Another Metamorphosis! Stage-Three Intent Seed!

This sudden discovery sent a chill down Bai Zhou's spine, raising goosebumps all over. Could the demon with the π on its forehead still be alive? It shouldn't be. Bai Zhou had seen the demon fall with his own eyes. The lightning had obliterated every shred of vitality within his perception, and an official task force had sealed off the site immediately afterward. It should no longer be capable of stirring up trouble—at least, the young girl who had crashed down with the mountain of flesh had lost all her former dread. Bai Zhou's mind churned with doubt and suspicion. Then... was it the Major? Did he harbor yet more schemes, which was why the master of the last words still could not rest in peace? Thinking carefully, from beginning to end of the entire Yuanmeng Middle School incident, the Major had never once shown his face. Naturally, he hadn't dared to. By disrupting his plot, Bai Zhou had forced the demon's gestation to abort and dragged everything the man had secretly planned into the public eye. At that point, Bai Zhou had already accomplished the greater part of his objective. Whatever the Major wanted to do, Bai Zhou had to ruin; whatever disgusted the Major proved that Bai Zhou was doing the right thing. At that time, no matter how much the Major gritted his teeth in hatred for this masked "Senior Zhou," he couldn't possibly jump out in front of the crowd. He had no choice but to stay lurking behind the scenes. Not only that, the foremost problem confronting him wasn't Bai Zhou, but the hunt by various official authorities once they came to their senses and tracked down the culprit behind the demon incident. This had been the true purpose behind Bai Zhou's foray into the Ruin Realm. If it succeeded, even if Bai Zhou lacked sufficient evidence to clear his own name, the Major would meet his demise before him. Bai Zhou lowered his eyelids slightly, the silent cat appearing deep in thought. The Reflected Ruin Realm was a peculiar place. The control any official faction held over it was limited, and an anomaly gathering site like Yuanmeng Middle School was even more of a vacuum beyond the reach of authority. Risky as it was to choose this place for summoning a demon, utilizing unknown means to hold the entire school firmly within his grip had indeed been an exceptionally secretive and astounding feat. Even so, the Major couldn't have avoided leaving behind traces altogether. It could only be said that the bastard had better have cleaned up his mess thoroughly enough to wash his hands clean and slip away before people traced it back to him. Otherwise, the next number-one most-wanted criminal—a public enemy of the world even more notorious than Bai Zhou—would undoubtedly be the Major himself. Bai Zhou eagerly anticipated such a day, yet he couldn't shake the feeling that a Major this quiet and inactive was bound to be concocting something vile. A cornered dog leaps walls, and a desperate hare kicks an eagle. Major Luo was neither a dog nor a hare. The fact that he had nearly summoned a named demon unknown to anyone without a single person noticing had long proven he was vastly more dangerous than he appeared on the surface. Third Young Master of Zijing Group, the Special Control Bureau's most promising young base commander and cadre, mastermind behind the Human Material supply chain, and official hero who had outmaneuvered the Blood Worship Cult into crushing defeat... Behind those multiple identities, only the Major himself likely knew his true face and intentions. Faced with widespread official investigations and the failure of the demon summoning, there was no doubt he would make another move. Furthermore, the window of time available for the Major to act wasn't just a day or two—it was far longer than Bai Zhou had anticipated. First, Bai Zhou had already seen from the reactions of those Titled Extraordinaries that their attitudes toward the demon's corpse were both cautious and greedy. The mobilization of all those various agencies was meant to prevent the demon from wreaking further havoc, but it was just as likely aimed at carving up the spoils of its remains. People weren't about to ignore immediate windfalls, generously hand the demon's corpse over to others out of sheer nobility, and then pursue the mastermind with pious righteousness. At least, that was how Bai Zhou viewed the people of Blue Star and these official agencies in Tinghai. By the time they finalized how to divide the spoils, how many days would have slipped by? Another reason was that the Major had truly left behind very few traces; he was buried remarkably deep. Had Bai Zhou not used Crow's crystal ball to divine the Major's figure, he never would have known that the Major was behind all this. If the authorities investigated, their next stop would likely be the Yuanmeng Middle School in reality. But Bai Zhou had already been there; anomalies were virtually nonexistent, and the residual reverse ritual had shattered with the disappearance of the Exam King and Fang Xiaoyan. Intermittent, fragmented clues would make the authorities' investigation exceedingly difficult. To bring down a sensitive figure like Major Luo—both an official hero and cadre, as well as the Third Young Master of Zijing Group—any department would require ironclad evidence! All of that took time. Initially, Bai Zhou had wanted to search Yuanmeng Middle School in the Reflected Ruin Realm for any hint of the Major, but only through the last words had he found a further lead regarding Red Spider. Without those last words, all clues might have dead-ended right there. Brother Liu Zhen had once told Bai Zhou that even with Tinghai's extensive surveillance network, the Public Security Bureau sometimes took considerable time screening suspects just to catch a cunning repeat thief. By the same logic, even if the authorities commanded extraordinary resources, deploying massive manpower every night into