Even a wild bird, accustomed to the boundless expanse of open skies, flutters and fights for freedom when brought on the brink of being captured, let alone Jude, a full-grown man.

“Stop running, Jude! Today, all of us are gathered here for one purpose, to destroy you, traitor!”

“Father, if you hand over the Chaos Stone, everything can still be saved. I swear upon the Supreme Order that I will fight for your innocence!”

Ignoring the curses, threats, and deceitful promises, Jude sprinted with all his might.

Black thunder crackled around him as each of his strides covered hundreds of meters, and he dashed through the dark forest in desperation. But with a body already corroded from within by poison, he couldn’t keep it up for long.

Soon, his body gave out.

"No!"

Countless attacks struck him one after another, sending him crashing to the ground with a loud ‘Bang!’ causing a small leather pouch to tumble out from his pocket.

From the pouch, a dull, dark stone, no larger than a marble, rolled halfway into view.

“No more running, you rat!”

“So that’s the Chaos Stone? Finally!”

“You’ll be punished today! You’ve committed too many unforgivable sins!”

These snake-like, greedy hypocrites spewing accusations were not strangers to Jude. On the contrary, they were once his dearest people.

His younger brother, his daughter, his wife, his two best friends, and his teammates with whom he had shared life and death on the battlefield—every one of them stood here, against him.

Recalling how he had trusted these people and wasted his whole life caring for and protecting them, a fire ignited in his heart, a fire that wanted to consume everything in its fury.

When Jude was only twelve, his parents died in a car accident, leaving him with the crushing weight of survival and the duty of raising his younger brother, Nolan.

Nevertheless, Jude dropped out of school without hesitation, working one exhausting job after another, day and night, just to keep food on the table and ensure Nolan could attend the best schools and the best university.

Years of struggle passed in quiet sacrifice until the year Nolan entered university, the year that changed everything.

That was when the influence of Eternal Transcendence first reached Earth.

Skies trembled. Laws of nature twisted. Plants and animals mutated into monsters, and humans began awakening strange, supernatural powers.

Disasters spread like wildfire, and the old order crumbled overnight.

In the beginning, no one understood the cause behind these changes, and everyone called it Mana Revival, believing the world itself was evolving.

The chaos lasted for a decade, but as humanity adapted and grew stronger, order slowly began to return.

For a time, hope flickered again, and people dreamed of a new golden age.

But that fragile hope was soon shattered when, without warning, people started to get forcefully dragged into a mysterious world, where they had to fight for their lives.

Only there did they learn the truth, the name of the phenomenon that had turned their reality upside down.

Eternal Transcendence.

Fortunately, in that game-like world, with semi-digitized bodies, people could kill monsters to earn points, then consume those points to extend their lifespan or manifest their in-game powers in reality.

The strong grew stronger, so much so that tearing through planes and tanks with their bare hands and resisting nuclear bombs with their bodies was no longer a dream.

From that moment onward, the world was never the same.

When countless people struggled just to survive, Jude, dragging his younger brother Nolan behind him, braved thorns and chaos to carve out a stable footing in that new, merciless world.

Later, he rescued a pitiful young woman who had been cast out of her guild because of her so-called “trash talent” and her half-burned face from being devoured by chaos monsters.

As Jude cared for her, she returned his kindness with affection, and believing her heart to be pure, he married her.

Together, they even had a daughter.

With an additional responsibility on his shoulders, Jude risked his life time and again, on battlefields, in dungeons and ruins, seeking treasures to restore his wife’s face, and shielding her and their daughter as they grew stronger under his protection.

In a world where survival itself was a luxury, he gave them a life even emperors would envy.

And despite all odds and burdens, he eventually rose to become one of the top hundred strongest beings on the planet.

But then came the day that changed everything.

During an unexpected expedition, Jude stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient god, where, at the cost of completely losing his World-Tier Talent and nearly losing his life, he obtained a mysterious treasure—

The Chaos Stone.

He didn’t know what it was or how to use it. But the price he paid for it and the fact that it couldn't be stored in the storage space provided by Eternal Transcendence alone told him it was something beyond imagination.

It was his key for ascending to the peak.

Yet, he never expected that his wife, Selina, together with his brother, Nolan, and daughter, Kiara, after learning that he had lost his talent, was grievously injured, and possessed a world-defying treasure, would betray him.

Jude had guarded himself against the world but never against his own family, and they exploited that trust, mixing his medicinal potions with Soulblight Venom, a poison for which no antidote had been found.

After he drank it, there was no turning back.

The fact that he could still run and struggle until now was nothing short of a miracle.

“Huff... huff... huff...”

However, even miracles have their limits. Now, he was lying on the ground with a tattered body and breathing his last breaths.

As memories flashed before his fading vision, an entire life compressed into a single heartbeat, he looked around at the faces surrounding him.

Then his gaze fell upon the Chaos Stone.

It was a round pebble-sized stone, like a shabby rock that could be found anywhere.

Even Jude himself didn’t truly understand what it was.

But what did that matter now? The treasure he had bled for and suffered for was about to fall into the hands of those who had betrayed him.

The thought alone filled him with fury.

It was unfair, unbearable.

Hatred, resentment, and self-loathing burned within him.

A look of madness appeared on his face, and he finally snapped.

With a desperate struggle, he pressed his chin to the ground and dragged himself like a worm. Then, before anyone could react, he opened his mouth and swallowed the Chaos Stone whole.

He knew it was futile. The Chaos Stone would be taken from him sooner or later. That much was inevitable.

But before that inevitable end came, he wanted to struggle and disgust these people, especially his daughter, who had poisoned him with her own hands.

So once the Chaos Stone reached his stomach, he lifted his head, met her eyes, and sneered.

“If you want it… take it out yourself.”

One final act of defiance toward the germophobic daughter who couldn’t stand filth.

As expected, she was enraged, and her expression twisted in disgust.

“What a great father, even in death, you never forget your daughter.”

She said coldly, stepping closer as she drew her sword.

“Then let me return your kindness. I’ll cut you down myself, so you can die without regrets.”

Die without regrets? How could that be?

Jude was drowning in regret.

Regret for being a naive, righteous fool, wasting his life protecting his family and friends, these filthy betrayers.

Regret for not being able to kill them all with his own hands.

Regret for never fulfilling the dream he once had after Eternal Transcendence descended, to walk alone toward the endless summit of the cosmos.

Regret upon regret. Endless, unending.

'Alas… So what if I regret it now? There’s no medicine for regret in this world. It’s the end.'

The poison had already spread through his body, and he had lost too much blood.

Even before his daughter swung her sword, Jude slowly closed his eyes as his consciousness faded into darkness.

But the eternal void and despair he had expected after death... never came.

Instead—

When Jude opened his eyes again, what greeted him was an unfamiliar white ceiling with an old brown fan spinning lazily above.

He was lying on a bed in a small, shabby room he had never seen before.

More importantly, his breathing was steady, his vision was clear, and his body felt like it had never been injured before.

“Ugh!”

At that moment, a splitting pain pierced his skull as foreign memories flooded his mind, and Jude clutched his head, gasping in shock.

“I... have been transmigrated?”