Chapter One: Logging into a Past Life Account—The Return of the Strong

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"I heard that in Jiangbei District of our city, right at Tingyue Community, a security guard registered a three-star-tier Abyss of Heaven game account yesterday and got recruited by the Dreamchaser team for a high salary—fifty thousand yuan a month! Is that for real?"

"Damn! Don’t mention it! I live there! That guy dropped out of high school and became a security guard at our place. Just two months in, and then this happened—he quit on the spot and joined Dreamchaser. Everyone in our community envies him to death!"

"What can you do? That’s how things are now. I had a loser friend who couldn’t even afford his own cigarettes. On his eighteenth birthday, he got insanely lucky and registered a four-star-tier account. Now he drives a Ferrari with one hand, swaps girlfriends every day—and they’re all models!"

"Sigh, when will those of us with only one-star-tier accounts ever see any hope?"

"I'm ready to go work in a factory tightening screws instead. Sure, it doesn’t pay as much as you can make in Abyss of Heaven, but at least you’re not dancing with death every day!"

Evening.

In a small diner beneath the apartment block.

Lu Ming ate his shredded pork with green pepper rice in silence, the chatter of the young men at the next table echoing in his ears.

After dinner, Lu Ming headed straight for the nearby Ant Internet Café and started up a computer.

He went directly to a corner seat, quietly powered on, and opened a game app called "Abyss of Heaven."

"Please enter your game account."

As the prompt popped up on the screen, Lu Ming swiped his ID card, and his ID number was automatically entered into the account field.

Just as he was about to click to log in, Lu Ming seemed to suddenly remember something.

He hesitated for a moment, pressed Enter to clear the account, and then manually entered a new ID number that didn’t match his own in the slightest.

He clicked login, testing his luck.

To his astonishment—

Whoosh!

A black vortex appeared on the screen, and Lu Ming was sucked in completely!

In the blink of an eye, Lu Ming found himself standing in a tranquil town.

"Ding~ Esteemed ten-star account player, Nether, welcome back to the world of Abyss of Heaven!"

As the system voice rang in his ears, Lu Ming was stunned.

"It really is possible to log into my account from my previous life!"

That’s right—Lu Ming had been reborn.

As his memories flooded back...

A hundred years ago, a game called "Abyss of Heaven" appeared out of nowhere and swept across the globe overnight.

Everyone aged eighteen and above had one lifetime opportunity to register an account and enter the game.

At first, people thought it was just a game.

Then, when a player was killed by a monster in Abyss of Heaven and died from brain death in the real world, everything changed.

More and more monsters began to cross over, invading reality from the Abyss, slaughtering humans and wreaking havoc on cities.

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It was only then that humanity realized: disaster had arrived.

To protect their loved ones and defend the human world, people rushed to register accounts and entered the Abyss of Heaven to battle powerful monsters and stop them from invading reality.

From that moment, the age of universal gaming began.

Abyss of Heaven accounts were ranked from one star to ten stars.

In his previous life, Lu Ming had terrible luck and only managed to register a one-star account—the lowest possible.

But by some twist of fortune, as the ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-ninth account registered worldwide, he received a unique special mission from the Abyss:

If within five years, he could level his character to 200, he’d complete the quest and receive the only reward in existence that could upgrade any account to the highest ten-star tier—the Scroll of Apotheosis!

Thus began Lu Ming’s mad dash to level up.

But for someone with no money, no power, and only a one-star account at the very bottom of society, the difficulty of this quest was unimaginable.

To win that reward, Lu Ming became a tireless grinder, staying online for over eighteen hours every day!

He spent countless sleepless nights running quests and slaying monsters, even swallowing his pride to beg the top players to take him through dungeons.

His efforts paid off—after 1,809 days, just last night, Lu Ming finally reached level 200 and received the Scroll of Apotheosis as promised!

But in that very moment, he was stabbed through the heart from behind by his beloved girlfriend of three years, Ye Ling’er!

That scene was seared into Lu Ming’s soul.

Ye Ling’er wept as she spoke.

"I’m sorry, Lu Ming, I’m sorry... I really had no choice. He promised me that only if I killed you and brought him the Scroll of Apotheosis would he spare my parents and my little brother."

"We can’t fight him—his power is boundless. Killing us would be as easy as squashing ants..."

"My little brother is all I have, and my parents raised me with so much hardship. I can’t just stand by and watch them die..."

