Chance Encounter with Train Killer Tang Wulin; Na'er: I'll Take the Initiative!

Three days later.

When Li Chen rose from the medicinal pool, a dense series of crisp cracks rang out from every bone in his body.

Ash-gray patterns spread from his spine to the tips of his limbs, flickering three times across his skin before finally sinking beneath it.

He raised his right hand and slowly clenched his fingers. The air between his knuckles burst with a deep boom. This was the purest physical strength, without the slightest enhancement from Soul Power.

Mu Ye stood by the pool with his arms folded, silent for a moment.

"It worked. Two whole days faster than I expected."

Li Chen put on his robes.

Under the dual tempering of the medicinal bath and the Guiding Technique, every meridian in his body had been completely opened. His Soul Power flowed like rivers pouring into the sea, unobstructed.

But he could feel that this smoothness was merely the foundation.

The Gold-Grade Awakening Mu Ye had mentioned still had one final step, and that step was not in the medicinal pool.

Leaning against the stone wall, Mu Ye tapped his arm for a long while before straightening. His tone lacked its usual cheerfulness. "Your full-body Bone Tempering is complete now, and every vertebra in your spine has been fully integrated. The foundation of the Body Secret Technique is laid. But the final stage of Gold-Grade Awakening isn't in this stone chamber. The Body Sect has a hidden site in the valley of Cloud-Deep Unknown, three li north of this chamber. Something is sealed there—the greatest opportunity the Body Martial Soul lineage has encountered in ten thousand years. By the rules, that hidden site can only be opened when a sect master succeeds to the position. But you've already come this far, and your Bone Tempering is complete. Giving up halfway would be a terrible waste. Come with me."

Li Chen followed Mu Ye out of the stone chamber.

Gu Yue was sitting beneath an ancient pine, reading a book, while Na'er crouched on a large rock peeling an orange.

The moment she saw them emerge, Na'er immediately jumped down to follow.

Without even turning his head, Mu Ye waved a hand. "Wait here. The Soul Power fluctuations of outsiders will interfere with the seal inside." Na'er pouted and called out to Li Chen, "Come back early."

Gu Yue closed her book and watched as the two figures disappeared into the depths beyond the stone door.

Beyond the stone door lay an extremely long passage. Soul Guidance Array Patterns laid down by generations of sect masters were embedded in the stone walls on both sides, emitting a dim crimson glow.

At the end stood a door carved from an entire block of Deep Sea Heavy Silver, bearing only the dark-red emblem of the Body Sect.

Mu Ye raised a hand and pressed it against the door. The stone door slid open without a sound.

An ancient, majestic aura surged out from behind it. Stimulated by that aura, the Soul Power within Li Chen's body began circulating on its own along the meridian routes opened by the twelve-line mnemonic.

Beyond the door was a fragment of space forgotten by time, roughly a hundred zhang across.

Above them was only a gray, hazy spatial barrier, bearing dim golden array patterns that had endured for who knew how many ages.

The black stone slabs beneath their feet were carved with dense scriptures, most of them worn away beyond recognition.

The air was permeated with the oppressive stillness of time frozen in place.

"This fragment of space originally floated deep within a fissure in the mountains of Cloud-Deep Unknown. Those idiots from the Clear Sky Sect didn't know how to use it. Then one generation of sect master used the Body Secret Technique to peel it away whole, anchored it here, and built the stone chamber and passageways to seal it layer by layer. In several thousand years, this door has only opened when a sect master took office. You're the first outsider to set foot inside."

At the center of the space stood a stone stele roughly three zhang tall.

There were no carvings on its surface, only a crack running from top to bottom like a vertical eye. A faint golden light shone from deep inside the crack, as though it had seeped in from another world.

The instant Li Chen stepped into this space, the two powers within his body reacted at once. The first came from his dantian: the abyss-black power of the Law of Death, the origin of the Pluto Martial Soul, governing life, death, and Reincarnation.

