Chapter 1: Travel between worlds

The workers at the construction site couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Blue and silver lightning was crackling and striking all over the metallic skeleton of the building they were supposed to be constructing, keeping them at bay from their job. They gulped, leaning their heads back and watching the scene in fear and trepidation. Their hair was standing on end from the tremendous amount of static electricity and they couldn't help but back off.

"Someone call Mister Ma," the foreman hissed, clutching at his helmet helplessly. His men exchanged nervous looks and they retreated. One of them reluctantly fished out his smartphone and dialed a number.

While he did so, the foreman squinted at the expanding lightning. His jaw dropped when he saw a silver sphere materialize in the ground, part of it consuming a parked excavator. Part of the vehicle simply ceased to exist, perhaps eaten away by the sphere.

"What in the world…?" he began. He couldn't take another step, though. There was a strange energy that repelled him, something that almost burned him. His instincts were screaming danger, and after a couple of decades working in a construction site where he had witnessed a couple of fatal accidents, he learned not to question them.

Gulping, he turned to the rest of his construction team and waved them back.

"Get out of here!" he ordered, unable to keep the fear from his voice. "Leave the site! We'll wait for Mr. Ma and the others to come!"

The construction workers exchanged confused glances, but none of them protested. They had all sensed the ominous energy as well. They didn't know what to make of it, other than that it was extremely dangerous. They nervously obeyed, evacuating the place.

Outside, a few black cars skidded to a halt on the road. Ma Dong stepped out of the car, dressed in a tacky purple suit with black stripes and a yellow tie. His hair styled back in gel, he wore sunglasses to give himself a cool look, though nobody would ever think so. He was accompanied by his bruisers, burly, muscular thugs armed with guns and pipes.

"Huh? What do you think you are doing?! Why aren't you working?!" Ma Dong snarled at the foreman, who bravely interposed himself between the gang leader and his crew.

"Mr. Ma, there has been an incident. I don't know what happened…but I think it is best you take a look for yourself."

"Look what look?!" Ma Dong snapped irritably. "Don't waste my time! My time is very precious, you know? I told you that you'll have to finish this job by next week…"

"There's lightning!" one of the construction workers blurted out. "Some kind of weird electrical storm! We don't know what it is!"

"Huh? What are you talking about? Are you drunk? At this time of the day?" Ma Dong turned to glare at the foreman. "Why can't you manage your workers properly?"

"Mr. Ma, it's the truth. We all saw it." The foreman swallowed. He gestured toward the construction site. "If you don't believe me, you can check for yourself."

Ma Dong scowled and shook his head. He flicked his hand and ordered his bruisers into the site. Two of the burly men nodded and quietly stepped into the site.

"There's no lightning," the bald bruiser said. Ma Dong threw his hands up in exasperation and was about to turn to the foreman with an enraged expression when baldy continued. "Uh, but there's a molten crater and an excavator that looked like it got…got eaten."

"What?" Ma Dong frowned and rushed inside, only to see the molten crater. He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. He might not be a construction worker, but even he knew that there was no way the construction crew could have done anything like that. They didn't have the equipment or tools to pull that sort of stunt. "How…?"

His words trailed off and his eyes widened when he caught sight of something even more bizarre. There was a single man walking toward them, completely naked. His frame was slenderer than the bruisers, but Ma Dong could see the solidly built muscles on him. The guy had abs and even a six pack. And he was strutting about without a care in the world, a wild grin on his face.

"Oh…finally somebody." The man glanced about, his eyes sweeping across the construction site curiously. "For a moment I thought I dropped in on the wrong world. Good. Is this the place they call Earth?"

Ma Dong gawked at him for a moment.

"Hmm. Perhaps you guys speak a different language. Not surprising, since this is another world."

"What are you talking about?!" Ma Dong finally shouted, unable to control himself. The man was taken aback.

"So you do speak my language." He then narrowed his eyes. "So answer my question. Is this place Earth?"

Ma Dong felt cold sweat trickle down his back. Fear grasped his heart. He had no idea why, but the naked man in front of him suddenly seemed like a demon. He closed his eyes and shook his head, flustered.

That had to be an illusion, surely. The can of beer he had earlier…his mind might be a bit muddled.

"Oi," he snapped at the foreman. "Is this some kind of joke? What is your man doing? Stripping naked in the middle of work and rambling some nonsense?"

"Mr. Ma…" the foreman swallowed. "That man isn't from my crew. I don't know who he is. I've never seen him before."

"Don't lie to me!"

"Are you ignoring me?"

There was something in the naked man's tone that sent chills down Ma Dong's spine. He felt as if something was grabbing his throat, suffocating him. But that wasn't possible. The naked man was still over ten meters away.

What is he? He wondered. Shaking his head, he mustered his courage. He was the leader of a gang. He couldn't behave cowardly in front of his subordinates or he would lose his dignity. Snarling, he turned back to the naked man.

"Did you hit your head or something? What's with the stupid question? Of course this is Earth! Where else can you be?"

"Ah…" the man grinned. "Going through the Temporal Tribulation was worth it. I did arrive in the right place."

