Everything within sight was bathed in a wondrous, crystalline light.
The setting sun of dusk was sliced apart by crystal surfaces like prisms, shattering into countless dazzling fragments of warm yellow and orange-red. Amid the light's myriad changes, indigo flowed forth, emerald green wound silently onward, azure became waves, and deep violet rippled like wind.
Even breathing had been forgotten.
The world had been twisted and reshaped into the peerlessly magnificent scene before their eyes.
Cold, dazzling, and cruel.
Within that indescribable beauty emerged the most primal simplicity and solemn chill, with no warmth left to speak of.
This was no longer a realm for ordinary mortals!
"Realm of Encirclement?!"
Lawrence cried out.
The Yacheng Security Bureau actually had a second Chosen One who had reached the Boundary of Heaven-Man?!
And it was that temporary team leader who had been parachuted into the North Mountain Team and coldly ostracized by the Security Bureau?
Had he still underestimated her?
No, this feeling...
His thoughts raced in an instant, and Lawrence suddenly understood.
"Stained World turned into barriers and a desperate realm—this Matrix... it's you!"
He widened his eyes and stared at that indifferent face. The once-lovely features were now utterly bloodless, and her tranquil eyes held not the slightest ripple. Only the faintest upward curl at the corner of her lips remained, as though she were a Masterwork carved by a peerless divine artisan, interpreting the shifting joys, sorrows, anger, and happiness.
It was as if she had become a deity in a sacred temple, looking down arrogantly.
The pain, desire, joy, and sorrow of the Mortal World could no longer move her in the slightest!
"—[Minerva]!"
"What a nostalgic name."
Wen Wen sighed softly and raised a hand. "It's been a very long time since anyone dared call me that to my face..."
Boom!
In that instant of transformation, without the slightest warning, Wen Wen's figure was already right before him!
Her right hand clenched into a fist and drove forward.
Crystalline phantom light enveloped it, making the hand seem like a work of art carved from crystal.
Yet that single punch made the enormous Realm of Encirclement tremble and roar.
The sound of shattering rang out without end.
In the blink of an eye, the bones in Lawrence's hands, tentacles, and even upper body shattered completely, and flesh exploded outward.
Amid the howling gale, scarlet blood and scraps of flesh continually fell and flew from the fissure-covered skeleton, like an enchantingly waving flag!
Yet on that shattered face appeared a smile.
So mocking.
"Haha, hahahaha! Even the Heavenly Beings couldn't kill you? The Federation actually let you live? Your bounty is much higher than mine!"
Countless writhing worms, like blood vessels, rapidly regenerated from the skeleton. They wove together into a sinister and eerie face—the unmistakable true visage of Lawrence.
Even after suffering such devastating injuries in an instant, the followers of the Vortex had always been renowned for their vigorous vitality and terrifying regenerative power. They possessed countless ways to preserve their lives. Even if crushed into powder, for a Chosen One like Lawrence, who had remained at the Rebirth Rank for many years, as long as his parasitic worms survived, rebuilding his body was no more difficult than snapping his fingers!
More importantly, even Lawrence himself could hardly believe it...
Wen Wen had grown weaker!
Before the Realm of Encirclement unfolded, the woman before him had made his entire body shiver with dread. But after the realm spread, the level of threat had instead plunged rapidly, leaving her merely troublesome.
"How laughable, Minerva. The renowned World-Splitting Executioner, the Mad Dog Butcher, has actually grown so softhearted?"
He found it unbelievable, almost suspecting some trick or conspiracy. He demanded, "You spent so much effort just to preserve the lives of those expendable materials?"
At that moment, within the area covered by Minerva's Realm of Encirclement, every living thing—all the ordinary people who had fainted inside Jici Hospital, all the innocents caught within it—had been sealed inside crystal, isolated from the erosion and influence of the Vortex Implantation Technique and parasitic worms. Even those unconscious or on the verge of death...
Time itself seemed to have stopped.
Every condition had been forcibly fixed at the instant the crystal spread over them.
The Frozen Realm of the Wasteland Ruins Path had actually been spread so extravagantly across every single person? Even for Minerva, that was far too outrageous!
