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

The originally abundant and surging transformation of dragon blood had now come to a standstill.

A gap of less than a snap of the fingers was enough to leave him shattered to pieces!

Boom!

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

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

Lawrence roared, and complex scales appeared on his arms, where the bones were exposed, forcefully blocking Wen Wen's fist. On his broken wings behind him, eyes opened, looking toward the location of the giant tree.

And there, he saw Ji Jue, who had awakened amidst the entwining 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 root that was right in front of him.

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

"What the hell are you doing?" Lawrence's voice began to tremble, filled with disbelief, even more terrified than by Minerva's attack: "Stop, stop it!"

Vortex Planting Art!

The transformation progress of his Vortex Planting Art had actually stalled?!

No, it wasn't just a stall... 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 to do that?

"Stop!!!"

Lawrence roared.

Ji Jue turned a deaf ear and spread his arms.

His wide-open eyes were already filled with scarlet; the spiritual quality of pain and despair flooded his body, inciting hunger and madness. As the receptor of the Vortex Planting Art, he was actually embracing the erosion of blood-thirst disease, and even, conversely, driven by countless distorted spiritual qualities, he was seizing the initiative and constantly snatching away Lawrence's master control!

Screw your Disaster Vessel, screw your fine talent, screw everything about you!

Living in this world, one must eat to survive; eat rice if there's rice, eat dung if there's dung. To hell with whatever distorted spiritual quality, 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 have drifted away, and he didn't care at all.

Lawrence roared, wanting to rush up, his 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 shifted.

Amidst the roaring and screaming, Lawrence's body further expanded, becoming frantic, launching attacks recklessly, 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 the receptor had been connected together through the Vortex Planting Art.

Inseparable.

When Ji Jue conversely shook his master control, the originally one-way flow 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!

Amidst the erosion and transformation of the dragon blood, Ji Jue roared, the pupils in his eye sockets gradually becoming thin and long, like a beast's, and scales faintly emerged on his limbs, then fell off, as if undergoing a genetic mutation.

"Stop, Ji Jue!"

Wen Wen looked back and shouted: "You are not yet a Chosen One; if you keep absorbing, you will be completely corrupted! Stop!"

But Ji Jue didn't care anymore.

He even accelerated.

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

Ravage! Defeat! Tear apart! Slaughter!

Finally, smash to pieces!

"Isn't that what I'm busy doing? What's the rush?!" Ji Jue gritted his teeth, suppressing the violent impulses in his soul, raised his head, and looked at the hollow night sky.

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

They were watching him.

"Chosen Ones, right? You've been watching for so many years, what are you still waiting for?"

Ji Jue beckoned, roaring at them: "Come, choose, choose, just choose, damn it!"

"—Who is going to let me choose?!"

Amidst 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 want to look back and pry open Ji Jue's skull to see what kind of nonsense he was talking about.

Are Chosen Ones something you can just choose? Do you think you're at the supermarket buying cabbage, choosing whenever you want? Even if you are a self-awakened person with talent and potential, it's impossible to just flick your fingers and...

In that instant, she froze in place.

Because, the sky had broken.

Not just above the hospital, not just within the Encircled Realm here, and not just in the North Mountain District.

From where the waves reached to the towering green mountains, the vast entire 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 rays of light that were difficult for ordinary people to glimpse with the naked eye.

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

The all-encompassing invisible object, the solemn and towering city towers, the crown intertwined with white bones and blood, the deer head with giant horns hanging with the corpses of wolves, the vortex intertwined with countless lives, the blood-weeping sun wheel, the complex and changing flames and electric light...

"Metamorphosis, Heavenly Origin, Great Group, White Deer, Vortex, Gate of Eternity, Entropy, Ember, Ruined Realm..."

Twelve Supreme Goodnesses, nine of them descended!

From a 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 bestowing blessings, and the supreme tapestries that countless Chosen Ones pursued for a lifetime but rarely received favor from were now filling the night sky, occupying every inch of space!

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

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

It was as if the winner had already been decided!

The other glorious scenes all faded away, and what filled the night sky were like burning stars, bursting with dazzling light, as if the entire firmament had turned into a huge furnace.

When the dazzling stars burned out and the glorious furnace tilted, flickering embers overflowed from it, turning into a waterfall of heaven that fell down, completely engulfing Ji Jue.

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

Such a manifestation...

—Supreme Goodness · 【Ember】!

Amidst the unprecedented pain and fulfillment, the originally blurred and dim talent in Ji Jue's soul was now bathed in the embers of the stars, ushering in the final metamorphosis.

The emblem in the void was constructed, 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.

【Chosen One Ceremony, complete!】

【Registration identity change started, Chosen One · Ji Jue, login complete】

【Spiritual Quality Reserve, qualification opened, error, error, error... please go to the Central Station as soon as possible to complete the formal employee identity registration!】

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

But those messy things didn't matter anymore at this moment.

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

"Hello there."

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

"Are you ready?"

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

In that instant, scarlet spiritual quality like a waterfall erupted from Ji Jue's body!

Within the dead-silent Encircled Realm, the sound of tides suddenly rose! Countless wails and moans echoed from every gap, every corner.

Steel rubbed, engines operated, and amidst the rubble of the ruins, the silent machinery suddenly operated again. From the collapsed parking shed, the mountain of broken electric bikes and motorcycles, to the cars that were still intact in the parking lot, and then to the mobile phones and turned-off computers on the floor inside the ward building...

Every extinguished screen lit up again, revealing a scarlet like blood and tears, and amidst the frantic operation of the motors, they vibrated violently.

The remnants of those who had passed away, their resentment and pain, were now rising again in Ji Jue's soul, falling into countless machines, and waking up again!

But it wasn't enough!

It was far from enough!

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

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

Blood flowed, spraying out!

The watch filled with massive distorted spiritual quality 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 activated—within the effective time of the protocol, the Chosen One's ability will qualitatively leap up by one stage—double qualitative leap complete!】

On the watch, the numbers in the spiritual quality reserve began to jump frantically, falling to the bottom in an instant, but then rapidly rising and filling up again on the supply of massive external spiritual quality.

Amidst the intense operation, it was as if even the movement had been completely burned red, like scorching steel, hissing.

But at this moment, the harsh sounds of countless pieces of steel resounded through the Encircled Realm.

The earth shook.

Because the sea tide of machinery appeared from the ruins and rushed out! ===== CHAPTER 23 =====