I Thought I Was the Protagonist
I thought I was the protagonist. A completely ordinary guy like me suddenly found himself transmigrated into another world one day. Truly ordinary. I'd wake up in the morning, throw on my oil-stained work clothes, drag myself to the factory, endure the day under the boss's watchful eye amid the roar of machinery, finish overtime completely drained, stumble home, scarf down some half-assed meal, and crash. To others, my life was no different from a single cog in the machine, and it didn't feel any different to me. Nothing special about me, but not a total failure either. I resigned myself moderately, endured moderately, lived moderately. That summed up my existence pretty well.
Maybe that's why I accepted it so easily at first. Unfamiliar sky, unfamiliar air, unfamiliar body. It was an absurd situation, but panic didn't hit me right away. Instead, another thought came first. So clichéd, so predictable it was almost dangerous. Am I... the protagonist?
Looking back now, it's ridiculous. But at the time, it made sense. Power had appeared. Not some vague potential, but something tangible I could grasp without a shred of doubt. Maybe it was thanks to the habits ingrained from repeating the same factory processes day in, day out. I picked up this world's power at an unnaturally fast pace. What I learned stuck to my hands immediately, and what stuck led straight to results. To others, it must've looked like innate genius, but to me, it was just an extension of skilled manual labor. The hands that had stamped out thousands of parts in the factory now drew thousands of talismans here. The form was different, but the method was the same. Repeat, repeat, repeat again. Etching things into my body without thinking—that was what I'd always done.
While others described breakthroughs in flowery terms like "enlightenment," my hands just carried me through on autopilot. What took some years, I cleared in months; what took others months, I handled in days. There weren't even walls I could feel. Once I understood it, I could use it right away. Shrinking Earth, clones, Eight Trigrams Formation, Storm of Wind and Rain. Any spell flowed from my hands more naturally than breathing. People called me a genius, a prodigy, and eventually whispered that I was heaven's chosen. At first, I dismissed it as nonsense. But hearing it ten times, twenty times, seeing them look up at me with genuine belief in their eyes... before long, even I stopped denying it. That I was special. That maybe I really was the center of this world.
That delusion peaked one day.
—The heavens cracked first.
It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation. The winds I commanded, the rains I summoned, the earth I stood upon—all tilted to one side at once. The world itself felt crushed and torn by some immense pressure. It came from behind me. No need to turn. The pressure from my back told me everything.
It wasn't mere aura. Aura belonged to people or beasts—this was beyond that. The weight of the sky itself crashing down. Before instinct could scream, my body froze solid. The thought of channeling Dao Force didn't even cross my mind. Every living cell knew it would be pointless. All the arrogance that had made me believe I was this world's protagonist turned to dust in an instant.
Ah, I can't block this.
It wasn't even funny, but a hollow laugh escaped anyway. Yeah. Of course. How arrogant to think a slight edge over others made me the center of the universe.
My vision crumbled. The light went out. I'd believed it too easily, taken it for granted. All that remained was bitter emptiness.
Ahh, so utterly pointless.
That was my first death.
—It was damp. A cold, sticky sensation wormed between my scales.
Scales?
My thoughts stalled there for a moment. My body moved on its own, drawn along the floor in a slither. Not walking. Not crawling. Something long and flexible flowed as one mass. It felt strange. Not a sound from my mouth, but my forked tongue quivered. I opened my eyes. My viewpoint was low. Much lower than expected. Not the height of a human from my memories.
Rusted metal structures. Cracked concrete. Sodden floor. Black liquid. Strange gas shimmering with fluorescent light. Everything was unnaturally vivid. The smells, the humidity, the air currents. Things human eyes wouldn't catch were just... there. I should have been confused, but my mind was strangely clear.
I'd definitely died. In that instant when the heavens cracked first. Ended without even a chance to react. That much was certain. Yet here I was, alive. No, "alive" didn't cover it. Cold, humid, filthy, low to the ground, and vividly alive.
