Crash into the Battlefield
BOOM! BOOM!
Zzzzing!
Explosions tore across a vast plain. There, as if some CG effect had been overlaid on reality, empty space itself began to tear.
THUD!
From the rent in the air a man encased in something like armor came tumbling out and landed unsteadily. It only looked like armor because the thing was a colossal iron mass that seemed ready to crush him even if he stood still, never mind tried to move. The truly bizarre part was that the iron mass was already crumbling into ash and vanishing.
"Hoo~ Properly d—"
BOOOOM!
He never even got the chance to look around. A shell slammed into the exact spot where he had stood, whipping up a searing blast that turned a dozen-meter radius into a zone of death. When the heat finally faded, only blackened earth remained—and a naked man coated head to toe in soot.
"Cough! Cough!"
The man who had taken a direct hit the instant he arrived in another world, before he could even grasp the situation, spat black smoke from his mouth like a gag-manga character.
Ugh… the shock from that unexpected hit…!
Half a second would have been enough for him to react. The shell had been so close it never even granted him that much time. Pure, rotten luck.
Damn it! That bastard! Of all places he had to dump me on a battlefield?! And I get shelled the second I show up!?
Cursing the one who had sent him here, the man forced himself upright.
THUD! BOOM!
Massive vibrations began to roll through the ground. He turned toward their source.
"Uh…"
The pain twisting his face melted away like snow under the sun. Towering robots fifteen to eighteen meters tall, each with its own unified yet distinct silhouette, were leveling massive gun barrels at one another and tearing into combat.
RATATATATATAT!
Even at this distance the noise was ear-splitting—the sound of both sides’ machines hosing the air with giant assault rifles. One would expect such colossal frames to lumber about and trade only long-range fire, but a single machine that burst from the ranks shattered that assumption completely.
Fast!
A lightly armored unit carrying twin daggers whose blades glowed cherry-red dropped its center of gravity and charged. The hilltop gunners who had been laying down a wall of lead concentrated everything on it; a blue barrier simply flicked the rounds aside.
CRUNCH!
The thin-armored machine dove into the enemy line and began stabbing and slashing in every direction. The formation collapsed. In zero-g that speed might have been understandable, but under gravity it was proof the machine’s performance itself was absurd. This world had long since left behind the scientific common sense of twenty-first-century Earth.
If the place had been safe he might have stood and stared, but he was right in the middle of a battlefield. Stay dazed and the next barrage would finish him. He drew up his Inner Qi, intending to put distance between himself and the fighting.
RIP!
"Guh!?"
Something inside him tore.
Shit…! The shock of crossing the dimensional wall has turned into internal injuries!
Before the trauma of piercing the dimensional barrier could settle, the unexpected shell had landed. The accumulated damage made circulating Inner Qi temporarily impossible. The protective gear had saved him; without it he would have burned every last scrap of power just to punch through, and the first shell would have left nothing but vapor.
WHOOSH!
"Damn it!"
He saw the next shell coming and decided to move first—Inner Qi or no Inner Qi.
BOOOOM!
"Urgh!"
They’re targeting me?
For whatever reason, the gunner was clearly aiming at him. The proof was simple: he stood far from the main fighting, on empty ground that held nothing else worth shooting.
He forced his qi into crude circulation and barely minimized the damage, yet—
BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!
Dangerous!
Enduring the shells that kept seeking him, he swept his gaze across the terrain. A cliff lay off to the left diagonal. He sprinted for it, desperate to leave the kill zone.
RIP! RIIIP!
"If you’re going to dump me somewhere, dump me somewhere decent, you dog!"
BOOM! THUD!
The instant he finished cursing his parallel-world self, a fresh blast of heat swallowed the spot he had just vacated.
WHOOSH!
From inside the fireball a man trailing smoke from every inch of his body leapt over the cliff edge. The drop was the height of an apartment building. Water would have been nicer; all he saw below was forest. An ordinary human would have died for certain.
