Unexpectedly, the angel's death seemed to bring repercussions far beyond anything Ji Jue had anticipated.
For foes and allies alike.
Setting aside how the angels had instantly frozen in place upon seeing their comrade blown to ashes without leaving a trace behind—panicking as if they had seen a ghost, their will to fight shattered—even Linka stood petrified, utterly dumbfounded.
To her, it felt like an illusion.
"This has to be a dream. It has to be."
All through the return trip, she kept muttering under her breath, distracted and hollow. "I'm hallucinating again..."
Wen Wen sighed in exasperation and rapped roughly on the back of the driver's seat. "Keep your eyes on the road!"
Wen Wen was, after all, a superhuman. Whether or not she ate beef was beside the point, but her reflexes were genuinely fast. Decisive to a fault, she had taken advantage of the angels' confusion, hoisted them and the car up, and bolted.
In the end, they managed to break through the encirclement amidst the chaos.
Yet after waiting a long time at the rendezvous point, only a scattered few trickled in on schedule. By the time the last soot-stained and battered squad returned, there was only a single person left.
"Why are you the only one?" Wen Wen asked in bewilderment. "I remember you guys were the first to break out. Was there another ambush?"
The youth who returned wore a dejected expression. He glanced at her, then at Ji Jue, hesitating with words caught in his throat.
At that, the faces of everyone else darkened even further.
Someone spat a curse.
"Just say it. Nothing to be embarrassed about," Wen Wen said with a sigh, her expression calm.
"The squad leader... no, Aub said... said..."
The young man stammered, wavering. "He said you're insane, Big Sis... that you threw away so many lives and charged in there on a suicide mission just to drag back some damn thing inside a stone statue... He's... he's not coming back. Neither are Mu Cai and Pu Peng—"
It was obvious this had already been filtered; the original words were likely far nastier.
Seeing that their casualties were catastrophic and unable to envision any future, they had fled.
Or worse.
Defected to the enemy?
Morale was crumbling.
Sensing the strange tension in the air and the peculiar glances cast his way, Ji Jue—the very center of the conflict and the eye of the storm—remained completely composed, showing no reaction whatsoever.
He merely gazed up at the sky in a daze, nonchalant and unhurried.
Putting himself in Wen Wen's shoes, had he known she was trapped in deep encirclement, he would have spared no cost to reach her as well. Whether it was worth it wasn't something determined by mere talk. Given that he knew nothing of the inner circumstances here, he kept silent.
Yet that silence seemed to be interpreted as something else.
Among the crowd, the wounded couldn't help but glare with resentment.
"Going through all that hell just to drag back a limbless stump... what the hell is he supposed to be good for...?"
"No, listen to me, everyone—"
Linka snapped out of her daze, her voice trembling with agitation. "Just moments ago, the dev—*cough*, Mr. Ji killed an angel! Right in front of me! That power is genuinely real, I—"
For a moment, the survivors fell stunned. They looked at each other in bewilderment and suspicion, while some burst out laughing.
"Hahahaha! Linka, are you kidding us?"
"You must have seen wrong, right?"
"Enough, Linka, stop talking..."
"No, it's the truth! I saw it with my own eyes, it's real!"
Linka's face flushed crimson as she stammered in desperation. Yet even though she personally recounted everything she had witnessed, those listening looked at her with skepticism, even irritation.
The death of an angel was simply too bizarre.
Before seeing it with their own eyes, no one would believe such an outrageous fairy tale. Their immediate reaction was that Linka had made a mistake, or they even suspected that Wen Wen had instructed her to lie in order to make everyone accept such devastating losses and preserve her position as leader.
Ji Jue didn't care in the slightest. He calmly played his part as a cripple, placidly accepting the suspicious or disgusted gazes.
He shook his head and sneezed.
With a puff of air, he blew away a stray strand of hair fluttering before his face.
Right now, he was still reduced to a limbless torso, and his weight was about the same as a boulder. Unable to find a wheelchair or a handcart in the rush, Wen Wen had simply grabbed a length of rope, bundled him up tightly, and slung him onto her back.
"All right. It's been a hard few days, and everyone's exhausted. Let's head back first."
Wen Wen cut through the whispering and looked at Linka.
