Awakening：The Infinite Evolution of My Talent as a Low-Level Awakener - Chapter 428

Chapter 428: Chapter 428: The Assassination Quest of [Transcendence]
After leaving the campus, Sterl found a job at a bank. His daily routine consisted of going to work and then returning home to play games.

Later on, he met a girl, and Sterl decided to give up gaming. He started dating during his time off from work.

The two fell in love.

Sterl stood in the church, holding his wife’s hand.

Amidst the cheers, applause, and flowers, they shared a kiss.

However…

Sterl always felt that something was off. Was his wife really just one person?

Shouldn’t there be two…?

“What’s wrong, Sterl?”

“It’s nothing, Rayna.” Sterl shook his head and kissed the girl in front of him.

Years passed.

Sterl had children.

He took care of his kids and family, slowly growing older.

Until six or seven decades later.

Sterl’s children got married and had children of their own, and he had lovely grandchildren.

Sterl retired, and his daily life didn’t change much.

As an elderly man, he still enjoyed playing games and occasionally going fishing with a few friends he knew.

In the end, he hazily saw himself peacefully closing his eyes during a long night.

The pastor prayed at his gravesite.

“Mr. Sterl was an extraordinary man. To outsiders, his life may have seemed incredibly calm and uneventful, but he fought tirelessly for his children and family, providing them with sufficient means.”

“He was an ordinary man, yet he was also an extraordinary person.”

“Bullshit!”

Sterl felt a bit annoyed. What did it mean to be ordinary yet extraordinary?

Ordinary was just that—ordinary! He had lived a life devoid of ups and downs, a truly mediocre existence!

Sterl complained, his tone clearly filled with dissatisfaction.

Wait a minute?

Hadn’t I just died?

Then—

Sterl froze, realizing he was standing on a cement road once again.

“Hey, bro, it’s time for class. Aren’t you going?”

Sterl saw his friend approaching and calmly nodded. This time, he slipped into the role more quickly.

“Yeah, it’s time to head to class.”

However, he felt a bit weaker this time.

Once again, it was a repetitive process.

Sterl graduated, started working, and got married.

This time, his wife was a lively girl named Linna.

Sterl still found it a bit strange.

Was his wife really just one person?

In the church, the vivacious blonde girl didn’t notice her husband’s confusion and enthusiastically hugged him.

Then, Sterl and Linna had children, retired, and peacefully slept on their sickbed.

This time, he saw the pastor’s prayer but didn’t complain as he had before; he simply watched calmly.

Isn’t this how it should be when someone dies?

Surely they wouldn’t turn into a spirit just to critique their own funeral, would they?

Then came the third cycle…

The fourth…

The fifth.

After each reincarnation, Sterl felt as if he had returned to a young body, beginning his campus life anew. Yet, even in this strong and youthful form, he inexplicably felt weak.

At this moment, in the void, Sterl’s body was unharmed, but his soul’s fluctuation grew fainter and fainter.

If it weren’t for the fact that Sterl had already devoured numerous Fire of Ten Thousand Souls, making his soul even stronger than that of a deity, he might have been extinguished long ago!

In the instance…

The unease from the soul’s decline triggered a reaction in Sterl.

“What’s wrong, bro?”

In the illusion,

Sterl noticed his friend looking at him with a puzzled expression.

“It’s nothing, I just feel a bit off.”

“By the way, I seem to have forgotten your name?”

“Ah?”

The abrupt and seemingly pointless question left both of them stunned.

It was as if a bug had been triggered, causing everything around them to freeze for a moment. Soon, the previous dialogue was disregarded, and time began to flow again.

“Bro.”

Sterl chose a placeholder name, wondering why he didn’t call his friend by his actual name.

“Don’t you think this life is utterly meaningless? Just going through the motions.”

The brown-haired boy looked at him with a puzzled expression and said, “Going through the motions? What do you want to do, bro? We still have student loans to pay off!”

“Yeah.”

“Student loans.”

Sterl’s ambitions were instantly crushed.

How could he talk about life and the future when he couldn’t even repay his student loans?

First… he had to focus on studying.

However, he was supposed to be following the path and attending class normally.

The illusionary space around him, which had begun to show cracks, suddenly solidified and became perfect once more.

Suddenly, a strange fluctuation surged within Sterl’s body; the Fortune cloud he had earlier acquired shattered, transforming into wisps of blue smoke.

Ultimately, it flowed into Sterl’s arm.

The disk tattoo on his arm began to glow, emanating a series of eerie lights.

Sizzle.

Sizzle.

Concealment failed, a code error appeared, and the system was rebooting.

Attention, host!

Attention, host!

The continuous notifications startled Sterl!

Oh no!