Lu Ming didn’t know who this "he" Ye Ling’er spoke of was.

He only knew that he and Ye Ling’er had been together for three years.

In those three years, though poor, he had cared for her with all his heart.

"I remember the night you messaged me saying you had cramps and were in pain, and I didn’t hesitate. I gave up a quest I’d been working on for three days and nights, braved a torrential storm to buy brown sugar, rushed to your house on my scooter, and made you hot brown sugar water, staying by your side to take care of you!"

"Another time, when your father got sick and owed tens of thousands in debt, I worked overtime, extending my Abyss of Heaven hours from eighteen to twenty a day, grinding for two whole months to sell equipment and materials, just to pay off your family’s debt!"

"You said you didn’t like takeout, so every day at eleven and five, I’d log off on the dot, ride to your house to cook for you, then ride home to continue grinding in Abyss of Heaven—three years, rain or shine!"

As these memories flooded his mind, Lu Ming’s eyes grew bloodshot.

He had cherished Ye Ling’er like a precious jewel, giving her all his devotion.

Yet in the end, she left him with nothing but the words, "I know you’re good to me, but aside from that, you’re nothing but a useless loser..."

Lu Ming’s fists clenched, fury burning in his chest.

"I never stopped striving, planning our future together,"

"Yet you betrayed me so easily!"

"Whether or not you were forced, Ye Ling’er, I will make you pay!"

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As for the current situation—

The good news: after being stabbed in the back by Ye Ling’er, in that final moment before death, Lu Ming used the Scroll of Apotheosis, denying "him" the prize and instead seizing its power for himself—his account upgraded instantly from one star to the full ten stars!

The bad news: Lu Ming didn’t even get a chance to enjoy his ten-star account before he died.

Another bit of good news: fate was not done with Lu Ming. After his death, he unexpectedly reincarnated into the same timeline, into the body of someone with the same name!

The other bad news: the original owner of this body was an orphan with nothing—no money, no power, no connections—and on his eighteenth birthday, he registered a run-of-the-mill one-star Abyss of Heaven account.

Alone in a small third-tier city by the sea, barely scraping by, he couldn’t even afford next month’s rent.

Despairing at the future, he succumbed to pressure and overdosed on sleeping pills to end his life.

Thus, when Lu Ming’s soul arrived, his stomach churned violently and he spent half an hour vomiting into the toilet.

Once his stomach was empty, the first thing he did was go downstairs to eat, leading to the scene at the start.

But what had seemed a hopeless beginning was completely turned around the moment Lu Ming succeeded in logging into his account from his previous life!

"Could it be that Abyss of Heaven accounts are directly bound to the player’s soul, meaning the soul is the only true login password?"

Lu Ming hurriedly opened the account interface to check.

Account: 330200***97

Account Tier: ★★★★★★★★★★ (Maximum)

Talent 1: Soul Reaper Lv1 (Each time the player kills an enemy, they can refine the corpse to gain its soul power; by expending soul power, the player can summon undead warriors devoted to guarding the master, never betraying; the maximum number that can be refined is the player’s level times ten.)

Talent 2: Total Amplification Lv1 (All player skills are enhanced tenfold.)

Talent 3: Phoenix Rebirth Lv1 (Upon the player’s death, the weakest undead warrior is sacrificed to resurrect the player.)

Staring at this ten-star account and its three supreme talents, Lu Ming’s heart raced, his whole body trembling with excitement.

Consider this: in a hundred years since the advent of Abyss of Heaven, the highest account tier anyone had ever achieved worldwide was only six stars!

What’s more, in the world of Abyss of Heaven, even a summoner at level 100 could summon only ten creatures at most.

Yet Talent 1, Soul Reaper, allows ten summons at level one—at level 100, a thousand!

Talent 2, Total Amplification, boosts all skills tenfold at just level one—who could imagine its power at higher levels?

Talent 3, Phoenix Rebirth, was even more outrageous.

Abyss of Heaven may look like a game, but death inside meant real brain death in the outside world.

But with Phoenix Rebirth and Soul Reaper combined, if Lu Ming amassed an undead army of tens of thousands, he’d be virtually immortal!

Lu Ming couldn’t suppress a wild burst of laughter.

So much so that the passing players around him thought he’d gone mad.

"Five years! Do you know what I’ve been through these past five years?"

"This is it—at last, I’m going to rise!"