Yuanmeng Middle School in the Reflected Ruin Realm to cull freshly spawned anomalies and dig three feet into the earth to investigate... Even then, reconstructing the clues would still require time. Could the authorities ultimately point the spearhead at the Major? Based on the capability Bai Zhou had witnessed from them, they likely could. Yet from investigation to suspicion, from suspicion to confirmation, and finally to arrest... the Major could do far too much during that interval. It was more than enough to make Bai Zhou, who lived under his constant threat, uneasy. In contrast, the Black Robe organization, with its absolute control over Wancheng, was far more efficient: receive a tip in the morning, and by evening the target was bound to the stake. Evidence? No need for such trivialities. The Black Robes operated strictly on the principle: "Suspicion equates to guilt, and the accused is guilty until proven otherwise." Step into a Black Robe interrogation tribunal, and if they claimed the prisoner was laid by a rooster, the prisoner would nod in agreement without hesitation. "But what if..." Suddenly, Bai Zhou's pupils constricted. His spine arched slightly, his fur prickling as a minuscule yet non-negligible possibility crossed his mind. What if... even the demon's corpse itself was bait and a smokescreen the Major had deliberately steered into being once he saw things going south? Using the demon's corpse to draw everyone's attention and buy himself time to cut his losses elsewhere? Was such a thing possible? With his Fate Principle talent elevated, his mental acuity was noticeably sharper than before. This allowed him to consider much more, yet it also weighed heavily on his chest. What on earth is that Luo fellow doing right now...? His deep, dark gaze peered into the night sky outside the window, as though trying to see all the way to some subterranean base in the distance and catch a glimpse of the man's silhouette. Although Bai Zhou had clashed with the Major from afar multiple times, and could guess with eyes closed how viciously the arrogant young officer gnashed his teeth whenever Bai Zhou was mentioned, everything Bai Zhou had done before—apart from this demon incident—had merely drawn a bit of blood. None of it had struck at the Major's fatal core. What else was he hiding? Bai Zhou never shrank from assuming the worst of an opponent's ruthlessness and malice, nor could he afford a fatal lapse born of careless thinking! In fact, not once had he underestimated Major Luo, who continually produced new cards from up his sleeve and kept himself cloaked from everyone's sight. From the supply chain to the Black Warriors, from the Tears of the Moon Goddess to the Fine Arts Society, and on to the demon summoning... in the public's eyes, Third Young Master Major Luo was completely divorced from any of it. How chilling was that? —Though in Major Luo's eyes, Bai Zhou was undoubtedly even more terrifying. An unexpected interloper appearing out of nowhere, an arch-mole whose allegiance lay who knew where—the Sanctuary of Sacred Relics or the Blood Worship Cult—plowing in like a tractor with a fire poker in hand to reduce his twenty years of plotting to utter ruin, as though fate itself had sent down his natural nemesis. Though it might sound arrogant, judging from the objective aftermath of their clashes, their repeated contests and confrontations had invisibly swayed the entirety of Tinghai. The storm had gathered because of them, yet the storm itself had no idea that the vortex centered on the two of them, and that its origin lay with... The murdered Old Brother Liu Zhen! Tracing it back even further, all of Tinghai ought to thank the Blood Worship Cult's Black Robes for molding someone like Bai Zhou, sparing Tinghai City from a demon's slaughter. At this thought, Bai Zhou steadied his mind and shook his head. He suddenly understood: whether he had just saved the world and been etched into "history," or was covered in wounds, now was not the time to let down his guard. Even taking ten thousand steps back, suppose the Major were executed on the spot and Bai Zhou cleared his name—what then? When that time came, new enemies would naturally step forward—such as the Zijing Group. Right now, the Major was in the light while Bai Zhou was in the dark; the Major had to sneak and conceal his moves to avoid public attention. But what if one day Bai Zhou stood in the light while the colossus known as the Zijing Group lurked in the dark? At that thought, Bai Zhou curled his lip. So in all the Major's foul business, had the Zijing Group taken part? How deeply were they involved? Bai Zhou had already tasted how troublesome an Iron Thorn squad could be; he didn't know where they ranked within the Zijing Group's hierarchy. He didn't believe for a second that the presence of the Iron Thorn squad and Liu Yisheng at Yuanmeng Middle School had been purposeless. It was just that Bai Zhou had run into them by chance and bumbled into wiping them all out. Otherwise, who knew what vile purpose that squad had been brought in to serve? Even so, the dead and wounded of the Iron Thorn squad had apparently become sacrifices for the demon's revival... "Sigh..." At this thought, the cat, burdened by the hardships of life, couldn't help but sigh. Since a grudge had already formed, the only way to avoid being killed was to strike first and exterminate their entire clan. On the day the Major was exposed before the world, could he drag the entire conglomerate down to Hell along with him? This would become Bai Zhou's new objective. Though it sounded daunting, it was still far easier than when he had faced the Major's entire faction as an ordinary mortal. He had already survived the darkest night; he had to grit his teeth and march from one victory to the next. Just as Crow had told him, the circle drawn around a small bug on a watermelon was only a prison of its own making. Cut a path through the forest, bridge the river