Dissipation

Chen Guan laughed wildly in the depths of his consciousness.

"Run? Why run? This is just the beginning."

He completely abandoned all defenses around his spirit, letting the negative emotions flood every neural pathway.

His spirit transformed into a rogue meteor, hurtling straight toward the core.

The instant he made contact, he detonated the tiny black dot hidden in his right palm in the real world.

In reality, the body plummeting through the dark abyss shuddered violently.

That black speck expanded infinitely inside his mental realm, becoming a black sun suspended above a blood-red sky.

Baal’s voice got stuck in its throat, pausing for a long moment before it could speak again.

"Are you insane? Using that power directly in your mental sea will burn your soul clean through."

The black light pierced through layers of black fog, illuminating the entire dead space.

This aura bore no impurities—it was a power far higher than the broken body below.

The massive heart that had been pumping out malice with wild abandon stopped beating under the glare of that light.

It was afraid.

Tens of thousands of years of feeding instinct gave way in an instant to a more deeply rooted will to survive.

The predator-prey relationship had completely reversed in the blink of an eye.

"Weren't you enjoying yourself just now? Huh?"

Chen Guan strode toward the cowering heart beneath the radiance of the black sun.

The broken body tried to seal the crack again to block his approach.

"Get away!"

It finally let out a roar laced with visible emotion, its voice dripping with unguarded terror.

"Don't be so stingy."

Chen Guan stopped before the heart, which dwarfed him by countless times.

The black light in the mental realm gathered beneath his feet, forming a towering, majestic throne of bone.

He sat down on the throne, sprawling imperiously, propping his chin on one hand as he looked down at the shrinking ball of meat.

"I generously let you devour half my spirit earlier. You can spit a little back as interest now—that’s not too much to ask."

Baal watched Chen Guan on the throne and once again realized the truth too late.

"You deliberately abandoned your defenses to let it assimilate part of your consciousness—just to seamlessly channel your divine-grace aura into its origin, forcing it to confront the full force of that power without warning."

These words, it knew them all, but strung together like this, they burned.

"Aren't you afraid you'll overplay your hand and drag yourself down with it?"

Chen Guan let out a chuckle from the throne. Baal had hit the mark.

No one understood hierarchy better than he did.

The divine-grace holder who wielded that power was the highest sovereign; a mere shell could never compare.

"Don't think of me as some master strategist. Besides, with you, the Great Demon God, backing me up, I've got plenty of confidence."

He smiled, in a good enough mood to toss a compliment Baal's way.

After all, without Baal, things would have been much harder. The divine-grace source was strong, but Chen Guan himself was still too weak.

Patches of black-and-red patterns peeled off the heart’s surface as it recoiled violently, trying to shrink back into the deepest corner.

"Running away now? You came all this way."

Chen Guan rose, the laziness vanishing from his eyes.

"It's a little late to back out now, don't you think?"

He stared straight at the crack still trying to close.

"Eat your fill and then want to sleep? Nothing comes that cheap."

"Now, it's my turn."

He raised his right hand, now covered in black patterns, and thrust it straight into the thick darkness ahead, grabbing hold of the beating core.

Chen Guan's right hand clenched around the colossal heart, black-red energy surging wildly between his fingers, only to be yanked back by the divine-grace aura in his palm.

He felt the endless streams of primordial energy flowing into every corner of his body through his right arm.

In the real world.

The black dot hidden deep in Chen Guan's right palm burst into dazzling black light as his falling body accelerated.

A dense brilliance swallowed his entire right arm. Flesh rolled and reshaped beneath the light; bones grated in a sound that made the scalp crawl.

Five fingers stretched and deformed, nails transformed into curved black blades, scales covered the skin, and a terrifying demonic claw took its full form midair.

Layers of black-and-red scales climbed from his wrist up to his shoulder.

Those eons-compressed grudges launched an all-out assault along his neural synapses, trying to seize control of his body.

"Get out."

Chen Guan unleashed a crushing suppression in his mental realm.

He wove vast psychic energy into a net, shredding every grudging thought that tried to fight back, crushing the last scrap of the meatball into dust.

"He's been down there for so long. Why is there no sign of him?"

Long Ao stared into the pitch-black fissure.

"No sign is the best sign."

Light starlight shimmered along An Changqing's blade.

"If he'd failed, that thing would have burst out by now."

"The fog is receding!"

Su Yuehe pointed excitedly at the ground.

"Look at the black mist."

Everyone followed her gaze. The surging black vapor was now retreating in a torrent, as if afraid of something in the depths of the abyss.

"Is Chen Guan suppressing it?"

Yin Chen's eyes went wide, unable to comprehend the scene.

"How is an ordinary man pulling this off?"

Your eighteenth birthday and mine—how are they not the same?

"He's a monster."

Hong Yuan nodded in deep agreement, reaching that conclusion.

The tower's tremors didn't stop. Sharp sounds of metal snapping echoed from the base all the way up.

"The tower is collapsing."

An Changqing felt the ground shake beneath his feet.

Yin Tianzheng knelt, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Yin Chen quickly crouched to steady him.

"Grandfather, are you alright?"

"Don't worry about me."

Yin Tianzheng pushed him away.

"It's about to be fully refined."

"This seal space is losing the Great Demon God's support. It's going to spiral out of control."

He turned to Guan Jinyue, who stood at the wind gap.

"Miss Guan, you're skilled in spatial laws. Please, get them out of here."

Guan Jinyue glanced down at the vessel she held in her arms. Baobao lay at her feet.

"I only agreed to take this leopard away. The lives of others don't concern me."

"What madness is this now?"

Hong Yuan took a step forward, ax in hand.

"We've fought together—we're comrades."

Guan Jinyue looked at her and stepped back.

"I came here for only one thing: to take my sister. Now, my goal is achieved."

"Are you really going to just watch us die?"

Long Ao gritted his teeth.

Guan Jinyue didn't answer. She drew a silver arc in the air, opening up a twisted spatial passage.

"In."

She said to Baobao.

Baobao leaped into the passage without a moment's hesitation.

In the same second, the column of black-red light that had rocketed up from the bottom of the abyss was severed in midair.

All the light was instantly swallowed, and the deadly fear that had pressed upon everyone's souls completely dissipated.

"Chen Guan succeeded."

An Changqing ran to the edge of the rift and looked down.

In the endless darkness, he saw Chen Guan falling.

That body covered in black scales flickered with a burst of white light.

"Chen Guan!"

An Changqing shouted.

Then, he watched helplessly as the body within the white light turned to countless ashes.