The second came from his heart. A cluster of silver-white cubic light, slumbering until now, trembled slightly after being stirred by the golden light outside. That was the Ark Core, which governed the Power of Creation and the Power of Destruction and had never revealed itself voluntarily since his awakening.

The two powers, one above and one below, were like two dormant beasts that had simultaneously caught the scent of their own kind.

His spiritual power spread outward as he tried to sense the source of that golden light, only to be gently yet irresistibly bounced back the instant it touched the stele.

"You felt it?" Mu Ye stood before the stele, looking up at the crack. "Let me explain what's inside that crack and where it came from first. This involves an old matter from ten thousand years ago."

He sat cross-legged on the stone steps.

"Ten thousand years ago, there was an organization on the Douluo Continent called the Holy Spirit Cult. All records concerning it were destroyed after the war. But you should know of Huo Yuhao, the man who revived Shrek Academy in its second generation—the Spirit Ice Douluo."

Li Chen nodded.

"The history books say that Huo Yuhao defeated the Sun Moon Empire, but they only tell half the story. The true power behind the Sun Moon Empire was the Holy Spirit Cult. This Evil Soul Master organization had infiltrated the court and the populace for centuries. Its successive cult leaders all came from the same family—the Zhong Family. The Soul Ring ages of the Zhong Family bloodline far exceeded those of ordinary people. Nearly every successive cult leader of the Holy Spirit Cult was a Limit Douluo-level existence, and several even possessed nothing but Soul Rings over ten thousand years old."

"Their secret was this fragment." Mu Ye pointed at the crack on the stele. "When Huo Yuhao breached the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters, he personally killed the last cult leader of the Zhong Family. But someone arrived at the ruins before him: the Golden Body Douluo, who was the acting sect master of the Body Sect at the time. In the deepest part of a secret chamber collapsed by the Ice Explosion Technique, he found the object guarded by generations of Zhong Family cult leaders—a God Position Fragment." (Du Busi was already dead by then.)

"Why did the Zhong Family possess a God Position Fragment?"

"Golden Body Douluo investigated for his entire life and never found the answer. The only certainty was that the abnormalities of the Zhong Family bloodline were connected to this fragment. Some speculated that an ancestor of the Zhong Family had become a true god. Others claimed that the Zhong Family were descendants of a fallen god. There was also a theory that successive cult leaders used Evil Soul Master methods to extract divine power from the fragment and alter their bloodline. Whatever the truth, this fragment is now in the hands of the Body Sect."

He rose to his feet, walked to the stele, and placed his palm beside the edge of the crack. The golden light within flickered faintly.

"A God Position Fragment has two traits. First, it permanently increases Soul Ring ages. As long as a Martial Soul awakening is completed within the range of its divine power radiation, the Soul Ring ages will be forcibly raised by a significant amount. After completing Gold-Grade Awakening, past sect masters saw their Soul Ring ages increase by an average of three to five thousand years. Second, it allows the body to adapt to divine power in advance. An ordinary Gold-Grade Awakening can at most bring the body to the threshold of a Title Douluo, but if you complete your awakening under the fragment's divine power radiation, your body will absorb a trace of divine power and remember its texture. Once that adaptation is established, it means your body possesses a sliver of the possibility of becoming a god."

Mu Ye stepped back two paces, leaving the space before the stele open.

"Place your hand on it. Use the Guiding Technique to inject all the origin power of your Martial Soul into the stele and draw the fragment's divine power back into your body. Remember, no matter what you see inside, do not resist. The essence of divine power tempering is a test, not destruction."

Li Chen stepped forward and pressed his right hand against the stele's crack.

The crack abruptly lit up.

Golden light poured from the gap, countless rays as fine as hairs dyeing his entire arm dark gold.

An ancient, majestic aura flooded into his meridians through his palm. The ash-gray patterns forged within his body lit up simultaneously, like countless bronze lamps being ignited one by one.

