Chapter 477: Domain Expansion: Subdue Demon, Heaven‑Punishing

The speaker's electric current buzzed for two seconds before stabilizing again.

That voice sounded again, this time speaking half a beat slower than before.

「Second stage—consumption test. The test objects are three A‑rule‑class containment objects, numbered: Serial 047 'Immortal Worm', Serial 063 'Concept Parasite', Serial 089 'Undying Ember'. 」

Pause.

「All three possess immortality and concept‑distortion abilities; the Federation can only suppress them, not eradicate. 」

Lu Yu was still kneeling on the floor, one hand propping himself up. His breathing was heavy.

His ears were pricked up.

The voice continued, this time carrying an undisguised warning tone.

「Special reminder to the test subject: if the containment object breaks suppression, the test chamber will activate the Omega‑level lockdown protocol—inject liquid metal within three seconds and enact physical burial. 」

In other words, both person and monster would be buried alive together.

「Please, test subject, give it your all. 」

Lu Yu slowly rose to his feet.

His kneecap clicked, and the remaining right sleeve of his restraint uniform fell off another strip as he raised his arm. He kicked at the debris on the floor with his toe and loosened his neck.

Then he glanced toward the one‑way glass.

He said nothing.

But the curve at the corner of his mouth was seen by everyone present.

—A fourteen‑year‑old boy knelt on one knee in the midst of the ruins, his face as white as paper, yet the corner of his mouth turned up.

That was not bravado.

It was anticipation.

Behind the one‑way glass.

The chief scientist was still trembling as he calibrated the terminal's parameters. Wei Gong did not urge him, nor turn his head, only glancing sideways at Chen Shao with his peripheral vision.

Chen Shao's scarlet demon eye was half‑closed, his arms still crossed over his chest.

Chen Shao did not move.

But his Adam's apple bobbed once.

That was an involuntary swallow.

In the test chamber below, the three cracks in the floor's center split open silently, and metal rails pushed three containment boxes up from the ground.

The boxes were matte black, their surfaces covered with the Federation's highest‑specification seal patterns, each pulsing faintly like veins stretched to the limit.

The boxes were in place.

The latches sprang open.

The instant the first box lid flipped open, Lu Yu's pupils contracted.

It was not fear.

It was the taotie calling.

What surged from the box had no fixed form. The first containment object resembled a constantly writhing lump of gray‑white flesh, its surface carpeted with tiny lips that opened and closed soundlessly.

The second was invisible—yet the air around it produced a visible refraction, like the heat haze over a summer asphalt road, except this distortion pulled inward, trying to swallow all surrounding concepts into its own definition.

The third was most direct: a cluster of dark‑red flame that burned forever yet never consumed, its temperature reading jumping a few times on the observation terminal before flashing "ERROR".

Three A‑class.

All were things the Federation had suppressed only at the cost of countless lives.

Rule‑type. Immortal attribute. Concept distortion.

The chamber's temperature dropped twelve degrees, and the alarm lights began flashing again.

Lu Yu did not move.

He closed his eyes.

A slight motion—his eyelashes fell, shielding those overly calm pupils.

Then——

「【Subdue Demon, Heaven‑Punishing】! 」

His chest caved in.

Not a metaphor.

At the exact center of his chest cavity, the uniform fabric, restraint fibers, skin, muscle, and bone—all material structures collapsed inward in the same instant, forming a void no larger than a fist.

That void does not reflect light.

It does not absorb light.

It is blacker than black, emptier than emptiness.

From the edge of the void, pure, thick darkness like an overturned ink bottle spread, flowed, and poured down Lu Yu's body surface.

The speed was absurdly fast.

One second.

Darkness covered his entire body.

Two seconds.

Darkness spread from beneath his feet, engulfing the ground within a five‑meter radius.

Three seconds——

The whole test chamber.

An eighty‑meter‑diameter, thirty‑meter‑high steel chamber was completely devoured by pure darkness from inside out.

All light sources extinguished. All probing red lights vanished. All instrument readings dropped to zero.

The view behind the one‑way glass is reduced to a single thing:

Black.

An endless, all‑dimension‑devouring black.

The spare terminal in the Chief Scientist's hand erupts with frantic pop‑ups.

"Weird Domain… has formed." His throat is so dry it smokes, his voice crackles, "The test subject has… constructed an independent Weird Domain inside the experiment chamber."

Inside the Weird Domain.

Darkness is not dead. It breathes, it has temperature, it has will.

Those three Containment Objects float in the endless dark, having lost both sense of direction and any anchor. The "conceptual framework" that Weird‑type Weird relies on most is stripped away here—because Fu Mo·Xingtian's domain rule has only one clause:

All things here are food.

The Immortal Worm reacts first.

The gray‑white mass covering its lips contracts wildly, its lips stretching to the maximum and emitting an ultrasonic scream beyond human hearing. It is fleeing. Every direction is escape. But the Weird Domain has no boundary. It swims for three seconds, then swims back to its starting point.

The Concept Parasite attempts to twist the definition of this darkness—rewriting "darkness" as "container," "devour" as "be devoured"—but the moment its rule‑rewriting command is sent out, it is bitten to pieces.

Literally bitten to pieces.

A sound comes from the depths of the darkness.

Crunch.

Like teeth snapping bone.

A corner of the Concept Parasite's twisted field collapses.

Then a second sound. A third.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch crunch crunch.

Dense chewing noises surge from all sides, the rhythm growing faster and more greedy. It sounds like a pack of invisible wolves fighting over carrion, or like some ancient leviathan gnawing on a prey's spine.

