The countdown ticked to [00:40].
Bibi Dong stood beside the bamboo recliner, her back stiff as an iron board.
Her gaze was fixed on the loose sash at Su Chen's waist, her pupils narrowed to pinpoints.
The purple-black Soul Power gathering at her fingertips flickered twice, then finally dissipated.
A vein stood out on her neck, and her ears were red enough to drip blood.
[00:25]
Bibi Dong was nearly grinding her back teeth to dust.
[00:20]
Deep in her soul, the terror of being crushed by the Rakshasa Divine Sense surged over her reason like a rising tide.
Fine!
Bibi Dong squeezed her eyes shut, her lashes trembling like butterflies battered by the wind.
Don't look.
I'm not looking at anything!
She groped forward with both hands. The moment her fingertips brushed the rough cloth, she yanked the sash loose.
"Whish~"
The soft rustle of the sash coming undone rang through the silent Library Pavilion like a thunderclap.
Her fingertips inevitably brushed against the skin of Su Chen's abdomen.
In that instant, the familiar aura surged from the point of contact into her palm.
Clear, vast, ancient.
Bibi Dong's fingers froze.
That aura rushed along her meridians like a warm current flowing through a dried-up riverbed, washing away the last trace of Rakshasa frenzy deep in her soul.
Her mind went blank.
Using nearly her hands and feet, she stripped off the last piece of clothing. Her knuckles knocked against the bamboo chair's frame, making her suck in a sharp breath from the pain, which she then forced herself to swallow.
Eyes still closed, she felt around for the new underclothes in the Black Wood Box beside her and hurriedly put them on, tying the sash into a hopelessly crooked knot.
[Ping—the task has met the requirements.]
The instant the mechanical voice faded, Bibi Dong was struck as if by lightning.
She sprang back, her lower back crashing into the tea table. The basin on top clattered to the floor.
Half a basin of warm water splashed everywhere, soaking the hem of her skirt.
But she couldn't spare it a thought. She couldn't spare anything a thought!
Outside the door, Angela jerked her head up.
A faint yet incomparably sacred aura seeped through the crack in the door.
The fluctuation was pure and untainted, belonging to no known Soul Power, yet it made her very soul tremble.
Angela's legs gave way. She dropped to her knees on the spot, shaking like a leaf.
She had served in Spirit Hall for twenty years and had never sensed a life fluctuation of this magnitude!
What... exactly was inside?!
The wooden door of the Library Pavilion was pushed open from within.
Bibi Dong practically burst out.
She hastily grabbed a towel and draped it over Su Chen, then stepped across the puddles and over the threshold with unsteady steps, almost as if her arms and legs were out of sync.
The night wind struck her burning cheeks, heating up along with them.
She braced herself against the wall, her chest heaving violently, her breathing frighteningly ragged.
Her peripheral vision caught Angela kneeling on the ground. Bibi Dong's pupils suddenly contracted, and she bit through the tip of her tongue.
The sharp sting of blood forced down the panic in her heart and that indescribable, peculiar feeling.
Looking down at Angela, Bibi Dong's voice regained the Pope's icy authority.
"Effective immediately, seal off the area within three hundred paces of the Library Pavilion. Aside from the three daily meals, no one is to approach."
She paused, her tone chilling.
"Anyone who disobeys will be shown no mercy."
Angela pressed her forehead to the ground, her voice trembling uncontrollably. "Your subordinate obeys!"
Before the words had even faded, Bibi Dong flashed away, vanishing at the end of the corridor as though fleeing.
Angela remained prostrate for a long while before she dared to look up.
She stared at the half-open wooden door, her throat dry. She didn't dare give the matter another thought.
The underground chamber beneath the Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong slumped on the cold stone seat, gripping the armrests so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
The mechanical voice in her mind sounded again.
[Reward distribution in progress: 100,000-year External Soul Bone—Demon Spider Leg.]
A searing pain erupted in her back.
Eight sharp, dark-purple spider legs tore through her flesh, emerging in a spray of blood and piercing straight through her papal robe!
An enormous surge of energy flooded through her limbs and bones.
This Soul Bone matched her Martial Soul to an absurd degree. It was practically made just for her.
As the energy poured into her, it joined forces with the life aura she had absorbed earlier and forcibly suppressed even more of the lingering Rakshasa malice within her.
Bibi Dong clenched the armrests.
She had cultivated bitterly for forty years and undergone the Rakshasa God Trial for three, yet never had any improvement come this fiercely, this outrageously!
She hadn't needed to cultivate herself to the brink of death or break through while hovering on the edge of it.
