Chapter 499: The Ripped Open Domain

'Subdue Demons·Xingtian.'

The four characters fell, and the test chamber was devoured by darkness.

It wasn't the lights going out.

It was that everything that could be called light was eaten away from its roots.

The seal patterns on the wall were still running, but each line that lit up was immediately licked clean by the dense black.

Behind the protective glass, several researchers' faces were pressed against the screen's dim glow, pupils dilated, and they even forgot to press the alarm button.

The next second.

They saw the screen go black.

It wasn't a equipment malfunction.

It was the image itself, swallowed by Lu Yu's domain.

'All personnel, retreat!'

Su Ming stood at the lower passage entrance, his throat hoarse.

The Time Marrow Worm inside him churned wildly, trying to cut into a temporal stratum, but as soon as it hit the edge of that darkness, it was bitten back.

A metallic taste of blood rose in Su Ming's throat.

He braced against the wall and cursed lightly.

'That kid… really turned himself into a monster.'

Liang Wen brandished the Black Flame Knife, his Windcoat being rattled wildly by the edge of the domain.

Usually, he would at least say, 'My Abyss fears not the night.'

But now, he couldn't even muster a single cheeky remark.

The tip of the Black Flame Knife pressed to the ground, the fire on its blade compressed into a thin layer, like a candle wick about to be snuffed out.

Liang Wen felt his jaw go sour.

'Su Ming, have you noticed something really absurd?'

'Tell me.'

'I don't even have the mood to act cool right now.'

'That's truly… absurd.'

The two could still trade barbs with their mouths, but their feet wouldn't take a single step forward.

The domain wouldn't let them in.

More precisely, the domain didn't even regard them as enemies.

It only locked onto Ji Bai, Lin Zhi, Su Xiaoya, and those few lingering fragments of dying souls inside the test chamber.

There was no direction in the darkness.

Ji Bai knelt on the ground, his chest rising and falling laboriously.

The air was sucked away.

His lungs felt filled with dry, hard ash.

He tried to cough, but couldn't.

Every joint in his body was pulling outward, blood from the wound stretched into fine threads, turning into black specks the moment they left flesh, and were devoured by the surroundings.

Su Xiaoya lay in front of him, clutching that piece of canvas.

Her resentful spirit was stretched, then pressed back.

Her features flickered between cohesion and disarray, and she couldn't even cry a complete tone.

'Ji Bai…'

Her lips moved.

But here, even words had to pay rent.

As soon as they left her mouth, they were swallowed, leaving only a half‑spoken breath.

Ji Bai pressed the ground with his left hand.

Blood filled every gap between his fingers.

He tried to stand.

His knees wouldn't obey.

His right leg was already useless.

His left arm trembled.

Yet he still shifted forward half an inch.

Lin Zhi was still beneath Lu Yu's feet.

The red garment was shattered to fragments, its spirit so thin it let the runes on the floor show through.

Her outstretched hand halted in mid‑air.

Just a hair's breadth from Ji Bai.

That tiny gap spanned seven years, a derelict chemical plant, a Ferry Port, and a path forged by a horde of Fierce Ghosts burning themselves out.

Lu Yu floated at the center of the domain.

His school uniform was clean.

His hair hung over his forehead, covering half his face.

A black vortex opened on his chest.

It wasn't a wound.

It was his stomach.

A bottomless stomach.

"Still want to climb?"

Lu Yu lowered his eyes and looked at Ji Bai.

"People like you are annoying."

Ji Bai lifted his head, blood smearing half of his vision.

"Give her... back to me."

Lu Yu gently stepped on the forest fabric beneath his feet.

The tips of the forest fabric twitched, and shards of red clothing scattered a few strands of dark red on the ground.

A low hoarse breath forced out of Ji Bai's throat.

"Give it back."

"You have no right to negotiate terms with me."

Lu Yu raised his right hand.

The black in his palm swirled even deeper.

"I gave you a chance. You could hide in a corner, watch her being devoured, and then crawl away with the remaining Fierce Ghosts."

"But you insisted on breaking in."

"Insisting on putting yourself on the table."

He tilted his head; his tone held no anger, only cold calculation.

"Then don't blame me for a side dish."

Su Xiaoya stood in front of Ji Bai.

She spread her arms; the shattered resentful spirit was pulled apart by the suction, yet it did not retreat.

"You killed A Jie, killed Li Li, killed Meng Wan Jie..."

"You still want to eat Hong Jie."

"You are the monster."

Lu Yu looked at her.

"Monster?"

He uttered the two words, showing a faint hint of sarcasm.

"You survive on resentment, maintain your forms through fear, and when you lose control you eat people, pollute the city, and cause hundreds of ordinary people to perish with you."

"And now, you talk to me about monsters?"

Su Xiaoya's tears wouldn't fall.

The tears, just leaving the sockets, were swept away by darkness.

"We haven't harmed anyone."

"That's because you haven't lost control yet."

Lu Yu's voice lowered.

"I've seen the world after losing control."

"I've seen an entire city dragged underground by Weirdness, the living hung from rooftops to become empty shells, children clutching their mothers' heads, searching for bodies everywhere."

"I've also seen those Fierce Ghosts who claim to preserve humanity, gnawing the people who saved them clean."

He raised his hand and tapped his temple.

"Don't use your little warmth to challenge my ledger."

"I'm not here to do charity."

Ji Bai clenched his teeth, his left hand gripping Su Xiaoya's hem.

"Step aside."

Su Xiaoya shook her head.

"Won't step aside."

"Step aside."

"I said I won't!"

She cried out, her throat cracking, resentment leaking from her throat.

"The Ferry Port is gone, A Jie is gone, if I step aside again, will you be gone too?"

Ji Bai halted.

He lowered his head.