I moved my body. That's when it hit me. No legs. No arms. Just scales instead.
"...This is insane."
I thought I'd spoken, but no proper sound came out. My tongue trembled, and only a faint vibration rippled through my entire body. Too vivid for reincarnation, too distant for just moments ago. The end of my first death connected strangely to now.
Not even human this time.
Even after that thought, I didn't panic as much as expected. Surprise, yes. Disgust, sure. But the terror that would've crushed a human felt dulled somehow. Maybe because of the new body, or maybe my mind was numb. I couldn't tell.
Hiss.
A rough hissing from somewhere. My whole body oriented toward it. A cracked pipe. Fluorescent gas leaking from the fissure. Danger. Instinct screamed it. Too late. The moment I inhaled, my insides burned. Whatever passed for lungs twisted. Breath caught. My body convulsed. Something seeped between the scales, melting me from within.
Poison. Dying again. Ending like this, accomplishing nothing.
My body writhed. No control. Senses blurred, time blurred. No idea how long I lasted. Then, suddenly, it stopped. The melting insides reversed, filling back up. The stabbing pain flipped into something entirely different. Hot. Insanely hot. But I could endure it. Not unbearable agony. More like something awakening from within.
Alien. Yet strangely familiar. A sensation I'd never felt, but my memories already knew it.
No way.
I settled it slowly. Not breathing. Flow. Energy. Dao Force. The power that had deluded me in my past life still lingered.
My body moved. Not me moving it, but following as the body acted. The fluorescent gas's flow entered my sight. Where it streamed, where it pooled. How the air bent. Things I shouldn't see were just there now.
This body can survive.
Clank.
Metal meshing far away. Air compressed faintly. Something descended from above. Massive shadow. Red-glowing metallic eye.
Drone. The name popped from past-life memories. But it carried a weight the word alone couldn't convey. Each whir of its engines scraped the air, and my body rang with warning. That thing was no toy. Too late, and it was over.
I froze like the dead. New senses unfurled automatically. Not vision. Where air flowed, where it hung heavy, where voids lay. The drone's center of gravity tilting. Where cracks ended. All at once.
Cracked pipe. Leaking fluorescent gas. One rusted rebar embedded in the floor.
It'll work. Certainty surged.
I channeled Dao Force. In the past life, it flowed like breath. Now, squeezing out a trickle wrung my entire insides. A faint thread finally seeped beneath the scales.
Inhaled again. Different this time. Insides ignited, but I gripped the blaze. Gas flow. Dao remnants. Body's tremor. I threaded them into one line. Weak. But better than nothing.
Air quivered. Fluorescent gas veered faintly. Into the drone's underbelly.
Warning blared. Busted.
Boom.
Red beam gouged the floor. Concrete exploded. If I hadn't twisted, I'd be there. The beam grazed my scales. Heat melted a spot faintly.
Now.
Body moved before thought. Once. Instinct knew it was my only shot. Grip. Wrapped around the rebar. Squeezed with my whole torso against cold, rough metal. Squeezed Dao Force. Muscles beneath scales strained to limit, air currents layered atop.
To a single point.
Whoosh.
Rebar launched. Tang. Drone shuddered. Didn't shatter. One beat. Red eye locked on me. Output ramped up.
Done for.
Before my mind processed, body locked. No time even for flight instinct. Like the end of my daoist days. Humans can't do shit before death. Snake now, same story.
That one beat. Fluorescent gas pooled under the drone surged up at once. Sizzle. Outer shell melted. Sensors shook. Balance collapsed.
Thud.
Drone smashed into the floor. Smoke. Burning stench. Faint reactions lingered. Didn't approach. Survival registered a beat late. Not relief. Amazement.
Before amazement faded, body halted first. Instinct: don't approach. Mind caught up with why. A beast playing dead is most dangerous. Red light blinked faintly. Not over till fully stopped.
Slowly, I closed the distance.