Chapter 22: Supreme Virtue Descends (Thanks to Tipsy Hairdryer and Crow Sister

The dragon blood transformation, originally abundant and surging, had now actually stagnated.

A gap of less than a snap of the fingers was enough to tear him limb from limb!

Boom!

As Minerva’s iron fist fell once more, the storm of destruction blew away all flesh and blood, even suppressing the unfinished dragon blood, smashing his head into complete smithereens.

From top to bottom, it embedded itself into his chest.

Lawrence roared, complex scales appearing on his exposed skeletal arms, forcibly blocking Wen Wen’s fist. On the broken wings behind him, eyes opened, looking toward the location of the giant tree.

He saw Ji Jue, who had awakened amidst the entangling roots, and the middle finger he was smilingly raising.

"Surprised? Unexpected?"

He greeted softly: "I said I knew you, and many enthusiastic people sent me back!"

Just like that, Ji Jue opened his mouth and bit down hard on the roots within reach.

The giant tree shook violently, countless tentacle-like branches writhing, actually appearing to wither.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lawrence’s voice trembled, incredulous, even more terrified than by Minerva’s attack: "Stop, stop it!"

Vortex Planting Art!

His Vortex Planting Art’s transformation progress had actually stagnated?!

No, not just stagnated... but an unprecedented void had appeared internally, greedily swallowing the results that should have belonged to him, plundering the dragon blood that should have flowed into his heart!

What was going on? What happened? How did he manage it?

"Stop!!!"

Lawrence roared.

Ji Jue turned a deaf ear, spreading his arms.

In his wide-open eyes, there was already nothing but scarlet. The ectoplasm of pain and despair filled his body, fueling hunger and madness. As the receptor of the Vortex Planting Art, he was actually embracing the erosion of Blood Thirst Syndrome, and even, conversely, driven by the countless distorted ectoplasms, he was seizing the initiative and constantly snatching away Lawrence’s control!

Screw your Calamity Vessel, screw your fine jade, screw everything!

Living in this world, one must eat. If there’s rice, eat rice; if there’s shit, eat shit. To hell with whatever distorted ectoplasm, I’m just going to eat, eat, eat, eat!

Thus, he swallowed the dragon blood in large gulps, as if devouring scorching magma. The pain and despair seemed to drift away, and he didn’t care at all.

Lawrence roared, wanting to rush up, flesh growing and extending like thorns to interrupt him, but a giant crystal pillar rose from the ground, blocking Ji Jue behind it.

Now, the roles of attacker and defender had reversed.

Amidst the roaring and screaming, Lawrence’s body further expanded, maddened, launching attacks regardless of the cost, no longer with the ease and pleasure of before.

It was as if someone inside his body was sucking out his life and blood with a straw.

Now, the subject and receptor had been connected together through the Vortex Planting Art.

Inseparable.

When Ji Jue conversely shook his control, the originally one-way water pump began to struggle and pull, each competing for the dragon blood extracted by the Vortex Planting Art.

The difference was that the suction on Ji Jue’s side was getting stronger and stronger!

From the erosion and transformation of the dragon blood, Ji Jue hissed, the pupils in his eye sockets gradually becoming slender, like a beast’s. Scales faintly emerged on his limbs and then fell off, as if undergoing a genetic mutation.

"Stop, Ji Jue!"

Wen Wen looked back and shouted: "You aren’t a Heaven-Chosen yet. If you keep absorbing, you will completely degenerate! Stop!"

But Ji Jue no longer cared.

He even accelerated.

Within his body, the pain and resentment left behind by countless people surged like a tidal wave, pushing him to launch a revenge against the culprit before him!

Ravage! Crush! Tear apart! Torture!

Finally, hack into ten thousand pieces!

"Aren't I busy right now? What's the rush?!" Ji Jue gritted his teeth, suppressing the violent impulses in his soul, and looked up at the hollow night sky.

And, behind the dim stars, those vague outlines, those behemoths faintly looking down.

They were watching him.

"Heaven-Chosen, right? You’ve been watching for so many years, what are you still waiting for?"

Ji Jue beckoned and roared at them: "Come on, choose, choose, choose, damn it, choose whatever you want!"

"—Who’s going to let me choose one?!"

In the roaring sound, Minerva’s expression changed. Even under the suppression of the matrix, her emotional fluctuations had been reduced to the lowest point, like iron and stone, but at this moment, she was still surprised and bewildered.

She even couldn't help but look back, wanting to pry open Ji Jue’s skull to see what kind of nonsense he was talking about.

Is the Heaven-Chosen something you can just choose? Do you think you’re in a supermarket buying cabbage, choosing whenever you want? Even if you are a self-awakened one with talent and potential, it’s impossible to just crook your finger and...

At that moment, she froze in place.

Because the sky had broken.

Not just above the hospital, not just within the circle boundary here, and not just in the North Mountain District.

