My Invincible Defense: Traversing the Endless Worlds

“Didn’t you say the area was empty?” Su-Jin snapped, her delicate brows shooting upward.

She was a beautiful woman, with a sweet, innocent face and eyes that were anything but naive. A fitted blue-and-white uniform hugged her body, accentuating every curve. Combined with her harmless appearance, she looked like a rookie starship pilot fresh out of the academy.

But Finn knew that Su-Jin had been flying starships for six hundred years. Beneath that innocent exterior lurked the unruly soul of a reckless speed demon. She was not to be underestimated.

“I didn’t expect some guy to suddenly fly over and pick a fight with me.” Finn shrugged helplessly.

The two of them were standing in the starship’s cockpit. Embedded perfectly in the sparking control console was… a corpse.

Judging by the face fused with the display panel, First Senior Brother had passed away very peacefully.

He had probably died on impact.

First Senior Brother had been hovering in the sky when Su-Jin’s starship jumped between worlds and materialized directly where he was. The result was that he and the ship had merged together.

It was like clipping in a video game, when two unrelated objects passed through and overlapped each other. Clipping was no big deal in a game.

In reality, though, it meant you were screwed.

Finn had once seen someone clip into a septic tank, leaving his head embedded inside it. He had no desire to witness anything like that ever again.

“Did you let his soul escape?” Finn asked.

“Of course not. I shattered it with one palm strike.” Su-Jin raised her chin proudly, looking every bit the consummate professional. “He was a Nascent Soul cultivator. If I hadn’t destroyed his spirit, he would’ve called the locals over to take revenge on us.”

“Alexa, Alexa.” Su-Jin clapped her hands, summoning the ship’s onboard artificial intelligence. “How are the repairs coming along?”

A gentle electronic female voice sounded through the cockpit.

“All nanobots have been deployed for repairs. Current progress: ninety-five percent.”

“Where are we headed?” Su-Jin flicked through the holographic interface before her and began entering coordinates for an interworld jump.

“Any colony planet will do. I need to restock.” Finn reclined in his chair and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep as memories of his past surfaced.

…

Finn was ordinary-looking and of ordinary height.

He was also a transmigrator.

The only unusual thing was that he had transmigrated six hundred years ago.

Before that, Finn had been a miserable engineer, earning a pathetic salary while working the brutal 9-9-6 schedule—nine in the morning to nine at night, six days a week. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he also had to write a goddamn daily report for his direct supervisor.

One night, he finished working overtime and began walking back to his rented apartment beneath a sky full of stars.

At that exact moment, two Immortal Venerables were fighting to the death in another dimension. Their battle created a spatial vortex, which sucked Finn in and forced him to transmigrate.

After crossing over, he discovered that the Endless Worlds truly existed.

Every world had different rules. Every universe possessed its own unique laws.

Throughout the Endless Worlds, gods and demons were everywhere, and Immortal Emperors were a dime a dozen.

Cultivators traded blows with mages. Paladins rode dragons into battle against mecha tanks. Interstellar missiles rained down on the Jade Emperor.

Unfortunately, he soon discovered that despite being a supposedly chosen transmigrator, he had no spiritual roots, no superpowers, no magical aptitude, no special physique, no miraculous jade pendant, no ancient master living inside a ring, and definitely no system bound to him.

What the hell?

This was nothing like the novels!

If he drank a genetic evolution serum, he would most likely drop dead on the spot. If he underwent cybernetic modification, some shady doctor would probably use him as a lab rat.

Then, through a stroke of luck, he found a dust-covered copy of the Fire Profound Divine Art lying forgotten in a corner.

No one else could cultivate it, but it seemed almost tailor-made for him.

The greatest advantage of the Fire Profound Divine Art was its ability to refine any form of energy and convert it into cultivation.

Spiritual qi, battle aura, mana, astral power, potion-based mystical energy—it could handle them all. Even energy released by nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, or the Big Bang itself could be used for cultivation.

There was only one problem.

The amount of energy it required was astronomical, which made cultivation painfully slow.

It had taken Finn two hundred years just to reach the perfected First Heavenly Layer.

Two whole centuries!

Any other transmigrator would have reached Foundation Establishment, formed a Golden Core, cultivated a Nascent Soul, ascended to Soul Formation, married a gorgeous heiress, and made it in life by then.

He then traveled from world to world gathering cultivation resources before entering seclusion for another three hundred years.

Only then did he finally reach the Second Heavenly Layer.

That was why he would never pass up a treasure containing vast amounts of energy.

