We Are Myriad Reds and Purples!

"Buzz, buzz!" A face twisted in pain struggled without cease. The vivid spider mark at White Horse Star's brow gave off a sharp, low hum. The flickering spider mark collided fiercely with White Horse Star's own spirituality, as if snake and spider had opened a biting, tearing fight to the death within a space no broader than an inch, contending for final mastery of this body. "Gurgle, gurgle..." Spider silk stirred his brain. White Horse Star felt as if his soul were being drawn out, and his life were slowly draining away. All at once— "Hum!" The emerald-green jade pendant on White Horse Star's chest seemed to sense something. The floss-like cloud mist that had been slowly circulating within it suddenly began to spin faster. Several points of green light bloomed upon the pendant, and a gentle green radiance gradually enveloped White Horse Star from head to foot. With the appearance of that glowing green light, White Horse Star's body began to thin toward translucence, and the Red Spider mark on his brow faded little by little. "..." The Major's expression was calm, as if he had long foreseen this, yet he neither moved nor made a sound. Elder Wu, however, let out a soft sound of surprise. "So this is the life-protecting jade pendant of legend, the one the chairman of the Zijing Group left to his three sons?" "If the two of you hadn't spoken just now, I truly would have found it hard to imagine that you were surnamed Luo." "The Tinghai Luo family has deceived the whole world." Elder Wu gave a low chuckle, then raised a palm toward the man before him. Dim spirituality spilled from between five withered fingers, gradually sketching complex ritual patterns. "But what a pity. Whatever the Zijing Group has planned... it all stops here." What appeared even earlier than his voice was Elder Wu's cautious action. He tried to turn a ritual needle upon the pendant, hoping that by attacking and sealing the pendant he could cut the link between it and White Horse Star. In the eyes of the Major on the ground, the attempt made Major Luo shake his head without a sound. Sure enough, a faint light circulated through the pendant, and every method Elder Wu used passed straight through the green light, as if the pendant were only an empty projection, untouched by any outside force. "Hm?" Elder Wu's brows drew tight, and he prepared to strike again. But just then. The Major on the ground lifted his head, his gaze deep. "More newcomers have arrived." "Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!" Explosion after explosion came from not far off, and then an incomparably swift shriek of something tearing the air. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Six black streams of light, like black lightning of destruction, burst from the firelight glaring all around. Their target was brazen and direct: six places on Elder Wu's body in midair—his neck, his brow, his heart, and the rest. "What?!" Elder Wu's pupils contracted sharply. A cold premonition of death seized his heart in an instant! Fast! Too fast! So fast that even a being such as he had time for only one or two thoughts to turn through his mind! "Hum!" But those one or two turning thoughts made a dense, dazzling ritual light erupt all at once from beneath the wide black robe on Elder Wu. Countless intricate runes of red light showed through the cloth. Densely packed dark-red runes raced madly like living things and, in an instant, built layer upon layer of heavy scarlet barriers around his body. This battle-hardened Elder Wu had, astonishingly, inscribed special rituals over every part of his body! All the rituals activated within a thousandth of a second. The scarlet barriers opened and met those six terrifying black streams of light. "Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!" Six deafening clashes of metal, almost stacked atop one another, exploded at once with no order between them. Only when the six black streams were checked for a moment in midair was their true face exposed. They were six flying knives forged of black metal! "Boom!" The flying knives were astonishingly keen, and a terrifying, matchless force of impact clung to them besides. They struck Elder Wu so hard that his whole body pitched backward and flew sideways a great distance. "Cough...!" Elder Wu steadied himself in midair, could not help a muffled groan, and an abnormal flush surged across his face. "Damn it. That person has grown stronger again!" His gaze was heavy, and carried a measure of horror. He could not help drawing a deep breath, settling the qi and blood churning endlessly within him. By now Elder Wu could only watch with open eyes as White Horse Star, whom he had taken for prey, fell from the air. Not only did his hands make no move; he even held his ground on guard, as if facing a great enemy. "You, surnamed Wu!" An enraged roar came from far off in the sky, carrying a pressure almost condensed into something solid. "You actually dared to deceive me!" "Rumble..." Hard on the heels of the furious shout, a bold, heroic figure descended from the heavens. The newcomer seemed an ancient sword immortal riding the wind and steering a sword, a flying shuttle beneath the feet like a meteor chasing the moon. But a careful look was enough to see that the wind-breaking shuttle, its lines perfect, was clearly made of sharp black flying knives stacked tight together. Shrieking, they tore the air. They were the ultimate instruments of slaughter in the mortal world! The black combat uniform showed a figure of pronounced curves. A high ponytail swayed in the wind, exceptionally spirited. The newcomer's brows bristled, and the handsome features seethed with killing intent. "Troublesome madwoman!" Elder Wu muttered through gritted teeth. "The one surnamed Luo has so many people under him. Why couldn't they stop her, one woman?" A sharp gaze swept Elder Wu's arm. The woman in the black combat