Chapter 652: The True Researcher and a Single Punch

Gao Jie Ming stepped out from behind the stone pillar.

Though the Tai Xu Step was still active, he deliberately lowered its power output, revealing his face.

He looked at the professor, expression calm, eyes holding a trace of curiosity.

"It seems my appearance doesn't surprise you," Gao Jie Ming said. "Do you have information about me?"

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On the professor's blood-red face, his mouth twitched slightly, forming something resembling a self-deprecating smile.

"No," his voice had grown far deeper, resonating with a metallic timbre. "But you carry a familiar sensation. That person—their aura is completely unlike yours, yet you give me the same impression."

Gao Jie Ming's eyes flickered slightly brighter.

He knew exactly who the professor meant by "that person."

The wizard who had collaborated with the Black Robe in this realm, providing the bizarre fusion technique.

He had been tracking that person's trail for years, but never found a direct lead.

"May I ask about the other person's identity?" Gao Jie Ming's voice remained steady.

The professor fell silent.

Gao Jie Ming sensed that silence wasn't refusal—it was effort, as if struggling to recall.

"It's not that I won't tell you," the professor finally spoke, his pace slower than ever, as if each word cost him strength. "But only after the bizarre fusion did I realize someone had been beside me all along."

Gao Jie Ming's eyebrows lifted slightly.

The professor meant he had never sensed the wizard's presence until after merging with the Blood Web, when his soul's essence changed.

The level of concealment implied the wizard specialized in soul-based sorcery.

Only then could he mask his existence from others' spiritual sense.

Gao Jie Ming nodded, not pressing further—he knew the professor had already revealed all he could.

"It seems your will hasn't been heavily damaged by the bizarre fusion," Gao Jie Ming changed the subject.

The professor lowered his head, staring at his blood-red hands.

"This technique isn't perfected," his voice sank even lower. "My consciousness is fading rapidly. I can feel—I'm forgetting. Forgetting their names, their faces, why I did any of this."

His gaze lifted again, fixing on Gao Jie Ming.

"Why did you keep me alive?" Gao Jie Ming asked.

The professor's blood-red form took one step forward.

The transparent filaments stretched with his movement, maintaining full coverage of the surrounding space.

From within his body, he pulled out a black-bound notebook.

Its surface bore no text, but its corners were worn white, its spine deeply creased—as if flipped countless times.

"I once made a deal with that person," the professor held the notebook aloft, not offering it, letting it hover above his palm. "He gave me the foundational structure of the bizarre fusion technique. I refined its architecture, methods, and the underlying logic of its seals—but with my ability, I cannot advance it further."

Gao Jie Ming's gaze settled on the notebook.

His spiritual sense brushed it lightly—and instantly sensed the vast trove of information within.

Not just text and diagrams, but something deeper—a soul imprint.

It was the researcher's thoughts, deductions, even the emotions of failure, etched into the paper's fibers.

"These are all my research records," the professor's voice carried an emotion Gao Jie Ming had never heard from him before. "You beings crave knowledge, don't you? Take it. I only ask—when you perfect this technique, give it to humanity. Let them truly escape the threat of the bizarre."

The notebook rose from his palm, drifting slowly toward Gao Jie Ming.

Gao Jie Ming reached out and caught it.

The instant his spiritual sense touched it, he scanned its entire contents—less than a second.

The notebook contained not only technical data on bizarre fusion, but the professor's comprehensive analysis of the realm's bizarre ecology, detailed dissections of every bizarre he encountered, and his ultimate contemplations on "humanity coexisting with the bizarre."

This material would greatly aid his research.

But what struck Gao Jie Ming more deeply was another matter.

"I assumed you, as a cult leader, would have some brainwashing methods," Gao Jie Ming's tone held an indescribable mix of sarcasm and awe. "But it seems you don't."

On the professor's previously blank, blood-red face, a new expression emerged.

Pride.

Genuine, inner pride.

"We all act by our own will."

His voice lost its heaviness, regaining the calm, confident tone he once used in lectures.

Gao Jie Ming watched him, silent for a moment.

"Even after sacrificing countless innocent lives?"

The professor's pride did not fade.

He met Gao Jie Ming's gaze—not as a cult leader refuting dissent, but as a martyr answering doubt.

"To free humanity from the threat of the bizarre, such sacrifice is necessary."

Gao Jie Ming studied him deeply.

If any other cult leader said this, it would be pure deception—luring others to die while they stayed safe.

Those men shouted noble slogans, wielded knives, and always stabbed others in the chest.

But this man was different.

He had sacrificed even his own life.