Wen Wen stepped forward.
Her answer was another iron fist powerful enough to collapse a building head-on!
Pure matter, pure strength—thunderous wind and lightning burst forth between her fingers, circulated, and drove forward, Crushing the Old and Rotten as it punched a gaping hole through Lawrence's newly regenerated body!
"Enough to deal with you!"
The Vortex represented life.
The Wasteland Ruins represented eternal, unchanging matter.
The crystallization ability, combined with the apex Matrix of the Wasteland Ruins Path—Minerva—had created an indestructible force in frontal combat, along with terrifying defenses that even surpassed those of the same rank!
No sane person would try to stand against humanoid fortresses that casually Metalized their entire bodies and maxed out both offense and defense!
Unfortunately, that was only relative...
The once-unreachable precipice that seemed to reach the heavens had now become nothing more than a thick, solid wall. It was still troublesome, but it no longer possessed that majestic Aura of existing alongside the world, nor that terrifying pressure of invincibility.
Weak. Far too weak.
Even if her strength still retained its original height, her mind had already become feeble beyond measure!
"The Wasteland Ruins Path needs human emotion the least!"
Crack!
At that instant, a crisp shattering sound rang out.
Fissures appeared across the crystalline radiance.
Viscous blood slowly seeped from the wound in her abdomen, dropping one bead at a time onto the ground with a sizzling sound, blooming into sharp, icy crystal flowers.
"I'm curious—"
Lawrence raised his regenerated limbs. Amid the dancing tentacles, a blade hidden in a blind spot finally extended from his flesh.
The strange blade was entirely black. Patterns faintly emerged under the reflected crystal light, then vanished in an instant, sinking into the darkness, its outline impossible to discern.
As his long tongue licked the mutated blood onto its tip, carefully savoring the heat and pain within it, Lawrence grinned. "The 'Heavenly Craft - Dusk Shadow,' reputed to pierce the iron walls and city defenses of the world—how does it compare with Minerva's defenses?"
The shrill cry abruptly ceased.
Between her closing fingers...
Blood seeped out beneath the shattered crystal light, only to rapidly transform into crystal harder than steel. It spread, interlocked, and bound itself in place.
"A scrap of broken iron?"
Wen Wen asked, "Is that what you're relying on?"
She raised her other fist just like that.
Clenched it.
Then came a raging tide powerful enough to shake the entire hospital. Crystals proliferated from the earth like surging waves, bursting forth and spreading outward.
With a single punch, she raised a hurricane.
Blood sprayed, flesh splattered, and Lawrence, struck head-on by the fist, had already become a ragged skeleton. Yet savage flames still surged within the skeleton's eyes.
They were filled with ecstasy and delight.
He had blocked it!
"Haha, hahahahaha!"
Before Minerva's fist was his outstretched palm, now reduced to half a remnant of bone. Yet fresh flesh and tissue rapidly proliferated across the bone.
It was entirely different from the fragile mortal body of the past.
This was a complex structure surpassing every scale, sinew, and membrane in the Mortal World. More solemn still was the thread of sweet scarlet flowing within it.
Brilliant and dazzling, like crimson radiance!
Just this single drop, merging into his body, had instantly recreated a shell capable of directly contending with Minerva!
"I succeeded! I succeeded!"
Lawrence laughed wildly. The flesh on his back unfolded, seeming like countless arms. They reached toward the branches hanging from the Giant Tree in the heavens, clenching, connecting, and drawing out!
He greedily sucked in this miraculous Sweet Dew, a glorious result squeezed from countless deaths and hardships!
"Above all mortal things, the vastest culmination of the myriad forms is the dragon."
He devoutly recited the ancient verses passed down within the Dragon Offering Society, intoxicated by this wondrous Metamorphosis. "Destruction and Natural Disaster are its breath; pain and despair are its blood!"
Now, Dragon Blood had come from hell, and the transformation had begun.
He would evolve. He would Ascend.
He would be reborn from the Dragon Blood!
Amid his wild laughter, Lawrence suddenly felt the Vortex Implantation Technique's transformation strangely halt for an instant, then swiftly return to normal, as if it had merely been an illusion.