All she had done was complete a task so mortifying it could make her die of shame, and in return, she had received a 100,000-year External Soul Bone that even Titled Douluo dreamed of obtaining.
Bibi Dong withdrew the Eight Spider Lances and looked down at her faintly trembling hands.
It wasn't from fear, nor humiliation.
A trace of lingering warmth remained at her fingertips.
The contours of his abs, the sash brushing against her palm, that woody scent...
Bibi Dong closed her eyes. Her heartbeat skipped twice.
She realized that she wasn't disgusted in the slightest.
In fact, when she recalled that life aura, a secret... yearning stirred deep within her body.
It was like a person dying of thirst in the desert tasting the first drop of water, then becoming crazed for more.
Bibi Dong's eyes flew open. She dug her nails into her flesh.
Something was wrong.
This feeling was very wrong.
But she couldn't suppress it.
The Library Pavilion.
Bibi Dong's aura had completely vanished.
In the darkness, Su Chen opened his eyes.
The Light Screen burst into a sea of golden light.
[Ping! Binder No. 001 has completed a high-difficulty interaction. Lord of Creation's hundredfold critical return has been triggered!] [Reward obtained: God-level External Soul Bone—Wings of Creation!] [Origin Soul Power rebounding. Initiating!]
A surge of heat erupted from his dantian, like magma flooding into his limbs and bones.
In his Sea of Divine Consciousness, the World Tree Martial Soul went into overdrive. Its roots plunged deep, its branches spread, and his empty meridians were instantly filled with boundless power!
His Soul Power Level began to soar!
Level 10, Soul Scholar!
A bottleneck? Didn't exist.
Level 20, Soul Master!
The World Tree's trunk thickened once more, scattering emerald light in every direction.
Level 30, Soul Grandmaster!
His Soul Power finally settled, no longer rising.
A tearing sensation ran through Su Chen's back. His coarse clothes silently turned to ash as a pair of wings burst from his body.
Emerald and pure white light intertwined. Their wingspan exceeded a zhang, and every feather pulsed with the rhythm of life.
The Wings of Creation.
In the Sea of Divine Consciousness, the first crystalline emerald divine leaf sprouted from a branch of the World Tree.
Centered on Su Chen, green ripples spread visibly through the air within three meters.
The withered bamboo joints on the recliner's armrest split open, tender green shoots emerging from them.
The dust on the ground silently vanished as the green light swept over it.
The Domain of Life.
A fledgling form.
Feeling the vast power inside him—so vast it seemed downright unreasonable—Su Chen smiled.
With a thought, the Wings of Creation withdrew into his back. The green ripples faded, and the tender shoots stopped growing.
The Library Pavilion fell silent once more.
Su Chen lay back in the chair, tugged the towel that still carried the Pope's scent over himself, and closed his eyes.
He had kept a low profile for sixteen years. One ironclad rule had long since been carved into his bones.
A trump card was always more important than his life.
Before long, a jumble of footsteps sounded outside the door.
Angela seemed to have gone to muster some men, and the oppressive aura had disappeared from the corridor.
"Bang!"
The wooden door was kicked open. One of its hinges snapped, and it slammed crookedly against the wall.
Three low-ranking Spirit Hall stewards strode inside, cursing under their breath.
Their leader was a short, plump young man in his early twenties. He made no effort to conceal the Soul Power fluctuations of a three-ring Soul Grandmaster. His tiny eyes brimmed with greed and jealousy, plainly written all over his face.
His gaze swept around the room before settling on Su Chen, stretched out on the recliner.
"Well, well, if it isn't the great good-for-nothing Su!"
The plump young man kicked the broken tea leaves on the ground aside, his mouth twisting into a smug grin.
"I heard His Holiness the Pope came to this dump in person today and even issued a lockdown order. Tsk, tsk. You're a good-for-nothing without a single Soul Ring. Just what kind of bewitching potion did you give His Holiness?"
Su Chen opened his eyes and looked at the three unwelcome guests in the doorway.
He slowly sat up, wearing the same timid, ingratiating expression he had for the past sixteen years.
"Gentlemen, you jest. His Holiness was only here to inspect the place..."
"Inspect it?" The plump young man stepped closer and looked down at him. "Then why did His Holiness seal this place off? Speak! Are you hiding some kind of treasure?"
His three-ring Soul Power crashed down on Su Chen, bearing heavily on his shoulders.
Su Chen bent even lower, his eyes timid and shrinking, looking like he was scared out of his wits.
But behind his lowered eyelids, his eyes were as still as a pool beneath ten thousand years of ice.
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