Chapter 1 Transferring Back to the Real World

Li Ang, after teleporting back to the real world, first sent a message to Chai Chai through the zerg unit, letting her know he was safe.

Then, he chatted with Xing Hechou via the friend system, expressing his gratitude.

After that, he browsed the internet for a while.

He had indeed entered a match of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds earlier. Although the Special Affairs Bureau had intervened upon discovering the anomaly, finding the relevant personnel and reducing the event's popularity on platforms like Weibo, Tieba, NGA, and WeChat QQ group chats,

they still couldn't completely erase the traces. After all, Long-ge of the Huya platform was a top-tier streamer with tens of millions of viewers. The tens of thousands of people watching his stream at the time had already spread screenshots and videos everywhere.

This wasn't a big deal, really. Those viewers "on the scene" saw the top streamer's house being raided by agents, saw extraordinary players appearing in the game,

and felt excited, stimulated, and uneasy, thinking they had witnessed a very important anomaly event.

Little did they know that such things happen every day, only this time the intersection with the real world was a little deeper.

Li Ang didn't feel much about his image becoming famous. He scanned the web and found that the [Realm Corridor] segment did indeed have a certain probability of interacting with the real world, as the system described.

A match in games like *Overwatch* and *League of Legends* had a player randomly intrude;

an episode of a completed animated series produced by the streaming platform Netflix a few years ago featured two players;

at the launch event for the new Xbox console, the pre-launch trailer for a certain game was replaced by the battle footage of players—the audience at the time was unusually excited, thinking the game's graphics were incredibly realistic for this era,

Ah! The lighting! The water! The character models! The smoothness of the animation! Xbox was simply the god of the next generation. Sony and Nintendo were just worthless trash.

Before the audience could get excited for long, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Anomalous Incident Division arrived, urgently stopped the launch event, and after a period of research, announced that there had been a minor problem and that what the audience had seen wasn't game footage, much to their disappointment—especially after seeing the actual gameplay demo of *Halo Infinite* later.

Many expressed that they felt they would never be happy again, and that happiness had nothing to do with them.

They were still looking forward to *Black Myth: Wukong*.

In addition to internet platforms, the interactive attribute of the [Realm Corridor] was also reflected in other aspects.

Such as the giant LED screen in Times Square in New York,

Niagara Falls,

Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (the lake surface covered with shallow water reflects the sky, which is extremely spectacular and beautiful. It is also a sacred place in the world of anime—many anime opening animations use it as a location)

These places all projected the battle footage of the top 500 players at some point today.

However, due to the Global Supernatural Alliance's prior preparations,

and their promotion in *The Wind Chaser* and some news briefs about the possibility of transcendents holding small-scale events in the real world one day, it didn't cause too much panic.

Li Ang looked through the videos, observed his potential opponents, and then browsed the forum.

Five hundred people participating in the [Realm Corridor] sounded like a lot, but it seemed incredibly rare when scattered around the world.

Each of the top 500 was a strong person capable of holding their own, with their own legendary achievements.

After the sixteen-day competition in the Sky Arena, a third-party organization led by the Watcher Society recently announced their estimated ranking of the players most likely to advance from the top 500 to the top 300.

They summarized the achievements, strengths, power systems, and combat styles of each of the top 500 players.

This was meant to supplement the missing information in the individual combat power rankings released by the Killing Game—but as the Watcher Society noted, the list only recorded the publicly revealed strength of the contestants, and did not calculate hidden cards.

It wasn't accurate and was for reference only.

The list was updated every once in a while. After today's two hundred-plus [Realm Corridor] matches ended, the Watcher Society urgently adjusted the list.

Li Ang's name also rose from the nineties to the seventieth player most likely to advance on the list.

This was mainly because he easily defeated the FPU.

At the same time, Ding Zhenshen, who drove a mecha and was knocked down by him in the Sky Arena, also defeated a player ranked in the one hundred and fifties, belonging to the German Anomalous Affairs Investigation Bureau, with a score of 10:3, which in turn raised Li Ang's status.

Li Ang also watched that match. Ding Zhenshen's Kui Niu mecha seemed to have been upgraded and modified again, making it more agile and swift than before, and its firepower was even more powerful, suppressing his opponent at a distance of two hundred meters for the entire match, preventing him from making an effective counterattack.

At the end of the match, the opponent tried to imitate Li Ang's example, using some kind of teleportation ability to flash behind the Kui Niu mecha, wanting to deliver a fatal blow.

Unfortunately, Ding Zhenshen was prepared. The mechanical right arm holding the high-frequency cutting blade suddenly folded backward at a bizarre angle, predicting the opponent's movement trajectory and slicing through the enemy's waist, ending the match.

If Ding Zhenshen had the strength he has now back then in the arena, he might have caused even more trouble for Li Ang.

In addition to Ding Zhenshen, Li Ang was particularly interested in the following matches today.

Liu Wudai faced a player ranked in the three hundred and seventies, belonging to the Mechatronics Guild. The two engaged in an encounter in a dark, lightless abandoned mine.

(The Mechatronics Guild is a small to medium-sized guild that specializes in using raw materials such as metal and wood to create exquisite creations, such as mechanisms, traps, landmines, puppet dolls, portable vehicles, safes, aircraft, and weapons.)

Liu Wudai, who was naturally at an advantage with her luxurious equipment, props, and skill configuration, chased after her opponent.

The player from the Mechatronics Guild, knowing that his hard power was inferior to Liu Wudai, took the initiative to avoid battle, lurking and wandering in the winding and intricate underground mine, laying traps and constantly consuming Liu Wudai's supplies, stamina, and spiritual power.

This strategy was indeed effective, and Liu Wudai's equipment and props entered cooldown, and her spiritual power value was about to bottom out.

The player from the Mechatronics Guild was secretly delighted, and circled back to the starting point of their encounter. Just as he wanted to continue to wear down his opponent, he heard a collapse in the mine tunnel far away.

It turned out that Liu Wudai, who seemed to rely on her luxurious equipment to eat all kinds of trap damage head-on, acting recklessly and charging straight ahead,

had actually left a large number of dormant bombs in the tunnel behind her.

When both sides returned to the starting point of the tunnel, Liu Wudai detonated all the bombs, directly collapsing the entire mine.

She herself relied on earth escape props to breathe freely and travel at will,

while her opponent, who had no protection, was pressed under thousands of tons of mud and sand, and dropped out of the match with a score of 2:10.