Only among the countless roots coiled around the Giant Tree, Ji Jue's sleeping little finger moved almost imperceptibly.
Like a spasm in a nightmare.
A futile struggle.
.
It was as if he had suddenly fallen into the deep sea, unable to breathe.
Amid a coldness and suffocation he had never known before, Ji Jue fell into a bottomless nightmare, drifting with the current toward deeper depths.
All he could see was scarlet. All he could hear was lamentation echoing in his mind.
It was as if millions were crying at once—miserable cries, futile roars, struggling until, at last, they wearily let go and fell into the abyss, never to return.
All that remained were bones and tears.
Those tears gathered into an ocean. The tide rose high, and amid the tide of wailing, it swallowed everything.
"Why did you kill me? Why?!"
In a daze, someone seemed to seize him by the collar and rasp desperately, "I'm only a wage earner! I'd only been here for a few months! I'm innocent!"
But before Ji Jue could answer, the phantom seemed to dissipate. In its place was an exhausted, disheveled man covered in coal dust, repeatedly smashing the door before him. "Where's my money? Where's my money? Boss, didn't you say you'd pay my wages back today?"
The iron door still stood tall, and no one answered.
"You're all liars! You're all deceiving me!"
The desperate man wept bitterly and raised his hammer. "I'll fight you all!"
He smashed the door open, and gunshots rang out.
Everything came to an abrupt halt, and the illusion dissipated.
Yet Ji Jue heard a familiar beeping sound. The smell of disinfectant drifted into his nose. He turned around blankly and saw a filthy hospital room, along with a gaunt woman on the bed. Her hair had all fallen out, exposing a wrinkled scalp.
"Eat a little. Have some more."
The man attending her raised a bowl of food. Unshaven, he smiled ingratiatingly. "You still have chemotherapy this afternoon. Eat a little so you'll have the strength."
But she did not eat.
She could barely raise her hand anymore.
"Listen to me. Let's stop treatment and go home, all right?"
After a long silence, she said softly, "This illness costs too much money."
The man froze in place, his hand holding the bowl suspended in midair, while his spine gradually hunched as though something invisible were pressing down on him.
He lowered his head.
"Mm."
That was the final sound before the tears fell.
Then came a torrential downpour. In the blurred world, only wailing remained. A woman rolled across the ground and clung to a child's leg, pleading with tears streaming down her face. "Don't inhale it! Stop inhaling it! Please, I'm begging you as your mother—once you get hooked on this, your whole life is ruined!"
Bang!
A club came crashing down, drowning out the sound of the rainstorm.
The world spun.
In another sealed room, cries and moans came from the bed. A naked woman, her face covered in blood, was seized by the hair and slammed against the wall. Then she silently endured slap after slap, fist after fist.
She let the heavily tattooed man brutally ravage her until he had had his fill. He pulled off his belt and yanked her face up from the floor. "Bitch, did you enjoy that?"
Amid her shrinking fear, that seemingly familiar face twitched, struggling to squeeze out a smile. "Brother Yang, you're so manly. I really like it."
Blood clearly trickled slowly from the corner of her eye, yet her smile was so sweet.
As if she were happy.
Please, please, don't hit me anymore.
Until the very end, she had not possessed the courage to say those words aloud.
Ji Jue closed his eyes, unwilling to look any longer.
But those clamorous sounds continued pouring into his ears. In the end, they all turned into a hoarse, muddled voice, like a prayer.
"Great Compassionate Buddha Bodhisattva, please protect us. Save this child, save her... This disciple bears deep karmic burdens and deserves to sink into the Eight Sufferings and endure Avici. But she's still young. She hasn't even gone to school..."
Before the Buddha statue, an old man's tears streamed down his face. He bowed his head forcefully and prayed hoarsely.
Again and again, he repeated himself, never daring to stop.
Apart from prayer, he had no other way left.
But the gods and Buddhas gave no response.
Only the choked, hoarse prayer gradually faded into the deathly silence.
Enough!
Stop, please, all of you.
Let me go!
Ji Jue covered his ears, but it did no good.
More voices, more scenes—those memories, images, and nightmares surged ceaselessly into his consciousness and mind. He wanted to scream and sob, but amid the countless laments, he could not make a sound.