in your way; the world outside was far vaster than one imagined. And speaking of which... Bai Zhou blinked. Speaking of the world "outside," he hadn't even returned there since completing the trial of Troy! For Bai Zhou, every venture into the Deep Ruin Realm and subsequent return meant that past problems were sliced through like bamboo, and former troubles vanished without a trace. Wait. So...? Bai Zhou paused, his eyes gleaming with growing brilliance. In this instant, an idea sprouted deep within Bai Zhou's mind, and his previously hazy thoughts opened up with striking clarity. Power truly grew from the fist! Human rights, freedom, equality, socioeconomic rights, and personal safety—every right was forged beneath the fist! You might never use it, but you could never be without it! Without a fist to defend oneself, everything was empty talk. Only by possessing a fist larger than a sandbag could Bai Zhou force scoundrels and bastards to stand there and listen to him speak. At that thought, Bai Zhou blinked. He didn't know why, but something inexplicably surged within his chest—as if deep within a thunderous storm cloud, some creature was stirring up wind and rain, elusive and half-revealed. It turned out that the sprouting of his battle intent seed had silently resonated with his state of mind at this very moment. What was battle intent? Or rather, what was "battle"? Was it roaring and bellowing? Was it grappling with brute force? Was it glaring with wide eyes in bluster, or a cruel thirst for slaughter and destruction? Bai Zhou didn't think so—battle was not like that. It should be a quiet, restrained seed in ordinary times, shooting into the heavens only when necessary. It was the unyielding fire under crushing despair, the resonant valor to draw blade or sword against anyone—the very essence of "when rivals meet on a narrow path, the brave prevail." Yet the true meaning of "battle" went far beyond this. To understand "battle," one had to first understand why one fought. Driven to an impasse with nowhere left to retreat, fighting to the death to survive, finding life in the face of death—that was one kind. That had been Bai Zhou's greatest realization of "battle" during his past days of being hunted. Yet now, Bai Zhou felt there was another kind of battle: fighting so that one need not fight. Crushing with overwhelming momentum, stopping war through war, fighting to bring an end to fighting—that was battle in its truest form! Having thought through this completely, Bai Zhou felt an invigorating clarity wash over him. For an ordinary person, even if they figured this out, it would remain nothing more than an abstract thought and empty talk. —Yet for Bai Zhou, a Destined, it was entirely different. "Ideas" and "cognition" alone did not matter; what mattered was unifying them with one's own lived experiences to derive unique, deeply personal insight. What had Bai Zhou experienced? The destruction of his home, countless flights along desperate roads and counter-kills in tight corners, defying death time after time, and the helplessness of an individual denied a voice... Every experience Bai Zhou had undergone since stepping into the mystic world seemed to reflect a single word: "Fight"! Fight the heavens! Fight the earth! Fight mankind! Not only that, upon his back Bai Zhou carried countless last words—the grievances and hopes of the dead! He had never fought alone, even if he possessed neither ten thousand steeds nor a thousand troops. He had seen the past where Laia of Light held her battle flag high amidst the tide of zombies; he had walked the long path of war as General Ale brought his brothers home; he had witnessed the final royal curtain of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf battling until the end of life; and he had listened to the vengeful entrustments of countless dead within Yuanmeng Middle School. He had not studied the lessons of predecessors, nor recited anyone's essays. It was lived, experienced, witnessed—everything Bai Zhou had seen in the past had given birth to his "cognition"! Practice nurtured cognition, and cognition unified practice; thus, new understanding became the beginning of subsequent action, and subsequent action was the fulfillment of new understanding. As the ancients said: those who achieve the unity of knowledge and action may be deemed lesser sages. In this moment, the Bai Zhou of every agonizing moment in the past raised his hands, lifting up the soles of the Bai Zhou standing here right now— Transforming into a shortcut! More precisely— It was the post-battle consolidation and self-reflective summation that allowed Bai Zhou to transmute every past experience into an incredible "harvest"! Boom! A clap of thunder seemed to rumble beside his ears, and the dark clouds woven from countless thoughts in his heart turned into torrential rain. The rain poured down, watering a silent, dormant seed. That intangible seed, impossible to describe in words, gradually manifested deep within Bai Zhou's consciousness—an unadorned seed whose hard shell bore a faint crack. Yet now, that crack was widening. Beneath the relentless watering of the rain, the fissure expanded, and the sprout within quietly broke through the shell. A translucent white shoot fluttered gently in the wind. Then, the rain stopped. Buzz! Bai Zhou felt as though something in his body had changed, yet also as though nothing had changed at all. "Hm?" Midair outside the window, Crow seemed to catch a fleeting sensation. She snapped her head around with a sharp gaze, locking onto the black cat Bai Zhou had transformed into with disbelief and suspicion. "...What was that?" She scrutinized Bai Zhou ceaselessly, refusing to believe her perception was mistaken, yet equally unable to believe it was correct. "This is..." Crow's pupils slowly constricted. Her flickering gaze fixed on Bai Zhou, and she asked in a low, uncertain voice, "...An Intent Seed?" "A—a stage-three Intent Seed?!"