Chapter 599: with translation of chapter title

Chu Che's left shoulder grew back.

It grew out of the grayish light—bone, tendon, skin, layer upon layer, as if time had been rewound. The whole process took less than three seconds.

Su Ming's pupils contracted slightly.

He had seen many weird regenerative abilities, but none were like this—quiet, precise, unhurried, as composed as suturing a surgical incision.

Chu Che flexed his newly grown fingers; the joints clicked twice.

"To be honest," he said, tilting his head at the Night Watchers standing ready outside the ruins of Building Three, his tone flat as if discussing a case file, "you should be proud."

He took a step forward.

Fragments of the Doctor's Lab Coat slipped off him. Inside, the black shirt was only half left, exposing his pale chest and side ribs. No scars. Even though half his body had just been vaporized, the regenerated skin was immaculate.

Qin Zhixia gripped Wu Ming's hand, trembling.

It wasn't fear. It was overexertion. The infusion of the Symbiotic Plan had nearly burned out her body; the joints of her mechanical arm smoked, half her armor shattered. White hair fell across her shoulders, her face pallid to the limit.

But she was still standing.

Chu Che laughed.

It wasn't the gentle, spring-breeze smile from before. It was a clear‑in‑the‑chest smile tinged with a hint of regret—like a lead surgeon realizing the patient's resistance was a bit stronger than expected, but only that much.

"The window of opportunity," Chu Che said, "you used it well. Really well."

He lifted his newly grown left hand, curled his fingers, clenched them into a fist, then opened them again.

"If another strike of the same or even greater intensity came, perhaps it could really kill me—but you won't get the chance."

"Surgery won't be halted by a minor mishap."

The white mist was dissipating.

The dark red particles seeping from the floor, ceiling, and walls were visibly thinning and diluting. Chu Che's surface gray‑white rules began expanding outward from half a meter, one meter, two meters.

He Chuan's voice trembled: "The suppression effect is waning—the target rule's diffusion radius has recovered to three meters—five meters—"

"We can't run," Su Ming muttered.

He was right.

Chu Che wouldn't give them a second chance.

The next second, Chu Che raised his hand and wiped away the blood left on his severed shoulder. His fingertip was red. He glanced at it, then held the blood‑stained hand before him.

Then——

The blood didn't fall.

The red liquid hovered at his fingertip, condensing, stretching, splitting—one, two, ten, a hundred.

Scalpels.

Crimson scalpels.

Each was so delicate it hardly looked like a weapon—curved handles, blades thin as cicada wings, with gray‑white rule patterns flowing across them. They unfurled behind Chu Che, blotting out the sky.

Tens of thousands.

Su Ming's reason screamed. That wasn't blood—it was Chu Che's rule essence "creating." Just as he creates weirdness, using his own blood as raw material, he forged "surgical instruments" fit only for a god.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

Chu Che's voice was soft and gentle, exactly as it had been when he stuck band‑aids on students in the infirmary.

"Next up—excising the lesion."

Ten thousand scalpels vanished at once.

No, they didn't disappear—they were just too fast.

Qin Zhixia only had time to raise Wu Ming before her.

Then her chest exploded in a puff of blood mist.

It wasn't a blade cut. It was the rules. The rules carried by the scalpels pierced her body, then followed the Symbiotic Plan's connection conduit—

Backlash.

In the linkage chamber, Jiang Yuan's shadow burst out from within him—but not what he intended to release; the shadow was attacking himself. Black spikes jutted from behind his shoulder blades, piercing his front chest, blood streaming down his combat uniform onto the floor.

"Pfft—"

Su Ming's Time Marrow Worm was forcibly torn from his body. The translucent worm shot out, writhing and convulsing wildly on the ground; Su Ming dropped to his knees, a gush of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Liang Wen was thrown straight out of the linkage cabin, knocking over an instrument. His peach‑blossom eyes were filled with bloodshot veins, and what he vomited wasn't food but dark clots mixed with fragments.

"Cough, cough—"

He lay on the ground, wanting to say something melodramatic, but opening his mouth twice only spat out blood foam.

Chen Shao fared a bit better. He severed the link a second before the backlash hit; the cost was that his Demon Eye shattered one‑third, dark red blood trickling down from his right eye socket.

In the linkage conduit.

Qin Zhixia knelt on the ground, her white hair falling over her face.

Her mechanical arm was nearly totaled—sparks flew from its joints, the whole limb dangled at a grotesque angle. Her mouth tasted of iron rust. The penetrating wound in her chest bled; Wu Ming lay on the ground, the blade's glow dimmed by half.

The backlash set her viscera to churning—now these forces inside her repelled, tore at each other, and went mad.

She braced herself with one hand to stand, but couldn't hold it and fell back to her knees.

Chu Che had already floated up.

Yes, floated.

His feet left the ground; gray‑white rule power lifted him halfway up. His tattered black shirt snapped in the windless current.

High above.

He looked down on all those fallen, gravely wounded, or dying beneath him.

In the command center, every screen turned red. Alarms blared in unison.

"All vital signs plummeting—"

Qin Team heart rate 223—

Jiang Yuan blood loss exceeded—

Wei Gong's hand pressed on the wheelchair armrest, veins bulging.