He was still falling, toward the deeper reaches of despair.
Until at last, complete silence.
It was finally over.
For one brief moment, that was what he thought, until flames rose from the ruins and wreckage, spreading and illuminating the outline of hell.
On the charred earth, flames leaped. A wind carrying sulfur and ash rose, blowing away the black smoke that blotted out the sky and revealing the blazing-red night sky.
The stars twisted and wound like molten glass, dripping strands of dim light.
And so, it reflected the world's ruin.
The way this Natural Disaster had swept across it.
The Nightmare had returned.
The sound of shattering, the echoes of collapse, the grating shriek of twisting steel, and, from afar, a drifting, elusive song rising from the flames. The song was hoarse and broken, yet so gentle.
Ten years ago, the Tidal Flame Disaster.
Ji Jue finally understood that he had come to the deepest depths of hell.
A place that belonged to him.
Across the shattered, cracked earth, the rails had burned red and melted. The carriages that had broken free of the tracks tumbled across the scorched ground, scattering bones, before finally sinking into the ashes.
Flames spread between the broken seats, while thick smoke billowed.
Among the fragments and scorched earth, people still wailed and struggled, trying to crawl out of the flames. In the end, they were swallowed by the ruins.
"...The sun has set, night has come."
Someone was softly singing a lullaby inside the shattered carriage. The gentle voice echoed through the flames and smoke. "Close your eyes, quick, and let sweet dreams embrace you."
Ji Jue stood rigidly in place, staring blankly at the half-shattered door before him, yet he did not dare push it open.
He wanted to turn and flee, but there was nowhere to go.
"The stars are shining, the bright moon is rising."
The voice sang softly, "Look at the afterglow of the setting sun. I'll stay beside you and wait for you to wake. I won't go anywhere... I'll wait for you to wake, with sweet dreams beside you..."
Smack!
The shattered door fell from the raging flames, and the horrific scene inside the carriage entered Ji Jue's eyes.
It was like hell.
Yet in hell, someone was singing, bathing in the flames.
She was half-kneeling on the ground, cradling an unconscious child. She had placed the only Gas Mask over his face, wrapped him in a fireproof blanket, and used her own embrace to seal every gap.
And so, she revealed a smile.
So blissful.
There, amid the flames' scorching, she sang as she gradually lost her breath. Only her hoarse song echoed through the child's dreams, again and again, accompanying him as though it would continue into eternity.
It was as if she had never gone far.
Ji Jue staggered forward, letting the flames burn him.
He walked toward the end of the dream.
This was the final ending left behind by that vast Calamity.
What Curse Bearer, what Chosen One, what miracle of life... Ji Jue had no idea what those people had been babbling about. He could not understand them, and they had all gotten it wrong.
"The one who should have survived back then wasn't me, was it, Mom?"
Ji Jue gazed at her and asked softly, "I'm the lucky one who shouldn't have been on the survivors' list."
Ten years ago, aboard this train that would never reach its destination, a child named Ji Jue should have died in the Calamity and returned to Dust.
But someone had traded him out of hell.
With herself.
Ji Jue slowly reached out, wanting to touch her cheek, but his fingers stopped in midair. He did not dare move forward, afraid she would turn into a bubble that shattered at a touch and vanished without a trace.
Only his tears could no longer be held back.
"I miss you so much, Mom."
He murmured softly, "I really do."
In the silence, no one answered, but the sound of the flames suddenly vanished.
There was only the song.
The song echoed through hell, again and again, growing clearer, like the tide slowly rising, steady and unshakable.
At the end of the song, a high, shrill whistle suddenly rang out once more!!!
The darkness was pierced. The scorched earth vanished. The raging flames disappeared into the howling wind. The Nightmare was torn apart and crushed into fragments with ease.
Answering his call, the dream that had accompanied him for ten years rose from the deepest depths of despair.
It swallowed everything!
As if time had reversed.
Gentle sunset light streamed through the window. Amid the sound of the train striking the tracks, Ji Jue awoke from his Nightmare and stared blankly at everything familiar.