Before he knew of Gao Jie Ming's existence, he could have fled—his control over this extradimensional space meant the Association's three leaders could never have caught him.

Yet he didn't.

To obtain the final data firsthand, he stood here, in this extradimensional space he himself created.

His soul was already merging with the bizarre; his consciousness was irrevocably fading.

His goal was neither power nor wealth, nor any worldly "benefit."

He truly believed what he did would free humanity from the shadow of the bizarre.

Gao Jie Ming lowered his head, gazing at the black notebook in his hand, then stored it within his dantian.

"You've stored it?" the professor asked.

"Stored," Gao Jie Ming nodded.

On the professor's blood-red face, the pride slowly faded, replaced by a mixture of relief and regret.

"The technique isn't perfected," his voice grew heavy again. "My consciousness can't hold out much longer. You can end me, can't you?"

He asked calmly, as if inquiring about the weather, or whether his lecture had been understood.

Gao Jie Ming nodded.

But he did not act immediately.

He stood there, hands in his pockets, watching the professor, and spoke of something else.

"Why did you design the third layer of your fusion structure to split energy at the nodes? Wouldn't direct flow along the main channel be more efficient?"

The professor froze.

Then he smiled.

A genuine smile—the kind only a researcher feels when a peer recognizes his insight.

"You think I didn't try?" His voice regained vitality. "I tested it at least two hundred times. Direct flow overwhelms the human host's mental defenses in three seconds. Splitting disperses the impact across seven nodes—each bearing a fraction. Human will's pressure tolerance increases at least fourfold."

"And the reflux after the seventh node? How do you reintegrate the energy?"

"That's the key—the reflux is the hardest part. I use layered reflux: strong wills use high-layer reflux, weak wills use low-layer. But low-layer reflux wastes over forty percent of energy, directly crippling the fused entity's combat power. I've been searching for optimizations—but time ran out—"

The two stood in the core chamber of the extradimensional space, above them the residual light orb fused with most of the professor's power, beneath them cracks and shards on the gray floor.

They looked like two colleagues in a university lab, standing before a blackboard, debating a technical problem—serious, focused, even excited with the sharp edge of academic rivalry.

Gao Jie Ming knew what he was doing.

He was delaying time—because he wanted the professor to remain "human" a little longer.

As Victor Lei En, a researcher, a scholar, the foremost mind in this realm's bizarre studies—let him exist a little longer.

In the distance, explosions drew nearer.

The Chairman and the two reinforcements were returning swiftly from the teleportation point.

Under full power, a Catastrophic-level Spirit Medium could easily overwhelm this mere Disaster-level anomaly.

They moved with terrifying speed—less than a kilometer from the core chamber.

The professor lifted his head, gazing in that direction.

His expression remained blank, but within his blood-red eyes, something was rapidly fading.

"Time's up," he said.

His voice was warping, resonating with something inhuman.

The blood-red form exploded.

The filaments composing his body surged outward, covering every corner of the chamber in milliseconds.

Ceiling, walls, floor, air—

Countless crimson threads erupted from the void, enveloping Gao Jie Ming at the center.

The Blood Web activated.

Thousands of filaments tightened simultaneously—like a noose woven from countless razor blades—crushing toward Gao Jie Ming.

Their cutting force could reduce steel to powder, shred ordinary bizarre entities into fragments.

Gao Jie Ming was wrapped in thick layers of blood filaments; they bit into his clothing, emitting a screech of metal against metal.

But Gao Jie Ming appeared utterly unaffected.

He glanced down at the web-thread wrapped around his right hand, tugged it lightly, and the thread snapped as easily as an ordinary spider's silk.

"Has it reached its limit—?"

Gao Jie Ming lifted his head and looked toward the blood webs gathering around the hall.

"Since I'm in another space—" Gao Jie Ming's voice was quiet, yet each word rang clear as if carved into glass, "then I can exert a little more force."

He clenched his right fist as any ordinary person would, closing his five fingers tightly.

Then, he stepped forward.

The surrounding blood webs tried to block his movement, but could not.

The instant his foot touched the ground, the gray surface exploded.

Centered on his landing point, the entire ground rippled outward in concentric waves of cracks, like water disturbed by a stone.

The cracks spread at a terrifying speed in all directions, shattering the hall's floor into countless fragments.

"Consider this—your farewell."

Gao Jie Ming swung a punch toward the professor, now scattered into a thousand blood webs.

The motion was utterly ordinary.

It looked like an ordinary man clenching his fist and swinging at the empty air above him.

Then, the blood webs vanished.