A force violently tugged his consciousness outward. When he opened his eyes again, the scene before him had completely changed.

This was a space without any concept of time.

There was no sky, no earth.

Golden mist beneath his feet stretched like an ocean, while endless deep blackness hung overhead.

A throne fashioned from crimson-gold bones floated in the void. Seated upon it was the slender figure of a woman, her entire body shrouded in a gentle pale-golden radiance.

The woman raised her right hand and spread her fingers.

Countless pale-golden chains surged from the void along strange trajectories. Each one continuously split in midair, dividing from one point into three directions, then from three into nine paths.

No matter where he dodged, a chain had always already sealed off his escape route.

Li Chen did not dodge.

He closed his eyes. His high-level Spirit Sea Realm spiritual power spread out, and two black light blades formed in his hands as he darted between the chains with the smallest possible movements.

The black blades collided with the pale-golden light, detonating clusters of interwoven gold and black sparks.

Only after the final chain was knocked aside did the woman on the throne rise and take a step forward.

The void trembled. The luminous mist scattered like a receding tide, and the throne let out a thunderous roar.

A vast pressure of Divine Power of Creation crashed down upon him. Pure vitality slammed into his meridians as life and death violently collided inside his body. Every bone in Li Chen's body creaked under the unbearable strain.

At that moment, the two powers within him awakened simultaneously. The first came from his dantian, where the abyss-black Law of Death surged up and the patterns of life-and-death Reincarnation shielded his bones and meridians.

The second came from his heart, where a burst of silver-white light exploded. Countless cubic phantoms poured forth, each spinning at high speed as it independently calculated different trajectories.

The Pluto Martial Soul used the Power of Reincarnation to withstand the impact of the Divine Power of Creation. Reincarnation inherently encompassed both life and death, giving it both natural affinity and opposition toward the Power of Genesis.

The Ark Core, meanwhile, directly began analyzing this divine power, breaking the pressure down into its most fundamental energy units and reconstructing the patterns of its laws within his consciousness.

The woman stopped. She lowered her head, and her pale-golden gaze pierced through the luminous mist to truly "see" the two powers operating on their own.

At that very moment, the Ark Core surged from his heart of its own accord, condensing in the void into the phantom of an enormous silver cube.

The cube spun rapidly. Ripples of the laws of creation and destruction spread outward. It had awakened on its own—and it was provoking her.

The silver cube shuddered violently, and a silver-white beam blasted straight toward the throne. Within the beam, the Power of Creation reconstructed space ahead of it while the Power of Destruction followed close behind, crushing everything in its path. The woman raised a hand, and a pale-golden barrier appeared out of thin air.

That barrier was not rigid defense. Rather, it used the Power of Genesis to continuously create new layers of shielding. Destroy one layer, and another regenerated. The cycle repeated endlessly, unceasingly.

The beam was worn away layer by layer before finally rebounding. Li Chen's chest felt as though it had been struck by a heavy hammer, and a metallic sweetness rose in his throat.

The Ark Core did not understand. It immediately began another round of analysis, then attacked again.

It contracted, then expanded. The second attack erupted with countless silver threads, each woven from alternating creation and destruction.

The woman waved her hand, and every silver thread froze in unison three zhang away, transforming into a sky full of light specks.

She no longer defended passively. With a backhanded motion, she pressed down with her palm.

A pale-golden palm print struck the silver phantom. What it contained was not suppression, but genesis. The Power of Destruction was neutralized by the endlessly poured-in vitality.

The core rapidly shrank. The force rebounded upon him, and Li Chen spat out a mouthful of blood.

At that moment, the Pluto Martial Soul moved.

The Law of Death surged from his dantian on its own, carrying Reincarnation patterns toward the Ark Core and establishing a channel between the black radiance and silver light. The Power of Reincarnation contained an aspect of "life," creating a subtle resonance with the Divine Power of Creation.

