Chương 1: Start Reading

Azure Star. Duskcloud City. High noon. The sunlight was mild, the breeze just right. In a private ward of Duskcloud First Hospital, a pale-faced youth lay on the bed with his eyes shut. System: [Ding! Soul-binding in progress…] System: [Ding! Binding successful. You have obtained the Infinite Plunder & Acceleration System!] System: [We wish you a pleasant life!] …What? Ryan Gunn cracked his eyes open in a daze and gave his head a groggy shake.

"Bro! You're finally awake! Do you have any idea? I was worried sick!" Beside him, Lucy Gunn flung herself onto him, eyes brimming with tears.

"Hsss—" A stabbing pain lanced through his chest, snapping him back to his senses. He swept his gaze around the room and realized he was lying in a hospital bed. A cluster of people stood around him, and the moment they saw him wake, every one of them let out a breath of relief.

"This is…" Ryan could hardly believe it.

"Thank you, Mr. Gunn." A voice like clear spring water rang out. A slender woman, beautiful enough to shame an immortal, stepped up to the bedside, her eyes full of gratitude and apology as she looked at him. Ryan stared back, dumbstruck. Rosalind Lynn? What was going on here? War. Savage beasts. Battlefields strewn with corpses… Scene after scene surged up in his mind. Wait—I… I've been reborn?!

"Mr. Gunn?" Under his stare, Rosalind's cheeks flushed and her composure wavered.

"… Sorry. My mind was elsewhere just now." Ryan's expression turned a touch awkward, but inside, he could barely contain his excitement. I really have been reborn! He remembered it with perfect clarity. Right before the holographic game Heaven's Descent went live, he—still a hot-blooded boy back then—had stepped in to save Rosalind Lynn, and taken a knife to the chest for it, bleeding out into unconsciousness and waking up in a hospital.

And now that the same familiar scene was unfolding before him, it could only mean one thing: he truly had been reborn. Reborn five years into the past, no less—to the day before Heaven's Descent launched! Heaven's Descent. The mere thought of those two words made his gaze darken. Heaven's Descent was a hyper-immersive virtual MMO that the Azure Alliance had built through their super-intelligence, the Heavenly Dao System.

A player needed only to bind their consciousness through a simple headset to step seamlessly into its world. Its near-flawless realism left every other virtual game on the market in the dust—within a single month of open beta, it had drawn in fully half the population of the entire planet. A veritable second world for humankind. On top of that, the game ran on a two-to-one time ratio with reality, effectively stretching out every player's lifespan.

And to promote it, the Azure Alliance had thrown open a currency-exchange system: in-game money could be converted directly into real-world Azure Coin. In other words—play well enough, and becoming a billionaire was no longer a daydream. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. But none of that was what mattered most.

Having already lived an entire life, Ryan knew all too well that the arrival of Heaven's Descent and the Heavenly Dao System was nowhere near as simple as it appeared. As the game progressed, it would gradually unlock a feature called Virtual Synchronization—the attributes, abilities, and items a player earned in-game could be carried over into the real world. But that was no blessing.

Because once Virtual Synchronization was complete, the monsters and Bosses of the game world would spill into reality as well, launching a full-scale invasion of the human world and bringing down a catastrophe without precedent. In his last life, for reasons of his own, Ryan had entered the game world a full month later than everyone else. And in there, one step behind meant a hundred steps behind—every resource, every opportunity, every item, he had been left far in the dust by other players.

He'd clawed his way back up on sheer talent, but when the War of Cataclysm finally erupted, he had died on the battlefield all the same. This time, though, he had come back—and nothing would be able to stand in his way. He glanced at Lucy Gunn, still bawling her eyes out against his chest, then ruffled her hair with helpless affection and, ignoring the searing pain in his body, pulled her into his arms. If there was one regret from his past life, it was Lucy's death—it had cut him to the bone.

In this life, he would never let it happen again.

"Mr. Gunn, my name is Rosalind Lynn. Thank you for stepping in last night and saving my life." Her clear, limpid eyes were fixed on him, two faint clouds of pink still lingering on her fair cheeks. It had all happened so suddenly the night before. In the end, the thugs had flown into a rage and drawn weapons, meaning to kill—but Ryan had held the line single-handed and forced them all back.

He'd taken a wound for it, yet in Rosalind's eyes, the figure of this slightly gaunt, undernourished young man had seemed remarkably tall and imposing.

"It was nothing. Just a small thing." Ryan gave a faint smile and waved it off—only to pull at his wound, the pain making the corner of his mouth twitch as he hissed in a breath.

"Hmph, always showing off!

'Just a small thing,' he says—look at the state you're in!" Lucy's eyes were red, tears clinging to her lashes like rain on pear blossoms.

"Heh heh…" Ryan smiled, sheepish. The truth was, Rosalind was a good girl. She'd done a great deal for him in his last life too—only, in the end, she hadn't escaped that catastrophe either.

"So, um, Mr. Gunn…"

"Just call me by my name.

'Mr. Gunn' sounds too stiff."

"Alright. Then… Ryan—there's something I'd like to talk over with you, if that's all right?" The instant the words left her mouth, her little face went scarlet and her composure scattered. It was the way his name landed. Spoken softly like that, with her leaning in close, calling him by name for the very first time, it came out carrying all the unintended intimacy of a young bride whispering some secret to her husband—all too easy to misread.

"Go ahead," Ryan said, calm as still water, not a flicker crossing his face. The man from his past life had long since been honed into something seasoned and worldly; not a trace of the greenness you'd expect from an eighteen-year-old showed on his features.

"You seem rather handy in a fight?" Going one-against-five the night before and holding his own was proof enough that he had some real skill.

"I get by," Ryan answered evenly. He might look a little undernourished, but he'd hauled bricks on construction sites for a few years—his core strength was nothing to scoff at—and he trained in his spare time besides, which put him well above the average person in a scrap.

"Here's the thing. I'm planning to start a Heaven's Descent gaming studio. If you're willing, would you join it as a member of the combat team?" Rosalind looked at him, her eyes brimming with hope.

"Don't worry—the pay and benefits will be better than your old job, guaranteed. And I'll throw in housing and gaming gear, free of charge. What do you say?" Ryan felt himself tempted. Heaven's Descent would open its public beta at eight tonight, and every game-login rig out there had already been snapped up. If he wanted to dive in and start leveling the instant it launched, joining Rosalind's studio was as good as it got.

"What about my sister—""Don't worry, Lucy can come along too!"

"Deal!" Ryan agreed without hesitation. At that, the corners of Rosalind's mouth curved up, a happy smile blooming across her face. She owed him her life, and once she'd learned he'd been toiling under sun and wind hauling bricks on a construction site, she couldn't help wanting to do something for him in return.

"Absolutely not! I object!" In the ward, a young man in a suit knit his brows at her words and stepped forward.

"This is far too rash!"

"Edwin, this is my decision to make!" Rosalind's delicate brows drew together, and the smile slowly drained from her face. Edwin? Ryan started—and the instant he laid eyes on the man, his gaze sank like a stone. So it was him.