I’m still using the Mephistopheles account.

Wait? What Mephistopheles? How did I suddenly switch to a mythological story?

What does “concealment failed” mean? What am I trying to conceal?

Sterl felt a haze in his mind, as if something was trying to break free but was firmly restrained.

He looked at the tattoo on his arm, and for some reason, Sterl felt that the voice was coming from it.

“When did I get a tattoo?”

He didn’t particularly mind tattoos, but the issue was that it shouldn’t be something as ugly as this, right?

It was a bizarre-looking disk.

“No way! In my memory, I’ve never had a tattoo.”

This isn’t a tattoo! It’s just a disk that has fused into my body!

A thought suddenly sprang up in Sterl’s mind.

He chuckled to himself.

Was he really so unwilling to be ordinary that he was losing his mind?

What supernatural events happen in reality that would allow a disk to merge with one’s body?

What a joke!

“No, wait! There’s another voice coming.”

“It’s the voice of the game system.”

Sterl sensed something, and before him appeared a series of strange humming sounds, morphing into a statement that he found somewhat incomprehensible.

[You have triggered a quest!]

[You have triggered a quest!]

[Quest: Escape!]

[Quest Description: As a hell player, you dare to actively come to the main world. Your coordinates have been exposed. You have received a quest to fend off pursuers. Your location will be reported in real-time for the next 10 hours. You must survive for 10 hours to regain the right to log off and teleport!]

[Quest Reward: None]

[Warning: The [Transcendence] system will continuously issue quests to obliterate you.]

[Warning: After completing the quest, you will have one day to escape. Otherwise, you will trigger another pursuit by the [Transcendence] system.]

That was the chilling scream from the Swallowing Heaven system.

Sterl was momentarily stunned—

Swallowing Heaven?

What’s this Swallowing Heaven?

Another system?

What am I even thinking?

His expression grew increasingly perplexed.

No! No!

This doesn’t make sense!

Sterl’s mind raced.

He looked at everything around him, which had turned into a semi-transparent, illusory state…

The tattoo on his arm was very clear, and the words in his mind didn’t seem like mere auditory hallucinations.

“My memory is messed up. I should have lived a normal life!”

“Didn’t I go through several cycles like this before?”

“No! Several lives? I’ve experienced several lives? What a joke! How many lives can an ordinary person have??”

If he were a normal player, he might have been fooled.

But in Sterl’s illusion, the world he was in was one that valued science.

There was no concept of past lives or souls!

His memories and knowledge were in conflict!

The prompts from the disk and the Swallowing Heaven system had become the trigger.

“Everything’s wrong! Everything’s wrong!”

Sterl felt increasingly frantic.

His good buddy stepped forward, “Bro, what’s wrong? Do you need me to call a doctor?”

“No! That’s not it!”

Sterl screamed, shoving the brown-haired boy to the ground as he burst out of the dorm!

He dashed through the campus in a frenzy, not knowing where he was heading.

“This place… looks a bit familiar!”

Sterl suddenly stopped in his tracks, unsure why he had found himself here.

But it was as if a gust of wind had blown through the sealed memories in his mind.

He felt that this point in the campus was somewhat familiar!

“I was right here when that incident happened.”

Sterl murmured, but after he spoke, he quickly dismissed his own words.

Having gone through multiple reincarnations, his soul’s power had weakened to the extreme, yet it was still equivalent to a divine-level existence. Under the influence of the illusion, he repeatedly forgot various anomalies.

But in the turbulence of Sterl’s Divine Power, he faintly saw something…

Suddenly, everything around him turned gray.

Sterl felt a pulse in his chest—

Thump!

Thump!

The sound of his heartbeat echoed.

A golden light illuminated his chest!

“Is it my stat-boosting cheat?”

This time, Sterl showed no signs of confusion.

Other things were external, but the stat-boosting cheat was tightly intertwined with his soul.

He sensed the presence of the cheat immediately!

A strange panel appeared before him.

Sterl raised his arm; although the attribute panel didn’t show up, he could easily perceive that his school uniform could be enhanced through stat points.

Without hesitation, he chose to allocate points.

Instantly, the ordinary clothing shimmered; Sterl felt the outfit he was wearing become incredibly tough, impervious to knives and bullets.

“This is my special ability!”

Sterl’s face lit up with excitement.

“Just as I thought!”

“I knew I wouldn’t remain ordinary my whole life!”

He was overjoyed.

Under the influence of the illusion, the earlier Swallowing Heaven task prompt and the warnings from the disk were all ignored after the initial shock.

However, after the cheat was awakened, Sterl’s memory of it was directly etched into his soul, making it impossible to forget!

“With the ability to allocate points, I will rise to the top in the city!!”

“This is my destiny!”