Chu Che raised his right hand in midair. His five fingers spread, then slowly closed.

A huge scarlet surgical knife condensed above his head. Ten meters long. The blade was etched with dense Rules inscriptions, emitting a chilling gray-white light.

Surgical result—

Chu Che's voice came down from above, emotionless, unfluctuating, like reading a post-op report.

The patient's resistance is fierce, but the lesion is fully exposed. Conditions for removal are met.

That huge blade began to fall.

Slowly, solemnly, irresistibly.

Su Ming watched the growing red shadow. His Time Marrow Worm still twitched on the ground; he could barely move a finger.

It's over.

That thought flashed through his mind.

Then—

Boom!

Not the sound of that blade falling.

It was the sound of a door being opened.

The special door of the secret passage split open from the inner wall. Two 30‑ton alloy steel plates slid to each side, revealing the passage behind the door.

Everyone—including Chu Che in midair—looked in that direction.

They were two old men.

One was Wei Gong.

The other had a full head of white hair.

He was thin—so thin a gust could knock him over.

But he was crying.

Old tears streamed down. Murky tears flowed down his deep nasolabial folds, mucus smeared his face, his lips trembling nonstop.

Chu Che's father.

Wei Gong's heart pounded. He wasn't sure if this card would work.

Codename: Anchor.

Not the anchor of the Sinful Crown.

It is the anchor of humanity.

Chu Father lifted his head. He saw it.

He saw his own son.

The person floating in midair—his left hand still retaining a gray‑white regenerative glow, tens of thousands of scarlet surgical knives drifting around him, a huge blade capable of cleaving the entire building hanging above his head—this thing no longer resembled a human.

It was his son.

It was the little boy who, as a child, tiptoed to reach the sink and insisted on helping him wash dishes.

It was the fifteen‑year‑old who aspired to study medicine, saying, "Dad, I will cure Mom."

It was the youth who knelt all night before his mother's spirit, then went to work the next day with red eyes.

"Che'er."

Chu Father spoke.

His voice was broken. His throat felt like it was stuffed with sandpaper. His breath was disjointed.

But those two words cut through all the roar, shattering, and alarms on the battlefield—

Loud and clear, it reached everyone's ears.

"Che'er, stand down."

In midair.

Chu Che did not move.

His expression unchanged. His gray‑white pupils calmly regarded the gaunt, tear‑streaked figure seated in the wheelchair below.

The surgical knives did not stop.

The huge blade continued its descent.

But—

"Your mother...... would not want to see you like this."

Chu Father's voice broke. He extended the hand with the IV line, trembling as he reached toward midair—too short, far too far.

"Dad doesn't blame you. Dad has never blamed you. When Mom passed, Dad wanted to tell you...... it wasn't your fault......"

Chu Che's eyes moved.

In his pupils, the absolute gray‑white layer showed a crack.

His raised right hand—the hand controlling the falling giant blade—stopped.

Just that briefly.

A fleeting stiffness.

Along with it, the Rules he used to suppress everything also revealed a brief, deadly gap.

But it was enough.

Qin Zhixia moved.

No one saw clearly how she rose from a kneeling posture. No one saw clearly when she picked up the blade and attached Ignorance to it. Her near‑scrapped mechanical prosthetic arm shouldn't still be able to move—but it was. Gears ground against gears, sparks sprayed from the broken interface, all the inscriptions on the metal surface shattered, leaving only the lowest layer of structure meshing.

That arm was disintegrating.

In a self‑destructing manner—releasing the last bit of stored kinetic energy.

All the remaining kinetic energy of the mechanical prosthetic arm was dumped into the palm's joint servo system in that instant. The metal framework couldn't withstand it, shattering piece by piece—

But the force of that push broke the sound barrier.

Boom.

Qin Zhixia was flung over by the recoil. Her white hair flew loose, she spat a mouthful of blood, red fluid streamed from both ears, and her mechanical prosthetic arm tore completely from the shoulder joint and flew off.

But she herself—

No, not her herself.

It was Ignorance.

In that 0.1 second, Qin Zhixia did not choose to rush forward with her body; she chose to throw the blade—

at the speed that broke the sound barrier.

Wrapped in the remaining strength of everyone in the Unity Plan—Jiang Yuan's last wisp of shadow, Su Ming's Time Marrow Worm's final pulse before death, Liang Wen squeezing out a thread of life‑reversal force amid his bouts of vomiting blood—all were poured into that short dagger.

White flames ignited along the blade.

That was not Qin Zhixia's attack alone.

It belonged to everyone.

Chu Che lowered his head.

He saw that white light.

It shot up from directly below. Faster than the first strike. Smaller. More precise.

His reaction had already come. The gray‑white Rules Shield re‑condensed, and the swarm of scalpels began to gather for defense—

But it was too late.

At the instant Ignorance's blade tip touched the Rules Shield, all the white flames on the blade exploded simultaneously. This was not about breaking defense—it was about burning. Burning through the fissure in the Rules, using everyone's will and Qin Zhixia's remaining lifespan as fuel.

The blade pierced Chu Che's chest.

It entered from the front and exited from the back.

On his back, a crimson blossom of blood exploded.