Linka pressed the button on the walkie-talkie against her chest. After two beeps, a faint droning hum arose, and the convoy started up once more. Before long, Ji Jue's vision blurred, and they shifted from the wilderness into the midst of towering mountains. Soon after, as the convoy pressed on, the sound of crashing waves echoed, muddy water submerged the tires, and turning past a narrow trail, the surroundings suddenly opened up—as if they were traveling through layers of clouds.
Once the clouds dispersed, they arrived at their destination.
A massive plaza.
Resembling a rustic settlement, various shacks were haphazardly erected inside a canyon, with a bonfire blazing at the center of the broad, rugged plaza.
Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.
Some even cheered and shouted, celebrating that they had made it back alive.
*What was that just now?* Ji Jue instinctively furrowed his brows in contemplation. *Why couldn't I sense any ripples of Sovereign Virtue? No, was that a teleportation?*
"Think of it as a blind spot in the dream. When so many people's dreams gather together, there are bound to be odd corners and edges. Bubbles naturally leave gaps between one another.
"With a little remodeling, it becomes a place to take shelter."
Wen Wen offered a self-deprecating smile. "After all, we're rebels and monsters now. We always have to find some dark corner hidden from the light."
Footsteps sounded in the distance as crowds approached. Those who had kept vigil around the plaza through the night rushed forward, calling out name after name. Some embraced in tears, while others were doomed never to receive an answer; after calling repeatedly, they seemed to realize the truth, weeping silently or wailing aloud.
Some couldn't even restrain their resentful glares.
Amidst the chaotic blend of grief and joy, Ji Jue watched quietly from the sidelines, only to hear an unexpected, delighted shout.
"Mr. Ji?!"
A stumbling figure squeezed through the crowd, looking at the "accessory" strapped to Wen Wen's back, wild with joy. "You're really back! Thank goodness! The Commander said you'd entered too, but I couldn't bring myself to believe it—"
"Yu Shu?"
Ji Jue's eyebrows lifted. Stunned for a moment, he hadn't expected to encounter his former employee here.
Evidently holding considerable prestige among the crowd, the others parted to make way. Yu Shu grinned from ear to ear, eagerly hurrying over.
Someone walked up briskly, looking at Wen Wen with a grave expression.
Wen Wen gave an understanding nod and put Ji Jue down. "Yu Shu, look after him for a bit. I have matters to attend to."
"Of course, don't worry."
Yu Shu hoisted Ji Jue up with some difficulty, carrying him in a bridal carry. After just two steps, he nearly stumbled, but fortunately managed to borrow a small cart, putting an end to a torment that was awkward for everyone involved.
Pushing the cart, he rattled along all the way back to his dwelling.
With great effort, he hauled Ji Jue onto the finest chair in the entire place—though unfortunately, its quality was rather limited, and it resembled a treatment chair...
"A clinic?" Ji Jue looked around with curiosity. "Do you need doctors here too?"
After bustling about for a while, Yu Shu brought over some hot water, only to pause awkwardly as he realized Ji Jue had no hands. Yet Ji Jue merely swung his arm stumps nonchalantly.
"I'm not thirsty right now, nor hungry. Do we not need food here?" he asked, analyzing his condition.
"Theoretically, no, but many people still can't break the habit. If you go too long without eating, you'll still feel hungry, though once you're full, you can last a very long time. Water, however, remains a necessity. The instinct to drink can't be eliminated even in a dream. If you don't drink, you become thirstier and thirstier, and it's hard to overcome.
"Sleep still exists as well. Remaining conscious for too long still brings exhaustion. Only, even when you fall asleep, there are no more dreams,"
Yu Shu explained. "As for the clinic, it's mostly for show.
"I'm just glad I studied surgery back then. Most of the time, I just help stitch wounds. Aside from that, probably due to the Vortex lineage, my spiritus can accelerate and stimulate wound healing, which saves me the trouble of prescribing medicine.
"Ah, forgive me for rattling on all at once—"
"Not at all,"
Ji Jue said calmly. "Could you tell me what's really going on with this world? Why has everyone fallen to this state, and what on earth are those... angels?"
Yu Shu's expression turned complex, heavy with bitterness and aversion, as if recalling something repulsive. "As for what this place is, it's essentially a dream... It seems that the consciousness of everyone infected by Dreamloss Syndrome ended up here. All their dreams piled together, forming the world you see now."
Ji Jue understood. He had already seen it from the outside—the sea of bubbles formed by countless illusions and shifting lights, and the eerie imagery of the high tower and the colossal tree.
