As soon as Feng Xinya's soul completely transmigrated into the next mission world, his instincts immediately kicked in as he rose up from his lying position on the cold, hard ground beside the large, burnt, and barely recognizable bed.

Not even half a second later, something had pounced toward his previous spot with a ferocious and voiceless screech. When Xinya turned his head and directed his gaze to scrutinize the figure that had attempted to harm him, he spotted a humanoid creature with an average build crouching down on all fours with only a few strands of graying, whispy hair hanging from its otherwise bald head.

Its hallowed eye sockets were completely devoid of its eyeballs, with traces of dried blood trailing down its emaciated, dull cheeks. The teeth in its mouth were jagged and sharp. It donned clothes that a stereotypical chef would wear, but the pristine whiteness of the garb was ruined by the occasional leakage of blood and pus from the large pores on the creature's body.

Accompanying the creature was an exceptionally foul and heavy scent of rot and decay.

The time it took for Feng Xinya to observe the walking corpse was not long. Similarly, when the screeching being realized it had missed its target, its bones creaked as it lifted its head to face Xinya's direction and shrieked before lunging its body toward him once more with its bony fingers extended out as if to grab him. The creature was agile.

The wide, opened mouth full of sharp canines aimed straight at what it perceived to be Xinya's most vulnerable spot as he sat carelessly on the floor—his exposed neck.

As a vampire who had been on the battlefield for his entire life, this "corpse" was not much to Feng Xinya. There were plenty of lower vampires that were used as foot soldiers, and they appeared almost no different from the frenzied corpse before him. Furthermore, in his world, vampire necromancers had the ability to manipulate corpses, which was fundamentally different from the existence of vampires.

If he were in his original body, Feng Xinya would have smashed its fragile skull with a slight squeeze of his palm.

Unfortunately, he was not foolish enough to trust in his current vessel. The moment he'd sat up to avoid injury, Feng Xinya had taken note of the heaviness of his body and a minor headache that was insignificant due to his own pain tolerance. In actuality, his face was covered in fresh blood that had oozed from his orifices prior to his transmigration.

Although the body's build was certainly outstanding, its current condition was akin to an engine having long run out of steam. The only reason it was still functioning at all was due to Feng Xinya's soul and willpower that was strong enough to defy the body's natural constraints.

Maneuvering such a body as he would his own would be a dumb move since the effect would not be up to par with his expectations. In short, it was an inefficient use of his energy.

The corpse wasn't very far from Xinya in the first place, so it didn't take any longer than a second for it to reach him. As Xinya did not move from his spot, he let its bony fingers pierce into his shoulders, drawing blood.

"Wha-Damn! Xinya! That's a zombie! A zombie ah! Why did you let it scratch you?!" Xiao's panicked voice echoed throughout the formerly simple yet elegant bedroom with seemingly recently-charred walls, straight into Feng Xinya's ear. This time, the system was a miniature version of its rosary form, hanging from the host body's sterling silver hoop earring on his right ear.

Although Feng Xinya had never seen a zombie since he'd never encountered a vampire necromancer, with his intelligence, he was more than aware that coming into contact with such an infectious rotting creature was not good for his obviously human body. However, his experience with danger and threatening situations did not alert him, so he knew that the scratches would not affect him.

Therefore, he didn't so much as even blink as he let the zombie exert its power to the fullest to overpower him so that it could tear into his neck with its bloody teeth.

"Oh, it's a suicide...a suicide ah..." Xiao sincerely lamented. He felt that he knew of his host's stubbornness and prowess best, so seeing as how Xinya was simply letting the terrifying zombie do whatever it wanted, Xiao only felt that his host had finally given up on life. Sure enough, maybe the torture he'd gone through was too much for him this time and...

Feng Xinya lifted arms, his hands closed in on the zombie's swiftly nearing head with his thumbs placed directly underneath its jaws. He flicked his wrists slightly, then...

Crack!

...crack, crack, creaaak.....

The silly system watched on blankly as his host continued pulling the zombie's spine from its body by its head with only his two hands, its putrid mix of pus and dark red blood pouring out all over his own body from its neck due to the force of gravity.

All the while, Feng Xinya's face remained impassive up until the moment the zombie's vertebrae had been completely extracted from its body along with its head, rendering it "lifeless."

He pushed the headless body of the corpse away from himself as he leaned forward, then wordlessly snapped the useless head from the atlas of the spine, tossing it to the side.

Feng Xinya ignored the muffled groans and snarls of the zombies outside of the room as he shifted through the body's memories while busying his hands to prepare for the High-Level World. He knew there would be no further interferences as the room was on the second floor of an otherwise empty villa whose residents consisted of the previous host and his chef. From his memories, he knew that the zombies that were entering through the manor's gates were still a distance away from his current location.

Xiao had told him before the transfer that Hard-Level Worlds were classified as "Hard" due to the hosts having the world information withheld from them. They would only have the body's memories and the mission to work with. Of course, the condition to stay in character was also still valid.

Keeping the spine sideways in his hand, Xinya's next actions officially broke his pitiful system's mind. Slowly and carefully, his large hand with perfectly defined joints glided over each individual vertebra starting from the thoracic vertebrae and proceeding downward, straightening and lining them up together so that the overall spine no longer curved in and out.

When everything was forcefully aligned tightly and straightly, Xinya pinched down on the bodies of the vertebrae with his fingers, flattening them out so that they were no longer rounded, but angled sharply like blades to form the edge of the sword. Similarly, he pressed down on the spinous processes, sharpening them into the bone sword's back teeth.

He folded the sacrum in half, compressing it into a similarly planar width as the rest of the sword's blade. Then, he slid his hand across the entire roughly crafted blade to smoothen out its surface and fill in any gaps and holes.

