Terror, a creeping dread, utterly enveloped Li Ang.
In the darkness, a blurred silhouette contorted as it drew nearer—something eerie and dreadful was gradually approaching.
Through the iron bars of the window, a grotesquely disproportionate figure could be seen, its form twisted unnaturally, with eyes wide and pupils glinting a vicious, bloodthirsty crimson.
Her hair was disheveled; she appeared emaciated and pallid. The tatters of what was once a housewife's attire hung loosely, exposing her arms. Her bare skin was smeared with grime.
Beneath sharp, claw-like nails caked dark red with gore—likely from the eviscerated corpse at her feet.
The muscles of her neck were grotesquely swollen and misshapen, and beneath the skin, something worm-like squirmed along her cheek, crawling upwards across her forehead…
What manner of monstrosity was this?
Just a minute ago, Li Ang had been gaming in his university dorm room on Earth. Then, in a disorienting blur, he found himself in this uncanny world, confronted by this unprecedented horror.
The aberrant figure reached the barred window. She had noticed Li Ang, marking him as her next prey.
Instinct drove Li Ang backward until his spine pressed flush against the cold wall, with no retreat left.
The "housewife" forced her head between the iron bars, straining with inhuman desperation. Skin tore and bones crunched as she writhed, serpent-like, striving to invade this rabbit's warren.
Fortunately, the iron held firm, merely bending slightly under the pressure. Though her head squeezed through, her shoulders remained firmly lodged.
Li Ang couldn't suppress a sigh of relief.
Yet, in that very instant, her jaw unhinged, gaping impossibly wide like a serpent-toothed maw.
Then...
A cylindrical tongue, over a meter long, lashed forth from the cavernous mouth with viper-like speed. It whipped through the air, rigid and powerful, missing Li Ang's nose by a hair's breadth more than once.
He stood frozen, utterly petrified.
This abomination... it seemed vaguely familiar. Where had he seen it before?
The Strigoi!
In the prime of his youth, with memory at its peak, Li Ang swiftly recalled. This "housewife" with the massive, prehensile tongue perfectly matched the description of the Strigoi from the television series The Strainhe'd watched on Earth.
Its body resembled a shambling corpse, movements stiff, driven by a thirst for human blood. Yet, that uniquely thick, elongated, and agile tongue set it apart—a feature absent in any other zombie or reanimated being.
"Have I been thrust into the world of The Strain?"
As this thought raced through his mind, the frenzied tongue before him suddenly swelled, extending another several inches.
It was now within reach!
Crucially, the Strigoi did not spread its affliction through a virus, but via a sinister parasite known as the worm.
Should the stinger at the tongue's tip pierce him, the worm would invade his body, irrevocable, beginning the gruesome transformation of a living man into one of these long-tongued horrors.
At this critical juncture, primal instinct took over. Li Ang's hands shot out, seizing the muscular tongue as one would grasp a viper behind its head. He wrenched it upward, holding the vile appendage at bay.
The tongue thrashed with shocking, serpentine strength. Reacting swiftly, Li Ang pivoted, heaving the grotesque muscle over his shoulder. Then, like a barge hauler straining against a towline, he pulled with all his might.
The "housewife" convulsed in agony, howling. Trapped by the bars, she could neither advance nor retreat, her arms flailing uselessly.
The tongue, slick and wildly contorting, fought to break free. But Li Ang, gripped by a desperate frenzy, held on with a death grip.
The more the Strigoi struggled, the harder Li Ang pulled, hauling the tongue forward with all his weight.
Veins bulged on his neck. He would not, dared not, relinquish his hold.
Faced with annihilation, humanity can summon astonishing strength.
With a sickening riiiip, he prevailed. The tongue, along with segments of trachea, was torn violently from the Strigoi's throat.
A meaty length of tissue writhed on the ground, seeming to possess a life of its own, while its former host hung limp against the windowsill, twitched sporadically, and finally collapsed.
A slender, pale worm emerged from the twisted flesh and scuttled rapidly toward Li Ang.
Thiswas the true entity—the vampiric core—while the human form was merely its parasitic shell.
Knowing the worm's peril, Li Ang was prepared. He stomped down fiercely, grinding it beneath his heel until nothing but pulp remained.
The immediate crisis had largely passed. All that remained was cleanup.
The Strigoi corpse still harbored countless worms; only complete incineration would eliminate the threat.
However, at that moment, a mechanically flat, utterly emotionless voice echoed abruptly within Li Ang's mind.
System Notification: Host has eliminated one Lv1 Law Entity [Strigoi]. 10 Awakening Points acquired. Initiating Awakening to Law Power.
System Notification: Host Awakening successful. Commencing baptism of Law Power upon host's physique...
System Notification: Baptism complete. Host has awakened to Innate Law Skill — [True Summoning].
The voice and its message left Li Ang utterly bewildered.
"Law Entity? Awakening? Innate Skill... What in the world is all this?"
Even if he had stumbled through a spatial rift into the alien world of The Strain, the sudden appearance of game-like mechanics was utterly absurd.