"Though it's a long story, to put it simply, a god exists in this world of dreams,"
Yu Shu sighed. "As long as you believe in the Holy God, you can attain peace and bliss. As long as you pray to God, your wishes will be granted. As long as you are devout, you can live forever—"
"Sounds wonderful," Ji Jue remarked with a wistful smile. "If it's truly that good, I wouldn't mind offering a prayer myself... But what is the price?
"What must one pay?"
The price was that, aside from faith and prayer, one had nothing left!
Gradually, one turned into a walking corpse that cared for nothing except faith and prayer. Despite having an intact soul and complete consciousness, one's humanity was entirely lost, burned away as the body slowly warped. In the end, stripped of eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, they degenerated into Faceless Ones, eternally offering praise and prayer.
"Every year, in every district, the bottom third of people who fall short in prayer time and efficiency are selected for punishment. Their limbs are severed, or their sensory organs and viscera are gouged out...
"If someone is chosen for years on end, or speaks words they shouldn't, they are condemned as false believers and thrown into the furnace to burn day and night.
"Yet they cannot die, condemned to wail for all eternity—"
Yu Shu turned pale, sweat drenching his back. His breathing grew ragged, and he instinctively pressed his wrist, rubbing at burn marks that had long since ceased to exist.
"Yu Shu—"
Ji Jue frowned, raising his voice. "—Yu Shu!"
Yu Shu shuddered, snapping awake as if from a nightmare. With a wretched, self-mocking smile, he moved to speak, but Ji Jue shook his head. "If it's painful to recall, you don't have to talk about it."
Either believe, pray, and praise, gradually losing your sense of self and consciousness until you became an empty shell acting as a praising machine, or burn endlessly in hell.
Before everyone in this world lay only two paths.
Neither allowed one to live, and neither allowed one to die.
"What else? There must be more to it, right?"
Ji Jue pondered for a moment before suddenly asking, "By the way, what about the angels? What are they?"
"Just a pack of mad dogs whose brains have been fried,"
Yu Shu replied after catching his breath. "Mr. Ji, you know how dangerous illicit drugs are, right? Those forbidden substances that stimulate the brain and nerves, flooding the system with hormones...
"The so-called Realm of Ultimate Bliss is far more terrifying than any of those.
"Far more extravagant than any dream—
"Anything you desire can be obtained with a single thought. Fine delicacies, beauties, decadent luxuries, or unspeakable perversions—all of it can be satisfied, and the intensity of the stimulation only climbs higher, growing ever more frenzied.
"It isn't just your own fantasies, either; other people's fantasies, every illusion recorded in the Huangliang Relic, can be reproduced effortlessly. Endless joy and gratification, literal ultimate bliss.
"Anyone who proclaims their faith can enter to experience it for one hour. And once you've been inside, you can never forget it. You won't forget that feeling for the rest of your life.
"Every year, not only are the most devout believers allowed inside for a day, but the Order of the Holy God also regularly selects qualified candidates to reside there permanently. They are remade into angels, remaining inside forever to indulge to their hearts' content, except when called upon for the occasional mission..."
Amidst the silence, Ji Jue's expression shifted slightly, and he let out a soft sigh that sounded almost like admiration.
What a brilliant scheme.
A carrot in one hand, a stick in the other. With a hell of infinite suffering and a paradise of infinite bliss, why wouldn't believers flock to it like sheep?
Except...
"When this is clearly a dream, even fantasizing has become a luxury?"
Ji Jue couldn't help but sneer. "How absurd."
They had stripped away everything people dreamed and fantasized about, only to toss it back like an alms-reward to the loyal dogs who knelt and worshipped first.
And if you refused to kneel and kowtow, then please, step right into hell.
"What do you think?"
Watching Yu Shu's reaction, Ji Jue suddenly asked, "What about that 'Holy God'? Aren't you from the Church? I recall the Church of Chongguang has its own deity as well..."
"Mr. Ji—"
Yu Shu's expression instantly turned solemn, a hint of displeasure surfacing. "Please do not conflate the two. Furthermore, the Church—that is, the Church of Chongguang—never considers its members to be mere worshippers.
"The Holy Spirit is no god; it was created by mankind.
"My father once told me that divinity is the fruition of righteous acts, not the purpose of righteous acts. If one embarks on this path merely to worship something, it would be better never to set out at all.
"There should never exist a high-and-mighty god in this world who holds dominion over human souls."
"My apologies. That was presumptuous of me."
