Azurewave Base City, District F.
The setting sun, like a stubborn stain of old blood, smeared across the towering alloy city walls that pierced the sky.
Beyond the walls lay the roaring wilderness teeming with ferocious beasts, while within stretched a steel jungle of rigid hierarchy.
"Hey! What are you daydreaming about? The corpse-eating beast fluids haven't been wiped up yet!"
An impatient shout shattered the silence.
Su Wu, clutching a foul-smelling, filthy rag, hunched over, laboriously scrubbing the beast flesh and blood clinging to the wall's crevices. At the shout, he flinched, straightening his once-ramrod-straight back and forcing a servile smile onto his face.
"Coming, Young Master Liang! Almost done!"
Standing before him was Liang Qi, a fair-skinned young man clad in a brand-new nano combat suit. As the nephew of the City Defense Force's third battalion commander and the squad leader for this sector, he exuded an air of authority.
Liang Qi pinched his nose in disgust and kicked the metal bucket of dirty water beside Su Wu with the tip of his boot. "Hey, Old Su, I'm meeting some buddies at Paradise Heaven for drinks tonight. You cover my night patrol shift. You're just an old bachelor anyway, nothing better to do at home. Extra overtime pay will help buy medicine for your useless son, right?"
Su Wu's movements stiffened.
Overtime pay? According to past practice, that money would end up in Liang Qi's pocket. If he got even a tenth of it, it would mean Liang Qi was in an unusually good mood that day.
But could he refuse?
He couldn't.
Liang Qi might be a spoiled brat, but he was still a martial artist in the early Qi Blood Realm, not to mention the influence of his uncle. As for himself...
Su Wu lowered his gaze, concealing the fleeting glint of sharpness deep in his eyes, and bowed obsequiously. "Yes, yes, it's an honor to serve Young Master Liang. Go enjoy yourself. I'll guard this section of the wall and ensure not even a fly gets through."
"Good, you know your place," Liang Qi sneered, patting Su Wu's greasy shoulder like he was petting an obedient old dog. "Work hard. In this world, if you lack strength, you have to accept your fate."
Humming a tune, Liang Qi turned and strode toward the suspended train station in the distant, brightly lit wealthy district.
Su Wu stood rooted to the spot, watching Liang Qi's retreating figure. For a fleeting moment, his stooped back straightened, but a sudden, phantom pain erupted from his dantian, forcing him to hunch over again.
"Accept fate... Ha, accept fate," Su Wu muttered bitterly, staring at his calloused, cracked hands.
Who could imagine that these hands, now only capable of gripping rags and shovels, had once shattered a mountain peak with a single punch twenty years ago?
And who could guess that this meek, middle-aged man, who cowered beneath the city walls and endured countless scornful glances, didn't even belong to this timeline?
He was a transmigrator.
Originally, he had lived on a technological world called Earth. After transmigrating to this high-martial parallel world, he had been full of ambition. With the resilience of a transmigrator, he had cultivated to the revered Master realm in just twenty years—a feat that earned him the respect of all.
A Master!
With a thought, he could command the air, turning fallen leaves and drifting petals into lethal weapons. In modern Azurewave Base City, even the city lord would roll out the red carpet, treating him like a guest of honor.
But alas...
Su Wu turned to gaze at the deep, boundless starry sky, a flicker of bone-deep pain flashing in his eyes.
All his glory had vanished like smoke on that night twenty years ago.
To protect the woman he loved, he had his dantian shattered and his meridians severed by a casual palm strike from a terrifying man who descended from the depths of space.
"Insects," the man had said—the only word he ever spoke to Su Wu.
From that moment on, the once-legendary Grandmaster Su Wu fell from grace, reduced to a cripple in the late stages of the Flesh Refinement Realm. His wife was taken away, his newborn daughter stolen, leaving him to eke out a miserable existence in this cold world with only his infant son, Su Yu, wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Huff...
Su Wu exhaled a mouthful of stale air and picked up the cleaning cloth again.
No more dwelling on the past.
No amount of regret could change what had happened. Now he was just a father who had to swallow his pride for a meager living, a father who still had a son to raise.
Midnight.
The neon lights of the bustling city gradually dimmed, leaving only the tireless holographic GG billboards in the distant wealthy districts still flashing.
Su Wu dragged his exhausted body back to the dilapidated tenement building in District F's slums.
The air here reeked of sewage and the cloying aroma of cheap synthetic food. Peeling paint revealed tangled webs of exposed wires snaking through the corridors like spiderwebs.
"Identity verification successful. Welcome home, Tier 3 resident Su Wu," a cold electronic voice announced as the rusty security door creaked open.
The cramped apartment, barely thirty square meters, was meticulously clean. Though the furniture was old, it was arranged with meticulous precision.
Su Wu quietly closed the door and expertly opened the decade-old refrigerator that had served him and his son.
Inside were two lunchboxes—dinner left for him by his son, Su Yu.
He placed the food in the warming compartment, the sizzling heating sound piercing the quiet night. Su Wu collapsed onto the sagging fabric sofa, his bones protesting with aching soreness.
He habitually looked up at the mottled white wall in the living room.
It was the most "luxurious" part of their home.
The wall was plastered with awards from Su Wu's childhood and youth: "Model Student," "First Place in Martial Arts Theory," "Perfect Score on Basic Boxing Assessment"...
At the very center of these certificates hung a slightly yellowed photograph.
In the photo, a woman of jade-like beauty, her eyes as gentle as if they could melt ten thousand years of frozen ice, nestled in the arms of a young and handsome Su Wu.
That was his wife, Lin Wan'er.
The noble woman who carried the bloodline of the Starry Sky God Clan.
"Wan'er, our son has grown up..." Su Wu gazed at the photograph, a misty layer forming in his bloodshot eyes. This was the most relaxed moment of his day. "Xiao Yu is truly remarkable, even stronger than I was at his age."
Though Su Yu hadn't fully inherited his mother's heaven-defying divine talent, among ordinary people, he was already a rare genius.
At seventeen, he had reached the peak of the Flesh Refinement Realm, just a step away from breaking through to the Qi Blood Realm.
In this resource-scarce slum, such an achievement was entirely due to the boy's relentless cultivation day and night.
"If Xiao Yu can get into a top martial arts university, even if he doesn't become a Grandmaster, reaching the innate realm would allow him to stand tall in this world..."
Su Wu was already planning how he would use his next month's wages to buy a low-grade Qi Blood Elixir from the black market to help his son break through.
Suddenly, a click.
The bedroom door opened.
Su Wu hastily wiped away his exhaustion, forcing a cheerful smile as he turned around. "Xiao Yu, still awake? Are you hungry—"
Before he could finish, his smile froze on his face.