Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Sis Territory border.

Snowflakes drifted down one by one as a frail youth lay on his side beneath a tree whose withered leaves had long since fallen. Under the meager shelter of bare branches, this body of uncertain fate remained temporarily uncovered by snow.

As time trickled by, snow accumulated on the body, gradually leaving only a narrow gap around the mouth and nose. When the final snowflake drifted down, even that gap was sealed shut completely, extinguishing the youth’s last spark of life.

But the next moment, winter thunder cracked. A bright yet not dazzling orb of pure white light appeared from thin air above the withered tree, bobbed up and down twice, then plunged into the youth’s body below at nearly the speed of light.

“Pfft”

Ron forcefully blew away the snow around his mouth, gulped down several deep breaths, then heaved himself over, pressing the accumulated snow beneath his body. Only at this moment did he finally have a chance to assess his situation.

“I actually transmigrated! And in such a completely unexpected way!”

Ron was a web novel creator from the Nation of Hua on the Blue Planet. The genre he wrote most often was transmigration fiction, and he himself frequently fantasized about one day transmigrating to another world. He just never expected that when transmigration actually happened, all he felt was panic, dread, and profound bewilderment.

Just moments ago, he had been at home preparing for a new book. The time it took to open the door and take out the trash was all it took for him to transmigrate. In novels, transmigration involved either soul transmigration or body transmigration, but transmigrating into an orb of light, what kind of joke was that!

Moreover, despite having successfully transmigrated, Ron felt as if the entire world were working against him, as though a deity might descend at any moment to obliterate him.

Fortunately, heaven never seals all paths (for a person, or an orb?). Just as Ron was at a loss for what to do, he noticed a source of attraction below him. Under these circumstances, he had no other choice but to follow his gut instinct and plunge toward that pulling force below.

And so, he became another “Ron”:

A subject of the Sis Territory in the Kingdom of Helios who, after a falling out with his companions and provoked by their taunting words, made the absurd decision to leave town at dusk. That decision thoroughly sealed “his” doom.

Of course, from the perspective of the current Ron, it was perhaps precisely because of that other “Ron’s” decision that he now had a temporary place to shelter.

Yes, Ron merely regarded the youth’s body he now occupied as a vessel. His true form was actually the orb of light that had arrived here. He had no idea what accident during the transmigration process had caused his original body to become this.

But now was not the time to ponder such questions. The most pressing priority was to return inside the territory. Otherwise, once darkness fell completely, even if he managed to get back, the people of the territory might mistake him for an evil spirit invasion and eliminate him.

Such incidents were rare in “Ron’s” memories, but they absolutely did happen, and when they did, they left a searing impression.

After all, the emotional shock of someone you had gotten along well with suddenly turning into an evil spirit was something many people simply could not accept.

And in such situations, the ones carrying out the kill order were invariably the lord’s soldiers.

…

Beneath the withered tree.

As Ron rolled about to familiarize himself with the body while roughly sifting through the memories, when he clumsily attempted to stand, he suddenly realized that the death of the original owner of this body, “Ron,” was indeed partly due to collapsing in the snow and freezing.

But a youth, even one somewhat frail and thinly dressed, should not have dropped dead within minutes of falling over. The true culprit behind his death was a lingering apparition out in the snow.

The absurd part was that “Ron’s” death was not caused by the apparition actively attacking. He had merely caught a distant glimpse of it, and his mind simply collapsed.

Under those circumstances, even if he had been rescued and brought back into the territory, he probably could never have regained his sanity.

“Worked out perfectly for me!”

Along with his relief, a thread of urgency crept into Ron’s mind. The sky was about to darken completely, yet he still could not control this body. If he stumbled into town swaying like this, he would inevitably be mistaken for an evil spirit invasion and struck down.

But sheer anxiety was useless. This was not his original body, after all. It was like someone who had never driven a car before: even if they had studied the manual cover to cover, it was virtually impossible to instantly master driving the moment they actually gripped the wheel.

Before transmigrating, Ron had piloted his body purely on instinct. But now, this body’s instincts were not his. Realizing this, Ron’s mind grew ever calmer. Since his orb form had been able to take over this body after transmigration, it at least proved that his current form possessed the capacity to operate it. What remained was simply a lack of experience.

“I still need to work something out from my true form, the Light Orb!”

With that, Ron immediately shifted his attention to his true form, the Light Orb. Though it lacked human sensory organs like eyes and a nose, his orb form still possessed perception, and a richer one at that.

At this moment, Ron noticed that the orb’s surface, which had been pure white right after transmigration, was now covered in dense, intricate mysterious patterns. A significant portion of these had been absorbed from the outside world before he occupied “Ron’s” body.

Of course, “absorbed” was not quite the right word. He had not wanted them at all. The reason he had felt such overwhelming terror outside, as though he could be obliterated at any moment, was precisely because these mysterious patterns kept multiplying across the orb’s surface.

He instinctively sensed that if those mysterious patterns completely covered him, the outcome would almost certainly be dire.

After occupying “Ron’s” body, mysterious patterns in a style similar to those absorbed from outside continued to appear on the orb’s surface, though at a pace far slower than before.

As for the smaller portion of patterns in a different style, those had gradually emerged on the orb’s surface after he took over Ron’s body. With each successive attempt to control the body, these patterns grew more numerous and increasingly systematic.

For some of them, Ron instinctively knew they likely corresponded to the otherworldly “Ron’s” memories. As long as he focused his attention on these patterns, he could naturally experience those memories.

Ron noticed that within the system of mysterious patterns representing “Ron,” some patterns in a style similar to the external ones had become interwoven like impurities.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that his difficulty in controlling this body might be precisely because of those “impurities.” Taking a step back, in this world that appeared to have suffered some kind of contamination, he dared not return to town carrying things that were clearly not part of “Ron’s” physical characteristics.

For all he knew, this was exactly what they called an “evil spirit invasion.”

“But how am I supposed to eliminate these impurities?”

Ron himself was probably not afraid of these impurities. After all, he had already absorbed so many mysterious patterns outside in his orb form. One more would hardly make a difference.

But these impurities were now mixed into “Ron’s” body, and he was not sure whether the townspeople would be able to tell.

In fact, Ron surmised that if he did not separate these “impurities” mingled within the body, he most likely would never be able to control it. And without control of the body, he could not return to town in a normal state.

After all, he was not the real “Ron.” He certainly did not want anyone detecting anything unusual about him. If he ended up dying before he even got started, then this entire transmigration would have been for nothing.