Bibi Dong's Heart in a Tangled Mess

The countdown ticked to [00:40].

Bibi Dong stood beside the bamboo recliner, her spine as rigid as an iron plate.

Her gaze was nailed to the loose sash at Su Chen's waist, her pupils shrinking to mere pinpricks.

The purple-black soul power gathering at her fingertips flickered twice before finally dissipating.

A vein bulged on her neck, and her ears turned a shade of red so deep it looked as if they might bleed.

[00:25]

Bibi Dong nearly ground her molars to dust.

[00:20]

Deep within her soul, the terror of being crushed by the Rakshasa God's consciousness surged like a rising tide, instantly drowning her reason.

Forget it!

Bibi Dong slammed her eyes shut, her eyelashes trembling like a dying butterfly in the wind.

Don't look.

I will look at nothing!

Her hands reached out blindly into the darkness; the moment her fingertips brushed the edge of the coarse fabric, she yanked the sash open.

Swish.

The soft sound of the sash coming undone rang out in the deathly silent Library Pavilion like a thunderclap.

Her fingertips inevitably grazed the skin of Su Chen's abdomen.

In that instant, a familiar aura surged from the point of contact into her palm.

Crisp, vast, and ancient.

Bibi Dong's fingers froze.

That aura drove straight into her meridians, flowing like a warm current across a parched riverbed, washing away the last trace of the Rakshasa madness deep within her soul.

Her mind went blank.

She stripped off the final garment with frantic, clumsy movements, her knuckles knocking against the frame of the bamboo chair; the pain made her gasp, but she choked the sound back down.

Eyes still shut, she fumbled for the new undergarment in the black wooden box nearby, threw it on haphazardly, and tied the sash into a crooked, tangled knot.

Ding--Task requirements met.

The moment the mechanical voice fell, Bibi Dong was struck as if by lightning.

She bolted upright, her lower back slamming into the tea table, causing the washbasin on top to flip over with a loud clang.

Half a basin of warm water spilled across the floor, splashing onto the hem of her dress.

But she couldn't care—she couldn't care about anything!

Outside the door, Angela suddenly looked up.

A wisp of an extremely faint, yet incomparably divine aura seeped through the gap in the door.

The fluctuation was clean and pure, belonging to no known soul power, yet it made her very soul tremble.

Angela's legs went weak, and she collapsed to her knees on the spot, shaking like chaff in the wind.

In her twenty years at Martial Soul Hall, she had never sensed a life fluctuation of this magnitude!

What on earth... was inside?!

The wooden door of the Library Pavilion was pushed open from within.

Bibi Dong practically lunged out.

She grabbed a towel to cover Su Chen, stepped through the water-slicked floor, and crossed the threshold with a chaotic, stumbling gait, her movements so uncoordinated she was almost moving the same arm and leg.

The night breeze hit her burning cheeks, heating up as it touched her skin.

She leaned against the wall, her chest heaving violently, her breathing ragged and terrifyingly heavy.

Catching sight of Angela kneeling on the ground out of the corner of her eye, Bibi Dong's pupils contracted sharply, and she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue.

The sharp, bloody pain forcibly suppressed the panic in her heart and that indescribable, strange sensation.

Bibi Dong looked down from above, her voice regaining the icy coldness of the Pope.

"From this moment on, seal off a three-hundred-pace radius around the Library Pavilion. Aside from the delivery of three daily meals, no one is to approach."

She paused, her tone grim.

"Those who violate this, death without exception."

Angela pressed her forehead to the ground, her voice trembling uncontrollably: "This subordinate obeys!"

Before the words had even faded, Bibi Dong's figure flickered and vanished into thin air at the end of the corridor, as if she were fleeing.

Angela remained prostrate on the ground for a long time before she dared to look up.

She stared at the half-open wooden door, her throat parched, not daring to let a single thought cross her mind.

Pope Palace, underground secret chamber.

Bibi Dong slumped on the cold stone throne, her hands gripping the armrests so tightly her knuckles turned white.

The mechanical voice in her mind sounded once more.

[Reward distribution in progress: 100,000-year External Soul Bone, Demon Spider Leg.]

A searing, violent pain erupted from her spine.

Eight sharp, dark purple spider legs tore through flesh and blood, piercing directly through her papal robes amidst a mist of gore!

A massive, overflowing surge of energy instantly scoured her limbs and bones.

The compatibility between this soul bone and her martial soul was absurdly high; it was as if it had been tailor-made for her.

As the energy poured in, it joined forces with the life essence she had absorbed earlier, forcibly suppressing a significant portion of the lingering Rakshasa evil intent within her body.

Bibi Dong tightened her grip on the armrests.

She had cultivated bitterly for forty years and undergone the Rakshasa God Trial for three, yet never had an improvement come so fiercely, so unreasonably!

