Corruption

"Holy shit? Is that thunder?" In the shade of the trees outside the residential compound, Ji Jue felt the ground suddenly jolt. He couldn't help looking up toward the compound in the distance... at the torrential surge of spiritus erupting there. Like a storm. What he felt was a familiar aura, yet it no longer held any gentleness or patience—only absolute savagery. A spring breeze turned into a blizzard of deep winter, warm sunlight transmuted into frenzied magma. Lao Zhang?! "Is it... really that exaggerated?" Ji Jue was dumbfounded. "Well of course! Lao Zhang was one of the first generation of veterans from when the Yacheng Security Bureau was founded." Holding an ice cream, Tong Hua beamed with excitement. "After all these years, not many people even know. He's been retired for ages and only holds a nominal post. The bureau chief has changed several times, and my grandpa received a lot of help from him back in the day. "Anyway, when anything happens, listening to Lao Zhang is never wrong." "True enough." Ji Jue nodded. An elder in the family was a treasure in the house. Having seen his share of wind and waves, Lao Zhang wouldn't flinch no matter how great the trouble. Besides, with a hidden powerhouse of this caliber plus Xiao An, wouldn't a bunch of Swarm runts who'd just come to Yacheng to make a quick buck be easy pickings? Only, as he lowered his head to take a sip of his lemonade, he heard distant screams and a massive roar. Walls collapsed and shattered. From within emerged a blood-soaked figure. Staggering, stooped, constantly twitching. Yet dragging in his hand was a heavy, notched broadblade, from which blood, dust, and grime slowly dripped. It was hair-raising. "Heh, hehehe, the voices... too many voices." Herbert's mangled face lifted, twitching incessantly. His eyes had contracted to pinpoint dots amid the crimson, staring at the unrecognizable world. In that field of blood, countless faces seemed to emerge, shrieking mournfully. Those who had died. Companions or enemies, entwined around his body, reaching out mangled hands to caress his face, tug at his clothes, call his name. Yet they were all dead, so how could they meet again? "Ah, so that's it..." Dawn finally broke upon him. "Is this hell?" He felt no fear; rather, a heartfelt emotion welled within him, to the point where even the pain and torment no longer seemed to matter. He was almost moved to tears. So after a lifetime of torment, after countless battles, what awaited him was not sheer nothingness and despair—such a place actually existed? Wonderful, truly wonderful! Was the war still going on? From afar came the sound of a bugle. Was someone calling for him? Herbert burst into loud laughter. Once more, he raised his blade. Shouting. He spread his arms wide, wishing to embrace everything in this cruel yet wonderful world. Bang! A shrill whistle abruptly burst forth. That tilted head jerked violently to the side, as though struck by a sledgehammer... A bullet? Herbert turned back, looking toward the depths of hell at the devil who also sneered as it challenged him. He couldn't help cheering in exhilaration. "Fuck me—" Seeing that lunatic sneer and look back, Ji Jue couldn't hold back a curse. His opponent's defenses hadn't been breached at all, but his own mental defense was nearly shattered. Why had he run into another opponent who could facetank bullets? He had originally wanted to drag Tong Hua back to put distance between them and observe carefully, but seeing that Swarm Celestial Chosen blazing with blood-colored flames fall completely into madness, while a few reckless brats nearby hadn't had time to run yet... In the end, he had chosen to fire a shot first to test the waters... And as a result, he'd pulled all the aggro onto himself. The moment he was locked in the gaze of those crimson pupils, his left hand resting on the pistol subconsciously tightened. A faint gleam shone from the ring—Transcendent Vision activated. Since a fight was on, he'd better apply all his buffs first. Yet at that very instant, the lunatic in the distance seemed to vanish into thin air. All that remained was a streak of blood-red flames screeching straight toward them like a meteor, whipping up a tempest, smashing through cars in its path, and hurtling toward them amidst hysterical, frenzied laughter! Twofold, fourfold, eightfold, sixteenfold! In a flash, under Ji Jue's infusion of spiritus, the ring was already scorching hot and glowing red. Right now, he could only be glad that he had chosen the most stable schematic when forging it—the design with the