Forest! Perfect!
Far better than bare rock.
Inner Qi still won’t move, but—!
He did not flail. He spread his body as wide as possible and plunged into the canopy.
THUD! CRASH! SNAP!
His body slammed into thick limbs and snapped thinner ones, making a racket that should have drawn every eye. Yet no scream left his lips; he bounced from branch to branch in exaggerated, B-grade action-movie fashion and finally hit the forest floor.
THUD!
He vomited a mouthful of blood.
"Cough! Cough!"
Fuck! I can’t circulate qi with these internal injuries!
The injuries were not from the fall. Amazingly, the fall itself had done almost nothing. Proper falling technique is about diverting force, not enduring it; every time he struck a thick branch his body simply ricocheted away.
THUD! BOOM!
I have to get away from this spot first.
Shells still hammered the cliff above; whole sections were beginning to collapse. He needed distance if he wanted any chance to rest, yet—
Ugh… consciousness…!
Crossing the dimensional wall had cost far more power than he had been told. Then a direct shell the moment he arrived, followed by successive barrages. Barely steadying his fading awareness, he scanned the undergrowth and staggered away from the cliff base.
If I black out here, I’m dead.
Whoever had shelled him might send scouts to check the kill, and even if they didn’t, wild animals would find an easy meal. Survival instinct spun his dimming mind. Broken branches and soft soil caught his eye.
Risky, but I don’t have time to look for anything better.
"Hup!"
With a sharp shout he poured every remaining scrap of Inner Qi and stamina into digging. Once the hole was deep enough, Jincheon lowered himself into it, then used the subtle principles of qi sword control to drag thick branches over and heap soil on top. By the time he was completely buried, not a single thread of Inner Qi remained.
Hide underground with the Turtle Breathing Technique and treat the wounds. Right now that’s the only answer.
Breath and body heat suppressed to the edge of death. Scanners and beasts alike register nothing but cold earth. Circulation of residual Inner Qi begins the slow work of emergency recovery.
Stopping his breath with the Turtle Breathing Technique, he turned every remaining spark of power inward and began repairing the damage.
Just let me live, you fucking bastard. Then we’ll settle this.
Cursing the parallel-world version of himself who had dumped him in this hellhole, Jincheon sank fully into the technique.
A male officer with crimson skin and small horns sheathed in the same hide stood in a crisp uniform.
"Unknown wavelength—extinction confirmed."
He gave a short nod at the communications officer’s report.
"I don’t know what it was, but I’m not falling for their tricks."
In the middle of a fight with the enemy, an energy signature of a type never before recorded had flared far from the main line. The moment the controllers reported it, he had ordered the entire sector shelled. There was no time to investigate mysterious energy while trading fire with the enemy. Once the wavelength vanished, the officer simply turned his attention back to the front.
"Good. Language injection complete. One common tongue from that side and language won’t be a problem."
I pulled off the strange helmet that had just poured knowledge straight into my skull and took a moment to settle my thoughts.
"I’ll ask one last time, just in case. Are you really going to another world? Once you leave, you never come back."
"I’m going. This world no longer means anything to me."
I ignored the final warning from the parallel-world version of myself whose face shared the same atmosphere as mine.
"If you stay, you could rule Earth itself any way you like."
To anyone else it would have sounded insane, but he was right. I was a dimensional traveler who had fallen from the modern world into a Murim realm by accident. My goals there had been only two: strength no one could ever ignore, and the conquest of beauties modern Earth could never offer. In the process of achieving them I had been dragged into the classic wuxia plot of a shadow organization called the Heaven-Rending Society trying to dominate the martial world. I had even suffered the destruction of my dantian fighting their leader, yet by absorbing the legendary soul of Chi You I became the final victor. After that war I took my women to Europe, collected more adventures and more women, then crossed to the American continent. There I lived adventures that would make Indiana Jones look like a tourist. Along the way I scattered my seed freely—though I never abandoned the children. I taught them every martial art and scrap of knowledge I possessed, and each of them rose to positions no one could ignore. If I ever decided to unite my descendants and conquer the planet, Earth would belong to my bloodline within fifty years. I would never do it.