No need for life-or-death cultivation, no need for near-death breakthroughs.

Simply by completing a task that had caused her social death to the point of explosion, she had obtained a 100,000-year External Soul Bone that even Titled Douluo dreamed of.

Bibi Dong retracted the Eight Spider Lances and looked down at her slightly trembling hands.

It was not out of fear, nor was it out of humiliation.

On her fingertips, a faint, lingering sensation of warmth remained.

The texture of abdominal muscles, the friction of the sash against her palms, and that woody, clean scent...

Bibi Dong closed her eyes, her heart skipping a beat.

She realized that she did not feel disgusted in the slightest.

In fact, when recalling that aura of life, a secret... craving welled up from the depths of her body.

It was like a person dying of thirst in a desert, having tasted the first drop of water, and then beginning to crave more with a frantic intensity.

Bibi Dong snapped her eyes open, her nails digging deep into her flesh.

Something was wrong.

This feeling was very wrong.

But she could not suppress it.

Library Pavilion.

Bibi Dong's aura had completely vanished.

In the darkness, Su Chen opened his eyes.

The light screen erupted with a sky full of golden radiance.

[Ding! Detected that Binder No. 001 has completed a high-difficulty interaction, Lord of Creation 100x critical return triggered!]

[Reward obtained: God-tier External Soul Bone, Wings of Creation!]

[Origin Soul Power feedback, initiating!]

A hot current exploded from his dantian, like magma pouring into his limbs and bones.

Within his sea of consciousness, the World Tree martial soul spun frantically; its roots dug deep, its branches spread, and his empty meridians were instantly filled with a majestic, boundless power!

His Soul Power Level began to skyrocket!

Level 10, Soul Master!

Bottlenecks? They did not exist.

Level 20, Grand Soul Master!

The branches of the World Tree thickened, casting a sky full of emerald brilliance.

Level 30, Soul Grand Master!

His soul power stabilized, ceasing its ascent.

A tearing sensation struck Su Chen's back; his coarse cloth shirt turned to dust without a sound, and a pair of wings burst forth from his body.

Intertwined with emerald and pure white light, the wings spanned over a meter, every feather pulsing with the rhythm of life.

Wings of Creation.

In his sea of consciousness, the first crystalline, emerald divine leaf sprouted from the branches of the World Tree.

With Su Chen as the center, within a three-meter radius, the air rippled with visible green waves.

On the armrest of the bamboo chair, the withered bamboo joint quietly cracked open, sprouting a tender green bud.

The dust on the floor vanished without a sound as the green light swept over it.

Domain of Life.

A prototype.

Su Chen felt the vast, almost unreasonable power surging within his body and smiled.

With a flick of his mind, the Wings of Creation retracted into his spine, the green ripples dissipated, and the tender sprouts ceased their growth.

The Library Pavilion returned to its deathly silence.

Su Chen lay back down on the chair, pulled the towel—still carrying the faint scent of the Pope—tighter around himself, and closed his eyes.

He had been playing it safe for sixteen years, and one iron rule had long been carved into his bones.

A trump card is always more important than one's life.

Soon, the sound of chaotic footsteps echoed from outside the door.

Angela seemed to have gone to mobilize personnel, as the oppressive pressure in the corridor had vanished.

"Bang!"

The wooden door was kicked open; one of the hinges snapped, and it slammed crookedly against the wall.

Three low-level deacons of the Martial Soul Hall strode into the room, cursing and swearing.

The leader was a short, stout youth in his early twenties. He made no effort to conceal the soul power fluctuations of a three-ring Soul Grand Master, and his small eyes were filled with greed and jealousy, as if they were written all over his face.

His gaze swept the room before locking onto Su Chen, who was lying on the recliner.

"Yo, isn't this the great waste Su?"

The short, stout youth kicked aside some loose tea leaves on the floor, his mouth curling into a sneer.

"I heard the Pope herself came to this dump today and even issued a lockdown order? Tsk tsk, what kind of love potion did a waste like you, who doesn't even have a soul ring, feed Her Holiness?"

Su Chen opened his eyes and looked at the three uninvited guests at the door.

He slowly sat up, his face wearing the same look of cowardice and obsequiousness he had maintained for sixteen years.

"My lords, you must be joking. Her Holiness was merely here for an inspection..."

"Inspection?" The short, stout youth stepped closer, looking down at him from a position of superiority. "Then why did Her Holiness lock this place down? Speak! Are you hiding some kind of treasure?"

His three-ring soul power pressed down heavily, weighing down on Su Chen's shoulders.

Su Chen hunched his back even lower, his eyes shrinking in fear, looking every bit the terrified coward.

But behind his lowered eyelids, his eyes remained as calm as stagnant water beneath ten thousand years of ice.