highest tolerance, highest spiritus capacity, and greatest ability to push the blessing's effect to the absolute limit. Otherwise, had it been his original shoddy piece, it would have begun collapsing and self-destructing at eightfold. Yet even now, with Ji Jue pushing the blessing equipment's power to the limit despite a headache severe enough to keep him awake for days, his opponent's speed was still too difficult to discern clearly. Fast, far too fast. So fast that he had no time to react whatsoever. In that razor-thin fraction of an instant, he only had time to wave his hand. The insignia of Non-Offensive manifested, and layers of quicksilver seeped out from the lining of his coat, puncturing the water bags and converging toward his arm. Strands wove together by the thousands, maxing out toughness and strength under material properties interference, becoming an ejected cord of quicksilver that wrapped around the front of Little Niuma. Then, as Little Niuma sped forward, his other hand dropped the pistol, reached toward the still-dazed Tong Hua, and grabbed her collar. Instantly, material properties interference reinforced the fabric to ensure it wouldn't tear. A roar that nearly blew the cylinder burst from Little Niuma's engine. Under the command of Deus Ex Machina and the infusion of spiritus, it abruptly unleashed terrifying power sufficient to tear Ji Jue's arm clean off! BOOM!!!! A storm howled, and a deafening blast rippled out. The moment the enemy's impact arrived, Ji Jue and Tong Hua had already narrowly slipped out of the blast zone, escaping by a hair's breadth. And right where they had just been standing, a massive banyan tree thick enough to require three people to encircle snapped clean in half at the trunk! Dust and ash flew, yet failed to obscure that hideous silhouette. Within his slowed-to-the-extreme perception, Ji Jue even saw how the pupils on that twitching face rolled in their sockets, locked dead onto him. From beginning to end, watching him! Then, Transcendent Vision finally switched off, immediately followed by the onslaught of agonizing pain—hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt! In an instant, his right arm went numb, twitching and unable to exert any force. It hadn't come from his opponent, but from the abrupt wrenching: severe muscle tearing, cracks forming along the bone. One repositioning and he was already down to critical health?! Ji Jue was stunned. Is this the Swarm? Is this the Swarm when they don't need to protect an employer, don't care about money, and are truly fighting for their lives?! Only at this moment did he finally have the chance to break out in a cold sweat. Yet very quickly, he saw that the moment Herbert regained his footing, he spun around resolutely. Laughing crazily, he raised a hand toward him and hurled the notched blade. Like an artillery shell, it screeched, spinning through the shockwave toward them! Ji Jue didn't even have time to steer Little Niuma into a turn; at this speed, trying to change course would cause them to flip over instantly. Yet at that crucial juncture, Tong Hua, who had been tossed half-conscious from the rough handling, struggled frantically beneath his hold. She thrust a hand out from under Ji Jue's armpit, splaying her fingers to shield his front. A glow surfaced from the alchemical work on her wrist. Boom! An invisible barrier manifested for a brief moment. The sharp blade wedged deep into empty space, and Ji Jue could even see fractures spidering across the barrier. Blocked! "Corruption, it's corruption!" Tong Hua raised her other hand to cover her face, shielding the side facing Ji Jue. Her Eye of Aether had already locked onto their opponent, instantly detecting the darkness surging from his fractured soul: "That guy has started to undergo corruption!" This was the most tragic fate of a Celestial Chosen. Not death, yet far more terrible than death. When more and more blessings placed pressure upon the soul; when gradually diminishing humanity could no longer bear the power of Sovereign Virtue; when blessings conflicted with one another; if the matrix was flawed from its inception, or if one suffered infection from Vile Folly and abominations... The result was blessings losing control, humanity dissipating, and the soul collapsing. When that time came, the soul and consciousness of a Celestial Chosen once favored by Sovereign Virtue would be drawn to the profound, dark depths below the mortal realm spoken of in legend, infected, and swiftly transformed into an aberrant! This process wasn't necessarily instantaneous; it