Reborn: The Lone Assassin

Reborn: The Lone Assassin is a competitive game-themed web novel by the online author Invincible Flying Cat, serialized on Qidian from 2012, about 1.8 million characters long and now complete. Set in the mid-twenty-first century, when the virtual-reality online game Sword of Dominion officially launches, it follows the protagonist Ye Hen, orphaned young and forced to leave school at fifteen to work, who single-handedly put his sister Ye Ke through university. To cover her tuition he returns to a construction site, falls from the ninth floor, and dies—only to open his eyes in his rented room half a year earlier, before he was supposed to enter Sword of Dominion. In his previous life he was targeted by a major guild's mercenary corps over a golden dagger, "Night's Kiss," killed by high-PK-value players, stripped of his equipment, and never recovered. With his memories intact, he re-enters the game, again choosing to be born in Mingsha Town in the Loulan Kingdom and again choosing the assassin class—still without guild backing, neither minion nor leader—relying on his knowledge of game mechanics and superb skill to move alone among the great guilds. He takes hidden quests, clears dungeons first, and trades equipment, potions, and land, rising from a solo player to a top assassin while uncovering the hidden past of the NPCs and the feud behind the "Blade of Good and Evil." The book centers on his revenge, business dealings, and rivalries in the game world, interspersed with sibling affection and urban romance in real life—a typical rebirth-genre virtual MMORPG power fantasy.