Hmm… Uh… What's happening to me…?
Suddenly, a sharp, unbearable pain tore through his skull.
"Aghhh!" he screamed, his voice echoing in the void like a madman's howl.
His mind was in complete chaos. It felt like his head had been crushed under a truck, splitting apart, about to explode.
"I feel like I'm going to die... My body... I can't even feel my body..."
He tried to move, to lift a finger, to blink—anything. But he couldn't. His limbs were frozen, unresponsive. Even his eyelids refused to obey. A cold, paralyzing fear gripped him.
Darkness. Nothing but darkness surrounded him. It swallowed everything—sight, sound, warmth. It was suffocating.
"Where am I? Someone... please... help me..." he thought, his mind screaming even when his lips could not move.
No voice came out. No sound escaped his mouth. He tried again and again, hoping he was just dreaming, praying he would wake up.
But the pain—the sheer rawness of it—was too real. This wasn't a dream.
He mentally screamed, again and again.
"Please... someone help! Save me!"
Time lost meaning. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes into years. Or so it felt. The endless blackness eroded his sanity, and the isolation tore at his will.
"I've been in this pain... this silence... for so long... am I even alive?"
He had no answers. Just agony and loneliness. And then—
He felt something.
A hand. Cold. Shadowy. Gripping his soul and dragging it downward.
"No... No!"
He resisted with everything he had left. That thing—whatever it was—wanted to pull him into an abyss even deeper than this one.
And then, amidst the crushing dark, he saw it.
A light.
Faint. Flickering. Fragile.
But real.
A single thread of hope in the endless void.
"I won't give up... not yet!"
He screamed in his mind. He crawled toward it—inch by inch. The hands in the dark clawed at him, scratching, ripping, pulling.
"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
His will, though shattered, roared back to life. He pushed forward, through fear and despair, through memories and pain.
The moment his soul touched the light—
Boom!
The black hands exploded into dust. The chains binding his soul shattered like glass.
He gasped sharply.
His body jolted.
And then—his eyes opened.
Blinding light seared into his vision. He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust.
"Ugh... my head... it feels like it's going to explode..."
But before he could gather his thoughts, a storm of images and memories flooded his mind. They weren't his.
"Who... is this?"
"Who am I?"
"Where am I?"
Faces, places, voices—strangers yet strangely familiar—flashed before his eyes.
A child, crying in a corner, clutching the body of his dead father.
A mother, beautiful and broken, sobbing in silence.
Relatives, their eyes gleaming with greed, circling like vultures.
Minutes passed. Maybe more.
He gritted his teeth, clutched his temples, and slowly forced the flood back. The memories settled, forming a blurry but solid identity.
"This isn't Earth... this isn't my world."
He exhaled shakily.
"I'm in another body. Another life..."
Then, as if the haze cleared completely, a voice echoed in his mind—distant, mechanical, cold.
Cloning System binding... 10%... 20%... 50%... 90%... 100%. Host successfully bound.
A golden panel appeared in front of his vision.
Name: Shen Yue
Age: 14
Physique: None
Bloodline: None
Cultivation: None
Skills: None
Spiritual Root: None
Talent: Extraction
Unique Trait: Clones: 0 (Locked)
Stats:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 8
Wisdom: 2
Spirit: 0.8
He stared at the floating screen, breath caught in his throat.
"I don't know how I got this system... but this... this is my chance."
Just then, another alert blinked into view.
Warning! Host body in near-death state. Activating recovery phase...
A warm, soothing energy surged through his body. His pain faded. The cold slipped away. It felt like drifting in a hot spring under a gentle sun.
His consciousness loosened again, and his mind drifted.
Inside his soul, a realm of quiet settled in.
He could feel himself—float above his own memories.
So, he dug into them.
He saw a small courtyard, a simple home, and two children playing. A boy and a girl. She was cute, delicate, shy—his younger sister.
Shen Ning. Twelve years old.
After their father died, she broke. She stopped eating. She locked herself in her room, whispering to herself through the nights. The boy—Shen Yue—tried to make her smile. He tried everything... and failed.
Then came the image of their mother.
Lan Xue.
Once the jewel of the inner city's Lan Family. Elegant, proud, beautiful. After her clan fell from grace and was banished, she married Shen Yue's father.
And lastly—the father himself.
Shen Xing. A powerful cultivator at the late stage of Qi Absorption. Once a commanding officer in the army. Fierce in battle, but gentle at home. He gave food to slum children during famines, protected the weak, and earned enemies in silence.
Then... he died.
The family crumbled.
The relatives swarmed. The military that praised him abandoned his son.
Shen Yue, barely fourteen, was sent to war as cannon fodder.
"And now... I'm him."
The memories, the pain, the broken dreams—they mixed with his own.
"Rest in peace, Shen Yue... I'll protect your mother. Your sister. Your dream. I swear it."
He whispered those words with genuine emotion. He didn't know when it happened, but the line between them had vanished.
He was Shen Yue now.
"System?" he tried to call mentally.
The golden panel responded immediately.
Still the same details.
His eyes paused on one word.
Extraction.
"What kind of extraction?" he wondered. "Soul? Cultivation? Bloodline?"
He focused on it.
A new message appeared:
Extraction: You can extract any special attribute from living or non-living things—soul, talent, physique, bloodline. Simply say: System, extract.
A shiver ran down his spine.
"System, extract," he said mentally.
Ding!
System has extracted:
Low-Level Fire Spiritual Root (Mixed)
Mid-Level Sword Talent
Low-Level Archery Talent
Low-Level Spear Talent
High-Level Iron-Copper Molt Physique
Mid-Level Flame Scorpion Bloodline
Qi Absorption (3rd Level cultivation)
Warning: Host body cannot withstand cultivation. Qi stored for later use upon recovery.
He blinked, stunned.
His talent... had exploded.
"I... I'm not trash anymore."
A rustling sound came from nearby.
A voice—gruff and unfamiliar.
"Huh? There's a survivor here! What a lucky boy. Good thing I found you... if it were someone else, you'd already be tossed with the corpses."
The man shouted.
"HEY! Over here! I found a survivor!"
Shen Yue smiled weakly.
"Thank you, stranger... I owe you."
Then darkness gently embraced him once more—this time, not in fear, but in healing sleep.