The End of Days didn't arrive with the fanfare of trumpets or the weeping of angels. It started with static.
Ling Feng was finishing a double shift at a logistics warehouse, the kind of soul-crushing labor that turned the spine into dust and the mind into a gray fog. He was an average man from 2020—cynical enough to survive the corporate grind, relaxed enough to keep his blood pressure low, and imaginative enough to wish for something more than a cold beer and a lonely bed.
He was walking to his car, keys jingling in his hand, when the sky unzipped.
It wasn't a metaphor. The atmospheric fabric of Earth literally tore open, revealing not the vacuum of space, but a swirling, nauseating vortex of neon green and bruised purple.
The sound hit him seconds later—a deafening, digital screech that felt like a drill pressing into his pineal gland.
From that tear in reality descended a hand. It was colossal, covered in a pristine white glove that seemed to mock the cartoonish nature of the horror.
Ling Feng would've recognized the hand if he were not dumbfounded with pure bewilderment.
This was the hand of a multiversal conqueror, a villain from a reality far removed from Ling Feng's mundane world. It was a master of the Chaos Force who had transcended his own narrative to harvest entirely new universes for raw energy.
"Fascinating," a voice boomed, resonating not in the air, but directly in the souls of seven billion people. "This reality... it lacks magic. It lacks Qi. It is purely... biological matter and willpower. A perfect variable for the Eternal Engine."
Ling Feng watched, paralyzed, as the Toyota Camry next to him dissolved into binary code, then into pure white light. The pavement, the warehouse, the moon above—it was all being harvested.
Then came the pain. Absolute, searing, deconstructive pain.
Ling Feng felt his body being stripped away layer by layer. His skin, his muscles, his bones—they were unraveled like loose thread. But where others vanished into the villain's collection, screaming into oblivion, Ling Feng's consciousness refused to blink out. He was stubborn. It was the same stubbornness that made him finish a shift with the flu, the same grit that made him stand up to a micro-managing boss just to prove a point.
No, he thought, the word echoing in the void of his dissolving mind. I'm not done yet. I haven't even had dinner.
The Villain paused, sensing a microscopic smudge on his pristine harvesting lens. He looked down at the singularity that was Ling Feng.
"A soul resisting total erasure? In a non-magical universe?" The Villain laughed, a sound that shattered galaxies. "Your willpower is... statistically impossible. You are absorbing the leakage."
Because the Villain had torn open the barrier between realities, pure, unfiltered Chaos Force—the primordial energy of the Archie multiverse—was bleeding in. It was an energy that existed outside the bounds of karma, fate, and the river of time. Ling Feng's soul, stripped of its biological shell and burning with refusal, acted like a gravity well.
Green lightning arced through the void. The Chaos Force didn't destroy him; it poured into him. It recognized a vessel of infinite adaptability.
"You are drinking the Chaos," the Villain mused, his giant eye narrowing. "If I keep you, you might destabilize my collection. But if I destroy you, I lose a unique specimen."
The Villain plucked Ling Feng's glowing, emerald-green soul from the wreckage of Earth.
"Let us run a simulation. I shall cast you into a reality governed by rigid laws, by fate, by a 'Old Villainous Heaven.' Let us see if the Chaos Force can thrive where destiny is absolute."
With a flick of his wrist, the Villain tossed Ling Feng across the kaleidoscope of the multiverse.
Ling Feng fell through the cracks of existence, the green fire of the Chaos Force burning his soul into a new shape—a shape that defied the laws of the universe.
....
The sensation of having a body again was heavy, like wearing a coat soaked in water.
Ling Feng gasped, sitting up violently, his hands instinctively clutching his chest. The agony of the void was gone, replaced by a strange, humming warmth coursing through his veins. It wasn't the subtle, rhythmic flow of blood, nor was it the gentle stream of Worldly Qi. It was a torrential river of energy that felt... alive. It felt limitless.
"I'm... alive?" he muttered, his voice raspy.
He looked at his hands. They were calloused, rough, and slightly smaller than he remembered. He scanned his surroundings: a shabby wooden hut, the scent of medicinal herbs and rotting timber hanging in the air, and a cracked bronze mirror mounted on the wall.
