Reborn as a Snake: From Black Python to Demon Court

In 2046, the immersive full-dive MMORPG Mythos launches its open beta. Blending countless classics such as Investiture of the Gods, Legend of the White Snake, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, and Classic of Mountains and Seas, it is touted as humanity's second world. Top-tier professional player Lin Xuan uses hacker tricks to lock in the game's sole hidden character. But during login, a data overflow occurs—and with no logout button, he finds himself permanently trapped inside the body of a black-scaled giant python. At this point in the game's timeline, it is three hundred years before Bai Suzhen floods Jinshan Temple, and five hundred years before Sun Wukong wreaks havoc in Heaven. Fortunately, Lin Xuan carries the Mythos Encyclopedia, giving him full knowledge of every plot trigger and hidden bug. From fables like The Farmer and the Snake, Drawing Legs on a Snake, the Shadow of a Bow in a Cup, and A Snake Swallowing an Elephant, to legends such as Xu Xian's Umbrella, Nezha Conquers the Sea, and the Flooding of Chentang Pass—he knows them all. He turns The Farmer and the Snake against its own logic: exploiting the mechanic of body-warming recovery, he kills the snake-catcher farmer who came for his gall. In Drawing Legs on a Snake, he adds four claws to himself, triggering a hidden evolution bug that turns him into a flood dragon. He stirs up trouble in the Qiantang River, hijacks Xu Xian's fated romance, marries the White Lady to live off her power, and even steals Fahai's mighty Great Dragon spell. Years later, Lin Xuan coils high above the heavens, his colossal dragon head looming over the Jade Emperor's hall: "Old Jade," he says, "it's my turn to sit on the throne."