“I’m already on my way back to Portland, my dear Nick.
I know you have countless questions right now, but don’t overthink things.
Wait for me to get back to the house.”
Aunt Marie hung up before Nick could reply.
When he immediately dialed her back, the call went straight to automated voicemail—her line was already powered off.
Sighing quietly, Nick put his phone away, pulled a plate of leftover homemade dumplings from the refrigerator, and ate a quick meal.
He took a long, hot shower to wash off the dirt from the woods, then collapsed onto his bed.
He tried counting sheep, but his mind was racing too fast for sleep to take hold.
Unable to settle down, Nick raised a hand and struck his own sternum with precise, controlled force, triggering his innate skill: Fake Death Resuscitation.
The instant the skill activated, his breathing slowed to a near-halt, his heart rate dropped to a barely perceptible rhythm, and he slipped instantly into a deep, unconscious slumber.
When his eyes flicked open again, the afternoon sun was dipping low outside his bedroom window.
Thanks to a strict military fitness regimen maintained since his youth, Nick rarely suffered from illness or physical injury.
However, he regularly used this skill to force a total physiological reset.
Fake Death Resuscitation was remarkably efficient.
Whenever his body registered physical strain or fatigue, a mental prompt would offer the option to enter a state of deep suspended animation.
A single thought confirmed it, plunging his system into an absolute, death-like sleep.
Since he lived alone and never brought guests home overnight, he didn’t have to worry about scaring anyone with a bodily state that lacked a detectable pulse.
Upon waking from each simulated death, his body felt completely refreshed, his mind sharp, and his physical fatigue entirely erased.
Sitting down at his desk, Nick typed up his official incident report and transmitted it directly to Captain Renard’s secure terminal.
Once the report was sent, he raised his right hand and summoned the golden ticket into his palm.
He admired the intricate, shifting geometric patterns etched across its surface for a brief moment, then gripped both edges and decisively tore it down the center.
Golden light burst from the tear, swirling into a brilliant sphere before expanding outward, engulfing Nick completely.
The crashing sound of ocean waves echoed in his ears, accompanied by a damp, wet sensation against his cheek that snapped Nick back to full consciousness.
He opened his eyes to find a large Golden Retriever panting over him, enthusiastically licking his forehead.
“Back off, pal,” Nick muttered, pushing the dog’s large head aside as he sat up on the sand.
The faint sound of laughter drifted from a few dozen yards down the beach.
Looking up, Nick spotted the sprawling industrial skyline of the Port of Los Angeles rising in the distance, the giant gantry cranes marked clearly with the letters LOS.
He wasn’t the dog’s owner; the moment he sat up, the Golden Retriever bounded away across the sand, trotting happily toward a young couple walking hand-in-hand along the tide line. Visit NovelPing for the full chapter.
Nick glanced down at the sand beside him, spotting a small leather-bound notebook.
Opening it, his eyes landed on a line of pretentious English verse handwritten on the first page:
‘A meteor emits a pained shriek at the end of its life…’
Nick shuddered slightly at the melodrama.
As he closed the notebook, a fragment of fabricated identity data integrated smoothly into his consciousness.
In this world, his legal identity was Levi Kane—a retired sniper from the United States Marine Corps.
Currently living alone with no surviving family, Levi suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and major clinical depression, having walked down to this secluded stretch of beach to take his own life.
That’s the entire backstory?
Nick quickly scanned through the integrated memories, finding little of operational substance.
Levi’s background was almost painfully straightforward.
Born to a middle-class family on an Oregon ranch, he had demonstrated natural marksmanship from an early age, enlisted in the Marines at eighteen, and spent the next twelve years deployed across various combat zones.
As a scout sniper, Levi’s confirmed kill record was exceptional—exceeding one hundred targets—but the operational realities of irregular warfare meant those targets occasionally included non-combatants and collateral casualties.
At thirty, unable to stomach the psychological toll any longer, Levi accepted an honorable discharge.
Rather than transitioning back to civilian life, however, he was immediately recruited by private military contractors.
While corporate security work allowed him a degree of discretion regarding civilian engagement, his total confirmed kill count across multiple private contracts quickly climbed past two hundred.
Over the course of four years, Levi had rotated through eleven different PMC firms.
His employment files painted a consistent picture: an elite marksman with flawless tactical execution, but politically volatile, prone to questioning operational directives, and overly constrained by personal ethics.
Ultimately, Levi failed to outrun his psychological damage.
After being classified as “unfit for active deployment” by multiple corporate psychologists, he had been blacklisted from contracting work for over six months.
Nick reached into the cool sand, picking up an M1911 semi-automatic pistol resting near his knee, and holstered it beneath his jacket.
The barrel was still faintly warm, confirming a round had been discharged recently.
The former owner of this identity had taken his life moments earlier, right before Nick’s arrival.
Yet Nick was entirely certain this physical body remained his own.
Just as in his previous two world transitions, the mechanism executed a complete physical transfer, adjusting local records to fit his current physical form. Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
There was no corpse on the beach, no bloodstain in the sand—only the synthetic memory overlay and the single expended casing in the M1911’s chamber.
A rather clean way to handle insertion, Nick thought.
He pulled a leather wallet from his pocket and checked the driver’s license inside.
The photo on the ID matched his own face perfectly.
Pulling out his cell phone to check the date, the screen displayed: June 5, 2024.
A strange sense of temporal displacement brushed over him.
In his original lifetime, his military accident had occurred in the summer of 2025.
Reincarnating into his current life as a six-year-old child, he had grown up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, reaching 2008 as a detective in Portland just hours ago.
Now, he had been shifted forward to California in 2024.
It’s a good thing I’ve dealt with orbital deployments in 2122, Nick thought dryly.
A standard civilian would go crazy trying to keep these timelines straight.
He quickly adapted to his surroundings and began assessing his operational parameters.
He was fairly certain the identity of “Levi Kane” wasn’t a primary protagonist from any major film he remembered.
That left two possibilities: either he had taken over the role of a minor background character, or this world belonged to a narrative he had never encountered.
Based on past experience, once the initial integration phase concluded, the golden ticket would issue his primary parameters.
A second later, his phone chimed with an incoming text notification.
Unlocking the device using his fingerprint, Nick opened a message from an unlisted number:
‘Report to Camp Pendleton base entrance at 1300 hours on June 7th.
Transport vehicle will arrive at your location at 1200 hours.’
The message concluded with a formal military routing code.
Camp Pendleton was the major West Coast base for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, located south along the California coastline.
The sender clearly possessed high-level military authorization.
Immediately following the text, a clean system interface prompt materialized directly within his mind:
> Primary Objective: Save the World
> Secondary Objective: Ensure the survival of the female lead
>