could be years of torment and agony. From the appearance of the first abnormality to the final uncontrollable, total collapse, far too many people would choose to end their own lives to avoid turning completely into abominations. When Celestial Chosen of the Ascension lineage lost control, their minds would begin an irreversible split, their egos shattering into madness. Those of the White Stag lineage would be captured by bestial instinct and greed, gradually becoming addicted to the fragrance of flesh and blood, even turning to cannibalism... Bizarre afflictions like Bloodthirst Syndrome had been born from the corruption of the Mid-Continent's Sacrificial King, leaving endless misfortune in its wake. The hallmark of corruption for the Embers lineage, to which Ji Jue belonged, was "reification," something that made countless craftsmen turn pale at the mere mention. Uncontrolled blessings and the Embers' tinder would smelt soul and flesh, turning the unraveling Celestial Chosen into an uncanny alchemical object. And the Swarm's hallmark of corruption was the simplest. Gradually losing oneself in uncontrollable slaughter, cursed beyond redemption by every living creature slain in one's lifetime, until in the end, all sense of self was lost, leaving only a killing machine governed purely by instinct. Just like... right now! Amid a momentary chill running down his spine, Ji Jue pressed his left hand against his right arm, hurrying to use Non-Offensive to forcibly repair and heal it. His eyes turned once more toward the relentlessly pursuing Celestial Chosen, sensing the aura and quantity of the other man's blessings. One, two, three, four, five, six—Tier 6! A complete Metamorphosis Tier, just one step away from the Regeneration Tier! There were hardly any vital spots left on his entire body! Chances were, even if his head were chopped off, he could still twitch a few times. Damn it, this was like a monster breaking out of a dungeon to massacre a town! "Heh, hehehe—" Amid idiotic, manic laughter, Herbert lifted a hand, scooping the long blade back up from where it had fallen, and sprinted toward them. The enemy was right there! The war was right there!! Victory was right there!!! A chance to redeem his failures had appeared before him once more. He had to win. He must win. As long as he won this time, he would never have to worry about being abandoned again, never have to worry about becoming a stray dog. He could still go back—back to that familiar encampment! Yet he could no longer remember where the encampment was... The places he knew, the friends he recognized, the people he had met—all of them had vanished in burning flames. In that instant, the homeless beast roared, a dying wail that sounded almost like weeping. His speed surged once more! Blood-colored flames blazed as he hurtled forward yet again! And this time, what answered him was the lever-action rifle Ji Jue finally dug out from the cart bed. Ducking instantly, Ji Jue fired a mercury bullet with a resounding boom. Crack! Herbert roared, casually swinging the long blade in his hand. He had actually anticipated the shot, lying in wait to shatter the bullet midair! God only knew what kind of Swarm blessing this was. Ji Jue dared not stop. His levering action moved so fast it left afterimages, emptying all five preloaded rounds from the magazine within a single second. Yet every single one was blocked! One was even caught between Herbert's bare teeth, crushed, and swallowed into his belly along with the detonating mercury! The instant Ji Jue's attack paused to reload, the distance closed to within a hundred meters. Tong Hua could practically see that contorted face. Her soul almost took flight in terror, and casting aside all pride and dignity, she shrieked in fright: "Hurry up and do something, Ji Jue! The monster's catching up!" Then why don't you jump off and let him eat you?! Sacrifice yourself to cover my retreat! Ji Jue was close to tears himself; he wasn't any calmer than she was. Yet as things stood, only one final option remained—his bottom-of-the-trunk trump card. Hesitating no longer, he drew a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs: "—Xiao An, save meeeeee!!!!" BANG!!! Herbert flew backward through the air. As if slamming head-on into an invisible wall, a scrap of iron from who knew where was wedged deep into his cranium, brain matter oozing from the fissure. Only then did a distant voice drift over. Atop a communication tower at a nearby high vantage point, a figure slowly came into view, smiling and waving to him: "On it, Brother Ji Jue."