2004.
Paris, France.
The European branch of the Umbrella Corporation: Blue Umbrella.
The Underground Hive.
Mark slowly stirred from his stupor.
His eyes were blank and hollow, his entire consciousness focused on the battered, ruined system inside his mind.
After a long while, Mark finally let out a deeply emotional sigh.
During this brief period, he had at last sorted through the tangled, chaotic memories of his two lives.
That was right—Mark had transmigrated.
A stroke of cosmic luck hit him when he was approaching middle age.
Unfortunately, during the transmigration process, he accidentally stumbled into a battle between mighty supreme beings of the Yanfu World.
The resulting collapse and recreation of the realm threw endless chaotic laws around, nearly obliterating his system in the process.
Under the system’s desperate protection, Mark’s soul had remained intact.
However, his transmigration coordinates were disrupted, diverting him from a short-form web novel universe into Marvel.
At the same time, the system had been devastated by the laws of those supreme beings.
Its internal AI spirit was completely annihilated, and its very foundation was mutated from a God-Tier Tycoon System into a Demonic Cultivation System.
Fortunately, the highborn background granted by the system had not changed.
Mark had been born into a top-tier financial dynasty.
Even though his soul was damaged during his upbringing, leaving him groggy and semi-conscious for years, he had still been well cared for.
Until now.
Now that Mark had turned eighteen and reached full adulthood, his healed soul had allowed his memories to fully restore themselves.
In his past life, Mark had been an utterly ordinary corporate drone.
Apart from being handsome, he had no notable qualities.
By the time he hit middle age, he was balding, gaining a beer belly, and even that single advantage of good looks had vanished.
So when the God-Tier Tycoon System originally chose him, Mark felt he had truly struck gold rather than being hit by a truck.
He just hadn’t expected an accident during transit.
The impact of those cultivation laws was…
well, honestly worse than getting hit by a truck.
“Rest in peace, buddy,” Mark muttered to the vanished system AI.
“I’ll inherit your legacy—err, I mean, carry out your final wishes.
I’ll make sure both the path of the tycoon and the path of demonic cultivation flourish.
You might not be able to harvest the world source of that short-novel universe anymore, but I’ll burn plenty of joss paper for you later to make up for our agreed-upon profit split.”
Once he sorted through his thoughts, Mark suppressed the urge to laugh aloud, though the corners of his near-perfect Eurasian handsome face curled upward despite himself.
After all, nothing in this world came for free.
The system AI had granted Mark a chance to transmigrate and play the role of a god-tier tycoon, but it had also come with various performance quotas and tasks.
Now that the AI was gone, all the leftover benefits belonged solely to Mark.
How was this any different from an angel investor sending a wire transfer and immediately dropping dead?
*I can’t smile.
Absolutely cannot smile,* Mark thought.
*I’m a refined, respectable man.
I need to show a minimum level of respect for my late system buddy.*
*Well…
I should also thank Nature for her generous bounty.*
After stabilizing his emotions, Mark opened the system operational log to see what kind of starter gifts the system had left behind.
[Host bound.
Transmigrating…] [&…%￥*#…] [&…%￥*#…]
That section was unreadable garble—likely the record of the moment the system’s internal AI spirit was obliterated.
Tragic.
Mark smacked his lips and observed a moment of silence for his system buddy once more.
[Transmigration successful.
Under the influence of unknown laws, the Fortune Tycoon origin has been converted to the Demonic Cultivation origin.] [Host born.
Repairing soul trauma…] [Repairing soul trauma…] [Repairing…]
Nothing special in that section, though Mark had to admit the system buddy had been genuinely reliable.
The leftover legacy had operated continuously for eighteen years, working diligently without a single glitch.
[Host soul successfully repaired.
Bound.
Highest authority granted.] [Accessing memory retrieval…] [Host has inherited the position of Umbrella CEO.
Correction: Host has inherited the position of Holy Son of the Blood Fiend Demonic Sect.] [Granted supreme cultivation method of the Blood Fiend Demonic Sect—Nether Blood Sea Manual.]
As an overwhelming torrent of information flooded his mind, Mark’s eyes went blank once more.
For more than half an hour, he sat frozen.