"Huh? What are you rambling about?" Ma Dong growled. The naked man didn't answer this time, and instead strode forward.

"Your clothes. Give them to me."

"Excuse me?" For a moment, Ma Dong couldn't believe what he was hearing. He stared at the naked man, dumbfounded. The man cocked his head to the side.

"Your clothes," he repeated, raising a hand up as if waiting for them. "Give them to me."

For a moment, Ma Dong couldn't think, his mind blank. Then he laughed. Shaking his head, he turned to his bruisers.

"Go teach that bastard a lesson."

"Yes, boss."

All six bruisers proceeded forward, cracking their knuckles and bearing metal pipes and knives. The naked man studied them with a frown.

"Your sizes don't fit mine," he said. He then pointed at Ma Dong. "His clothes do."

"What are you waiting for?!" Ma Dong roared. "Get him!"

The bruisers nodded and charged forward, swinging their pipes and knives. The naked man sighed and rolled his eyes.

Then with movements so fast that Ma Dong couldn't see, he struck and dodged.

The first bruiser swung his pipe down on the naked man's head, but the eccentric man stepped back to duck it. Spinning around, he crunched his elbow into the thug's face.

The bruiser's head simply ceased to exist, turning into a spray of blood and bits of gray matter.

"What on earth!?" Ma Dong gasped, unable to believe what he had just seen.

The other thugs continued to strike, more out of instinct than fear or consciousness. The second bruiser stabbed at the naked man's seemingly exposed torso with his knife, trying to rupture a lung, but the latter caught the blade and shattered it with his bare hand. The bruiser's eyes widened, only for his face to be obliterated when the man punched him.

A third bruiser swung his pipe, hoping to score a hit on the man's head. But the naked man's other hand simply snaked out and caught it. No, he didn't catch it, he crushed it with a punch, bending and twisting the pipe out of shape and jarring it from the thug's hands. The bruiser staggered back, nursing his half-broken fingers, but the man dropped to a crouch and kicked him in the solar plexus. There was a wet crack and the poor thug literally folded into two, his spine snapped cleanly. He crashed onto the ground several meters away and slumped down, his upper body hanging over his legs at an unnatural angle.

The fourth bruiser, thinking that he finally had an advantage, swung his pipe. The man casually moved his head to the side and absorbed the blow with his shoulder. The thug's eyes widened when he saw the pipe bent and break, almost as if he had just struck a concrete wall. The naked man glanced at the broken pipe curiously and shrugged.

"That's all you got?" he asked, almost in a friendly manner. Before the thug could retreat, he punched the poor guy's head off.

A fifth thug stabbed the man in the back, only for the blade to snap. The jagged metal didn't even break the man's skin. He glanced over his shoulder, shooting his assailant a disapproving look.

"Backstabbing is bad." He then laughed. "Well, I'm in no position to criticize anyone for backstabbing."

The fifth bruiser backed away, but he didn't escape in time. The man's foot caught him in the gut and he crashed into the broken excavator, which toppled over and crushed him.

The sixth bruiser turned to flee, only for the naked man to appear in front of him suddenly. Grinning, he placed a hand in front of the trembling thug's face.

"Going somewhere?"

"Ah…no…"

The naked man flicked the thug's forehead, and the top part of the poor bruiser's head vanished in a shower of blood.

Bang!

The naked man barely dodged the shot. Twisting away, he then turned to catch sight of Ma Dong. Despite shivering in fear, Ma Dong held up a gun and was pointing it at the mysterious man. The gang leader gritted his teeth and squeezed the trigger again.

"I don't know what kind of monster you are, but even you can't survive a gunshot!" Screaming in rage and fear, Ma Dong fired several times, emptying his magazine in a single rampage.

"Oh, really?" The naked man raised a hand and caught the bullets with his fingers. He studied them curiously and then dropped them to the ground. Cocking his head to the side, he stared at the gun in Ma Dong's hand. The gang leader was shaking so violently that he had dropped to his knees, unable to comprehend what was going on. "Interesting. I've never seen this weapon before. Is this the weapon that the people here use? It's very strange. A little on the powerful side, but I guess it only amounts to a mid-tier Yellow-ranked weapon at the most? Not very impressive."

He then glanced around, almost as if he was sniffing.

"Then again, there's so little qi in the atmosphere here…I guess it counts as a powerful weapon? Certainly more powerful than these."

He poked the broken pipes and knives with his toe, his expression full of scorn.

Ma Dong broke. He realized that the construction workers had fled long ago, and he began sprinting out of the site. Before he could reach the exit, the naked man suddenly appeared in front of him, almost as if he was teleporting. He skidded to a stop, only for the mysterious man to clamp his fingers on his throat and lift him off his feet.

"Sorry, friend." The man was smiling unapologetically. "But like I said, I need your clothes."

"W…what are you?" Ma Dong gasped, tears rolling down his eyes.

"Me?" The mysterious man cocked his head to the side and contemplated for a few seconds. Then his grin widened. Once again, Ma Dong thought he saw a hallucination, of a monstrous demon shrouding the man's muscular figure. "Hmm…how do I put it? Ah, how about this? In simple terms, I'm a demonic cultivator."