Du Deng Meyer, male, thirty-five years old, fifth rank of Embers, an artisan.
Hailing from the Thousand Islands, he was a common mixed-blood, just like any ordinary Ember: he claimed to have studied under many masters and drawn from a wide range of traditions—which actually meant drifting between various workshops doing odd jobs. In his pursuit of becoming an artisan, he chased corruption, and after receiving the blessing of Stagnant Rot, he kowtowed at the door of the Profound Mentor, Jianyuan, becoming a mere lackey—and only an unofficial disciple at that.
Written as "student," read as "disposable tool."
As a master who had made his name a century ago, deserted the Association, and thrown his lot in with the Nine Vices, Jianyuan could be called a model of teaching without discrimination.
When it came to students, as long as they were useful, he taught them; once taught, he used them; and he kept using them until they were utterly spent.
Over the decades, as the number of his disciples swelled, his workshop actually took on the appearance of brimming with talent. He had nurtured countless monsters and demons over time, earning the moniker of the Baleful Furnace of Stagnant Rot—meaning his furnace had forged innumerable freaks.
And Du Deng was the most hopeless wretch of his worst graduating class... not as a figure of speech, but as an undeniable fact.
His fundamentals were haphazard, his theory sloppy, and of the four disciplines—Ascension, Transmutation, Purification, and Integration—not one was presentable.
After cobbling together a mess of contradictory techniques, he couldn't synthesize them, nor could he sift the wheat from the chaff. He had eaten from a hundred kitchens until his stomach turned, and learned from a hundred schools only to disgrace them all.
Hacking and patching his way through, he had scraped together the barely passable skills of an artisan. Safely speaking, that was the extent of his life.
No further improvement was possible.
Jianyuan had told him this to his face: if not for a dire shortage of hands, he wouldn't have even qualified as a disposable tool.
In Du Deng's eyes, however, it was obviously just an excuse from that stingy old bastard, who hoarded his legacy and deliberately tore him down. At any rate, according to Du Deng, that old fossil was as wicked and ruthless as they came, the kind of villain who'd slap a stray cat just for walking past... nothing at all like the senior before him, who was so open-minded, magnanimous, and gentle!
"So, sir, on account of my full confession, could you show mercy and spare my worthless life? I'm willing to abandon the dark and step into the light! From now on, I'll be the Security Bureau's dog and spend the rest of my days thanking you for your great benevolence..."
There had been no torture, no coercion, not even an interrogation.
Ji Jue had barely started, not even completing the opening procedure, before Du Deng's mouth went off like a machine gun, rattling off everything in one breath.
He was terrified that leaving out a single detail would cost him his dog's life.
Especially after Ji Jue used the Dissociation Art right in front of him to disintegrate a piece of alchemical gear, and then, smiling without a word, pressed a palm against him...
Then came a long, heavy silence.
Everyone was quiet.
Tong Shan hesitated for a second, about to speak, but beside him Xu Guan, who had been monitoring the whole time, rubbed his face and sighed silently. "He isn't lying."
Not a single trace of deceit could be read, nor had he skipped any key points.
Either this guy was playing dumb to eat the tiger—at a level high enough to crush everyone present with ease, playing along out of pure malice—
Or... everything he said was true.
A chorus of sharp gasps rang out.
Ji Jue was expressionless, Tong Shan cast his eyes down without a word, Lou Feng's face was livid, and the other team members burst into regional dialects or colorful Yacheng profanities.
One could only say: it was a damn convention of monsters and demons...
Quancheng right now was a gathering of "elites."
Under the initiative of Lu Changsheng—the contemporary Cult Hierarch, High Priest, Holy Emissary, and grand ringleader of the Evil Transmutation Cult—the factions of the Nine Vices had surged like rising winds and gathering clouds. All kinds of lurid villains who couldn't bear the light of day were stepping onto the stage. Through secret conduits beneath the Vortex, they had converged on Quancheng to conspire toward a grand endeavor beloved by lunatics.
As for what that grand endeavor actually was, a nobody like Du Deng—who was too clumsy even to assist Jianyuan as a disposable lackey—had no clue whatsoever.
Yet the scale alone made it obvious...
Every damn one was heavier than the last.
First came the Evil Transmutation Cult, who worshipped aberrations and spread corruption; then the notorious Dragon Sacrifice Society; next was Wulou Temple, followers of the Abyssal Depths advocating the extinction of all living beings; the Tianxin Society, handpicked by Weiyang, the Great Vice of the Heart Pivot; and finally, the Profound artisans of the Stagnant Rot lineage...