It was as if he had returned once more to the time before disaster arrived. He was still aboard that train thundering forward, embraced by those tender memories.
"You look so sad, Ji Jue."
Someone gently stroked his cheek, her eyes tender.
Ji Jue looked at her. Several times, he opened his mouth to speak, but in the end, he could only lower his head and avoid her gaze. "I'm just... a little tired."
"Then get some proper rest. It's fine to sleep a little longer." She ruffled Ji Jue's hair. "If something is too difficult, you should also learn to give up when necessary."
"Mom, can you hug me?" Ji Jue pleaded softly.
"Of course."
Without hesitation, she opened her arms and drew the child she had been parted from for ten years into her embrace. She was so slender and thin, yet in her arms, he felt so safe, as if there were nothing left to fear.
The entire world could no longer hurt him.
Ji Jue closed his eyes, and his tense body relaxed. He listened to her humming and felt her warmth and breath.
The sweet dream was so long, as if it had no end.
Until he opened his eyes again and clenched the watch ticking around his wrist.
"Are you leaving?" she asked.
"Mm."
Ji Jue looked at her. "There are still some things I have to do. They'll be difficult... but don't worry. I'll handle them, just like before. Nothing can defeat me."
"Goodbye, Mom."
He drew a deep breath and gave his final farewell. "I may... never be able to come back again."
Light laughter rang out, as if she were looking at a child troubling himself for no reason. It was clearly such a simple matter.
"Then keep moving forward. Don't look back again."
She smiled and cupped the young man's cheeks. "I'll watch over you, wherever you go, whatever path you take. I'll miss you, just as you miss me."
And so, she embraced him one final time.
She left a gentle kiss on his forehead.
And so, she watched Ji Jue turn and leave.
Ji Jue walked a few steps forward, unable to stop himself from wanting to look back once more, but he did not dare—until he heard the voice behind him.
"Ji Jue!"
Beneath the sunset's glow, she called his name and waved. "Do your best!"
"Mm."
Ji Jue nodded hard, wiped away his tears, turned around, and pushed open the door at the end of the carriage.
He bade farewell to everything that had once been.
The train seemed to recede into the distance and vanish, just like that fading dream.
Ji Jue plunged once more into the blood-red deep sea—cold, suffocating, and painful, yet so familiar. This time, he was no longer afraid or terrified.
He raised his head and gazed at the countless humble pains and lingering echoes of despair.
"Hey! Can you hear me?"
Ji Jue drew a deep breath and shouted with all his strength, "I'm right here!"
In that instant, the crimson ocean whipped up raging waves and surged like boiling water. Countless blood-colored torrents of fury rushed toward him, converging as they sought to tear apart this foreign object that did not belong here.
"Come outside with me."
Ji Jue reached out toward those departed obsessions and extended an invitation. "I'll avenge you."
In an instant, the crimson fell deathly silent, as if frozen.
The wails and sobs abruptly ceased.
It was as if countless pairs of eyes had turned toward him from the dead world, gazing at the young man before them. They stirred against one another, slaughtered each other, and raised a chaotic current unlike any before.
In the end, they became a blood-soaked palm.
It grasped his hand!
The contract was forged.
In that instant, the ocean formed from endless pain and despair split open down the middle!
The torrent surged forth and swallowed Ji Jue. Endless pain, like mountains, bore him upward, carrying him toward the mortal world, toward that world that did not belong to them.
In that instant, Ji Jue opened his eyes.
Through the strange Giant Tree, he gazed at the crimson-covered sky, the collapsed and shattered hospital, the countless crystalline Giant Pillars thrusting up from the ground, and the countless patches of writhing flesh scattered everywhere.
The transformed figures swung their tentacles and laughed hysterically as they gradually swelled.
As far as the eye could see, the world had become just like hell.
But he was not afraid of hell.
He had already crawled out of hell. He had been granted the most precious treasure in this world. He would live well. He would accomplish something. From that day onward, every day of Ji Jue's life had been Like Heaven!
And now...
The time for retribution had come!
He reached out his hand...
Amid the fierce battle, Lawrence's expression suddenly froze as he once again felt the supply of Dragon Blood cut off!
Before you continue