Tianluodiwang!
That was the name of a prison in Huaguo built for one thing only—locking up criminals marked for the harshest death sentences.
This giant cage had scared the wits out of countless top-tier monsters. It stood somewhere near the Bohai coast of Dongshan Province in Huaguo. Alongside the “Hanging Garden,” the “Pharaoh’s Tomb,” and the “Phoenix Spirit Assembly,” it was known as one of the “World’s Four Great Ends of Crime.”
The place where Tianluodiwang had been built was hidden deep. So deep that even among Huaguo’s top brass, only the national leader, his closest right and left hands, and the three special-operation pilots who flew between the prison and the outside world knew where it truly was. Even the hundreds of guards stationed there had no clue where they were working. Looking across the whole world, the number of people who knew Tianluodiwang’s real location likely wouldn’t exceed the fingers on one hand.
The name “Tianluodiwang” came from Suojingmo, a work by an anonymous writer of the Yuan Dynasty.
Its meaning was simple and fierce:
when the heavenly net falls, all demons are put down.
And this prison had not shamed that name. Since the day it was built, not one prisoner had ever escaped. It was, without question, one of the tightest, deadliest prisons in the world.
At this moment, inside that colossal steel shell that had not seen sun or moon in who knew how many years, a newcomer had just stepped into a titanium-alloy cell block with two bold letters over the gate:
SS.
Charles Wise, an American and the kingpin of this prison block, had gone years without fresh meat. He had been itching for it so long it was practically in his bones. Now, seeing a green newcomer dropped right into his hunting ground, his gray-brown eyes lit up at once with a feverish gleam. The rims of his eyes flushed red. The way he stared, it was as if he wanted to swallow the handsome young man whole, bones and all.
“Hey. New boy. Say a few words.”
Charles’s Huaguo speech was rough and crooked, far from smooth, but he wore a smiling face that made him look like some kind old uncle from next door.
“Hello, everyone. My name is Ethan Voss.”
The speaker was a young man who looked not even twenty. He stood straight as a spear before the cell gate, the corner of his mouth carrying a faint smile, calm and practiced, as though introducing himself in a place like this was nothing new to him.
“Sex: male.”
Ethan Voss had been born with a face that stood out anywhere. His features were fine but not weak, the lines of his face smooth, yet his bones were sharp and clean, as if carved with a blade. His skin was not the kind of snowy white poets liked to brag about, but it was still smoother than that of most women. And those bright, lively eyes of his—once seen, they stuck in the mind.
If some innocent girl from the outside met his gaze, even for a heartbeat, she would likely lose her footing on the spot.
The moment Ethan finished that line, the dozen or so prisoners gathered nearby, all staring at him with ugly intent, burst into laughter.
“Yo, did you all hear that? The little pretty thing says he’s a man! If he hadn’t opened his mouth, I’d have taken him for a little bitch.”
The first to speak was a sleazy middle-aged Huaguo man. In his younger days he must have had a full head of good hair. Now there was only a pathetic little patch left on the back of his skull, while the rest shone bald and bright like a polished dome. He looked Ethan up and down with open mockery, shaking his head again and again.
“Tsk, tsk. What a damn pity. Such a good-looking little thing. If you were a woman, that’d be perfect. Us brothers here haven’t had meat in I don’t know how many years. But...”
The sleazy man changed his tone and gave a dirty little laugh. “But a good resource like this? Hell if I’d waste it for nothing. Heh. Once the lights are out, it’s all about the same. Man or woman, works just fine.”
When he finished, he bared a mouthful of yellow teeth and looked Ethan Voss up and down with a twisted grin, slow and nasty.
Hearing that, Charles Wise laughed and scolded him without much heat. “Abe Crane, rein it in. There’s plenty of time ahead. Don’t scare the newcomer out of his wits.”
Then he turned back to Ethan.
“Ethan Voss, is it? Good. Go on.”
The expression on Ethan’s face never changed. He still wore that faint smile, mild and harmless, like a young man who would not hurt a fly. Once he was told to continue, he smiled a little and spoke in an even voice.
