OL CH3

Chapter 3: Counterattack of the Disabled General (3)

Seeing that this group of people wouldn’t finish their sparring anytime soon, Chen Tian let out a yawn and closed his eyes.

Though he appeared to be resting his eyes, he was actually using this pocket of time to fully absorb the detailed plotline of this world.

In truth, the world they were currently in was but one of millions of small worlds, all of which were contained within a single divine artifact.

This artifact was originally created by the Wood God Jumang to nourish the divine soul of his partner, the Tengshe (Flying Snake) Bai Rui. Of course, after Bai Rui’s soul was fully healed, countless immortals and mighty beings had also entered it over the ages, whether to undergo trials or to heal their own damaged souls.

Chen Tian existed as the artifact spirit of this divine vessel—essentially serving as its absolute Lord God—responsible for managing all these small worlds. His partner, Bai Su, was born from the divine power of the Tengshe. After falling in love with Chen Tian, Bai Su remained within the artifact to help him maintain these myriad worlds.

However, there were simply too many worlds within the artifact, constantly cycling through birth and destruction.

As the energy of destiny flowed continuously through these small worlds, it could not be guaranteed to remain purely benevolent; inevitably, stagnant, impure energy—known as “filth”—would spawn.

Furthermore, when those ancient immortals entered the artifact to purify their souls, they would shed their inner dregs and impurities, leaving them behind within the vessel. Over eons, this accumulated into a hidden peril.

Millions of years had passed. Whether it was the present-day Immortal Realm or the worlds within this artifact, they were no longer bound by the rigid, ancient stereotypes mortals imagined.

Because there was so much worth learning and adapting from these millions of worlds, Chen Tian had long ago taken the Vermilion Bird’s advice and established the Dimension Management Bureau. It was co-managed by countless elite “Taskers” carefully selected from various small worlds, along with Systems incubated directly by the artifact, all working together to maintain and repair the realms.

Sometime ago, the dark filth had quietly accumulated power, even developing a sentient spirit that attempted to wreak havoc across a sector of worlds. Ultimately, it was forcibly sealed and suppressed by Chen Tian, Bai Su, and their allies.

Yet no one expected that a final remnant of the sealed filth had survived outside. Seizing a moment when their guard was down, it launched a suicidal attack, attempting to drag them all down with it.

It happened far too suddenly. The residual power of the filth wasn’t actually that strong, but ordinary Taskers were entirely incapable of resisting it; a direct hit would mean being erased from existence.

To save everyone, Bai Su threw himself directly into the line of fire. Fortunately, being born with a demigod’s constitution at least allowed him to preserve his life.

The last of the filth’s energy was completely eradicated, but Bai Su’s divine soul sustained catastrophic damage. Worse, it was infected by the taint, making it difficult for him to maintain control of himself.

Left with no other choice, Bai Su plunged directly into the cycle of small worlds to protect himself. But due to his unstable soul, he could only enter fragmented, defective worlds teeming with unresolved issues.

The world they were currently in was precisely one of those. Clearly, this was an ancient historical plane, and the designated male lead of this world was the Fifth Prince, Situ Chen.

The original plot of this small world was quite straightforward, chronicling the rise of an emperor for the ages. Though the male lead, Situ Chen, was somewhat unruly in his youth, he was exceptionally brilliant, and as he grew up, his heart expanded to encompass the entire realm.

While the Xiling Empire was currently showing signs of decline, once the Fifth Prince Situ Chen ascended the throne, he would turn the tide.

Unlike his father, who favored scholars and scorned martial prowess, Situ Chen vastly elevated the status of military commanders. After ruling diligently, implementing a series of reforms, and stabilizing the nation, he began to realize his grand ambitions.

Aided by his most outstanding general—the new generation’s Marquis of Zhongyong, Bai Su—Situ Chen expanded Xiling’s borders, ultimately forging it into the greatest empire in the world.

This, of course, was the original timeline. Unfortunately, after this small world was contaminated by the filth, it became defective and riddled with loopholes.

There were many such damaged worlds back then, leaving the Taskers to painstakingly repair them one by one. Worlds in this state were highly susceptible to the sudden appearance of transmigrators or reborn individuals, and were even prone to infiltration by illegal rogue systems.

Logically speaking, unless a world had a specific fantasy setting, transmigrators and reborn individuals were exceedingly rare.

Typically, people granted such opportunities were “Children of Destiny” or individuals of immense virtue across multiple reincarnations. Their souls would radiate the golden light of merit, beloved by the Heavenly Dao of the small world, granting them miraculous second chances when tragedy struck.

However, in defective worlds like this one, the transmigrators and reborn souls that slipped through the cracks were a completely different breed.

Their souls were often of poor quality, some even deeply vile and corrupt, which is exactly what attracted the filth. The filth sought to use them as pawns to siphon the world’s luck and strengthen itself.

And in this very world, a transmigrator had appeared—Bai Feizhang.

Bai Feizhang was originally a man in his twenties from the modern era. After testing out of his rural village into a third-rate diploma-mill university in the city, he fancied himself incredibly superior.

He had no real skills, yet his eyes looked down on everything. He refused to do hard labor, but lacked the qualifications for respectable work. Unwilling to give up the glamorous city life, he constantly deceived his parents back in the village, shamelessly draining their hard-earned blood and sweat for money while simultaneously despising them for being poor and rustic.

One night, after a drunken binge of debauchery, he stumbled blindly down the street, missed a warning sign, and plummeted into an open sewer undergoing maintenance. He drowned directly in the accumulated sludge of the stinking trench.

When he woke again, Bai Feizhang found he had transmigrated into an ancient world, becoming the illegitimate son of the Marquis of Zhongyong’s estate. Soon after, he realized this was the world of a novel he had once read.

