Chapter 1: First Arrival in a Strange World

A blood-red moon hung in the sky.

Nearby, a pile of campfire embers flickered, on the verge of dying out.

In the distance stretched what seemed to be an endless wilderness.

Luo Yong awoke from a dream to find himself in a dilapidated campsite, utterly alone. The cold wind whistled around him, threatening to drive a man mad.

What on earth was going on?

He had only failed to confess his feelings, spent his eighteenth birthday alone, eaten cake, watched some anime, and then put on a late-night film. How could he have woken up in this godforsaken place?

Had he made the wrong wish when blowing out the candles?

Or was this just a dream—albeit one that felt far too real?

A faint rustling disturbed his thoughts.

Something crawled over the low fence—a spherical creature, its body shimmering with iridescent colors beneath the bloody moonlight.

By the flickering firelight, Luo Yong discerned it was a spider, as large as a watermelon.

He looked around. Besides a few pieces of nearly spent wood, there wasn’t a single decent brick or stone in sight.

Where was he?

A frantic search through his pockets yielded nothing. Wallet, phone, ID, even the photo of the girl he’d secretly loved for ages—none of them were with him.

Scrabbling in the dirt, he found only a half-burned iron rod by the fire, glowing red at one end—barely usable as a weapon.

He stabbed at the spider.

The rod wasn’t sharp, but it plunged deep into the creature’s body with a dull squelch.

Instantly, a searing pain shot through his palm. Luo Yong released the rod, his right hand now a bloody, blistered mess.

At the same time, new information flashed through his mind.

Name: Luo Yong

Class: Impersonator

Weapon: Blade of Disguise

What the hell?

He couldn’t help but think of that infamous crab monster that could be slain in one hit.

But there was no time for idle thoughts. The night was alive with the sound of skittering legs.

In the distance, countless points of multicolored light flickered—an endless army of spiders surging toward him like a tide.

Holy shit!

A single thought flashed through Luo Yong’s mind: he was done for. He turned to run.

But his legs refused to obey, frozen stiff. He struggled, fell flat on his face, and bit into a mouthful of dirt.

It’s over! He was about to become spider food.

Despair washed over him.

Yet, as he gazed at the dying embers, a deep sense of unwillingness surged within him.

Was this to be the end of Luo Yong, future lawyer and defender of justice? Was he to die here, before even confessing to the girl he liked?

“Did I drink too much? How could something like this happen?” he muttered, then decided against running.

To flee now was to invite death.

Normal spiders were already fast—these monstrous ones would catch him in a few steps, and his end would be gruesome.

The largest spider was already crawling over the fence, even bigger and more vibrant than the last.

Rooted to the spot, Luo Yong steeled himself. If he was going to die, he might as well take a chance.

If this was a dream, perhaps death would wake him, like in some movie.

If not, well—there was no escape anyway.

They were only spiders, after all. Damn it, killing one wouldn’t be a loss; killing two would be a profit.

Call it self-deception or self-hypnosis, but Luo Yong stood his ground, facing the endless tide of spiders with a desperate, reckless bravado.

It must be said: heartbroken young men are the bravest of all, willing to try anything.

“Kill!”

He gripped the iron rod once more and swung it at a dazzling spider.

With a wet smack, green fluid spattered as he bludgeoned the spider to death.

Several more of similar size scuttled past him.

The most harrowing moment came when one spider climbed up his leg, crawled across his body, brushed against his face, and stopped atop his head.

Every hair on Luo Yong’s body stood on end. He barely dared breathe; his heart seemed to stop.

Thankfully, the spider soon crawled down and merged back into the swarm. Luo Yong exhaled a long, shaky breath.

No one could say how long that night lasted. The blood moon remained fixed in the sky, unmoving. The swarm of spiders seemed endless—creatures of all sizes, some as large as houses, others the size of watermelons, packed densely together.

Among the iridescent ones were others of single hue—pure black, or silvery white—though they were rare.

Luo Yong’s legs grew weary, and his heart grew numb. The iron rod in his hand, once blistering hot, now felt cool.

Astonishingly, the burns on his right hand were healing, almost without him noticing.

He examined the rod; it had changed, grown longer, and now felt balanced in his grip.

“Fine, I’ll call it the Blade of Disguise… but with a name like that, how could it keep its true form?”

Just then, another spider headed straight for him, clearly intent on climbing up and over.

Damn it, can’t you just go around?

Luo Yong flicked his wrist, sending the Blade of Disguise flying.