After all, he still had a long list of enemies chasing him around with four-hundred-meter sabers, electromagnetic cannons, ancient magic wands, and artifacts forged by Immortal Venerables.

He had to increase his strength as quickly as possible. That way, when his enemies came knocking, he could turn the tables and hunt them down instead.

…

The streamlined starship cruised through the stratosphere. Finn and Su-Jin sat in the cockpit.

For once, Su-Jin wasn’t chattering away. She piloted the starship in silence, as though Finn’s return had stirred up certain memories.

“A lot happened during the three hundred years you were in seclusion,” she said.

“What happened?” His heart sank. A bad feeling crept over him.

“There was a traitor among us.” Her expression darkened.

“A traitor?” He raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Within the Endless Worlds, Finn belonged to an interworld club known as the Space-Time Destruction Bureau.

The organization had been founded single-handedly by a legendary powerhouse known only as the Boss. It didn’t have many members, and most of them were complete weirdos, but everyone got along well and their loyalty had never been in question.

Besides, the Bureau was just an eccentric civilian organization. It had nothing worth betraying.

“Someone leaked the location of our headquarters. The Star Cosmos Empire’s assault troops and agents from the Space-Time Administration Bureau broke through our defenses. A lot of people died… The Boss detonated himself to protect us…”

Su-Jin’s voice was bitter, without a trace of her usual cheerfulness.

Finn fell silent, unsure what to say.

He normally traveled between worlds and spent centuries at a time in seclusion. He had always remained on the fringes of the organization and knew little about its internal affairs.

After a pause, Su-Jin pulled herself together and forced a smile. “There’s no point dwelling on depressing things. The Bureau recently detected energy fluctuations from a World Core in World Beta-SIX-A-985.

“As it happens, the natives of that planet are human, and their main language is an alphabetic subject-verb-object language similar to English. You might be interested in tracking down the Core. It would definitely be a huge help to your cultivation.”

A World Core?

His interest was immediately piqued.

The World Cores were an ancient god-tier civilization’s ultimate creation, designed to reboot the universe.

The god-tier civilization had failed. Their attempt to restart the universe caused their own world to collapse, but several World Cores pierced through the dimensional barriers and scattered into other worlds.

Ever since, countless factions had fought over them, both openly and in the shadows.

He had cultivated the Fire Profound Divine Art and spent a full three hundred years in seclusion just to break through his bottleneck and reach the Second Heavenly Layer.

He still had to advance through the early, peak, and perfected stages of the Second Heavenly Layer, to say nothing of the higher realms beyond it.

The amount of resources required would be astronomical.

But if he could refine a World Core, his strength would soar straight to the peak.

It was worth the risk.

“World Beta-SIX-A-985, huh? Take me there.” He stretched his limbs. After three hundred years in seclusion, it was time to see what his Second Heavenly Layer cultivation could do.

“Sis Avasarala recently discovered a rookie with the potential to become a full member. She wants you to show him the ropes.” Su-Jin grinned. Her sweet smile looked suspiciously devious.

“Is the rookie a cute girl?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then I’m not doing it,” he replied without hesitation.

Avasarala was the human resources manager of Finn’s club. She was also the HR supervisor, HR secretary, and HR janitor.

That was because Avasarala was the entire HR department.

Sis Avasarala was warmhearted and kind, and her ability allowed her to discover the hidden talents of others. Unfortunately, this meant she regularly recruited all kinds of baffling “talent.”

Once, she discovered that a pigeon had a gift for writing novels, so she helped awaken its supernatural ability.

After several hundred days of writing lessons, everyone unanimously agreed that the pigeon tasted much better in soup than its novels did on paper.

“Why can’t someone else mentor the rookie?” Finn asked.

Su-Jin grimaced and began listing their companions’ many bizarre tendencies.

“You know what Bearmont’s like. That musclehead would beat the rookie half to death, cripple him, send him to the hospital, and then go complete the mission alone.

“By the time Bearmont finished the mission, the rookie would be out of the hospital, and they could submit the mission report together.

“As for Tadokoro, he’d drug the rookie’s tea and rape him while he was unconscious.”

“What’s the rookie’s ability?” he asked.

“He’s a supernatural ability user. There’s nothing wrong with his ability, exactly. It’s just a little… unusual.” Su-Jin gave him a mysterious look. “It’s hard to explain. He’s waiting at one of the branch bases. You’ll understand once you meet him.”

“Oh, and one more thing.”

She looked at Finn, a hint of concern appearing in her clear eyes.

She warned him softly, “According to the Pioneers’ data, World Beta-SIX-A-985 contains anomalous technology far beyond its era. Be careful.”