Lu Yu walks over.

His steps are unhurried, not fast. Not urgent. Almost leisurely.

The darkness automatically parts around him, forming a narrow passage. In the gloom his figure is reduced to a vague outline, but those eyes—

Are open.

In the depths of the pupils glows a layer of non‑human, starving, eerie light.

The Immortal Worm is the first to be eaten.

Its "undying" concept emits an ultra‑high‑frequency tremor as it is being torn, like a dying, struggling worm. But the glutton cares not. Undying? Then eat you to death. Rules say you exist forever? Then chew up the rule "exist forever" itself and swallow it.

Crunch.

The final sound.

Silence.

In the Observation Room, the status bar of "Sequence 047" on the spare terminal jumps from red to gray.

"Annihilation" — these two characters are the first time since the Federation's founding that they have appeared in an Immortal Worm's status record.

The Chief Scientist's glasses slip down to the tip of his nose; he forgets to push them back up.

The Concept Parasite holds on a little longer. After all, it exists on a conceptual level and has no physical body to be destroyed. But Fu Mo·Xingtian's domain rules do not speak in physical terms.

Are you a concept?

Then that concept is also a kind of food.

Lu Yu parts his mouth.

Not in the human way. The curve of his mouth corners exceeds the jaw's physical limits; what emerges from the darkness are not teeth but rows of inward‑curving, infinitely extending black serrations.

The Concept Parasite screams as it is pulled into that fissure.

It makes no sound. Yet everyone "hears" that wail—not through eardrums, but through their souls.

In the end, it is the indestructible ash.

That cluster of eternally burning dark‑red flame does one thing as Lu Yu approaches: it self‑detonates.

It releases all of its concepts in an instant, turning into a Rules‑level burning storm, trying to incinerate Fu Mo·Xingtian's Weird Domain into ash—

The storm raged for 0.3 seconds.

Then it was swallowed.

Like a person tilting their head back to gulp down hot soup.

Glug.

It ends.

The Weird Domain slowly recedes. The darkness retreats from the edge of the test chamber like tide pulling back to reveal sand. The lights return, though half the tubes have blown, the remaining spare illumination is enough to see the interior clearly.

The floor is spotless.

The three containment boxes are empty. Not even residue remains.

Observation Room.

No one speaks.

The data stream on the spare terminal keeps running, refreshing faster than the naked eye can follow. The Chief Scientist finally pushes his glasses up, then they slip down again; he simply takes them off and throws them on the table.

"Energy level index…" he stares at the screen, his voice airy, "is still rising. After devouring, not only did it not suffer rule backlash… it actually…"

He swallows a mouthful of saliva.

"…instead it rose by thirty‑seven percent. Moreover, the contraction speed of the Weird Domain's boundary is far below expectations, meaning its domain‑maintenance cost… is extremely low. Near‑zero consumption."

The old man turns to look at Lord Wei, his expression as if he has seen a ghost.

"This is a closed loop. The more you eat, the stronger you become. The stronger you are, the larger the Weird Domain. The larger the Weird Domain, the broader the range it can consume. No upper limit. No backlash. No decay."

His voice begins to tremble.

"In theory… as long as he gets enough food… his growth has no ceiling."

Wei Gong gave no reply.

Beside him, Chen Shao closed his eyes.

He wasn't thinking.

It was his Demon Eye inside his body—the parasite that had coexisted with him for years, never showing any emotional fluctuation—trembling.

Weak. But it was indeed shaking.

That was fear.

It was the first time in Chen Shao's life that he felt fear emanating from his own Weird self.

He opened his eyes. The scarlet glint in his pupils dimmed to near black, his facial muscles tightened to death, and the force of his jaw clench made the blue veins at his temples bulge.

Su Ming, leaning in the back row, did not close his eyes.

He stared at that one‑way glass, his ten fingers curled into fists, his knuckles creaking. What surged deep in his pupils was not fear—it was a kind of almost greedy heat.

This is the trump card they wagered all their chips on.

This is the blade used to slay a god.

The airtight door of the test chamber opened.

Lu Yu stepped out from inside. His steps were unsteady, his left hand braced the doorframe, his center of gravity noticeably off. His face still wore that sickly pallor, his lips were chapped, and sweat on his forehead remained untouched.

The restraint suit was largely shredded, exposing the boy's thin scapulae and the newly grown pale red scar tissue on his back.

He took three steps. He stopped to catch his breath.

Then he kept walking.

As he passed Su Ming and Chen Shao, he glanced at the two with his peripheral vision.

The corner of his mouth held a very slight, satisfied curve.

Like a cat that had just finished eating.

"How does it feel?" Su Ming asked.

Lu Yu didn't answer right away. He fished a bottle of water from a supply cabinet beside the Corridor wall, twisted off the cap with one hand, tipped his head back and gulped down most of the bottle, his Adam's apple bobbing several times.

He set the bottle down and wiped his mouth corner.

"A bit overwhelming."

Liang Wen let out a muffled laugh from afar, then stifled it half a second later.

Wei Gong emerged from the observation room, his Zhongshan suit buttoned meticulously, hands clasped behind his back, his steps steady. In the Corridor's light, the old man's Shadow stretched out very, very long.

He walked to Lu Yu's front, lowered his head to look at the boy who reached only to his own chest.

In those cloudy old eyes, something weighed heavily.

He said nothing.

He simply extended his hand and patted Lu Yu's shoulder twice.

The force was very light.