With a sound more decisive than before, the spider was pinned to the ground, green fluid leaking out as it twitched and fell still.

He moved carefully through the swarm, retrieved his weapon, and inspected it—unchanged.

“They can’t see me? Or sense I’m here?”

He waited until a particularly large, colorful spider passed nearby. With a practiced motion, he whipped the rod at its joint, splattering it with a gush of colored fluids. The spider dropped, lifeless.

“This is actually kind of fun,” Luo Yong thought, embracing optimism. Using his advantage, he darted and dispatched spiders, racking up dozens of kills before his information panel updated:

Name: Luo Yong

Class: Impersonator

Weapon: Blade of Disguise

Level: 1

“Level 1 now?” Luo Yong mused. It felt like he’d stumbled into a power-leveling game—and somehow glitched the system. He couldn’t let this rare chance go to waste.

With that, he threw the Blade of Disguise with even greater enthusiasm.

Soon enough, he leveled up again. The Blade of Disguise transformed completely, now appearing as a sharpened wooden stick.

Must have triggered its disguise function.

“Level 2 already? Good, keep going!”

“Stab, stab, stab!” he muttered, giddy.

Before long, another spider crawled directly toward him.

“Again?”

With a powerful throw, the stick pierced a waxy yellow spider.

Luo Yong strolled over, pulled out his weapon, and, with a flourish, hurled it at another distant spider.

“Wow, that flew far!”

Caught up in farming monsters, he failed to notice his strength had grown; his full-force throws now sent the stick clean through a spider half as tall as a man, sailing into a nearby thicket.

The thicket was filled with sticks of all shapes and sizes.

Dumbfounded, Luo Yong muttered, “What the hell…?”

The Blade of Disguise had disguised itself so well, he could barely recognize it.

He squatted among the sticks, weighing them one by one.

“Not this one—too light.”

“This isn’t it—too heavy.”

“Not this, or this… ah, maybe—”

Each stick he threw felled a spider.

Finally, after tossing yet another stick, he paused, retrieved it from near a fallen spider, and resolved not to throw it carelessly again.

After culling more spiders, Luo Yong set his sights on a giant spider taller than a man. He gathered his strength and hurled the Blade of Disguise with all his might.

With a wet crunch, green fluid spurted as the giant spider was pierced straight through the head, collapsing without resistance.

The surrounding spiders panicked, leaping and scattering. Luo Yong froze, forcing himself not to move. After a while, an even larger spider passed by, and the chaos subsided, the swarm resuming its march.

Retrieving his weapon, Luo Yong noticed it had changed again—growing longer, now reminiscent of a three-foot blade, and he itched to try it out on something.

His information panel flashed again—level 3.

In the wild, beneath the blood moon, spiders ran rampant. Who knew when dawn would come?

The ruined campsite was utterly destroyed, the last embers long gone.

Luo Yong left, following the spider horde, slaughtering every spider that passed within reach.

By now, he must have killed close to a thousand, yet his level stubbornly remained at 3.

What's going on? Is the experience bar just insanely long, or do low-level spiders no longer grant experience?

After much thought, Luo Yong eyed a spider the size of a house but dared not attack.

Such creatures could snap a tree as thick as a man; his stick wouldn’t stand a chance. If he angered it, the resulting rampage would be catastrophic. With his frail body, even a glancing blow could be fatal.

Courage was important, but so was self-preservation.

Since he’d been granted a ghillie suit at the start, how could he not play it safe to the end?

“How much farther?” he grumbled.

No food, no water, and his arms were growing tired. In the distance, the spiders seemed to have stopped; beyond them, faint torchlight glimmered.

Ahead, it looked like a human encampment!

Suddenly, the ground shuddered, followed by a burst of cheers.

Suppressing his excitement, Luo Yong pressed on.

“Damn it, is this the mountain that kills the horse? How much farther?”

After a long trek, a human camp finally appeared before him. Outside its perimeter lay the corpses of spiders, large and small. Several had shifted into humanoid forms—upper bodies like women, long hair flowing, arms wielding weapons, while their lower halves remained spider-like, eight legs and all.

Many more spiders crouched quietly on the outskirts, some restless and darting about, but none daring to cross the line.

After the cheers, the camp fell into a brief calm. Many took the opportunity to rest, while others held their positions, staring down the spiders.

Soon, the spiders began to withdraw—coming like a tide, receding like one as well.

Luo Yong paused to rest, then stepped out from behind a tree and approached the camp.

Suddenly—whoosh!

An arrow whistled through the air and embedded itself in the ground before him.