I reign supreme in the Western fantasy world for eternity.

In the instant his consciousness plunged into darkness, Ji Tian heard a voice—his own voice, yet it carried a strange, twisted laugh.

"Ji Tian".

He opened his eyes.

Before him lay a grayish-white void, devoid of sky, earth, up, down, near, or far. He floated in this nothingness, like a speck of dust forgotten in a corner of the universe.

There was a person standing opposite.

White clothes, black hair, expressionless.

She looks exactly like him.

But those eyes were scarlet, like two flames burning on ice, cold and mad.

"Who are you?" Ji Tian asked deliberately.

Ji Tian knew that the other party was the embodiment of his own inner demon, as he was the one who caused the inner demon tribulation.

"You know perfectly well why!" Another "Ji Tian" took a step forward, his pace exactly the same as his, neither hurried nor slow. Although he complained, he still answered according to procedure, "I am all the obsessions I have—after reading web novels for twelve years, working hard for many years, training my physical body for ten years, and then undergoing eighteen years of arduous cultivation in a Western fantasy world after transmigrating."

He opened his hand, and a book appeared in his palm, with eight large characters written on the cover: "Unrivaled throughout the ages, the palm controls birth and death."

"You've had those eight words etched in your mind for over thirty years. You think about them while eating, walking, carrying bricks, and cultivating yourself. You've made 'unrivaled throughout the ages' your ultimate goal in life and 'controlling the arising and ceasing of all things' your lifelong ideal, yet you've never asked yourself—why?"

Ji Tian remained silent.

The other man smiled, a smile as faint as his own, but the madness in his eyes resembled magma about to erupt.

"Because you dare not. Because that answer is the starting point of all your obsessions."

He waved his hand, and the book vanished in countless points of light.

"But I dare! Because I am you, and you are me. I know your every thought, every fear, every obsession!

He opened his arms as if embracing the entire void.

"Come, let me show you where all obsessions began."

The scene changed.

The gray-white void seemed to be torn open by an invisible hand, revealing another world beneath—a wet road and a hazy evening.

Ji Tian looked down and saw his hands.

He was very small and fair-skinned. He was wearing a blue school uniform and carrying a backpack, standing on the sidewalk.

The air was filled with the scent of damp earth after the rain, and in the distance, car horns blared, one after another, sharp and piercing.

His heart suddenly clenched.

Because he knew what would happen next.

He instinctively wanted to close his eyes, but his body didn't belong to him—he could only see, hear, and feel, but he couldn't move or escape.

A black sedan was approaching from the opposite direction, not very fast, but heading in the wrong direction.

It veered off the road and wobbled toward the side of the road.

Ji Tian opened his mouth, trying to shout, but no sound came out.

He wanted to rush over, but his feet felt like they were nailed to the ground.

"Dad! Mom!"

This time, the sound came out.

It was a child's voice, sharp, piercing, and filled with a despair that didn't belong to that age.

The sound pierced the entire street, the air after the rain, and the windshield of the black sedan.

But the car didn't stop.

It hit the two people on the side of the road.

Ji Tian's parents.

They had just come out of the roadside vegetable market. The mother was carrying a red plastic bag, and the father was walking on her side, tilting his head to say something to her.

When the car hit him, the father instinctively pushed the mother.

The mother was pushed out and fell on the sidewalk, the red plastic bag in her hand flew out, and the tomatoes inside rolled all over the ground.

My father was hit and thrown into the air.

His body drew an arc in the air, like a bird with broken wings, and crashed heavily onto the asphalt road ten meters away.

Something red spread out from beneath her.

That is blood.

Ji Tian stood on the sidewalk, watching the pool of blood grow larger and larger, watching his mother's screams come from behind him, and watching passersby surge in from all directions.

He saw someone squat down to check his father's pulse, someone take out their phone to make a call, and someone help his mother up from the ground.

