Su Yan had spent more time—and more money—on Goddess of Victory: Nikke than he cared to admit.
But honestly, could you blame him?
The visuals were incredible, the characters… memorable, and the story—the story—had hooked him from the very first chapter. Poor Marian. That one still stung.
Then came the latest event: Goddess Fall.
Action, revelations, real plot movement—and characters dropping like flies.
Noah.
Harran.
Isabel.
Even Nihilister.
That one hurt the most.
He'd been waiting for her to truly shine, to finally become meta. And now? No chance.
He sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Gotta let it go," he muttered. "Maybe Shift Up will pull some kind of resurrection later. But for now… I need something therapeutic."
His eyes drifted to another tab.
"Guess I'll go cool off with some Douluo Dalu Tang San bash fics."
Su Yan had never gotten into Douluo Dalu the normal way. His first exposure hadn't been the novel or the manhua—it had been fanfiction. Good fanfiction. The kind that dragged you into a fandom before you even realized what you'd signed up for.
At first, the sheer volume of Tang San bashing confused him.
Then he kept reading.
And slowly, uncomfortably, he started to see it.
Tang San was the protagonist. The chosen one. The son of destiny. Everything bent his way. Every coincidence favoured him. Every moral dilemma resolved itself neatly around his decisions.
And yet his attitude made Su Yan's skin crawl.
Tang San always acted pure. Righteous. Gentle.
But underneath? Calculating. Petty. Unforgiving.
Insult Yu Xiaogang, and congratulations—you'd just earned a permanent spot on Tang San's mental blacklist. Hurt Xiao Wu even slightly in what was supposed to be a fair tournament? No mercy for you. Total annihilation. But when she crossed lines, it was all smiles, justifications, and forgiveness.
Rules for everyone else. Exceptions for his people.
Then came Douluo Dalu 2, and any lingering goodwill Su Yan had evaporated.
Huo Yuhao was supposed to be the next son of destiny, chosen by the plane itself to reconcile humans and Soul Beasts. Instead, he was dragged through emotional hell—trial after trial, manipulation after manipulation—until he emerged less like a successor and more like another piece on Tang San's board.
And Tang Wutong?
Su Yan still couldn't believe that plotline had been written with a straight face.
Who splits their own daughter's soul in half? One half to siphon the luck of the Soul Beasts, the other sent down as an emotional anchor—no, a lock—on the next chosen one. And in the end, both halves existed to make sure Huo Yuhao never truly stepped outside Tang San's shadow.
As for Douluo Dalu 3…
By then, Su Yan felt like the world itself was paying the price.
Schemes layered on schemes. Systems calcified. The future strangled by the past. Even the Silver Dragon King was taken—though Su Yan would admit, with only a little shame, that part of his bitterness there was personal. He'd loved her design.
Still, bias aside, it felt undeniable.
By the third book, Douluo Dalu wasn't just a story about cultivation anymore.
It was a world shaped—and quietly ruined—by one man's need to control the outcome.
And most of that could be laid at Tang San's feet.
If he could go there, he really would like to put Tang San in his place.
"That could be arranged."
The voice was close. Far too close.
Su Yan froze.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic. It didn't echo like some cosmic proclamation or shake the room with divine authority. It was calm, almost amused—spoken as casually as if someone had simply leaned over his shoulder to comment on a thought he hadn't meant to say out loud.
He turned.
There was nothing there.
No figure. No light. No presence he could point to and say that was it. Just the faint, uncomfortable certainty that he had been heard.
"…Right," Su Yan muttered. "Lack of sleep. Too much caffeine. Definitely hallucinating."
That was the last rational thought he managed to have.
The world tilted.
Sound vanished. Weight disappeared. The glow of his screen stretched, warped, and then snapped away like a candle being blown out. There was no pain—just the sensation of falling without movement, of being unmade gently but thoroughly.
As darkness swallowed him whole, one thought lingered, absurd and half-amused even as consciousness slipped away.
Figures.
Even joking about it was enough to get me isekai'd.
And then there was nothing.