"Those people are real bandits. They've already impersonated city officials and robbed over a hundred people here. Even after reporting it, no one cares..." An old lady in the small shop chattered on, seemingly used to such things, her expression calm.

Chapter One: The Proud Dragon Regrets

In the ninth year of the Great Zheng era under Heaven, chaos erupted across the Central Divine Land. Treacherous ministers rebelled within, while the Western Di and White Moon tribes invaded from without. Of the forty-six provinces' armies, most were out of control, refusing to heed the imperial court's orders. The Great Qian Dynasty teetered on the brink of collapse.

Yet, as if the gods above were playing a joke, at this very moment, they cast a chess piece that did not belong to this chaotic world into the great furnace of heaven and earth, into the killing fields of Asura...

The setting sun was as red as blood, crows cawed, and Grace Walker sat beneath a crumbling gray wall, staring blankly at the village that had just been slaughtered and bathed in blood, his mind a complete blank. A dull ache throbbed along his spine, and his uncooperative stomach seemed to suddenly awaken its instincts, beginning to rumble. The tattered rags he wore, barely worthy of being called clothes, marked him unmistakably as a beggar.

And in fact, Grace Walker really was a beggar.

Just now, a band of disorderly soldiers had passed through, not only stealing all the food in the village, but also killing every villager who refused to hand over their grain. The only one left alive—or perhaps, the only one lucky or unlucky enough to slip through the net—was Grace Walker, just six or seven years old.

He had been slammed against the wall by one of the soldiers, left unable to move and knocked unconscious. That soldier, skilled in martial arts, had used at least seven or eight hundred pounds of force in that throw, assuming the child could not possibly survive, and so did not bother to check. Thus, Grace Walker managed to cling to life.

"I actually didn't die! An ordinary person would have had all their bones broken from that blow! It just hurts a lot..."

Struggling to get up, Grace Walker was quite surprised to find himself still alive. Suddenly, a primal instinct made him freeze, not daring to move a finger. Rapid footsteps approached, and a burly soldier doubled back into the village.

This band of soldiers had just been routed on the battlefield, so the soldier was covered in bloodstains, his armor battered and torn. Yet, in the face of life and death, the murderous aura he exuded had not diminished in the slightest. Entering the village, the soldier cursed loudly.

"Damn it, I was so busy grabbing food that I left my saber in this wretched village. If I run into King Daliang's troops, what am I supposed to fight with?"

Muttering to himself, the soldier hurried in and out of several village houses. In no time, he burst out laughing: "So that's where my broken saber went! I must have tossed it on the kang when I was having fun with that little wench just now!"

At this moment, a thin sheen of sweat had already appeared on Grace Walker's face. The pain in his back was almost unbearable, but he knew that if he made even the slightest sound, this brutal soldier would cut him in two, sending a fresh soul to the underworld. How could he dare to make a single noise?

His senses, dulled by the earlier bloodshed, suddenly snapped back to life. Fragments of memory surged through his mind, shocking Grace Walker even more than the carnage he had witnessed.

In those memories, he was a fourth-year sculpture student at an art academy in the north, spending his days flirting and surfing the web, living a decadent and lazy life. He took odd jobs painting novel and magazine covers, designing web graphics—just enough to cover his tuition and daily expenses. But his luck ran out when, on a sketching trip, he got into a dispute and was beaten to death by a group of uniformed men, who then dumped his body at a construction site and left.

When he "woke up" again, he had become a six-year-old child, arriving in this war-torn world completely different from twenty-first-century Earth. The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was a bleak world strewn with corpses.

During three days of aimless wandering, the memories from that other world grew ever clearer. In contrast, this body seemed to have been an empty shell, with no information about this world at all.

"Damn it! There's war everywhere, not a day goes by without seeing corpses. I finally found a village with people, and in less than half a day... it was wiped out by marauders again. If I can't be reborn into a good family, at least give me a peaceful era!"

Grace Walker focused all his attention on the marauding soldier, praying in his heart for the protection of all the gods, hoping not to be discovered by this ruthless man.

The soldier slung his saber and hurried off, apparently trying to catch up with his unit, not noticing Grace Walker, who was playing dead. Peeking through slitted eyelids, Grace Walker watched as the soldier was about to leave the village, and let out a huge sigh of relief.

Just as he was celebrating his narrow escape, the situation suddenly changed. From a half-collapsed house at the village entrance came a furious shout, and a massive iron hammer burst through the wall, smashing down on the marauding soldier.

"You beast, you deserve to die!"

The one wielding the hammer was the village blacksmith. Grace Walker had only just wandered into this village and didn't know him, but saw that his body was knotted with muscle, his rage extreme, the hammer whistling through the air with murderous intent—clearly, he was holding nothing back.