Lego's parents didn't say a word of reproach after the disastrous parent-teacher conference. This unusual silence weighed heavily on him. He guessed his family had simply accepted the grim reality: he was a hopeless student, and his only future lay in following his father—hauling freight or cleaning up the remains of slaughtered beasts.
But Lego was not about to accept that fate.
"I can't just be an ordinary nobody! As a transmigrator, shouldn't I be granted some god-tier ability like in the novels? Why did that damn god throw me here without so much as a 'Golden Finger' or a system? Without a tool, how am I supposed to change this rotten plot? Dammit! To hell with that god!"
He looked down at his scrawny hands. "This body is pathetic. With a frame this small, I can't fight anyone. I have to change. Right now!"
Lego threw himself into a workout routine from his old world: push-ups, squats, pull-ups... he forced himself to do 100 reps of each. His frail body was unaccustomed to such intensity; every muscle fiber felt like it was being torn apart, and the searing pain shot straight to his brain. He gritted his teeth until his limbs went numb, then transitioned into boxing-style jump rope drills he had seen on TV.
"Does physical training increase the chance of Awakening? Some novels I read said it works..." Lego reassured himself, silently praying for a miracle to smile upon him.
By the end of his session, a ravenous hunger hit him. He checked the fridge, only to find a pitiful sight: a few bottles of Coke and some bags of chips. He reluctantly took the snacks to his room, munching on them while flipping through the TV to learn about this world.
As he flipped through the channels, he was instantly floored. The news was reporting on "Beast Tamers" who—instead of taming creatures for battle—were mating with humanoid monsters.
"There are humanoid monsters?" Lego muttered. The report got even darker, stating they could bear offspring. "Shit, these people are out of their minds!"
The more he heard, the more nauseated he felt. These hybrid children were placed under a slave contract by their own fathers the moment they were born, turned into nothing more than biological weapons. The revulsion rising in his throat made the chips in his mouth taste like ash.
Driven by a dark curiosity, Lego connected the TV to the internet and delved into the dark web to see just how depraved this world truly was. He skipped the usual categories and clicked on "Human & Monster."
"Holy shit! Even with monsters that aren't even humanoid, they still..." Lego gasped in horror. "The god who created this world must be a psychopath of the highest order."
On the screen, a satyr-like beast-man was attacking a woman. After the scene, the actress nonchalantly gave an interview: "I no longer feel satisfied with ordinary men." Other clips showed beast-women using strange bodily fluids to enchant and enslave men.
Unable to stomach any more of this sickness, Lego exited the site and searched for martial arts matches like MMA to clear his head. However, he found no normal ring matches; instead, the screen was filled with death matches between "Awakened" superhumans.
Intrigued, Lego focused. The TV was broadcasting a 2v2 team match. One side consisted of a massive fat man wielding a greatsword and a lanky man with daggers. Their opponents were two women: one holding a long, spiked whip, the other a ninja using throwing stars.
The woman with the whip activated her power, channeling electricity into her weapon. Bolts of lightning sparked wildly, obliterating the surroundings. The fat man, though clumsy, used his greatsword to parry the strikes while biding his time. He gathered energy and unleashed a golden arc of light toward his foe.
The whip-user somersaulted away with expert grace, a look of contempt on her face. She suddenly boosted her output, causing the whip to swell in size as thorns sprouted from it like needles. The fat man turned pale, immediately turning tail to run toward his teammate. Simultaneously, the ninja girl unleashed a flurry of shuriken that split into three, homing in on the lanky man as if they had eyes.
In his frantic retreat, the fat man was struck by a stray shuriken right in the buttock. He let out a blood-curdling scream and collapsed: "The stars are poisoned!"
The lanky man panicked and activated his invisibility, vanishing into thin air. The fat man wasn't so lucky. The massive whip lashed out, coiling around his neck. The thorns sank deep into his throat, spraying blood everywhere. His eyes rolled back as lightning wreathed his body, incinerating his clothes and flesh into a charred husk.
