Chapter 1: The Person Who Returned from the Abyss_1

Shuilan City, Minghu District.

Jiang Chen sat on the curb, staring blankly at his cell phone.

He had traversed.

Not long ago, he was on a bus, planning to visit a new board game parlor opened by a friend to help boost its popularity.

However, while the vehicle was in motion, a pale monster with six claws, towering over two people tall, suddenly burst from the side of the road and flipped the bus over with its impact.

Jiang Chen was thrown from his seat, crashing into the underside window.

But he had no time to care about the pain.

Because the monster had already jumped onto the bus, ripping through the glass and metal, extending its sharp claws inside, and impaled a nearby passenger, hooking and lifting him up.

Hearing that passenger's screams, seeing his agonized expression.

Jiang Chen's heart was filled with fear, for the first time he smelled the scent of death.

Just when he thought he was certainly going to die,

a piercing explosion sounded, the pale monster's head burst open, yellow fluid splattered everywhere, and it collapsed powerlessly.

At the same time, a silver-blue mecha, like a superhero from the movies, descended from the sky.

It tore apart the pale monster's corpse, used spray to stop the bleeding of the injured passengers, and lifted the overturned bus...

In a short period of time, the scene was put in perfect order by him.

The other passengers seemed to calm down as well, their expressions changing from fear to joy, gathering around the silver-blue mecha to express their gratitude.

Only Jiang Chen, after walking out of the bus, was still in shock.

He looked at the behavior of these people, his eyes full of confusion.

You're calm already?

That was a monster!!

Since when were there monsters on Earth?

And what on earth was that steel mecha, did science fiction movies step into reality?

Did you guys secretly update the version of Earth Online without telling me?

It wasn't until Jiang Chen took out his phone, looking for answers online, that he saw the latest news filled with information about mechas, abyss, and monsters.

He then suddenly realized.

This place didn't seem to be the Earth he knew anymore.

The confusion in Jiang Chen's heart regarding monsters and mecha was quickly answered in the encyclopedia.

This was not Earth, but a similar yet different world of the Blue Planet.

There existed something called the "abyss".

It was like the remnants of ancient times, yet also like a reflection of the current world, unobservable and untouchable, only occasionally opening a slight crack.

Some unlucky people fell into these cracks and never returned.

However, the abyss of the past did not spawn monsters, and those who fell into the abyss were completely vanished.

Thus, people did not understand the abyss and even unaware of its existence.

It wasn't until twenty years ago that a man who returned from the abyss appeared.

He not only survived the abyss but also brought back a power called "Abyss Rune".

This power not only allowed him to enter and exit the abyss freely but also enabled him to summon abyss mechas and wield Transcendent strength.

From then on, the Abyss Rune spread like a virus across the Blue Planet.

More and more people awakened the Abyss Rune, gaining the power of the abyss and mecha, becoming increasingly powerful.

At the same time, the cracks appeared more and more frequently.

Monsters that should only exist in the abyss started coming out through the cracks into the present world, causing massive casualties.

The endless stream of randomly appearing monsters was a major headache for all nations.

Even though they had firearms to destroy them, monsters often wreaked havoc, leading to significant casualties.

Moreover, as the monsters emerging from the abyss became stronger, they would become even harder to deal with in the future.

As a result, the official authorities of various countries accelerated their policies related to the Abyss Rune and mecha, and formed the Mecha Alliance.

They granted these people legal identities and official titles—

"Mecha Pilots."

Jiang Chen turned off his mobile phone, digesting the information he had acquired.

If one were to set aside matters such as the abyss, mecha pilots, and the alliance.

Planet Blue Star was not much different from Earth.

Jiang Chen himself had not changed in the slightest; he was still a university student on vacation during his sophomore year.

Even his family, classmates, and friends remained unchanged.

Even the chat messages with the board game cafe owner were the same as they had been half an hour before, discussing going there to help boost the popularity of the place.

This brought a lot of peace to Jiang Chen's mind.

If everyone had turned into strangers, he truly did not know how to act very familiar with other people.

However, if you add in the elements of the abyss, mecha pilots, and so on.

The difference between Planet Blue Star and Earth was far too great.

Here, monsters would often emerge from the abyss to wreak havoc and slaughter in the present world.

The pale monster, over two meters tall, that Jiang Chen had encountered was one of the weaker kinds.

An island in another country once witnessed a Godzilla-like colossal creature that could easily crush skyscrapers with brute strength and possessed a terrifying power similar to a Supernatural Ability.

Under its rampant killing, most of the city lay in ruins.

It wasn't until a mecha pilot, maneuvering a giant mecha over a hundred meters tall, dragged the monster into the sea and killed it that the incident was declared over.

The island nation has yet to release an exact death toll.

Jiang Chen watched the video of the monster's rampage.

The memory of the pale claws piercing through the chest of a passenger also surfaced in his mind.

He looked at the silver-blue steel mecha in the distance, and it was as if a fierce fire was gradually igniting in his heart.

"In this world, ordinary people are simply too fragile," he said.

"Once encountering monsters, they have no power to fight back at all, and can only sit and wait for death."

"With bad luck, coming across a powerful abyss monster, even running away is a luxury..."

"I must become a mecha pilot!"

"Only by doing so can I have the power to determine my own life and death!"

Of course.

Being a mecha pilot did not equate to safety.

On the contrary, it was an occupation with an extremely high degree of danger.

They needed to go through the abyss with an Abyss Rune to craft and strengthen their mechas, undergoing trials.

In this process, they inevitably had to battle with abyss monsters, and sometimes they died in the abyss before they could escape.

As a result, some people who had awakened their Abyss Runes and barely passed the basic trial gave up on becoming mecha pilots and were unwilling to set foot in the abyss ever again.

Jiang Chen, however, paid no attention to these facts.

No matter how dangerous being a mecha pilot was, it was still far better than living a life of fear, not knowing when death might descend upon him.

Even if it meant dying in the abyss while pursuing power, it would still be his own choice.

Even if he could not decide how to live, at least he could decide how to die.

And besides, Jiang Chen was already very close to the abyss—

According to the research of the Mecha Alliance, survivors of abyss monster attacks had a higher probability of awakening the Abyss Rune within one hour of being exposed to the abyss atmosphere.

That was why the mecha pilot, after dealing with the monster, did not simply leave.

Instead, he notified the rescue teams of the alliance and gathered the survivors together, waiting for the awakening.

Now, nearly half an hour had passed since the attack.

The alliance's rescue team had already arrived at the scene and was trying to save the passenger who had been pierced through the chest.

Theoretically, it was the most likely moment for an Abyss Rune awakening.

It was at that moment.

Jiang Chen felt an itch in the palm of his right hand, and on spreading it out, he was startled to see an eye made up of pitch-black lines.

As he stared into that eye, a line of information appeared before him.

[Time until trial commencement: 59:59]