"No, it's my... thank you."
Having regained his composure, Yu Shu finally broke free from his lingering gloom. He smiled bitterly and continued, "As for that 'Holy God', aside from appearing long ago, no one has seen it for a very long time. They say only the most exalted saints within the Realm of Ultimate Bliss can receive its revelations.
"Even when Miss Wen fought her way into Tiancheng earlier, it never showed itself. In all likelihood, it doesn't care about a pack of gutter rats like us."
"Hmm?"
Ji Jue raised an eyebrow slightly, but said nothing more.
He merely pondered.
In the quiet, a soft, low knock sounded at the door, full of patience.
"Elder Bao?"
Yu Shu went to answer the door, looking slightly surprised. "It's so late. I thought you had already turned in."
"When you get old, you sleep light. I heard from Commander Wen that someone over here needed a hand, so I came by." The elderly man at the door smiled genially, carrying something in his hands.
Hampered by his angle, Ji Jue couldn't see the man's back, but when the old man brought a somewhat crude wheelchair into the room, his face came into view.
Aged and hunched, his face was dotted with age spots, his white hair sparse, and his frame so frail it seemed a gust of wind might blow him over.
Yet through his spiritus perception, Ji Jue could see the light constantly radiating from the old man's soul. It was neither blazing nor gentle, but naturally sent ripples across his surroundings, maintaining a detection sweep without drawing notice.
More importantly, his gaze.
The instant their eyes met, Ji Jue's heart stirred, and realization dawned.
Just as the old man perceived him now.
That gaze examining a fine piece of raw jade...
—Without a doubt, a fellow artisan!
"I have long heard of your renown, Mr. Ji." The old man pressed a hand to his chest and smiled faintly. "It seems I have no need for elaborate introductions. What you see is merely an obscure old artisan."
Ji Jue gave a polite nod and raised his empty elbow stump in the greeting gesture artisans of the Association used when meeting. "And how should I address you?"
"Bao Dachai."
A name he had never heard before.
"Greetings, Mr. Bao."
Ji Jue greeted him courteously with a smile, while inwardly certain—*this damn name is a hundred percent fake.*
When he had resolved to make a push toward the rank of Master, he had researched every single artisan in the Association with a Golden Ribbon on record: their names, schools, and general research directions.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles; at the very least, he needed to know his competitors.
The entire roster spanned over a thousand names, but there was only one person surnamed Bao, and she was certainly not named Bao Dachai. Moreover, she was a rising star who had qualified just two terms ahead of Ji Jue, nowhere near this old.
What was more... she was a woman!
As for the possibility that he was truly an obscure old artisan who had never earned a Golden Ribbon in his entire life—what a joke. Whether judged by that veiled pulse of spiritus or the deliberate focus of the man's gaze, it was clear he possessed the instinct and control nurtured through long years of immersing himself in the craft.
The Association might be somewhat foolish, sluggish, and useless, but it was by no means blind!
Could he simply be keeping a low profile? While keeping a low profile had its benefits, it also carried a price—no one would give a damn about you. Perhaps modesty was excusable in other professions, but the very nature and advancement instincts of an artisan dictated that if one wanted to progress, one had to bash heads with rivals.
Outside the Association, artisans were either cultivated directly by the Empire and Federation—requiring no fame to receive an endless stream of resources and upkeep—or they belonged to... the Profound?
He truly was a fellow of the craft!
Just as Ji Jue was quietly on guard and plotting how to feed this fine piece of raw jade into the furnace, Old Man Bao chuckled and took the freshly boiled water. Pulling up a chair, he sat down beside Ji Jue.
As if by coincidence, the slight turn of his wrist revealed the fingers holding the cup.
Hidden behind the body of the cup, his fingers gripped it in a bizarre and peculiar fashion: the index and middle fingers overlapped through the handle, the first knuckle of his thumb pressed against the ring finger, and his little finger wove through them with uncanny suppleness—tangled like a knot, yet strikingly familiar.
That was an extremely rare gesture. In ancient alchemical tradition, such an emblem and mark was called the [Knot of Rebirth], used to signify the Philosopher's Stone or the Panacea.
At the same time, from Professor Ye's past teachings, Ji Jue knew it possessed another name and identity—what was it again? Ah, right—Nirv—holy shit!
Ji Jue's vision went black.
A fellow artisan was one thing, but how the hell was he *this* kind of artisan?!
[Nirvana]!
Chapter 499