Immortality begins with Swallowing the Stars.

Chapter 1 Insect Swarm and the Mysterious Gate

Heyun City, Heyun University.

The once spacious gymnasium is now empty, with basketball hoops and other sports equipment gone, the seats in the stands removed, and the floor covered with beds, carpets, and even a few scattered tents.

This is no longer a gymnasium, but a refuge, or rather, the entire campus has become a refuge.

A young man wearing a hoodie sat in the corner, touching his chest through his clothes, a hint of anxiety flashing in his eyes.

"Still pale red, are you trying to force me to kill someone or risk leaving the city?"

Lu Jing gave a bitter smile, as if fate was playing a joke on him. He had died of cancer in his previous life, but he never expected to have another chance.

Although this Earth is subtly different from his previous life in many ways, he simply considers it a parallel world. He has even prepared to use entertainment works from his previous life that did not exist in this world to plan a legendary career from genius director to entertainment tycoon.

I never expected that it would suddenly be changed to a post-apocalyptic scenario halfway through.

He was reborn in the world of Swallowing the Stars in this life!

When the name "RR virus" appeared in the news, Lu Jingren was stunned.

After that, he experienced another life-or-death separation. His mother and stepfather did not survive the RR virus infection, leaving behind Lu Jing, his sister Lu Shengnan, and his ten-year-old brother Lu Shengchuan. Lu Jing did not even have time to grieve.

Because only he knew that the rampage of the RR virus was just the appetizer, and the more bloody and insane era of rebirth had just begun.

A month ago, all coastal areas were attacked by a large number of sea monsters. Although Heyun was located inland and had not suffered too much damage, everyone had a vague feeling that humanity, which had long been the master of all spirits on Earth, was about to face a subversive challenge.

Fortunately, he does indeed have a cheat code.

In his previous life, Lu Jing suffered from cancer. His parents and family members tried everything, from materialistic to idealistic methods, including medicine and metaphysics. His grandmother spent a lot of money to get a jade pendant from some temple. The pendant was carved with a door and he always wore it on his chest.

When he died of illness and transmigrated to this world, he had a blurry purple birthmark on his chest since childhood. As he grew up, the birthmark became clearer and clearer. The pattern on it was exactly the gate carved on the jade plaque. The pattern depicting the gate was extremely complex and mysterious. However, Lu Jing tried many methods but could not figure it out, so he gave up.

After his parents died in this life, he accidentally killed a mutated stray dog. The originally purple gate suddenly turned bright red, and the intricate patterns on the gate came to life like earthworms, transforming into some unimaginable text that carried information.

A flood of information rushed into Lu Jing's mind, making him realize that this door allowed his spirit to descend to other worlds, and upon returning, he could bring back all the power he had acquired in those worlds, transforming it into some unknown primordial energy through the mysterious door and injecting it into his body.

However, there is a time limit to spiritual descent into another world. The ratio between the two worlds is one to one hundred. One day in the main world is equivalent to one hundred days in the descent world, and one year is equivalent to one hundred years.

Despite the seemingly comfortable situation, once Lu Jing's spirit descended into another world, his body was essentially in a vegetative state. Putting aside safety issues, even a person in a vegetative state with a slow metabolism would starve to death without food or water, and wouldn't last more than a few days.

Therefore, he gained almost nothing from his last trip to the world of "Panlong".

After the gate opened once, it turned back to its original purple birthmark appearance from its bright red color, making it impossible to pass through again. Over the past month, Lu Jing had killed some relatively weak mutated animals in the city that had not yet escaped to the wild, but this only left the gate stained with a light red color.

Lu Jing estimated that to meet the conditions for opening the gate again, he would either have to kill a larger number of lives or kill stronger lives.

However, the mutated animals in the wild are far stronger than he can handle. Even though the bodies of humans who survived the RR virus disaster have become stronger, with strength, speed, cell activity, and skin toughness all more than doubling, other plants and animals have obviously evolved faster than humans.

Even though Lu Jing's spirit descended to another world a month ago, and he brought back all the physical energy of a mortal from that world, his physical attributes are at most twice as strong as those of other ordinary people.

It is currently the early stage of the Great Nirvana, and there is no complete concept of levels yet. However, according to Lu Jing's estimate, he is probably at the level of an intermediate student in "Swallowing the Starry Sky" at present, which is far from being a martial artist. Meanwhile, the mutated beasts evolve extremely fast. The weakest mutated beasts now are at the level of a primary beast soldier—comparable to the level of a primary warrior martial artist.

The mutated beasts in the city either escaped to the wild or were gradually eliminated by the military. Lu Jing now has a cheat code, but he can't activate it again.

He had tried other methods to become stronger. After realizing he was on Earth in "Swallowed Star", he collected some so-called martial arts manuals, some real and some fake, as well as many yoga practice methods and even yoga video tutorials.

Unfortunately, he truly lacked the comprehension of a novel's protagonist. He was of average talent, possessing neither spiritual power nor any ancient martial arts prodigy. Perhaps with ten or twenty years of training, he could gradually become stronger, but in this world, he had younger siblings to take care of. If he couldn't quickly become a strong person, he could only drift with fate, an ordinary person whose life and death were not in his own hands.

"Xiao Nan!"

A loud shout reached his ears, pulling Lu Jing out of his reverie and causing him to stand up with a frown.

"Brother..." A girl who looked about fifteen or sixteen years old stood up behind him. Her gaze toward Lu Jing was slightly unnatural and pleading. She was his stepfather's daughter in this life, his sister Lu Shengnan.

Lu Shengchuan, the younger brother who was sleeping next to him, was also startled awake and got up with a confused look on his face.

