After a round of updates, Xu Yuan finally logged back into the game.
He entered his save file and wandered around, taking in the sights.
The world inside his save still looked exactly as he remembered it.
"Can't believe that rickety stilt house took us a whole month to build… our skills were so bad back then…"
"It's been so long, and Sheepy still hasn't grown his wool back?"
"These villagers… still the same old con artists!"
Every building, every view, was steeped in nostalgia.
But just as Xu Yuan was lost in reminiscence, he spotted a shadow flicker deep inside his old mineshaft.
He thought it might be a friend logging in, so he glanced at the lower-left corner of his screen—
No player-join notification.
"Huh? Am I seeing things?"
---
He awoke to the sound of faint rustling voices around him.
When he opened his eyes, the familiar shared apartment was gone.
He was lying on a patch of grass in the open wild.
The terrain was wide and unobstructed, the moonlight bright enough to see clearly despite the night.
"???"
"Where the hell am I?!"
He bolted upright, instinctively patting his lower back—still intact. A sigh of relief—
Which immediately caught in his throat.
"What the—?!"
"Zombies?!"
In the distance, several foul-smelling, grotesque figures turned toward him, arms outstretched, closing in.
"Who am I?! Where am I?!"
"How are there zombies?!"
"This… isn't a dream, is it?!"
He pinched his thigh hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. No dream.
As the zombies drew closer, a strange familiarity nagged at him.
"Blue shirt… purple pants… why does this feel so familiar?"
When they stepped into the moonlight, it hit him—the clothes were exactly like Minecraft zombies.
They weren't blocky game mobs. They were real.
The absurdity of it made him hesitate. But remembering his earlier in-game encounter with HIM, a crazy thought surfaced.
"Don't tell me… I've been transported into the game?!"
---
As a devoted novel reader, Xu Yuan knew all about "transmigration."
He just never thought it would happen to him.
He stepped back, crouched down, and started clawing at the dirt.
Soon, a block of earth broke free—
And was instantly absorbed.
A virtual screen popped up in front of him, a long hotbar running along the bottom.
The dirt block sat in the first slot.
"What the—?! This really is Minecraft?!"
A quick test confirmed it: he was inside Minecraft.
But this was no ordinary game—this was real-life Minecraft.
As insane as it was, he had no choice but to accept it.
Luckily, he had eight years of experience. Surviving here? Easy.
He dug another block of dirt—
The zombies were now almost at his side.
Calmly, he placed the dirt beneath his feet, stacking upward.
"Good thing there aren't skeletons, or I'd have to dig three, fill one…"
Some mechanics were still the same—two blocks high was enough to keep zombies from reaching him.
From his perch, he swiped at a zombie with his bare hands—no time to make tools.
Reality, however, was nothing like the game.
The sticky, soft flesh… the sharp crack when he hit bone… it turned his stomach.
After five or six blows, the zombie finally dropped.
A cold mechanical voice rang in his mind:
[ Ding! Demon Lord System Activated! ]
[ Creature Killed: Zombie ]
[ Skill Acquired: Pain Immunity ]
[ Armor +2 ]
[ Intimidation +10 ]
[ Kill Points +1 ]
[ Intimidation Store Unlocked! ]
[ Kill Point Store Unlocked! ]
"Demon Lord System?!"
He immediately thought of HIM.
First, he'd encountered HIM in his save file.
Now, he'd been transported here.
And now… he had a system linked to a demon lord.
Could this really be a coincidence?
HIM was, after all, Minecraft's ultimate demon lord.
"What the hell is going on…?"
---
He opened the system menu, quickly finding his personal info:
[ Monster Info: None ]
[ Monster Type: Unknown ]
[ HP: 40 ]
[ Skills: None ]
[ Passives: Pain Immunity, Armor +2 ]
"Monster info? Monster type?"
The realization hit—he wasn't a player. He was a monster.
The system voice continued:
[ Host currently resides in a game world. ]
[ Game Title: Minecraft ]
[ Game Info: Developed by Zero Point Corporation over ten years; full-immersion holographic game launched last week. ]
[ Compatible with VR helmets and capsules. ]
[ Global Online Player Count: 15 billion. ]
[ Player deaths allow respawn; host death is permanent. ]
A monster. In full-immersion Minecraft.
With fifteen billion players out there…
And only one life.
"What kind of demon lord fights fifteen billion players…?"
Then his character model appeared before him—his own face, tan skin, short hair, light stubble…
Except for the eyes.
No pupils. Just glowing white.
"This… this is HIM?!"
It was like looking at a real-life Herobrine.
A wild idea struck:
"Don't tell me… I am HIM?!"
Every Minecraft player knew the name—Herobrine in Minecraft.
The legendary, feared, mysterious figure.
Stories of glowing-eyed figures haunting single-player worlds.
Posts deleted, worlds altered, computers crashing…
And now, somehow, Xu Yuan was him.
Was this fate? Coincidence? A choice HIM had made?
A slow grin spread across his face.
"If I really am HIM… even twenty billion players wouldn't be a problem."
Of course, he wasn't sure if he had HIM's rumored ability to crash players' systems yet.
He checked the system stores:
Intimidation Store – unlock and control monster types, expand control range.
Zombies cost 10,000 Intimidation, skeletons 20,000, Endermen 50,000, Ender Dragon… one billion.
Control range: 15×15 blocks to start, 50,000 Intimidation to unlock.
Since each zombie gave 10 Intimidation, unlocking both range and zombies would take 6,000 kills.
Easy for a veteran.
Kill Point Store – upgrade skills, unlock MODs.
Earned mainly by killing players.
"Unlocking MODs… now we're talking."