After Feng Xinya had finished the blade, he used the cervical vertebrae as the hilt of the one-handed, guardless bone sword, and designated the axis and atlas as its pommel.

The zombie's bones were not nearly as hard and strong, nor as malleable as his original body's. However, the only effect that difference had on the process was the loss in efficiency when creating weapons. Of course, the resulting weapon would also be lacking, but it was certainly better than having nothing.

Creating the zombie bone sword and sorting through his memories took no longer than five minutes, but it took more energy to manipulate the form and shape of the bones than Xinya was used to.

In fact, aside from waking up to find his new body in such a tired state, Feng Xinya had felt the familiar feeling of his power dwelling within. It was extremely unstable and almost nonexistent, but the general ability to manipulate bones was there. Because of its ethereal quality that felt as if he'd lose it at any moment, Xinya quickly made himself the best possible weapon he could to prepare for the mission.

After all, his own handmade weapon would be better than any firearm in this world.

In his world, members of the Feng Clan were more than just bone manipulators. Their bodies were composed differently in that their bones were exponentially more fluid yet harder than the average humans, which enabled their combat style of making use of their own skeletons as weapons. Furthermore, their weapons were classified as top-class weapons due to this superior material.

For example, Feng Xinya could extract his entire spine from his body without suffering any harm because he simply had to manipulate the rest of the bones in his body to make up for the missing mass. It was only possible due to the immense quality of his bones compared to an average human, surplussed by the engraved runes on his body.

However, in this mission world, despite its relatively powerful build that resulted from years of exercise and combat, his current body was a normal human so he couldn't do the same to it as he would with his original.

Additionally, his current body's previous host, Sima Lei, did not possess the ability to manipulate bones at all. He had originally been a mutant ability-user who could create and manipulate red lightning, a phenomenon that could only occur due to moisture, haze, and dust in lower levels of the atmosphere. In short, if Sima Lei had time to develop his powers, he would have been able to control more than just simple lightning, but also the particles in the air due to the mutation.

Unfortunately, he didn't even have time to fully comprehend his ability before the crystal nucleus in his brain was shattered by an unknown man who'd intruded upon his villa in Z Country's capital city, Z City (A/N: great naming sense amirite).

Normally, Sima Lei should have died due to the shock caused by the man having pierced his crystal nucleus directly inside his cranium. Yet, he was still alive now thanks to Feng Xinya's soul that was supporting it.

While Xiao was still confused as to why his host was able to use a small percentage of his original power in this world, Feng Xinya was more knowledgeable and perceptive about the mysteries of the soul and system than his little system. This was because he was experiencing the soul transfer process personally, coupled with his excellent comprehension for insight and enlightenment.

The reason Xinya could exert some of his own dominion over the body was simple. Sima Lei's body was a completely empty vessel now that it not only lacked a soul, but also the crystal nucleus that could store the host's ability. The important part was that Sima Lei was originally an ability-user. However, the shattering of his nucleus left the space it took up in his brain completely empty and free to be occupied by another perfect fit.

Since Feng Xinya's own ability was exponentially more powerful than Sima Lei's, it would be possible to take a portion of it to mold into a crystal to implant it in the empty space. At the moment, Xinya's power was severely unstable because he did not form the new nucleus yet.

He didn't know how.

Thus, his ability would be temporarily incomplete in this world until he found a way to materialize it properly.

"Don't worry, Xinya! I can use the system search function to look for possible solutions! Uh, it will take a while..." Xiao hesitantly voiced out after remembering that the search engine was gogglr, and he might have to filter out a lot of useless data as a result.

Feng Xinya had already planned to assign that role to his system, so he didn't feel the need to verbally express his opinion before shifting his attention to ponder over his mission.

Regarding his new identity, it was the year 2029 and Sima Lei was the youngest and most promising Major General in Z Country at the age of 24. He was an orphan who enlisted early, made outstanding achievements, and was expected to become the next General with his own power and influence. Of course, with his position came not only loyal subordinates and supporters but also countless enemies who were envious and felt threatened by his momentum. Nevertheless, Sima Lei was no fool and did not give his adversaries any chances to swallow him whole.

That was, until the universal meteor shower that sparked the apocalypse. After this meteor shower, all of the humans in the world fell unconscious for a maximum of a week. Some woke up with no changes in their body, while the lucky ones had newfound abilities coursing through their bodies. The unlucky majority woke up as undead, craving for the flesh and blood of their families, friends, and general humankind.

Sima Lei was coincidentally on leave for a few weeks when the meteor shower occurred. He was forcefully awoken from his unconscious state two days after the shower. When he came to, streaks of red lightning were floating around his body, but instead of feeling a sense of gratification and belonging, he felt the power exploding within his body in gradual tides. These tides were getting stronger and stronger to the point that his body couldn't take it anymore, and he once again collapsed.

Before Sima Lei closed his eyes for the last time, he could only see an unrecognizable man's figure walking out of his room with a contented and smug smile on his face.

As Sima Lei had been asleep when his nucleus was shattered, Xinya did not know what means that the man had used to do so. This meant that while he knew no more than the vague outline of his enemy, that same enemy was the complete opposite and definitely knew even more about Sima Lei and this world than he, Feng Xinya, did.

Instead of feeling lost, Feng Xinya instead remained as unfazed as ever. This was because this mission was not impossible, as opposed to his circumstances back in his own world.

The mission was doable precisely because of that strange man's appearance, so why would Feng Xinya feel that things were unfair? In fact, if this was the best that a Hard-Level World could bring out, then he felt that the day he could avenge and free himself was conveniently near.

Restore the fate of the world, he repeated the mission to himself as he decided his next course of action.