"You’re ‘me,’ so you already understand."
He answered as if finishing my thought.
"You run yourself ragged chasing a goal, but the moment you achieve everything you start looking for something new. Because—"
As expected, the parallel me differed in only a few details; our natures were almost identical.
"Having a goal is fun."
"Yeah. Goals are what make it fun."
We pointed at each other and grinned. Rule Earth and there would be nowhere left to go. Adventure, travel, novelty—all of it would die.
"Your speech is a little off, though."
"How so?"
"You’re hundreds of years old, right? The greatest under heaven. I expected the whole ‘this seat decrees’ routine."
I shrugged, lightening the mood.
"Age makes it hard to talk exactly like I did when I was young, but if you only hang around old men and use old-man speech, your brain really does grow old."
"Hmm. Fair point."
He nodded, accepting the answer.
"Is the universe wide?"
I asked one last question.
"Wide. Extremely. If I hadn’t felt the pull to return home, I would have roamed the stars forever with my bitches."
"That so. Good."
Hearing that the cosmos was vast from twenty-first-century textbooks was one thing; hearing it from a parallel self who had actually ruled it was another. A place full of nations and tangled diplomacy would never be boring.
"Open the dimensional gate."
"Okay. Just know this part’s a little unstable."
"Unstable?"
"The dimensional drive on this ship was never designed for personal use."
He tapped the deck with his toe.
"We travel safely inside the ship’s protective field. You won’t. The moment you cross the dimensional wall, every scrap of power you possess will be annihilated. Each dimension has its own laws; when foreign laws try to invade, the dimension’s self-defense system erases them. Once you successfully penetrate, the dimension accepts the new law. That iron shell is only there so a tiny remnant of your power can survive and force the acceptance."
"So I’ll be extremely vulnerable right after crossing."
"Barely enough left for basic self-protection, probably."
Well, the second I landed somewhere safe I could just gather qi and rebuild. That much was nothing.
"Ah, right. You’re going to another world—shouldn’t you take an isekai cheat?"
"Isekai cheat?"
"It’s only polite to bring a cheat when you jump worlds."
He flicked up a hologram and scrolled until a solitary red giant and a distant ice-type planet locked into view.
"I don’t know the name, but that side has a star system with nothing but a red giant and an ice world. Exact coordinates are fuzzy, but it’s so rare even in a wide universe that you’ll spot it easily. The locals treat it as worthless and ignore it."
An ice planet? Why recommend that—no, this version of me never spoke nonsense. I listened.
"Why is that an isekai cheat?"
"While scouting for useful resources before the next jump I found something interesting there."
His expression made it clear he had no intention of explaining what “interesting” meant.
"Once its value becomes public the neighbors will go berserk, so either grow strong enough to stop nation-level assaults first, or build friendly forces and then claim it."
If he was going this far, it had to be worth the wait.
"I’m opening the gate. Live well on that side."
"I’d rather not drop into a planet or void where humans can’t survive."
Arriving in a world of acid atmospheres or lava oceans would make the whole trip pointless.
"Relax. You think I’d dump you in deep space or some uninhabitable rock? It’s not Earth, but I’ve roughly confirmed intelligent life and civilization exist. I don’t know the species yet—that just makes it more fun, right?"
His technology was better than I had expected if he could already peek across dimensions.
"Dimensional gate activating. Enjoy a new life in a new world, Jincheon."
"I will repay this favor. Without fail."
It was no empty promise. I would repay every scrap of the debt I now owed.
All right. Let’s go.
Expecting new worlds and unknown civilizations, I donned the protective shell and leapt into the dimensional gate.