"Only one against two remains!" the MC shouted frantically. "Can the invisible assassin turn the tide, or will he follow his teammate into the grave? Place your bets now!"
The crowd cheered wildly as money rained down from the stands.
"Interesting. Even betting on human lives is normal here?" Lego whispered, eyes glued to the screen.
As the two women approached the fat man's corpse to scavenge for loot, a small spatial vortex opened silently beside the ninja girl. A flash of white light zipped through the air, slicing through her neck before the dust could even settle. The vortex vanished instantly.
The ninja girl only felt a slight itch on her neck, but when she reached up to touch it, blood sprayed onto her teammate's face. She collapsed, dead before she could make a sound.
Seeing her partner killed, the whip-user snapped. She wailed in grief and fury. A murderous aura surged around her, and lightning danced violently, making her hair stand on end in the wind.
Lego shifted in his seat, fully drawn into the drama. "Now it's getting good!"
"Where are you?! Come out! I'll make sure you suffer the most painful death imaginable!" she roared.
The lanky man, hiding in the shadows, sneered. "Who would be stupid enough to show themselves? I'm an assassin, you idiot. You're dead." He continued to use his "Blink" skill, moving without a trace.
In her rage, the girl unleashed a shockwave that decimated everything within a 10-meter radius, but she still couldn't find him. She pulled out a blood-red pill and swallowed it whole. Her eyes instantly turned a glowing crimson, emitting a blinding light.
"Oh, she's popping pills like a cultivation novel?" Lego said, enthralled.
Suddenly, the girl vanished and reappeared right where the assassin was lurking. With a lightning-fast grab, she clamped her hand around his throat. He struggled in terror, but the girl's strength was now off the charts. A shockwave exploded from her palm into the assassin, shredding his clothes, drenching him in blood, and distorting his face beyond recognition.
She didn't stop there. She slammed his body into the ground repeatedly until the floor buckled. When her rage finally cooled, she reverted to her normal state, her breathing ragged.
Just as the MC was about to declare her the winner, the "corpse" of the assassin twitched. As the girl moved in for the kill, a beam of purple light shot out from his mouth.
BOOM!
A massive explosion rocked the arena, and smoke filled the stage. When it cleared, the assassin was gone, leaving only the panting girl. Suddenly, a vortex opened above her, dropping two spherical objects. She looked up, but exhausted and drained, she couldn't react in time.
A series of "cracks" sounded, followed by another earth-shaking blast. The light was so intense it blew the spectators back despite the protective barriers.
When the light faded, a figure was revealed kneeling on the ground. It was the girl, but her body now looked ravaged by extreme radiation—her hair was gone, her skin was wrinkled and deathly pale, looking like a living ghoul.
From the sky, a blood-red "corpse" fell with a thud. He stood up, pulled a longsword from the void, and stumbled toward the girl. The audience and the MC were frozen in horror at the macabre sight.
The assassin (now a mangled mess) lunged with his sword. Suddenly, the girl's eyes moved. She tilted her head, letting the sword impale the wall behind her. she lunged forward, thrusting her hand clean through his chest. She stared at him with cold eyes, but the corpse only smiled.
A sense of dread washed over her. The sword stuck in the wall suddenly flew backward. The girl tried to pull her hand out, but the dying assassin hugged her with his remaining strength.
SHLUCK! The sword pierced through them both. They collapsed together—a mutual destruction.
Outside the screen, Lego clapped enthusiastically, his heart pounding. "Everyone died? Those people are insane. They must have used forbidden skills to burn through their life force."
Lego reminded himself: If I ever meet an opponent who can 'zombify' or just refuses to die like that... I better run as fast as I can. Killing them is harder than climbing to heaven.
The TV broadcast ended with a commentary explaining that the fighters had used a "Zombie-form" skill, allowing them to continue fighting for a short window after being biologically dead.