Asura looked at the golden turtle indifferently and said, "I am not interested in playing this boring game with you. If I say you will be a slave to his soul, then you will be."
The golden turtle did not respond this time. It appeared as though it had accepted its fate.
"Now then, your time ends here. Off you go, back to your world."Asura waved his hand, and Alvin felt as though his soul was falling into an abyss with no end.
Gradually, Alvin's consciousness blurred once again, sending him into a deep slumber.
.........
In a parallel universe similar to Earth, called Celestia, inside a mountainous cave that had been transformed into a home, a muscular man lay on the ground as though he were sleeping.
The man wore a loose sky blue shirt and shorts. His long white hair reached his waist. Standing nearly 1.95 meters tall, he appeared like a miniature giant among normal humans.
All over the man's exposed skin, on his forearms and legs, were faint scars. Instead of making him look ugly, the scars added a rugged charm to his already handsome face.
There were also two black tattoos on his forearms.
On his left was a tattoo of a frail, silly looking monkey.On his right, a fierce dragon coiled like a snake around his arm, its majestic head glaring at anyone who dared to look at it.
Suddenly, the man who had been lying peacefully shivered. His eyebrows twitched, and he groggily opened his eyes , still confused.
His eyes were striking , purple pupils with a faint tinge of red swirling within them, giving off an otherworldly glow that seemed both mysterious and intimidating.
"What the heck was that… a dream or something else?" he murmured, holding his forehead in confusion.
Alvin was certain that with a bullet lodged in his heart, there was no way he could have survived, even if the best doctors on Earth had tried to save him.
But strangely, after drifting through a dark space for some time, a weird turtle had appeared like a villain. Then, suddenly, a man called Asura had entered the scene and effortlessly slammed the turtle into the ground.
And now, when he opened his eyes, he could feel his body again as if nothing had happened at all.
As Alvin stared blankly at the ceiling, a turtle suddenly popped out of his chest.
"What the hell..."Alvin quickly rolled backward in fright upon seeing the turtle.
"You still have the cheek to ask? That bastard has already constructed my true body using your soul. But do not expect me to call you master just like that..." the turtle shouted angrily at Alvin's face.
Its voice sounded like that of a little girl. Combined with its chubby body, barely the size of a palm, it actually looked quite cute.
Alvin patted his wildly beating heart and asked in surprise, "Weren't you the turtle from my dream? How the heck did you come out of my chest?"
The golden turtle stared at Alvin, as if trying to see through his true thoughts. After a while, it stood up on two legs and sighed,"You really do not remember anything from this life, huh?"
"Why don't you check yourself first?"
Alvin frowned. "What riddle are you playing with me... Holy moly"Halfway through his sentence, Alvin noticed the tattoos on his forearms.
Looking at his body, he realized it was even more muscular than that of a professional bodybuilder. Even the wild bull he once hunted did not have as much meat as he did now.
"What did you do to me... Jesus, Allah, Shiva, Hercules, help me keep this ghost away from me"Alvin made a cross with his fingers and pointed it at the turtle as he slid backward in fear.
The turtle's mouth twitched."Stop acting like a fool. Compared to the Draven I know, you are a complete sissy."
"Sissy? It is your father who is a sissy. I am an upright soldier, mighty even" Alvin shot back. Then he frowned. "Who is this Draven you are talking about?"
The turtle sat down on the floor with a dejected look, like a little monk lamenting its fate.
"I will brief you on what happened. The rest is up to you."
Alvin nodded, still staying far from the turtle, truly scared out of his wits by everything happening around him.
"You died in your original world a long time ago. Your soul entered the cycle of reincarnation and was reborn into this world, called Celestia."
"From what I saw in your memories, the only real difference between Celestia and your old planet is that here, magicians and warriors exist. The rest is pretty similar, except we use mana to power our technology instead of batteries and electricity."
Alvin looked at the turtle expressionlessly. "You expect me to believe your ridiculous story?"
The turtle snapped, clearly irritated at being interrupted."Shut up and listen to the full story first. Whether you believe it or not, we can talk about that after you explain my existence or how you are in another person's body."
Alvin froze. Indeed, everything happening around him made no sense scientifically or logically.
The turtle ignored his reaction and continued,"Your father, Cyrus, was an evil heretic feared across the world. Your mother was a war slave named Elena."
"I was sealed in a scroll your father found in some ancient ruins. By sheer coincidence, you managed to unseal me and I merged with your soul to avoid death, since I was extremely weak back then."
"So I only have memories of you and your family from that time. Cyrus was practically an animal in human skin. He used to beat you and your mother so often, I thought you would die from lack of treatment several times."
"One day, at the age of nine, you ran away from home with the help of your mother."
"You can imagine what happens when a kid that young wanders the outside world, right?"
"For two years, you lived like a beggar. But everything changed when you were captured by members of the New Gate Alliance, along with other beggars."
"They conducted all kinds of human experiments on your body until you were barely alive. Seeing you had no chance of survival, they threw your body into the jungle."
"And this is where your luck kicked in. A group of tribal people saved your life. That is where you learned their secret technique, the Chaos Blood Ascension Sutra, and also where all my calculations went astray" , the turtle gritted its teeth as it said the last part.