“I’m twenty-one this year. Year of the Dragon.”
“I’m the type who eats alone and worries for nobody else.”
“Grew up in an orphanage. Got a few close friends. The kind who can’t lend you money, but if your life’s on the line, they’ll throw theirs in with yours without blinking.”
...
When he mentioned those old friends, a trace of longing suddenly surfaced on Ethan’s face.
He thought to himself in silence: he had come to this strange world alone, and nearly three months had passed already. Three months was not long, but it was not short either. Long enough for plenty to happen under the heavens.
He wondered how the brothers back in his old world were doing...
And Elaine Merritt too. Was she doing well now?
Would she be sad over his sudden disappearance? Would she cry?
Heh. That was probably giving himself too much credit. She was a top student. Why would someone like her ever spare a second glance for an unemployed drifter like him?
Still, he had no time to think too much about others now. His own future was still hanging in the dark.
Blue Star.
A parallel world whose civilization and technology stood shockingly close to the Earth Ethan had once lived on. A world almost no different from the one where he had spent twenty-one years of his life. Everything looked familiar. Everything felt familiar.
Everything except a few familiar people.
That absence pressed against his chest like a cold stone and stirred up a quiet, bitter ache.
But Ethan had always been an absurdly optimistic sort. He lived by a rough old rule: when the cart reaches the mountain, a path will show itself; when the boat hits the bridge... well, maybe it just sinks.
Since his own busted little boat had not sunk yet, then fine. He was here now. He would settle in and deal with it.
“Crime...”
Ethan paused slightly. His brows drew together just a little, as if he were turning over words in his head, trying to figure out what kind of phrase could describe the charge hanging over him.
The tangled look on his face stirred Charles’s interest even more. A faint, amused smile rose on the prison chief’s lips.
“Kid,” he said, watching him closely, “just what exactly did you do? You’re barely this old, and yet you qualify for an SS-grade cell.”
He let out a soft chuckle.
“That’s not ordinary at all.”
“You should know this cell holds nothing but monsters.”
“Some of them, when they first joined mercenary crews, slaughtered an entire scout squad by themselves.”
“Some used top-tier cyber skills to steal classified files from a world top-hundred company, then dumped them cheap to every buyer in the trade.”
“And there’s one more—ah, this one here, Abe Crane. Your fellow Huaxia man. Used hidden weapons and nearly took out a military district chief.”
“As for me—my name is Charles Wise. I cracked Sky Eye, the M Country surveillance net they bragged was the strongest in the world, so thorough it could see into any corner. I broke it open, then spread the decryption code across the whole world. And I’ve got a pile of M Country secrets in my hands. Priceless goods. The whole world will remember my name.”
Ethan Voss bared his teeth in a grin, sharp and a little wicked. “So M Country hunted you down, and you just ran to Huaguo?”
Charles Wise gave him an approving look, then threw his head back and laughed. “Good. You’re quick.”
“Huaguo is a place where human ties and law both matter. And it’s the only place that could stand against M Country’s pressure. So I came.”
When he finished, he lifted his head and stared hard at the airtight prison around them. His face darkened, anger creeping into his eyes.
“But I regret it too.”
“This damned place—there’s no getting out. Hell, I don’t even know where this place is.”
Ethan Voss followed his gaze and looked around the cell as well.
The walls were like cast bronze and black iron, cold and dead, sealed tight without a crack. The whole place felt like a coffin hammered shut by giants.
He nodded along. “Yeah. Looks solid enough.”
As Ethan Voss raised his eyes and swept the place over, a soft woman’s voice suddenly echoed from the deepest part of his mind.
No one else could hear it.
The voice was gentle, but there was a chill under it, clean and mechanical, like a system prompt with no warmth in its bones. It rang slowly inside him.
“The Road of Divine Awakening System is on standby.”
“Would you like to conduct a full-spectrum scan and analysis of the current environment?”
...