Look at these five factions. Which wasn't an outlaw of the highest order? Which wasn't an established demon? Which wasn't a darling child of the Nine Vices? Well, the Dragon Sacrifice Society was riding the line, strictly speaking... but in their quest to become dragons and chase cataclysms, they caused far more outrageous spectacles!
These five bizarre groups, banding together to pull off something huge...
Haizhou had never seen such a gathering of "talent"!
Even if the other factions hadn't mobilized en masse like the Evil Transmutation Cult, they had at least dispatched their experts and mainstays.
The Evil Transmutation Cult taking on the Security Bureau alone was striking a rock with an egg, but with this horde of monsters uniting, the outcome would be dire.
Even if there was vicious infighting among them—a dog-eat-dog struggle that never ceased—none of them were fools. Faced with immense profit, any disagreements were mere squabbles.
Of course they'd prioritize the grand endeavor first!
Big moves! Grand ambition! Calamity!
Ji Jue couldn't even fathom what kind of colossal hell these extraordinary freaks could cook up together!
He had thought that after badly mauling one of the Evil Transmutation Cult's units, their enemies would suffer a heavy blow or at least nurse their wounds for a long time. Looking back now, it was barely a scratch.
It didn't even register.
A trivial itch, hardly worth worrying about.
Now they didn't even rank as a thorn in the enemy's side...
Whether it counted as a silver lining in the misfortune or not, there was news of Lou Feng's aunt.
The good news was she was still alive; the bad news was, that was all she was.
The survivors of the resident investigation team hadn't been slaughtered indiscriminately, nor had they suffered humiliation or torture. They had all been frozen on the spot and taken away.
No one knew where they had been taken.
Lou Feng's expression turned grim, and he said nothing more.
Gritting his teeth, he turned and walked away.
He threw himself wholeheartedly into dismantling the workshop, forcing his attention elsewhere. Yet just from the booming crashes of destruction, one could tell how terrible his state of mind was.
Ji Jue sighed.
At a time like this, there was no point crying over a few scraps; he just hoped Lou Feng could hold it together.
"Found it!"
Rummaging through the clutter, Ji Xue—relying on her terrifying speed and efficiency—finally found the most crucial item: a palm-sized plate engraved with numerous characters, its needle spinning continuously.
It resembled a compass.
The others instantly perked up and looked at Xu Guan. Only after Xu Guan finished inspecting it and nodded slowly did they finally breathe a sigh of relief!
It was Du Deng's geo-compass.
The Profound artisans could never truly share a bed with the Evil Transmutation Cult; saying they shared a bed while dreaming different dreams was practically a compliment.
During his trips in and out of Quancheng, Du Deng had secretly recorded several different routes on his geo-compass. Otherwise, if the tide turned and the Evil Transmutation Cult packed up and ran, what would their allies do?
Stay behind in Quancheng and wait to die?
These days, the most important part of any job wasn't whether you succeeded, but ensuring you survived to do it again if you failed.
Now, with Du Deng's map, as long as they disguised themselves properly, they might just be able to seize the moment and slip out.
An opportunity was right before them.
Next was the matter of dealing with Du Deng...
When everyone turned cold eyes toward him, Du Deng's face instantly shifted. He began frantically begging and kowtowing toward Ji Jue.
Just as Ji Jue was about to speak, he heard Lou Feng call his name.
Lou Feng stood inside Du Deng's workshop, pushing the door open, his expression grimmer than ever before.
"Come here," he said. "Look at this."
Then, Ji Jue's face darkened as well.
Inside the assembly room stood a massive machine, mostly assembled. Resembling some intricate pillar, it was engraved inside and out with numerous spiritus circuits. The structure was rigorous yet bizarre; certain parts completely defied modern alchemy, yet somehow remained mutually compatible and fully functional.
If not for the thick blueprints beside it and an instruction manual so detailed that following it step-by-step guaranteed zero mistakes, Ji Jue wouldn't have had the faintest clue what this thing was.
In truth, he still didn't understand it now.
Its builder, Du Deng, didn't understand it either, but he didn't dare ask. He did whatever his teacher told him to do. Ask too many questions, and what—did he want to pursue graduate studies? Under Jianyuan, "further study" was never a term with a happy ending.
Ji Jue could only piece together what it was for by comparing the incomplete sensations from Deus Ex Machina, his own grasp of theory, and the manual.
Yet just a fragment of conjecture was enough to make his vision swim.