He saw his mother's face—the face he knew so well, now twisted into a shape he had never seen before.

His mouth was open, but no sound came out. Tears streamed down his face like broken beads, one after another, falling to the ground.

He saw his father's fingers twitch slightly, and then they stopped moving.

Ji Tian stood still.

He felt something being drawn out of his body, and something being filled in.

What was taken away—he didn't know what to call it. It might be "innocence," it might be "a sense of security," it might be the belief that "this world is a fairy tale."

What was filled in was something cold, scalding hot, and indescribable.

It surged from the heart, down to the throat, to the eye sockets, and to the fingertips.

He stood there, watching his father's body being lifted onto a stretcher, watching his mother being helped into an ambulance, watching the road being cleaned up, as if nothing had ever happened.

He didn't cry.

From that day on, he started reading online novels.

The protagonists in those books can fly and disappear into the earth, reverse life and death, shatter stars with a single palm strike, and bring the dead back to life.

At that time, he didn't know what "unrivaled throughout eternity" or "control over birth and death" meant, but he knew one thing—

If he could be as strong as those main characters, his father wouldn't have died; if he had the supernatural powers of some online novel protagonists, his father could still be saved.

In the gray-white void behind him, another voice of his drifted over, very soft, as soft as if he were talking to himself.

"This is your starting point. It's not about 'wanting to become stronger,' it's about 'not wanting to lose again.'"

Ji Tian remained silent.

He simply looked at the little boy standing in the pool of blood, at his clenched fists, at the unlit but already sparking flame in his eyes.

"Let's go." He turned around, no longer looking at the scene. "I've seen enough."

The scene changes again.

This time, he stood on an empty road.

The morning sunlight shone on his face, warm and comforting.

The air was filled with the scent of unidentified flowers blooming in the green belt, mixed with the distant chirping of insects.

There were also elderly women selling pancakes at the crossroads.

Ji Tian looked down and saw his hands.

These are no longer a child's hands; they are rough, calloused hands with bits of cement dust embedded in the fingernails.

He was wearing dusty work clothes and worn-out canvas shoes.

This is from a past life.

That summer when he single-handedly withstood a great calamity.

Ji Tian looked up and saw a figure standing across the street.

Gray T-shirt, black shorts, slender figure, resolute face.

That is himself.

Ji Tian was standing by the roadside, holding a bottle of mineral water, talking to himself.

Then he heard the roar of an engine.

A Dayun heavy truck rushed out from the bend.

The front of the car was raised high, with the four wheels half an inch off the ground, like an enraged steel behemoth, accompanied by a shrill whistle that tore through the air, heading straight for Ji Tian, ​​who was in his early twenties.

Ji Tian stood on the other side of the road, watching the heavy truck get closer and closer. He watched himself throw away the mineral water bottle, assume a horse stance, slowly push out with both palms, and even kicked away a breathy Jimi.

He knew what was going to happen next.

Because that is who he is.

He watched the car crash into him, watched his own fist fly out, his wrist bone break, his body sent flying, and watched the blood explode into a scarlet flower on the windshield.

He watched himself tumble through the air, watched his body crash heavily to the ground, watched the blood spread from beneath him, just like that evening many years ago.

He then noticed a detail.

A detail that even his past self hadn't noticed.

After being blown away, Ji Tian, ​​who was in his twenties, showed a sad but not desperate smile.

His mouth shape seemed to be saying—

"I knew it."

Ji Tian stood on this side of the road, watching the pool of blood grow larger and larger, watching the ambulance come and go, and watching the road be cleaned up.

His face was expressionless.

Behind him, another voice spoke, tinged with confusion: "Aren't you... afraid?"

"What are you afraid of?"

"fear death."

Ji Tian remained silent for a moment.

"I'm not afraid, because I know it's not death."

"What is that?"

"That's... a new beginning."

From the void behind them came a very soft sound, which sounded like a sigh or a laugh.

The scene changes for the third time.