He remembered that the male lead was the Fifth Prince, Situ Chen, so he relentlessly plotted to cling to Situ Chen’s coattails. Naturally, in his eyes, everyone in this world was nothing more than NPC stepping stones meant to help him level up.

As a transmigrator, he firmly believed he was the true heaven-ordained protagonist, and that he had been brought here to enjoy a lifetime of absolute glory.

He decided his first step was to seize the title of Heir Apparent, becoming the future Marquis of Zhongyong. To do this, he obviously had to eradicate the stumbling block in his path—Bai Su.

Using every dirty trick in the book, he successfully orchestrated the “accident” that crippled Bai Su. Afterward, he smoothly built a reputation as a brilliant scholar in the capital and successfully attached himself to the Fifth Prince.

By peddling modern knowledge and novelties, he actually managed to become a highly valued strategist for the Fifth Prince. Yet, at his core, he was nothing more than a greedy, arrogant, petty man with no true ability.

Once the Fifth Prince ascended the throne, Bai Feizhang was granted a lucrative official post, and immediately sank into rampant corruption and embezzlement. Although Situ Chen eventually realized the man was golden on the outside but entirely rotten on the inside, the realization came too late.

Bai Su, who should have been his most peerless general, was already crippled and living in rural seclusion, far from the capital. Bereft of its God of War, Xiling’s court was instead swarming with corrupt officials and sycophants, plunging the government into turmoil.

Remembering their past ties, Situ Chen gave Bai Feizhang a harsh warning, telling him to behave. Who could have expected that Bai Feizhang would harbor a bitter grudge, secretly colluding with his subordinates to sell out military secrets to Dayan, sparking a massive war anew?

Faced with a devastating invasion, Situ Chen learned the truth. Burning with fury, he was forced to personally lead the army into battle. Though they barely managed to repel the enemy, the brutal war dragged Xiling into a state of dire destitution.

With its national destiny broken and the entire empire locked in a death spiral of decline, even Situ Chen was powerless to save it. Not many years later, the borders were breached again, and Xiling was utterly annihilated.

As for Bai Feizhang, he met a fitting end. He betrayed Xiling, thinking he could secure a high-ranking position in Dayan, only for the Dayan generals to use him as cannon fodder and toss him onto the front lines the moment the battle began. A lowly foot soldier shot him off his horse with a single arrow, and he was trampled into bloody paste beneath the iron hooves of the cavalry.

Such an ending was the only thing worth applauding.

Chen Tian’s current identity was Prince Ning, Situ Chenye. On the surface, he was a glamorous, carefree, idle prince. In reality, the original host’s background was nowhere near that simple.

To put it bluntly: why were all the other royal princes either dead or banished to remote fiefdoms, while he alone was allowed to walk sideways through the capital of Xiling? Primarily because he wasn’t the current Emperor’s younger brother at all—he was his biological son.

The original host’s so-called “mother consort” died giving birth to him. Whenever the old emperor looked at him, he saw the face of his unforgettable white moonlight, and naturally wished to compensate him in every way possible.

As for the exact details of the massive bucket of melodramatic soap-opera tropes—palace intrigue, forbidden ethics, true love, and forced circumstances—Chen Tian couldn’t even be bothered to read them closely.

The reason the original host had been hailed as a child prodigy early on, only to suddenly devolve into a useless playboy, was precisely because he discovered his true parentage and couldn’t mentally handle it.

Knowing his birth was tied to an imperial scandal and that he would never, ever be allowed to inherit the throne, the original host decided playing the fool was the best way to protect himself.

Yet even then, he didn’t live happily. Deep down, the original host wished he had been born into an ordinary family to live a simple, peaceful life. Because of his status, it was impossible to completely escape the power struggles. In secret, he was forced to carry out countless dirty or dangerous assignments for the Emperor.

Putting on a facade of untethered freedom while bearing an incredibly heavy heart, the sheer psychological exhaustion killed him in his early thirties.

Thus, when the System approached him, informing him that he didn’t have many years left to live, and offered a trade—his body in this life, in exchange for being reincarnated into a wealthy, harmonious family with doting parents and loving siblings to live as a happy, ordinary person in his next life—he agreed without a second thought.

This identity certainly made things convenient for Chen Tian.

Having thoroughly reviewed the plotline and the original host’s memories, Chen Tian slowly opened his eyes. Gazing at Bai Su, who was quietly watching the sparring matches below, Chen Tian’s lips pressed into a tight, thin line.

Thinking of what Bai Su had been put through, a violent surge of agonizing pain ripped through the man’s chest, as if his internal organs had been set ablaze.

This was his lover! His precious treasure, whom he couldn’t bear to see suffer even a hair’s breadth of harm!

If it hadn’t been for his momentary negligence and lowered guard back then, Bai Su would never have had to sacrifice himself and get hurt to save them.

It was undoubtedly the damage to his soul that caused his lover to suffer such tragic, ill-fated destinies within these small worlds. He didn’t even dare imagine what Xiao Bai had been forced to endure before he finally arrived.

His partner was meant to stand at the absolute pinnacle of the universe, looking down on the world. How could he be reduced to such a miserable state?!

Recalling how his beloved had just been mocked and humiliated by a pack of utter scum, the guilt nearly swallowed him alive. He felt that all of this was entirely his fault.

But it wasn’t too late. It wasn’t too late. The filth from that incident had been completely eradicated. All he needed to do now was follow his lover closely, world by world, to help him, pamper him, and guard him with his life!

And of course, he had to be extremely vigilant against any unexpected variables.

After all, these small worlds weren’t nearly as safe as one might imagine.