"Can you be sure?" Ji Jue asked, clinging to a sliver of hope.
Lou Feng fell silent. After a moment, his voice was equally hoarse. "I couldn't be sure, which is why I called you over. But the parameters are right there. The spiritus frequency and the verification sequence modules... I've definitely seen them before."
Ji Jue had nothing to say.
"Is the problem severe?" Tong Shan asked.
"...Let me explain from the beginning." Ji Jue took a deep breath. After steadying himself, his slightly trembling fingers flipped the blueprints to the very back. "To use an analogy, this thing is probably something like an electrical substation."
"And its effect?"
"Simply put, its function is to hook into a colossal system, serving as a node and extension. It buffers and diverts flow to prevent shocks from output peaks and troughs."
Tong Shan grew even more bewildered. "Is there an issue with that?"
"That *is* the problem."
Ji Jue swallowed dryly, flipping the blueprints back to the middle and pointing at the parameters and specifications. "Why would a device made in Quancheng by a Profound artisan use the standard verification protocols of the Security Bureau? And why are its internal spiritus frequency and sequence verification identical to those of the outpost?"
"..."
Tong Shan's expression turned grim, more so than ever before. "Can you be absolutely certain?"
"I don't know. I'm just an apprentice playing second fiddle."
Ji Jue gave a bitter smile. Back when he was brawling in the lounge, he hadn't imagined such a pitfall was waiting for him. If only he had been part of the project... No, even if he had, he'd probably still be in the dark. Professor Ye's style was never to say what didn't need saying and to let him self-study everything he could.
For a project that had nothing to do with Ji Jue and involved the bigger picture, at most she would have tossed him in as cheap labor. How much he learned or deduced would have been entirely up to him.
"To be honest, I don't know the Association's plans or intentions, nor how they're being implemented. I can't determine how bad things are."
Ji Jue pondered, choosing his words carefully. "If our luck holds, it's just a simple intelligence leak—someone leaked the specifications and verifications to the Evil Transmutation Cult. They might have already prepared a countermeasure, rendering all the Association's hard work completely useless."
But if luck wasn't on their side...
Ji Jue didn't finish the thought.
It was possible that the Association's many masters and artisans had painstakingly devised a grand plan, completed ninety-nine percent of the project, only to suddenly discover that every component had stopped responding.
Meanwhile, their long-waiting adversaries reached into their pockets and pulled out a remote control prepared well in advance...
At that point, all that was left was to pray it was just an ordinary adult toy.
The finest thing about humanity was that you could always hold on to hope.
So, it could be. It might be.
It damn well better be!
Yet at that very instant, as if a hallucination, a weary sigh sounded beside Ji Jue's ear.
And then, what followed was a terrifying roar like the collapse of heaven and earth. Tremors swept through, engulfing Quancheng, inescapable even within this battered workshop.
Amidst flickering lights, countless specks of dust rained down.
And inside the assembly room, countless spiritus circuits flared to life across the unfinished machine, as if striving to respond to something. But soon, under immense pressure, it fell apart and sank into absolute silence.
Immediately following that, everyone saw it.
The sky turned bright.
Amidst the sound of shattering, the black clouds that had shrouded Quancheng for decades noiselessly dissolved, revealing the starry sky of the mortal realm—unseen for so long.
It was as though an invisible force had dug up the rotting soil, reaching straight into the depths of the earth to unearth a buried tomb into the mortal world. Yet the mortal world was so grotesque.
Across the vault of heaven, fissures sprawled, and the light of the stars wavered precariously. Innumerable eerie streams of light swirled within, cascading down as a torrential downpour.
A massive deluge of corruptive rain poured down, soaking everything.
Billowing white mist surged in all directions, yet seemed shackled by some invisible power. A piercing screech echoed across the firmament, arresting its spread.
Innumerable bizarre figures howled with excitement throughout Quancheng, scurrying frantically.
Darkness surged like a tide, boiling without end.
Quancheng was rising. Step by step, laden with decades of accumulated grudges and malice... deliberate and unhurried, it breached the blockade and ascended into the mortal realm.
And the heavy stone in Ji Jue's heart finally sank straight into the eighteenth basement level.
When pushed beyond speech, a person really would let out an inexplicable chuckle.
Yet no sound came.
"...Look on the bright side. At least we don't have to look for a way out anymore, right?"
No one answered.
In the dead silence, there was only stillness—and a trembling, terrified voice rising from a pool of blood.
"N-Not me..."
