Pain dragged him back to consciousness like a hook behind the eyes.
Hao Jianren groaned. His skull felt like it had been stampeded by a herd of animals and then used as a drum in some demonic music video. Last he remembered, he was hunched over his keyboard, pounding out another desperate chapter. Then—darkness.
"…Did I just die of overwork? Seriously?"
He opened his eyes to a water-stained ceiling, spots of mold spreading like continents. The air smelled like cheap cigarettes, sour booze, and a faint iron tang that made his stomach twist.
"This is not my room."
Before he could sit up, foreign memories poured into his mind—disjointed flashes like a badly edited montage.
Vos Nibaba.
Twenty-five. Orphan. Lonely by default. A stubborn writer of "classical literature" in a world where people barely read subtitles, let alone essays. His career was a long, unbroken streak of humiliation.
He lived in Hell's Kitchen—Marvel's notorious neighborhood where crime felt less like an accident and more like a local hobby.
Last night he got blackout drunk after another manuscript rejection, wandered into a gang shootout, and got executed before he could even sober up.
And now Hao Jianren was wearing his skin.
"I transmigrated… and into Marvel, of all places?"
He took a shaky breath. "God, please tell me I'm not within walking distance of Wilson Fisk."
He touched the back of his head. His fingers brushed over dried blood and something slightly raised—almost like the skull hadn't fully healed.
His stomach lurched, and he leaned over the bed.
BLEGH.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The door shook under someone's fists.
"Vos! I know you're in there! Rent! Two months overdue!"
The landlord.
Vos froze. He glanced at the puddle of vomit and the dark pool of dried blood beside the bed.
Perfect. Exactly the kind of scene that screams "arrest me."
"I—I'm changing clothes!" he called out, scrambling to shove bloody sheets under the bed.
"Don't lie to me! Pay or get tossed out!"
"No, listen! I—uh—I just got inspired! A masterpiece! After this, I'll buy the White House for you!"
He wanted to slap himself. Even he didn't believe that.
Silence lingered outside. Then:
"Three days! No money, you're gone!"
Footsteps faded.
Vos sagged to the floor.
"That… was too close."
Ding.
A cold synthetic voice whispered in his skull.
[Summoning System activated]
[Summons characters from any anime, film, comic, game, or novel into the current world]
[Host may copy one random ability from each summon]
[All results are random. Good luck surviving.]
Vos blinked slowly.
"…Yeah, sure. Add some hallucinations. Why not."
The floor lit up.
A golden magic circle spun alive, runes orbiting like gears in a mad clock.
Vos stared.
"What now—"
The light flashed.
Two figures formed.
BANG! CRASH! WHUMP!
A blue-and-white cat blurred into motion, swinging a frying pan bigger than his torso.
DONG!
It smacked onto the skull of a small brown mouse.
The mouse compressed like a slinky. Then BOING—snapped back, furious. He grabbed a baseball bat from thin air and cracked it across the cat's toes.
WHACK!
"OWWWW!" Tom howled, hopping on one leg like he'd stepped on live wires.
Jerry squeaked triumphantly and kept hammering.
Bonk!
Bonk!
Bonk!
Vos stared, stunned.
"That's… Tom and Jerry. Real. Alive. In my room."
Tom's patience broke. He grabbed the bat, snapped it clean in half with a sharp CRACK, and tossed the pieces aside.
Then, as though rummaging in an invisible pocket dimension, he pulled out a fly swatter.
SMACK!
Jerry flattened like a pancake.
A second later: pop! He reinflated, eyes blazing with vengeance. He reached behind himself—clearly about to pull out dynamite.
"Oh hell no—no explosives in my room!" Vos yelped.
Before Jerry could light it, Tom pressed a paw onto his head, rotated him toward Vos, and shot him a look that said:
"Look around. Wrong universe to mess around. Control yourself."
Even Jerry paused at that.
The magic circle vanished.
[Summoned characters detected: Tom and Jerry]
[Starting ability replication]
[Replication complete]
[Host has obtained: "Master of Missing" and "Air Walking"]
Master of Missing:
A projectile aimed at you naturally veers off-course. Bullets. Knives. Anything physical. They miss by "accident."
Air Walking:
As long as you don't look down, you can stand or move in midair indefinitely. Gravity becomes a polite suggestion.
Vos blinked.
"I… actually got cartoon physics."
Tom and Jerry stared at him. Vos stared back.
He was in Marvel.
In Hell's Kitchen.
With a cartoon cat, a cartoon mouse, and abilities that would only help him survive long enough to get into deeper trouble.
He exhaled slowly.
"…I need a plan. I need a lot of plans. And maybe a helmet."