Lu Jing sighed inwardly, nodded to her to comfort her, and then turned to look at the several figures walking over.

The leader was a young man wearing a plaid shirt. His gaze swept past Lu Jing as if he were invisible, and he only looked at the girl behind Lu Jing.

"Nannan, didn't we agree that you'd stay at my place? I have my own private room with a bathroom. Why do you insist on squeezing into this place with these people?" The young man looked around, seemingly smelling a foul odor, and curled his lip in disdain.

With thousands of people crammed into a confined space, having not showered for two or three days, the smell is naturally bound to be unpleasant.

Some people around looked indignant at the young man's offensive remarks, but no one stepped forward to argue with him. In such a densely populated shelter, those who have private space are definitely not ordinary people.

Lu Jing reached out and grabbed the young man's arm that was reaching for Lu Shengnan.

The young man struggled, but felt as if the hand holding his arm was made of steel. His expression changed slightly. Looking at Lu Jing's expressionless indifference, he felt a chill and his hair stood on end. He was then furious and snorted coldly. Just as he was about to say something harsh, he was interrupted by the girl's gentle words.

"Zheng Hu! You already have a girlfriend, why are you still looking for me?" The girl's tone was arrogant yet resentful, deeply hiding her annoyance, which only Lu Jing could detect.

Lu Jing was taken aback, turned to look at his sister, and released his grip on Zheng Hu. He had just had a fleeting thought of killing the kid to see if human life could speed up the process of restarting the portal.

He immediately felt a chill; it seemed that the arrival of the apocalypse and his brief experience of descending upon the Panlong World had inevitably affected his temperament.

"Brother..." Lu Jing keenly noticed that Lu Shengnan gently tugged at his clothes, as if afraid that he and Zheng Hu would have a conflict.

Lu Jing sighed inwardly. Sure enough, drastic changes in environment can best mature a person's mind. Lu Shengnan is much more mature now than he was a few months ago.

The trouble at hand was actually caused by Lu Shengnan himself. He and this adopted sister were not related by blood, and because they were from a blended family, the two had been at odds since childhood. To be precise, it was Lu Shengnan who was at odds with him, since his soul, which was several decades old from two lifetimes, could not possibly be so naive.

When Lu Shengnan entered puberty, she became even more rebellious. Not only did her grades plummet, but she also got involved with hooligans outside of school. Perhaps many teenage girls have been infatuated with bad boys like those in the "Young and Dangerous" movies, or perhaps it was just a simple case of rebellion. Fortunately, there was no melodramatic pregnancy or abortion plot yet.

Originally, Lu Jing didn't care about such things at all. In peacetime, it was a trivial matter. Once adolescence was over, everyone would grow up and go their separate ways. These were just embellishments among the many absurd events in his youthful memories.

But when the end times arrived and the era of great power returned to oneself came, these childish tricks of children became something he had to seriously confront.

Zheng Hu, who still had some of the air of a street thug, had a brother who was a so-called superpowered person—Lu Jing guessed he was a psychic with a high status. As a result, his every move, every word, and even his delusions that were once considered childish had real destructive power.

For example, his harem.

Zheng Hu seemed pleased by Lu Shengnan's tone, giving Lu Jing a sinister look before a smile curled at the corner of his mouth: "Nannan, I'm just worried about you. We haven't officially broken up yet, so don't worry, Yan Yan and the others won't be jealous of you."

A hint of disgust flashed in the girl's eyes, along with a touch of regret. How could she have gotten involved with such a person just because she was angry with her family?

Can……

Thinking of the other person's rumored older brother, and the several heinous crimes she had heard about in the city, she felt a slight tremor in her heart. She was no longer the innocent girl living in her father's pampered environment and ivory tower.

In this climate of fear and uncertainty, she didn't want to endanger her stepbrother and younger brother, with whom she had recently improved relations, and she dared not break ties with them. But how could she continue to feign compliance? If all else failed... she would just have to accept being bitten by a dog...

"My sister doesn't like you. Don't bother me anymore. Are you leaving on your own, or should I throw you out?" Lu Jing said calmly, looking at the other person with a serene expression.

"Brother..." Lu Shengnan looked at the figure blocking her way with surprise and worry.

"Kid! How dare you talk to Brother Tiger like that?!"

"Don't think we won't teach you a lesson just because your sister is Tiger's woman!"

"The last person who disrespected Tiger already has a broken leg!"

Zheng Hu stopped the few sycophants behind him who were trying to curry favor. After all, he had an older brother who was a superhuman serving in the military, and he himself was practicing the martial arts manual that his brother had obtained from the military. He still had his own eyesight and judgment.

From that handshake he just received, he could tell that Lu Shengnan's older brother, whom he hadn't paid much attention to before, was stronger than him. Either he was a lucky guy with naturally strong strength, or he had also cultivated traditional Chinese martial arts or other ancient martial arts.

These lackeys can bully ordinary people by relying on his name, but if an opponent with strength greater than that of an ordinary person also practices ancient martial arts, even if he only knows a few moves, they are no match for him.

"Hmph, don't think that..."

Zheng Hu was sneering when suddenly a piercing alarm sounded, causing the crowd in the stadium, who were either cowering in fear or staring blankly, to begin to stir.

A faint, almost hallucinatory sound began to hum, growing clearer and clearer. The sound seemed to trigger some kind of strange resonance, causing an indescribable anxiety and panic to surge in everyone's hearts. Their hearts pounded so hard they felt like they were about to burst out of their chests!

"The insect swarm is coming!!!"

(End of this chapter)