Du Deng squirmed, struggling, screaming in terror: "Mercy! Spare me, I don't know anything! I'm innocent! I really... I-I..."
Tong Shan didn't even want to speak; he merely reached out his hand, but his raised wrist was caught by Ji Jue.
As though Ji Jue actually believed the man's words.
He asked curiously:
"Really?"
For a split second, Du Deng was overwhelmed with wild joy. He wanted to nod, only to find he couldn't move at all. He wanted to make clever excuses or cover his tracks, but no sound would come from his throat.
Before those eyes, gradually kindled by a certain flame, he could speak no more.
"Are you innocent?"
Ji Jue asked softly, stepping forward pace by pace.
Du Deng trembled, his mouth opening, but his throat seemed to betray him; it could utter no lie.
The path of Embers was cruel by nature. Concepts as shallow as good and evil could never measure an artisan. Still less could one speak of nonexistent notions like morality and bottom lines for someone who had thrown himself to aberrations.
Of the dozens of techniques he mastered, which one wasn't steeped in betrayal and death? Of the hundreds of works he created, how many carried genuine hope, devoid of venomous malice?
Smelting living beings to ascend intellect, sacrificing infants to transmute material properties, stripping souls to purify raw ingredients... Amidst the boundless evils of the mortal world, was his own share truly so trivial that it could be forgiven and overlooked?
Ji Jue took another step forward and asked again, "Have you practiced the Way of Sovereign Virtue and upheld the doctrine of Revolution?"
That voice—calm to the point of abnormality—rang through the ruined workshop, resonant as iron and stone, keen as a blade, piercing the soul and echoing without end.
It drained the last vestige of color from Du Deng's face.
And within his matrix, the traces of corruptive taint could no longer be concealed, surfacing in full as viscous darkness rose like thick smoke.
Long ago... it had seeped into his very marrow and soul!
At that moment, Ji Jue finally released the restraints. The wrath and murderous intent that had welled up within Non-Offensive's spirituality ever since entering the workshop could no longer be held back, flooding his consciousness.
Awakening alongside it was a flame deep within Ji Jue's soul, so faint it was barely perceptible.
So familiar.
Yet entirely unlike the flames he had seen in nightmares.
It was like a brand and scar that could never be erased once touched, or perhaps a blessing and yearning flowing from a fleeting communion in a realm far above.
A trifling mark.
Yet the moment it awoke, it surged outward like a blaze, uncontrollably engulfing soul, consciousness, and everything else. Just like that, it propelled him forward, urging him to question,
To fulfill this mandate and duty.
Thus, from the radiant flame within his soul, a dazzling pure white gradually surfaced in his eyes.
Like burning quicksilver.
Looking down from above.
"Lastly—"
Ji Jue cast his gaze down. "Do you have any further defense to offer?"
No one answered.
Only the sound of fracturing rang out from within Du Deng's physical shell.
His face convulsed and twitched. He could not escape Ji Jue's gaze, nor could he utter a single lie.
Beneath that solemn, freezing gaze, countless traces of corruption writhed violently, as if desperate to flee this ruined vessel. Yet they could not break free from the invisible flame's binding.
To the eyes of others, this seemed like nothing more than an ordinary interrogation, but to Du Deng, it was as if he had been cast into a furnace, ruthlessly smelted, powerless to resist.
Like a living hell.
"I... I..."
Du Deng's expression twisted, twitching. His bloodshot eyes bulged, and he fought to open his mouth. Drawing strength from some unknown reserve, he gave everything he had to scream: "I did nothing wrong! What do you know?! What could someone like you ever understand?! I only... all I ever wanted was..."
*To stand higher, that's all!*
*I only wanted to...*
The roaring and wailing cut off abruptly into silence.
A hand shrouded in intricate silver emblems pressed down upon his face, cutting off all thought, words, and resistance.
"Surrendered to Stagnant Rot, forsaking Revolution, using cunning to manufacture calamity, indulging in excess to breed turmoil."
Ji Jue sighed faintly with regret. "In all you have wrought, no sign remains of kindling renewed. On the road before you, only the roots of cruelty and void endure..."
Therefore—
"—I pronounce thee an Abomination."
An airy, ethereal wave of spiritus rippled from between his five fingers, instantly enveloping the body and penetrating all.
Soul, blessing, matrix... wherever it passed, everything was reduced to ashes and dust in a terrifying shockwave that seemed to share the same source as the Dissociation Art!
Nothing remained.
Such is the sole end for vile wretches like you who chase corruption!
Chapter 208