Creation corresponded to life, while destruction corresponded to death. The two powers continuously clashed and fused, each collision generating entirely new ripples of law.

Several breaths later, they reached an understanding: the Ark Core would provide the offensive power of creation and destruction, while the Pluto Martial Soul would provide the foundational laws of life-and-death Reincarnation. One attacked, one defended; they complemented each other without merging.

The woman watched quietly, withdrew her hand, and sat back upon the throne.

For the third time, she raised her hand. There were no chains, no palm print, no pressure.

Only an extremely thin ray of pale-golden light shot from her fingertip and landed before Li Chen.

It was an ancient rune, identical to the patterns on several cubes inside the Ark Core, yet more complete and clearer.

Bathed in the rune's light, the core suddenly fell silent, as though it had found something lost long ago.

Li Chen understood.

This rune was the origin of the Divine Power of Creation sealed within the God Position Fragment.

The Ark Core had sensed another of its kind that was more complete than itself. The Power of Creation and the Power of Genesis had always shared the same origin.

It yearned to complete itself.

He slowly extended his left hand.

The Ark Core's silver radiance emerged from his heart and hovered over his left palm.

He extended his right hand, and the black radiance of the Pluto Martial Soul surged from his dantian to hover above his right palm.

The two powers occupied opposite poles, forming perfect symmetry.

Then he brought his hands together and pressed both powers toward the pale-golden rune.

The rune exploded the instant it touched the black radiance and silver light.

A pale-golden shockwave swept through the void. The Law of Death, the Power of Creation, the Power of Destruction, the Power of Reincarnation, and the Power of Genesis—all five powers circulated simultaneously, producing an unprecedented resonance of laws. The throne emitted a long, bell-like roar.

Then a vast divine consciousness shot down from the throne and plunged into Li Chen's sea of consciousness. Carrying ancient creative might, it sent his sea of consciousness churning wherever it passed.

The Death God Position reacted instantly. A pitch-black God Position mark erupted from the depths of his consciousness and collided head-on with that pale-golden divine consciousness.

The two god-level wills clashed fiercely within Li Chen's sea of consciousness—one creating and one destroying, one life and one death. Every collision rocked his sea of consciousness upside down. Yet the confrontation lasted less than three breaths. The pale-golden divine consciousness did not truly intend to contend for anything; it seemed more like it was confirming a certain qualification.

Before the absolute domain of the Death God Position, it voluntarily restrained its edge, transforming into a gentle golden light that sank into the depths of his sea of consciousness. It faced the Death God Position from afar, neither infringing upon the other.

The Ark Core transformed amid the resonance. The cubes within found their missing core, and the pale-golden rune fused into its deepest depths.

Guided by the Creation Rune, the powers of creation and destruction rearranged themselves. They no longer repelled each other, becoming the two strokes of a single engine.

Meanwhile, the Power of Reincarnation from the Pluto Martial Soul echoed the Divine Power of Creation from afar. One life and one death, one creation and one destruction, formed an even greater balance on either side of the core.

The core was complete. Reincarnation and genesis had also found their respective places.

He opened his eyes and found himself still standing before the stele, his right hand pressed against the crack.

The pale-golden light within the crack had dimmed considerably, leaving only a faint pulse.

Within his body, the Creation Rune served as a fulcrum between the Ark Core and the Pluto Martial Soul, linking them into a complete triangular structure. (The Battle Armor issue was perfectly solved. Triangles are stable, QWQ.)

The Gold-Grade Awakening of his Body Martial Soul was complete.

"You're awake?" Mu Ye leaned against the stone wall and grinned. "It took me two and a half full days back then. You only took half a day."

Li Chen raised his right hand and spread his fingers. Faint golden patterns emerged in his palm, echoing the Creation Rune within the core.

Mu Ye patted him on the shoulder and turned toward the exit. "Let's go. Those two girls outside have been waiting for nearly half a day. If we stay any longer, Na'er might tear this hidden site apart."