"Could this all be just an idiotic, vivid dream?"
Almost immediately, a torrent of information flooded his consciousness. Li Ang felt his mind swell, then his eyes closed as he plunged into a state of混沌.
Zhuang Zhou dreamed of being a butterfly, or the butterfly dreamed of being Zhuang Zhou. Li Ang no longer knew which he was—the butterfly, or the dreamer.
In the dream, he was at once a university student from 21st-century Earth, ambitious yet unfocused, whose greatest passions beyond study were films and video games. He was particularly obsessed with competitive games, from Warcraft IIIto Dotato League of Legends, each defining an era of his life.
Simultaneously, he was a wretched youth from a world named Canglan.
Wretched, because in his brief sixteen years, nearly all his memories were woven from hunger, cold, poverty, and death.
The sole commonality was the name—both were called "Li Ang."
In Canglan, humanity coexisted with Extraterrestrial Fiends.
Fiends was the umbrella term for all Law Entities that sought to invade this world; the Strigoi was but one among them. Others included zombies, vengeful spirits, jiangshi, demons, and more.
Bizarrely, nearly all these fiends could find their prototypes in the films and series Li Ang had watched on Earth.
To combat the fiends, a portion of humanity would Awaken, mastering Law Power to become Awakened Ones.
Upon successful Awakening, each individual's body underwent a baptism by Law Power, transforming into a Law-Infused Physique.
Concurrently, they would activate a unique, innate ability known as an Innate Skill.
All this could be visualized through Law Data, visible only to oneself.
For Li Ang, post-Awakening, his data appeared as follows:
[Name: Li Ang]
[Age: 16]
[Identity: Novice Fiend Hunter]
[Level: Lv1]
[EXP: 0/100]
[Strength: 5]
[Agility: 4]
[Intelligence: 9]
[Health: 450]
[Mana: 220]
[Skill: True Summoning]
[Law Affinity: Summoning]
[Skill: True Summoning]
[Tier: Innate (Unique)]
[True Summoning Lv1: This skill possesses a Summoning Hall. At the current level, the hall contains one Combat Guardian. Upon activation, the guardian can be summoned from the hall to fight for the host.]
[Lv1 Combat Guardian Stats: Health 500, Mana 200, Attack 50. Possesses no critical weaknesses. Can be re-summoned if defeated. Mana Cost: 200. Cooldown: 1 hour. Duration: 30 minutes.]
[Note: The Combat Guardian possesses an equal number of skill slots as the host and can learn compatible Law Skills!]
[Reminder: This skill can be leveled up. Higher levels will grant access to more and mightier guardians!]
[Evaluation: When you summon the God of War, you may decline Death's invitation.]
As Li Ang's consciousness emerged from the tumult of merged memories and information, and he read the description of [True Summoning], a wave of relief washed over him, mingled with a newfound, hopeful yearning for the future!
Though he hadn't yet tested the skill, it stood to reason how formidable a summon capable of learning skills could be.
Currently, he had only one Combat Guardian. But once the skill leveled up, granting a second, then a third... he could potentially summon an entire elite squad comprising warriors, mages, and priests single-handedly.
From the youth Li Ang's memories, he knew this world was perilous, brutal, and terrifying.
Ordinary people without power lived in abject wretchedness, constantly under threat of becoming fiend-fodder, while also suffering exploitation and oppression from the powerful within their own race.
Clothed in rags, starving, struggling for mere survival with an average lifespan under fifty—such an existence was sheer hell for Li Ang, hailing from the 21st century.
Only by mastering greater Law Skills and amassing greater power could one change their fate in this world.
Becoming an Awakened One and activating what seemed a remarkable Innate Skill provided Li Ang an excellent foundation on the path to strength.
Moments later, Li Ang reined in his excitement, turning to practical considerations.
Without sufficient and suitable skills to learn, the advantage of [True Summoning] would remain unrealized, potentially rendering it weaker than others' Innate Skills.
And skills, in this world, were treasures beyond compare.
Typically, skills had two sources.
One was inheritance: certain skills mastered by the powerful could be imparted to others through specific means.
The other was from vanquished fiends possessing Law Skills: upon death, there was a chance the essence of their skill would crystallize into a Skill Crystal. An Awakened One could use it to directly learn the skill.
System Notification: Host has successfully Awakened. You are granted one opportunity for a random skill draw (choose one of three). Will you proceed?
The emotionless voice sounded again, impeccably timed.
Li Ang was not surprised by the system's existence, as part of the earlier information stream pertained to it.
The system's origins were inscrutable. Its purpose was to cultivate the strongest Title Bearers, to utterly resolve the fiend invasion plaguing the world of Canglan.
The reason for selecting a host from Earth was that all fiends in this world originated from extradimensional Law Spaces formed by the collective psychic imagination of Earth's humanity.
In essence, the monsters conjured by human imagination for entertainment, under the influence of mysterious Law Force, had materialized into real worlds in unknown dimensions.
And Canglan, due to some obscure connection with Earth, had borne the brunt, becoming the primary target for fiendish invasion.