By the time Mark snapped back to his senses, an entire vast, boundless encyclopedia of top-tier supreme demonic cultivation methods had taken root in his mind.
setup of the *Nether Blood Sea Manual* was the supreme heritage of the Blood Fiend Demonic Sect, one of the three major demonic sects in the Yanfu World.
The manual was far more than just a single technique.
It encompassed visualization diagrams, qi-refinement methods, mantra seal techniques, alchemy and forging methods, divine abilities, and martial spells.
At its core lay the *Nether Blood Sea Visualization*.
It contained the fundamental roots of countless cosmic laws, including world creation, reincarnation, yin and yang, life and death, blood fiend, and purification.
Furthermore, this was the fundamental technique of the entire *Nether Blood Sea Manual*, capable of being cultivated all the way to the Realm of Hunyuan Great Enlightenment.
As for the rest, there were simply too many secondary techniques.
Mark needed time to evaluate his current situation before selecting the path best suited for him.
Speaking of which, Mark’s current situation was far from ideal.
Especially after seeing the words *Umbrella CEO* in the system log, Mark quickly retrieved a vast amount of relevant information from the eighteen years of memories he possessed in this world.
That was right—this Marvel universe was somewhat out of bounds.
It wasn’t the Marvel Cinematic Universe, nor was it strictly the Marvel Comics universe.
It felt more like a grand fusion of American film and television worlds.
At the very least, in Mark’s past-life memories, the Umbrella Corporation had no place in Marvel.
In this life, Mark’s identity was the grandson of Edward Ashford—one of the three co-founders of the Umbrella Corporation—and the sole surviving descendant of those three deceased founders left in the mortal realm.
Mark Ashford was his full name in this life.
His father, whom Mark had never met before his passing, had been a Chinese man who married into the family.
Mark’s shares and CEO title were both inherited from his mother’s estate.
However, neither Mark nor the Umbrella Corporation was doing well at the moment.
In Mark’s memory, this world’s Umbrella Corporation possessed elements resembling the game lore, along with similarities to the movie storylines.
In the early 1950s, after retiring from military service at the end of World War II, the three co-founders of Umbrella ventured to Africa together.
In the early 1960s, the trio discovered the Stairway to the Sun flower at the ancient Ndipaya tribe ruins in West Africa.
The terraced steps where the Stairway to the Sun grew were steeped in mystery and death.
To study this mysterious flora, the three poured vast resources into fields like biology and virology.
In 1968, the Umbrella Corporation was officially established.
In 1971, Edward Ashford, one of the three co-founders, died of illness.
In 1978, James Marcus, another co-founder, passed away as well.
The last remaining founder, Oswell E.
Spencer, took sole control of power.
After suppressing the other two founder families, he introduced massive capital and outside factions, embarking on a spree of wild expansion.
In 1991, Umbrella had grown too colossal and split into White Umbrella, Blue Umbrella, and Red Umbrella.
In 1998, Oswell E.
Spencer died of illness.
That same year, the descendants of the three founder families suffered a string of fatal accidents.
Only Mark Ashford—groggy and mentally impaired— survived to become the sole remaining figurehead and puppet CEO.
With no one left to keep them in check, the internal capital forces and factions within Umbrella lost all restraint.
On March 15, 2002, a viral leak occurred in Raccoon City, triggering a major biohazard outbreak.
In early April, SHIELD, backed by the World Security Council, stepped in alongside various international forces to quell the outbreak.
Afterward, the entire Umbrella Corporation faced global sanctions and spiraled into ruin.
Yet Umbrella’s residual assets—in bioweapons, viruses, and military technology—were far too immense and scattered globally.
Outside factions rushed to suppress, plunder, and carve up the company.
This chaotic state had persisted all the way to 2004.
Even Mark’s personal safety had come under threat.
He faced repeated persecution from Albert Wesker, a high-ranking executive within Umbrella.
Out of sheer necessity, Sergei Vladimir—a fierce loyalist to the Ashford family—had brought Mark to the Blue Umbrella headquarters in Europe.
After settling the incapacitated Mark in safety, Sergei departed without delay for a military training base in Russia, intending to rally troops and seize back control of the corporation.
However, almost immediately after Sergei left Europe, Christine Henry, the head of Blue Umbrella, placed Mark under complete confinement in the underground Hive laboratory and kept him drugged into a stupor.
Only then did Mark wake from his coma, awaken his system, and recover his memories.