strangely, no demonic beast had approached the dead body. Moreover, there was no visible trace of poison effects on his skin or his bewitching face, as if he had died from heart failure.
The morning turned into afternoon, and still, no demonic beast came to claim this free meal.
Until, eventually.
The young man's body began to shake violently, and after a moment, his eyes abruptly opened. "Where am I?" he groaned.
He stood up and surveyed his surroundings. Then he looked at his own body and felt a surreal emotion stirring within him. He closed his eyes and searched through his memories, only to discover new memories that made him exclaim, "I transmigrated?"
"H—hell, yeah!!" he laughed maniacally and grinned, "And this is a cultivation world, for Jade beauties' sake!!!"
Wait a second, he thought.
"System? Are you in there, brother?" he muttered silently, his expression tense and hopeful. But after noticing that nothing happened or manifested as he had dreamed, his face drained of color.
"W—wait? Don't tell me I've got no cheat?!" he panicked, glancing around cautiously. "From the memories, isn't this place that famous demonic beast forest? How am I going to survive with no cheat!? Dammit!"
After a few minutes of fruitless waiting, he gave up and started running in sheer panic, heading away from the Dark Forest. The journey to Moon Town, the nearest and most renowned gathering place, was nearly half a day's travel even for someone at the peak of Qi Accumulation.
For a mortal like him, with no cultivation, it was hopeless to venture alone out of the Dark Forest.
Moments later, the young man noticed something crawling beneath the ground behind him. Its rapid approach nearly made him soil himself, but he didn't stop. He continued to dash forward desperately, tears and snot streaming down his face.
"Why me! Why me! Why me!..."
I don't want to die again, not like this....!
He resolved to escape at any cost, despite being breathless and feeling intense pain in his feet, evident from the blood marks left behind.
Yet, resolve alone proved insufficient in the ruthless cultivation world.
As he ran, his foot twisted unnaturally, bending at an alarming angle. "Ahhh!!" A loud shriek escaped his mouth.
Unable to maintain his balance, he fell face-first, exacerbating his injuries.
"Help..." A weak moan escaped his lips as his eyes, now filled with despair, fixed on the ground moving ominously toward him.
"Noooooo!!!! Stay away!!!! Somebody, help me!!! Help...!!!" His voice cracked with desperation, but no help came.
As he watched the danger approach, his strength drained away. With the adrenaline gone and his heart pounding wildly, it suddenly stopped.
Ah, how badly I wanted to taste jade beauties... A final thought flickered through his mind before he lost consciousness.
However, his unconscious soul, poised to leave the now-dead body, found itself ensnared by a massive, sword-shaped cloud.
The weak soul, having faced death twice in quick succession, couldn't escape its fate. In an instant, it was consumed by the larger cloud.
All of this transpired within the young man's mind.
Outside, the approaching demonic beast emerged from the ground next to the lifeless body. The beast, a giant rodent standing two meters tall and one meter wide, had dark fur covering its entire form. Its yellow teeth, both upper and lower, were razor-sharp, capable of tearing apart a Qi Accumulation cultivator, let alone a dead mortal lying on the ground.
The beast shrieked in ecstasy at the prospect of a meal after so long and lunged straight at the dead mortal.
Yet.
Just as its mouth was about to close on the body, a sharp 'ting' echoed through the area.
What happened next was sheer horror.
The massive body of the demonic beast split cleanly in two from head to tail while still mid-air. One half fell to the right, the other to the left, and a large spray of its blood covered the young man, who had suddenly opened his eyes once again.
His face grimaced slightly from the insurmountable pain coursing through his injured body, but he quickly composed himself, standing up with a blank expression. He scanned his surroundings and found himself in a barren mountain range.
In the distance, a dense forest covered the horizon, with trees towering to almost ten times their usual size.
Taking in every detail, the young man then seated himself on the mutilated demonic beast's body.
He closed his eyes, searching his memories for any relevant information.
What he found was startling, even for a demon of his experience.
Two conflicting memories emerged, leaving him bewildered. He recalled killing himself after defeating Seffire Highborn, the so-called strongest ruler of Ellinor. Just when he thought his suffering had ended, he found himself under attack by a giant rodent in an unfamiliar place.
What was even more shocking was that he was in someone else's body.
Is this Seffire's doing? he wondered.
No, he only cast an offensive spell before being killed...
I should examine these new memories.
As time passed, any demonic beast that attempted to attack him met the same fate as the rodent he was sitting on. By the time he finished assimilating the new memories, dozens of demonic beast corpses lay scattered around him in a wide circle, torn apart or cut into pieces.
The young man—now Xypharos Nyxiel—looked at the chaos he had wrought and winced from the growing pain in his head. "This mind was already exhausted; using Ethereal Sword Domain is more draining than I anticipated. I should head to Moon Town first."
Before departing, he gathered all the glittering cores from the demonic beast corpses. These cores were valuable treasures that could fetch a high price in any town. Whether for alchemy or cultivation in this unfamiliar world, demonic cores were in high demand.
He collected the cores one by one due to his leg injury. After storing them in his robe, he held one in his hand to examine the demonic energy within it and began to move toward his chosen destination.
As he progressed slowly but steadily, his silver eyes—tinged with traces of blood—glistened in the setting sun. A dark chuckle escaped his lips. "So... I can become an Immortal in this world, huh? Fascinating."