Under Gao Jie Ming's extraordinarily overwhelming power, the entire sky of blood webs burned like paper set alight—starting from the center, spreading outward, and utterly "erased" in less than a blink.

The fine crimson threads composing the blood webs lost all structure and properties the instant the punch's force passed through them, dissolving into the most basic energy particles.

Those energy particles were then crushed by the punch's force into even more fundamental forms, until nothing remained at all.

The very existence of the "blood web" had been completely erased by that punch.

Yet after effortlessly destroying the blood webs, Gao Jie Ming's punch had not expended its power.

At this moment, the escaping force triggered a massive, visible shockwave.

The tidal wave of shock passed through the hall, through the floating stairs and rooms suspended in midair.

Finally, this power, through absolute dominance, effortlessly pierced through the boundary of the strange space created by the "stairs."

Then, it struck the bottom of the Fog City Psychiatric Hospital.

BOOM!!!

The building's foundation shattered like a biscuit under the shockwave's impact; the steel-reinforced concrete structure offered no resistance against the punch's force.

The entire building collapsed upward from its base, lifted off the ground as if by an invisible hand.

Shattered glass, broken bricks, twisted rebar, fractured cement slabs—all were swept into the sky by the shockwave, gradually twisted into fine debris by its force.

The shockwave burst through the ground, soared above Fog City, and shot straight toward the sky itself.

As altitude increased, the power rapidly diffused.

The thick, black cloud layer that had perpetually shrouded the city, so dense the sun was rarely seen, tore apart like thin paper before the shockwave.

A massive circular hole appeared at the center of the clouds, its edges smooth as if drawn with a compass.

Behind the hole lay a deep blue sky.

That blue was one the people of Fog City had never seen—pure as a gemstone.

The remaining scattered shockwave became a gale, sweeping outward from the center of the hole.

It blew over the harbor, parting the thick fog as if pushed by a giant hand; it swept through the old district, drying the perpetually damp cobblestones; it passed through the factory zone, instantly scattering the black smoke from the chimneys.

The entire city's fog was blown away by the aftershock of that punch.

At that moment, the sky of "Fog City" became clear.

The Chairman of the Spirit Communication Association was flung out of the ground by the shockwave.

He stood at the edge of the psychiatric hospital's ruins, covered by a thin barrier of storm winds that blocked falling debris and dust from above.

His eyes were wide, his pupils reflecting the enormous circular hole in the clouds—and beyond it, that blue he had never seen before.

The male and female reinforcements sent by headquarters leapt out of the ground behind him.

The female reinforcement stood with her mouth open, speechless.

The male reinforcement clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly.

Nearby, Harding and Deck ran toward them from beyond the cordon, stumbling over rubble.

Harding's face was pale; Deck's lips trembled.

They stared at the sky, at the vast hole, at the scattered fog—unable to speak a word.

The crowd evacuating around the hospital also stopped in their tracks.

A nurse held a child, standing by the roadside, gazing upward at the sky.

Her eyes reflected that blue, and silent tears slid down her cheeks.

Even the nurse herself did not know whether her tears came from fear—or from some other reason.

The child in her arms reached out a hand, pointing at the sky, babbling incoherently.

At the entrance to the factory workshop, Eric heard his coworker's cry and ran out.

He stood on the open ground outside, shielding his eyes as he looked up at the sky.

Then, he froze.

Fog City's sky had turned blue.

In his twenty-six years of life, he had never seen such a sky.

It was a color he had seen in picture books, dreamed of, but never witnessed in reality.

A gale blew, tossing his hair wildly.

He did not move—he stood there in the wind, head tilted up, mouth agape, like a blade of grass bent by the storm.

After the fog was blown away, the view was unnaturally clear; everyone present saw the figure.

It was a faint, blurred silhouette, as if someone had erased a mark from the air with an eraser.

It stood at the center of the psychiatric hospital's ruins, directly beneath the massive hole in the sky.

Around it lay collapsed buildings and swirling dust, yet its presence drew every eye.

No one could make out its features.

The Grand Void Step blurred Gao Jie Ming's form into an unfocused shadow.

But his existence was undeniable.

Everyone saw him; everyone instinctively knew: he was the one who threw that punch.

The Chairman unconsciously took a step forward.

Gao Jie Ming turned his head, his gaze piercing through the ruins and dust, landing on the Chairman.

The Chairman's step halted; the words he meant to speak stuck in his throat.

In that instant, Gao Jie Ming's figure became completely transparent.

The Grand Void Step activated to its full extent—his presence vanished entirely from all perception, like a drop of water merging into the sea, leaving only the bewildered and terrified onlookers behind.

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