From where the waves reached to the green mountains, in the vast Yacheng, within a thousand miles, all stars faded and disappeared, as if exiting the stage with the lifting of a curtain.

Replacing them were vast radiances difficult for ordinary eyes to glimpse.

Solemn and cold outlines appeared within them, as if the vast forms gathered from all phenomena, the supreme authority manifested from all changes and events in the human world!

All-encompassing intangible objects, towering and majestic city gates, crowns intertwined with white bones and blood, deer heads with giant horns hanging the corpses of wolves, vortices intertwined with countless lives, weeping sun wheels, complex and changing flames and lightning...

"Ascension, Heaven Origin, Great Crowd, White Deer, Vortex, Gate of Eternity, Entropy, Ember, Ruin..."

Twelve Supreme Virtues, nine of them descended!

From that fleeting glimpse, Wen Wen was almost frozen in place, doubting her own eyes.

The omens of destiny appeared so abruptly, as if the stars were granting blessings, and the supreme tapestries that countless Heaven-Chosen pursued all their lives but rarely received favor from, were now filling the night sky, occupying every inch of space!

They filled the night sky, expanding rapidly, squeezing and excluding each other, no longer with the cold beauty and nobility of the past, but instead like customers waving money to grab goods during a supermarket sale, competing for the only treasure, scrambling to grant their own blessings... shut up, and take my money!

In a short snap of the fingers, all collisions and struggles disappeared.

It was as if the winner had already been decided!

All other glorious scenes faded away. Filling the night sky were stars like burning embers, emitting dazzling light, as if the entire firmament had turned into a massive furnace.

When the dazzling stars burned out and the glorious furnace tilted, flickering afterglow flowed out from it, turning into a waterfall of light that fell, completely swallowing Ji Jue.

It was as if it fell into his soul, igniting his very self.

Such a manifestation...

—Supreme Virtue · [Ember]!

Amidst unprecedented pain and fulfillment, the originally vague and dim talent in Ji Jue’s soul, now bathed in the afterglow of the stars, ushered in its final transformation.

The emblem in the void formed, orange-red light constantly flowing, complex patterns appearing, as if gears and levers were overlapping, the silhouette of some complex mechanism... even Ji Jue found it difficult to distinguish clearly.

[Heaven-Chosen Ceremony, complete!]

[Registered identity change initiated, Heaven-Chosen · Ji Jue, login complete]

[Ectoplasm Reserve, qualification opened, error, error, error... please head to the Central Station as soon as possible to complete formal employee identity registration!]

In the watch, dozens of pop-up windows jumped out, dazzling.

But those messy things didn't matter anymore.

From the burning of the Ember fire, Ji Jue grinned, raised his head, and looked at the stunned Lawrence.

"Hello."

He nodded politely, "Many friends asked me to greet you on their behalf... but after thinking about it, it’s more convenient for them to come and tell you themselves."

"Are you ready?"

Ji Jue raised his hand and asked the final question—receive this pain and despair you created yourself!

At that moment, scarlet ectoplasm like a waterfall erupted from Ji Jue’s body!

Within the dead silence of the circle boundary, the sound of tides suddenly rose! Countless wails and cries echoed from every gap, every corner.

Steel grinding, engines running, in the rubble of the ruins, silent machines suddenly operated again. From the collapsed parking sheds, the piles of broken electric bikes and motorcycles, to the cars still intact in the parking lot, and then to the mobile phones dropped on the floor inside the hospital building, the computers that were turned off...

Every extinguished screen lit up again, showing scarlet like blood and tears, vibrating violently amidst the crazy operation of the motors.

The remnants of those who had passed away, their resentment and pain, now rose again in Ji Jue’s soul, falling into countless machines, waking up once more!

But it wasn't enough!

It was far from enough!

Even if he exhausted all his ectoplasm in an instant, it still couldn't explain one ten-thousandth of that massive scale.

From the burning pain, Ji Jue raised his hand, grabbed a sharp crystal fragment, and stabbed it into his own neck!

Blood flowed and gushed out!

The watch, filled with massive amounts of distorted ectoplasm, suddenly shook, and the familiar pop-up window appeared.

[Detected that employee Ji Jue is facing life-threatening danger, error, error, error, error!]

[Standard Emergency Survival Protocol initiated—within the protocol’s effective time, Heaven-Chosen ability will qualitatively change up by one tier—double qualitative change complete!]

On the watch, the numbers in the Ectoplasm Reserve began to jump crazily, falling to the bottom in an instant, but then rising rapidly on the supply of massive external ectoplasm, returning to full.

In the intense operation, it seemed as if even the movement had burned completely red, like scorching steel, hissing.

But at this moment, the ear-piercing sounds of countless steel objects resounded through the circle boundary.

The earth shook.

Because the tide of machines emerged from the ruins, rushing out! ===== CHAPTER 23 =====