The piece of umbrella cloth clung to Su Xiaoya's chest, soaked through, tattered, with the broken ribs' marks still visible.

The Old Black Umbrella is gone.

The Ferry Port is gone.

Those guys who would hand him hot tea when he returned, tease his stinky face, and hide little demons in cabinets are also gone.

Only a piece of cloth remains.

And a trembling female ghost standing before him.

Ji Bai suddenly gave a brief smile.

It was light.

It was short.

"Su Xiaoya."

"Hm?"

"When you first came to the Ferry Port, you asked me why humans rescue the Fierce Ghost."

"Um......"

"The answer has changed now."

Ji Bai used his remaining strength to push her away.

The movement was not heavy.

But Su Xiaoya was already so weak she could not stand steadily, and the push made her fall and sit on the ground.

Ji Bai, dragging his crippled leg, stepped over her and walked toward Lu Yu.

One step.

Blood fell.

Another step.

The strange sound of bones grinding was very clear in the darkness.

"It's not humans rescuing the Fierce Ghost."

Ji Bai spoke in a low voice.

"It's the abandoned who rescue another abandoned person."

Lu Yu pressed his brows together.

"Boring."

The black vortex expanded.

The entire domain began to contract.

Darkness from all directions pressed toward the center; the alloy walls of the experimental chamber could not hold, their surfaces flaked off into powder, and the exposed conduits were sucked into fine metallic shrapnel.

The protective glass bent.

Rows of sealing symbols went out one after another.

The researchers finally regained their senses and turned to flee.

Someone fell.

Someone dragged a companion and crawled outward.

Medical room.

Chu Che sat at his desk.

The screen had already gone black.

But whether the screen was black or not made no difference to him.

He lightly touched the desk with his fingertip, and scarlet code flowed within the lens; everything in the underground experimental chamber still appeared in the depths of his retina.

Ji Bai's collapse.

Su Xiaoya's fear.

Lin Zhi's final fragment.

The energy-level curve within Lu Yu's domain.

Each piece of data was so beautiful it was pleasing.

Chu Che lifted his hand and nudged his glasses.

His movement was slow and deliberate.

"Not bad."

He evaluated softly.

"The Taotie Core's compatibility has already exceeded expectations."

On the desk, that dark red crystal trembled gently.

Inside it sealed fragments of Zhang Yuanqing's lingering authority, as well as Chu Che's "blessing" given to Lu Yu.

The blessing was not protection.

It was a hook.

The more Lu Yu consumes, the faster he grows, and the deeper the hook embeds.

Chu Che watched the dense black mass in the domain, and a focused gaze like a doctor's upon a rare case rose in his eyes.

"Keep eating."

"Consume all the sorrow, anger, sacrifice, and obsession."

"Humans always like to give these things lofty names."

"But on the god's operating table, they are merely nutrient solutions."

His face was reflected on the edge of the screen.

Gentle.

Clean.

Like a school doctor who has just prescribed medicine to a patient.

In the underground experimental chamber, Lu Yu had already raised his hand.

At the center of the domain, Ji Bai's body was pressed and bent down.

His shoulder bone dislocated.

The flesh of his left hand's five fingers was blurred.

He was only three steps away from Lin Zhi.

Three steps away, as if it were an untraversable lifetime.

Lin Zhi lifted his head.

She didn't let him go again.

She also didn't shout at him not to come.

She only used the last bit of spirit essence, gently tapped the ground.

Once.

Twice.

That was the signal she taught Ji Bai seven years ago.

Survive.

Ji Bai understood.

So he didn't stop.

Lu Yu lost patience.

"Being able to become nourishment on my path of slaying gods is the most dignified way for you to die in this life."

"Disappear."

The palm fell down.

Darkness converged.

Su Xiaoya screamed.

Ji Bai's body began to disintegrate.

The skin shattered first.

Then the flesh.

The bones were slowly torn apart by the darkness.

Su Xiaoya reached out to grab him, but only caught a handful of Blood Mist dissipating.

Fragments of Lin Zhi's red robe were also swept up.

Her final piece of spirit essence detached from her feet and flew toward Lu Yu's chest.

Ji Bai lifted his left hand.

Grasped at nothing.

He finally ran out of strength.

His knee slammed down.

His head drooped.

The world became distant.

A Jie's tea.

Li Li's cloth doll.

Meng Wan's sharp tongue.

One‑armed Old Ghost always says his bones are old, yet he runs faster than anyone.

The half‑broken lamp at the Ferry Port entrance.

Hong Jie asked him, "Kid, do you want to live?"

Ji Bai's consciousness was pulled deeper into the darkness.

He wanted to answer.

He thought.

But his throat had no strength.

Just as the first half of Lu Yu's domain completed its sealing.

The deep black surface suddenly rippled.

Very light.

So light that even Su Ming thought it was an illusion caused by a Time Marrow Worm out of control.

Lu Yu's hand hovered in midair.

His pupils contracted.

Inside the underground test chamber, a second ripple appeared on the outer shell of that boundless darkness.

A third.

A fourth.

Each one pressed in from the outside.

It was not Ji Bai's counterattack.

It was not Lin Zhi's lingering regret.

Nor was it Su Ming's time.

That force was crude, tyrannical, utterly unreasonable.

As if someone outside the domain were grasping Lu Yu's Subdue Demons·Xingtian with both hands.

Lu Yu looked up.

For the first time, his expression cracked.

"Who?"

No answer.

Only the harsh scraping sound of the dark shell being ripped open.

A crack appeared at the top of the domain.

White light streamed down from the crack.

It was very narrow.

But it cut a wound into Lu Yu's all‑devouring darkness.

Behind the fissure, a person stood.

A pale hand grasped the edge of the domain, its five fingers clenched.

Then, it split to the two sides.

Lu Yu's domain was torn open.