Chapter 73: Primordial Bloodline Activated

The final explosion of the underground city rumbled in my ears, heavy and dull as if it had struck my chest.

Zhang Jun felt as if something was dragging him, and every slight movement brought a pain that could crush his bones.

His consciousness came and went, the line between wakefulness and blur turning chaotic.

His nostrils were filled with the smell of blood, thick and impossible to dispel.

"Hold on!"

Lin Xue's voice felt as if it came through a layer of water, wavering and indistinct.

"Don't you damn fall asleep!"

Zhang Jun wanted to open his mouth, to curse back, but his lips merely twitched weakly, unable to make a sound.

The Heaven-Man Sword remained clenched in his hand, its blade scaldingly hot, the purple dragon pattern on it flickering erratically despite appearing dim.

At the barcode spot on the back of his neck, the burning sensation grew stronger, the flesh beneath his skin seeming to come alive, trying to burst out.

"Blood pressure dropping!"

Clone Wang Jun's mechanical voice sounded, devoid of any warmth.

"Too much blood loss, we must stop the bleeding immediately!"

His vision went black.

Utter darkness.

——

Zhang Jun drifted in a void.

No pain, no weight, he could feel nothing.

Only endless darkness, and some purple energy currents drifting slowly around.

He lowered his gaze and saw his own body, faint and almost vanishing.

"Is this… death?" he muttered.

"Not yet."

A voice answered him, unfamiliar yet vaguely familiar.

"But it's coming soon."

Zhang Jun suddenly tried to find a direction, but realized everything was the same: "Who?"

In the darkness, a humanoid shape slowly gathered, its outline indistinct, suffused with purple light.

It had no face, only a mass of constantly rotating energy.

"I am you, you are me." The voice sounded directly in his mind, "More precisely, I am the consciousness of the Primordial Bloodline within your body."

Zhang Jun instinctively reached for the Heaven-Man Sword, but his hand grasped at nothing, unable to hold anything.

"Bullshit! Can a bloodline even have consciousness?"

"Why not?" the energy form drifted closer, "I come from a higher dimension, what you call 'them.' Lin Zhen didn't lie to you; you were indeed created in the lab, the purpose being to make me a vessel, the perfect one."

A wave of nauseating vertigo surged up, making Zhang Jun feel his stomach twisting.

"So… I'm really not human?"

"You certainly are human." the energy form replied, "You just have something extra. Like the Ice Soul Power in Lin Xue's body, we are both carriers of energy, just from different origins."

"Then what about the Fusion Ritual Lin Zhen spoke of?"

"He wanted you and Lin Xue to fuse, opening all the Dimensional Gates so that 'their' consciousness could come over. But he got one thing wrong—'they' don't want to control anyone, they just want to stay with humanity."

Zhang Jun tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying to sneer, but found he couldn't even form an expression.

"Stay together? Then what's this Purge Plan about?"

The energy form paused: "Because Lin Zhen has been contaminated by something else. Twenty years ago he encountered the Dimensional Gate, indeed, but also another energy—Chaos Energy. That is what truly wants to destroy this world."

Zhang Jun felt his head about to explode: "Wait… you mean Lin Zhen is being controlled by another energy?"

"Not entirely. His thoughts have been skewed, making him believe that wiping out human emotions is the only way to save the world. In fact, that's exactly what the Chaos Energy wants—a world without feeling or thought, full of walking corpses."

"Then what about the Primordial Bloodline in my body? Is it also that Chaos Energy?"

"No, the Primordial Bloodline is dimensional energy, it is creation, not destruction. Lin Zhen's initial research direction was correct, but he later went astray."

Zhang Jun's mind was a tangled mess.

Alien energy, Dimensional Gates, Chaos contamination… damn, that's far-fetched.

Yet these ridiculous things actually explain many things that made no sense.

"Am I about to die?" he suddenly asked.

"Your body is too badly injured." the energy form replied, "But I can help you—if you're willing to accept me."

"Accept you? What does that mean?"

"Complete fusion. You will gain full control of the Primordial Bloodline's power. The cost is—you will no longer be purely human."

Zhang Jun said nothing.

"Not purely human? What kind of bullshit choice is this?"

"How's Lin Xue?" he changed the subject.

The energy form seemed slightly surprised: "You still care about that now?"

"Answer me!"

"She's worried about you. Her Ice Soul Power is almost exhausted too."

Zhang Jun made up his mind.

"Then let's fuse. But with a condition—my consciousness must be in charge; you cannot control me."

The energy form paused: "Deal."

Purple energy lunged at Zhang Jun, frantically drilling into his translucent body.

Excruciating pain!

He felt himself torn to shreds, then haphazardly pieced back together, every cell in his body screaming.

In the endless darkness, he seemed to hear Lin Xue's shout, choked with sobs:

"Zhang Jun! Don't die! You damn well dare to try dying!"

——

The abandoned underground parking garage reeked of dust and motor oil.

Lin Xue knelt on the ground, her hands pressing hard onto Zhang Jun's bloody, mangled chest.

Ice crystals formed by the Ice Soul Power covered most of his wounds, but blood kept seeping out from the cracks, staining her hands and the ground red.

"Useless." Clone Wang Jun's mechanical voice was calm to the point of brutality: "The aorta is torn, the lungs pierced, the liver ruptured. If he were an ordinary person, he'd already be dead."

"Shut up!" Lin Xue shouted back, her voice hoarse, beads of sweat rolling down her forehead and dripping onto Zhang Jun's pallid, bloodless face: "He's not an ordinary person!"

Clone Wang Jun fell silent, the red light in his mechanical eyes continuously scanning Zhang Jun's vital signs: "His heartbeat is very faint, but still there. Strangely, his internal energy readings are spiking…"

Lin Xue snapped her head up: "What?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Zhang Jun's body suddenly convulsed violently!

Purple energy seeped from each of his wounds, twisting and coiling in the air, forming incomprehensible eerie symbols.

The barcode on the back of his neck flared with a blinding light; beneath his skin, something writhed and deformed wildly.

"What's going on?" Lin Xue panicked.

Clone Wang Jun quickly stepped back a few paces: "Energy runaway! The Primordial Bloodline is activating on its own."

Zhang Jun's back arched upward like a fully drawn bow, and a non-human howl issued from his throat.

The purple energy and Lin Xue's Ice Soul Power collided and intertwined violently on his body's surface, emitting a 'hiss' and forming a strange resonance.

The ice crystal armor on Lin Xue also began to flicker uncontrollably, its silver patterns crawling up her cheeks and neck at a visible speed.

"Ah!" Lin Xue cried out in pain, her Ice Soul Power losing control! A bone-chilling cold burst outward from her center, instantly blanketing the ground with a layer of white frost, and the nearby walls quickly became covered in ice blossoms.