He walked over to the mirror, his movements fluid and strangely light. The face staring back was handsome but boyish, barely fourteen years old. He had sharp, sword-like eyebrows, deep eyes, and a faint, almost imperceptible green spark flickering in his pupils like a distant nebula.
"Transmigration," Ling Feng whispered.
A grin slowly spread across his face—not of fear, but of anticipation. In his past life, he had consumed enough web novels to diagnose his situation instantly. He stretched his arms, hearing his joints pop with a sound like cracking stone.
"Is that right? Well then, let's see what I'm working with."
For others, suddenly waking up in a new world after dying and experiencing unimaginable pain would break the mind. Others would struggle to comprehend what the hell was happening, or wish to go back to their normal lives.
Ling Feng?
He saw a new grand life before him and he wanted to instantly seize it.
With no other thoughts but success, he closed his eyes, turning his focus inward to that humming warmth.
Zzzzt.
Inside his mind—specifically within his Niwan Palace, where a cultivator's soul resides—there was no Fate Palace. There was no Life Wheel spinning with the blood energy of the mortal world.
Instead, there was a colossal, floating green gem.
The Master Emerald.
It sat there, majestic and silent, radiating an aura that made the surrounding spiritual space twist and distort. It was an anchor of reality, heavy and absolute. Orbiting it were seven smaller, colorless outlines—ghostly silhouettes waiting to be filled. The Chaos Emeralds.
"Chaos Force..." Ling Feng realized, his eyes snapping open. Realization continually filled his gaze. Instinct was coming to him. Sensations that he never felt before but seemed like he had all of his life.
This was the Primal Chaos Genesis Physique. It was not one of the 12 Immortal Physiques, but something alien. It fed on emotions and willpower.
He clenched his fist, and arcs of green lightning crackled between his fingers. He tapped a wooden cup on the table.
Crack.
The cup didn't break; it disintegrated into dust. The molecular bonds holding the wood together simply ceased to exist.
"Interesting... I have the power of the Archie Comics Chaos Force? In a Xianxia world?" He laughed. It was a low, confident sound that vibrated in his chest. "I suppose resisting that hell was worth it in the end. Doubt I would be this familiar with the force if I hadn't... The power to warp reality, control time, and rewrite physics... This is going to be fun."
In that moment, Ling Feng closed his eyes again to inspect his memories. Suddenly, memories that didn't belong to him flooded his brain like a tidal wave.
This body... Ling Feng. An ordinary disciple of the Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect. Aptitude: Mortal. Fate Wheel: Phony. A nobody destined to be cannon fodder.
"Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect?" Ling Feng froze, the laughter dying in his throat. His eyes narrowed sharply. "Wait. That's Emperor's Domination."
The realization hit him harder than the transmigrating lightning. If this was the Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect, and the sect was in this state of decline... then he was coming.
Li Qiye.
The Dark Crow.
The taboo existence who spent millions of years plotting behind the scenes, the apex predator who treated Immortal Emperors like disposable chess pieces.
Ling Feng walked to the window and looked out at the dilapidated mountains of the sect. The once-glorious architecture was crumbling. The atmosphere was heavy with despair.
Based on the memories he had assimilated, the Elders were desperate. They were preparing a grand ritual to summon the Guardian Spirit to revive their glory.
"Li Qiye is about to wake up in the body of that boy..." Ling Feng mused, leaning against the window frame, his fingers drumming a rhythm on the sill. "If Li Qiye wakes up, this becomes his story. I become a side character, a footnote, or worse—a pawn on his chessboard. He's too smart, too experienced, and frankly... too much of a hassle."
Ling Feng wasn't afraid of Li Qiye, but he valued his agency. He wanted to live his best life. He wanted to build a harem of peerless jade beauties, slap the faces of arrogant Young Masters until they coughed blood, and explore the Nine Worlds with absolute freedom. Li Qiye was a baggage of karma, ancient feuds, and endless war that he simply didn't need.
"Too bad for you, Li," Ling Feng smirked, his eyes glowing a bright, toxic emerald green. "But I prefer my freedom. You can hit the snooze button for another epoch."