Brooklyn, New York. Inside a run-down internet café.
A tall young man of mixed Chinese and Italian descent hammered away at the keyboard, fingers flying as lines of English profanity flooded the screen.
On his monitor was a popular card game, Warhammer. Judging by the board state, he was about to win.
His opponent clearly didn't take it well.
[Opponent]: You broke loser.
The young man didn't let that slide. He fired back immediately.
"Hello motherfucker!"
[Opponent]: You poor piece of trash! I swear I'll shove your head up your own ass! I swear it in the name of the Stark family!
"Hello motherfucker!"
No matter what the opponent said, he just kept replying with the same line.
The argument dragged on until the match ended.
Right before the victory screen appeared, the young man typed one final message:
"Stop talking trash. If you've got a problem, come find me. I live at Building 2, Room 1001. My dad's Chad Hu, my mom's Emily Hu, and I'm Hu Tao."
Victory.
He leaned back, exhaling in satisfaction.
Then he logged off and walked out of the café.
As for whether the other guy would actually track down "Hu Tao"… not his problem.
Getting called poor in a game? Yeah, that wasn't something he was going to just swallow.
Besides, no one was insane enough to crawl through the internet just to fight someone in real life.
…Probably.
He waved down a taxi on the street.
"Where to, sir?" the driver asked.
"Rasuma Church in Hell's Kitchen."
The driver shot him a nervous look but didn't say anything else. He hit the gas.
The young man's name was Anqiluo Rocks.
He'd been in this world for over six months.
This wasn't his original world.
In his previous life, he had been an ordinary guy named Ethan, part of a family that got rich from demolition compensation. One day, bored out of his mind, he downloaded a mod tool and started tweaking Diablo II on his old three-star laptop.
He had just finished modifying the Necromancer class.
He was about to unleash an undead apocalypse across Sanctuary.
Then his computer exploded.
Just like that, he got sent to this world.
Along with him came the culprit of the explosion: a completely broken Necromancer template, a full inventory of legacy gear, maxed-out Necromancer skills… and a Horadric Cube.
After that, he woke up in this body.
And now, he lived in Rasuma Church.
The building hadn't originally been called that. He renamed it after buying the entire place.
As for why a church would even be for sale…
This was Hell's Kitchen.
A place crawling with gangs, drug dealers, illegal arms traffickers, robbers, and killers.
Did people like that go to church?
Of course not.
The place fell into ruin. Eventually, even the church authorities gave up on it, calling it "a place even God wouldn't visit."
That's when Anqiluo bought it.
Though, to be fair… he got a little scammed.
When he told the real estate agent his only requirement was "big," this was what he ended up with.
Well.
It was big.
"We're here," the driver said.
The taxi stopped by the roadside.
Ahead stood a crumbling three-story church.
Vines had swallowed the outer walls. The statue on the roof was shattered, only half of it still standing. The whole place looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
"No change needed."
Anqiluo smiled and casually flicked a plain gold coin to the driver before stepping out.
The driver stared at the coin, then back at him.
"Sir… I should warn you. There are rumors this place is haunted…" His voice trembled slightly. Then, as if recalling something unpleasant, he shivered and slammed the gas, speeding away.
Anqiluo watched the taxi disappear toward Brooklyn and shrugged.
This spot sat right on the border between Brooklyn and Hell's Kitchen.
One street apart.
Two completely different worlds.
Brooklyn was poor, sure, but most people still held onto some basic decency.
Hell's Kitchen?
That place felt like the entrance to hell itself.
Crime. Chaos. Rot.
He pushed open the church doors and stepped inside.
"I'm back," he said casually.
Two statues by the entrance gave a stiff nod… then went still again.
The "haunting" rumors?
Yeah. He started those.
The statues were clay golems he summoned to guard the place.
A skill that came with him from the other world.
A Necromancer living in a haunted church… what's strange about that?
Better than living in a graveyard.
Inside, the church was surprisingly clean.
Nothing like the ruined exterior suggested.
It looked like someone regularly maintained the place.
At the center stood an empty cross. The original statue had been removed by the church before the sale.
Not that he cared.
He didn't believe in any of that.
With a flick of his hand, he summoned two pale skeleton warriors.
"Make dinner," he ordered.
The skeletons immediately got to work.
Anqiluo lit a cigar and leaned back in a chair, staring at the ceiling.
Thinking about his future.
This was the Marvel universe.
He confirmed that half a year ago when he saw a documentary about Captain America on TV.
For the past six months, he'd been getting used to life in a capitalist society.
Hell for the poor.
Paradise for the rich.
Luckily, his inventory still held a mountain of gold.
That's why he could casually toss a gold coin to a taxi driver.
Of course, he couldn't spend it recklessly.
If he dumped all that gold into the market, he could wreck the global financial system.
"…Guess I should reopen the church."
He muttered to himself.
"Get some of Hell's Kitchen's scumbags in here. They've done enough bad things… they'll definitely need redemption."
He smirked.
"I'm sure they'll be very willing to donate."
"Tonight, I'll go have a chat with them."
From the corner of his inventory, he pulled out a wrinkled certificate.
It was something the real estate agent had thrown in for free: a license from the American Religious Association.
With it, he could legally run a church.
Why a real estate agent even had something like that… who knows.
Necromancers had another title.
Priests of Rathma.
A priest is still a priest.
And priests can hear confessions.
Right?
Anqiluo smiled to himself, completely unconcerned about what his future "clients" in Hell's Kitchen might think.
Meanwhile, in Stark Tower.
The world-famous playboy genius, Tony Stark, slammed his hand down on a transparent keyboard.
"Jarvis…"