Chapter 600: There are no gods in this world, only the rules themselves

Chu Che's body fell from midair.

The scarlet scalpels lost control all at once, clattering to the ground and shattering into countless points of light that dissipated. The ten-meter blade overhead also cracked, turning into drifting gray-white dust.

He hit the ground.

Lying on his back, he kicked up a small puff of stone dust. A fist-sized hole in the front of his black shirt revealed the cracked floor tiles beneath. No regeneration, no repair—the wound stayed open, its edges gray and dark.

In the command center, all alarms fell silent at once.

The red on the screens faded, data returned to normal readings. The terrifying rule suppression that had blanketed everything was completely lifted at that moment.

Silence.

An unnatural silence.

Qin Zhixia knelt several meters away, her white hair scattered across the ground, the wreckage of her mechanical arm emitting the last wisps of green smoke. Her gaze remained locked on the direction Chu Che had fallen, unmoving.

Su Ming lay prone on the ground, the blood at the corner of his mouth already congealed. His Time Marrow Worm lay weakly curled beside him, its semi‑translucent body almost invisible.

Jiang Yuan knelt on one knee, the wound where shadow had pierced his shoulder blades still bleeding, his combat uniform soaked over a large area. He gritted his teeth as he breathed, but his eyes never left Chu Che.

Liang Wen fared worst. Half‑collapsed atop a pile of broken equipment, his peach‑blossom eyes were filled with bloodshot veins, a smear of uncleaned blood clung to the corner of his mouth, and his fingers tapped twice on the ground as he tried to push himself up but couldn't.

"... Did we win?"

Liang Wen's voice was hoarse and broken, tinged with uncertainty.

No one answered him.

Everyone stared at the motionless figure on the ground.

Chu Che lay flat on the rubble, his wire‑rimmed glasses askew, one lens shattered. The hollow in his chest lay exposed under the lights, no more blood seeping out. His pallid face retained the calm, composed demeanor of a school doctor, eyes open, pupils gray‑white and unfocused.

He looked dead.

"He Chuan, confirm the target's vital signs." Lord Wei's voice came through the communicator, hoarse but steady.

"Already... confirmed." He Chuan's voice trembled, "The target's internal rule activity has dropped to zero... vital response... zero."

Silence lasted three seconds.

Then Liang Wen laughed.

"Ha... haha..." he laughed from the ground, his voice like a broken bellows, halting and uneven, "This king said... light will ultimately dispel darkness..."

"Shut up." Su Ming's voice was soft.

But the corner of his mouth twitched up slightly.

Someone in the command center began to clap. One person, two, then everyone. Applause came through the channel, distant and muffled, but each of them was clapping.

Jiang Yuan's shoulders relaxed.

He walked over to Qin Zhixia.

Qin Zhixia was still kneeling.

Her eyes turned red.

Not from pain.

Victory ought to be joyful.

But she couldn't feel happy.

However.

Just as the rest were about to immerse themselves in the joy of victory,

Chu Che spoke.

"Seriously."

That voice came from the ground. Steady, clear, without a hint of weakness.

Everyone's blood froze in an instant.

Jiang Yuan's head snapped around.

On the ground. Chu Che still lay in that pose, the hole in his chest unchanged. But he tilted his head toward them, looking at them, the corner of his mouth forming a faint, faint arc.

That was Dr. Chu's smile.

Warm and moist.

Sincere.

"You should be proud."

The soles of his feet began to glow.

Not regeneration. Not repair.

It was disintegration.

Gray specks of light began at his toes, peeling off one by one. Like old pages blown apart by the wind, they drifted upward in sheets.

Chu Che's body was dissolving.

But his face showed no pain, no struggle—not even a hand to straighten his askew wire‑rimmed glasses.

"As a healer..." Chu Che spoke, his tone as calm as when he used to sit in the infirmary, casually chatting while taking students' blood pressure.

"I witnessed your struggle against desperation. It was splendid. Truly, from the heart, I say it surpasses any version I ever simulated."

The gray specks spread up to his shins.

Both feet had vanished completely.

"As the human Chu Che..." he paused, "I lost."

Jiang Yuan clenched his fist. He didn't understand.

Rule activity dropped to zero. Vital response was zero. The body was disintegrating.

Chu Che was dying.

That was the fact.

Then why...... can he speak? Why is he still laughing? Why——

"You used fresh blood to prove something." Chu Che continued speaking. His knees also began to turn into specks of light, gray dust slowly rising like some kind of quiet ritual.

"Although humans are not perfect——even can be said to be full of lesions——but their will...... is sufficiently strong. Their very existence remains beautiful."

Su Ming's pupils shrank.

Wrong.

What's wrong.

He had heard too many dying villains' lamentations. Normal people at such a time should feel despair, unwillingness, or resignation.

Chu Che's tone had none of those.

His tone was——satisfaction.

It was the satisfaction a surgeon feels when a patient's all indicators fully meet standards.

"Wei Gong." Su Ming's voice was urgent.

On the other end of the communicator, Wei Gong did not reply.

But Su Ming could imagine that old man's current expression.

Sure enough, three seconds later, Wei Gong's voice came through the channel. Only two words.

"Retreat."

Liang Wen hadn't reacted yet: "Ah? Didn't we win——

"Everyone! Retreat!" Wei Gong's voice rose.

Su Ming was already dragging his body backward when Wei Gong shouted the second time. He didn't know exactly what was wrong, but he trusted his intuition——in this life plus the previous one, his intuition had never been wrong.

Jiang Yuan turned into a shadow and reached Qin Zhixia's side, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back.

Too late.

Chu Che's chest lit up.

It was not the gray disintegration light.

It was scarlet.

Inside the shattered chest pierced by the Wu Ming Void, something floated up.

A book.

No, not a physical entity. It was a phantom. Some kind...... projection? interface?

It hovered between Chu Che's shattered ribs, emitting a deep red light that made one's hair stand on end. Its cover bore no text, only constantly flowing rule inscriptions, each twisting, reconfiguring, weaving.

Su Ming recognized it.

His brain completed all the puzzles in that instant.

Zhang Yuanqing's source of power. The foundation of all weird creations.

"No......" Su Ming's voice squeezed out from his throat, "wrong, wrong wrong wrong——

Chu Che's waist had already melted away more than half. His upper half hovered above that cluster of gray light dust, his chest cavity open, the scarlet classic steadily rotating within.

He raised his right hand, which had not yet dissipated.

His fingers were fair and slender, with distinct knuckles.

He tapped once.

That action was light and casual, exactly like when he used to sit before a computer confirming medical records.

The editor's interface unfolded.

Countless lines of inscriptions surged from the void, spreading around Chu Che's remaining half-body into a massive spherical array. Each line pulsed, each line awaited input.

"Thank you." Chu Che said.

His tone was truly sincere—not mocking, not condescending. It was that kind...... of thanks from the heart.

"Without your blade, my flesh would not die."

"If my flesh does not die, the editor will not judge me as 'material.'"

"So——

He laughed.

That smile was gentle.

"Thank you for your assistance."

Jiang Yuan's head buzzed.

He came to his senses.

From beginning to end.

From Chu Che's proactive surrender, to interrogation, to breaking free of chains, to releasing power, to leaving an opening for them to succeed——

From beginning to end.

He was waiting for this blade.

He needed this blade.

"You......" Jiang Yuan spoke, his voice dry and hoarse, "Did you deliberately let us kill you?

Chu Che did not answer that question.

He merely turned his head, looking at the editor's interface. The fingertips of his right hand had already begun to turn into specks of light, but he didn't care.

He opened the core edit field.

He entered a line of content.

"Final edit." Chu Che's voice remained calm, like checking a checklist before a spell.

"And also the strongest."

Everything below his chest had melted away. Only half of his torso, a head, and a right hand that could still move remained.

His fingertip hovered above the confirm button.

"Edit myself...... into a Weird."

Qin Zhixia's hand was trembling.

Nameless had been lying on the ground for a long time. She couldn't reach it.

She could only watch.

Everyone could only watch.

Chu Che's right hand fell down.

It pressed onto the confirm button.

The light emitted by the editor had no color. Not red. Not white. Not gray. It was a frequency that human vision cannot parse at all.

Then, Chu Che's skull also began to turn into points of light.

From the chin, to the lips, to the bridge of the nose.

The fragments of the gold-rimmed glasses floated up, turning to ash.

The last thing to disappear was those eyes.

Very calm eyes. No madness, no reluctance, no human emotional fluctuation whatsoever.

Warm and moist.

Composed.

Exactly the same as how he looked every day for six years when he walked into the infirmary.

Then, there was nothing.

Chu Che's physical body completely vanished from this world. On the gravel ground remained only a patch of congealed blood, and that askew pair of gold-rimmed glasses with only one lens left.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

Ten seconds.

Nothing happened.

Liang Wen was about to say, "Is it over?" when his tongue hadn't even touched the palate——

Globally.

Everyone.

Felt it at the same time.

That was not Rules suppression. Not a power fluctuation. Not any known Weird release characteristic.

That was——existence itself.

Like the sky above suddenly gaining another layer. Like the ground beneath suddenly deepening a bit. Like something had been added to the air, invisible, intangible, yet every cell in you screams that something has descended.

All the instruments at the Federation headquarters overloaded. Not an alarm. They went straight to black screen, unable to bear that data.

He Chuan stared at the last line of readings, the pen in his hand dropping to the floor.

That line of reading was the largest number he had ever seen. It was also the last number. Because the screen burned out halfway through displaying it.

Over the communication channel, branches on the six continents of the world almost simultaneously sent signals——

"Headquarters! Detected unknown Rules covering——range——global——"

"What is this?! What thing is——"

"Rule source...... rule source is being rewritten——"

Wei Gong sat in his wheelchair, hand resting on the armrest.

He didn't look at the screen. The screen was already useless.

He was looking out the window.

Outside the window, the sky hadn't changed color. No anomaly. The sun was still there. The clouds were still there.

But he knew that from this second onward, this sky——all the Rules on this planet, all the Weird, the entire interplay between humanity and monsters——had gained a new master.

Chu Che did not die.

Chu Che is no longer human.

He had become——the Rules themselves.