uniform saw White Horse Star's heart-blood, even now flowing slowly over Elder Wu's arm. In the next instant, a woman's voice that had been suppressing its fury burst out in a shout. "Murdering a colleague, betraying the organization, colluding with villains, committing crimes in secret—death!" She did not pause where she stood for even half a moment. The densely packed blades on the flying shuttle beneath her feet flared like scales in a fury. Her speed was beyond belief. In the space of a blink she had vanished from where she stood. Just so, feet planted on a shuttle made of flying knives, she tore through the storm, smoke, and fire that filled the sky. With the unstoppable, terrifying momentum of a meteor falling to earth, she lunged in a killing rush straight at Elder Wu. "Instructor Shi, there are many misunderstandings in this." The ritual runes on Elder Wu flickered several times in succession. His figure vanished where it stood, and when it appeared again it was already on open ground dozens of meters away. "Hear me explain!" The woman with the high ponytail said nothing. Stream after stream of light shot from beneath her feet. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Eight streams of light roared like eight flood dragons. Piercing sonic booms rolled up great waves of air. Even as they blasted the ground to pieces, they nearly shattered eardrums. Instructor Shi's eyes, burning with rage, locked dead onto Elder Wu's figure, watching eight flying knives carry a force that towered to the sky and, with the speed of a thunderclap that left no time to cover one's ears, smash into Elder Wu dozens of meters away. "Flying knives again!" Elder Wu cursed in his heart. Even if the scarlet barrier could bear the edge of the flying knives, and could weaken most of the impact, that small overflowing portion of force was still frighteningly great—by no means something a human body could endure. Even with less than a tenth of the impact left, to fall on a person was like three Dayun trucks, each carrying a full load of steel coils, rolling over him at once. Even if it were Deputy Director Liu taking a blow like this head-on, he would be shaken to death! But Elder Wu only gave a "puh," spat a great mouthful of blood-mist mixed with viscera, and flew sideways while cursing under his breath. Who, seeing this sight, would not praise Elder Wu for still being hale in his old age? The two of them chased through the sky. Blade after blade streamed like dragons in flight. Elder Wu dodged even as he cried out in endless bitterness within his heart. Demon-pattern master, ritual master—if he were prepared, or if someone were beside him to help, he would be the nightmare of anyone of the same tier. Just as moments ago, lying hidden and then taking White Horse Star down: the various rituals had rendered great service in that. But facing a person like Instructor Shi, who was exceptionally skilled at fighting head-on, Elder Wu alone could only come off especially badly. After all, what ritualist was especially good at frontal combat? If they changed ground, laid out their formations, and fought it again—then try which was stronger? It was only because he, Elder Wu, had ritually remade his own body, and possessed uncommon fighting ability even among extraordinaries of the same tier, that he could hold out for so long. Even while being hunted, he quietly left hidden traces of rituals in place after place. Even as he gradually grew used to Instructor Shi's rhythm, he insidiously stored up a lethal counterblow. But he still needed an opening. So he turned to look at the Major and Deputy Director Liu on the ground, and shouted harshly: "What are you still waiting for? Why haven't you made a move!" Deputy Director Liu did not move. He glanced at the Major before him. Major Luo turned a deaf ear to the call of his solid ally. His gaze only watched White Horse Star, inspector of the Statute Hall, who had fallen to the ground in the distance. Then he murmured a line: "They have come." "Boom, boom, boom!" As if countless shells had slammed into the ground at once, ten thousand rounds fired and exploded together. The stone slabs of the underground base shattered in sheets. Several figures arrived together with great bodies of troops. Major Luo looked up at those who had come. He saw the acting director of the Special Control Bureau, and he saw the director of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau and the commander of the Disaster Response and Investigation Agency. He had long expected it, yet Major Luo's expression still carried a trace of helplessness. "The great figures have all arrived... Tonight's commotion is truly huge." Amid the sonic booms of blade after blade flying across the sky, the arrivals saw at a glance White Horse Star lying at his last breath in a pool of blood, and they saw Instructor Shi with her hair bristling in fury, and Elder Wu with bloody Gu insects crawling over his hand. What shrewd people were they? In the first moment they guessed what had happened here. "Elder Wu!" Elder Song of the Special Control Bureau glared, eyes round, and his explosive shout broke open like rolling thunder. "How dare you—" Beside him, the director of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau, the instant he appeared, locked his stare onto Deputy Director Liu. His expression was especially grim. At the same time the commander of the Disaster Response and Investigation Agency, a man in a white windbreaker, landed without a sound, lifted White Horse Star from the pool of blood, and called his subordinates to take him away. They carried White Horse Star onto a stretcher. The emerald-green jade pendant hanging at White Horse Star's neck stopped glowing, and faint cracks appeared upon it. But it did not shatter. Only then did Major Luo withdraw the gaze that had been studying White Horse Star all the while. His expression was calm, showing neither joy nor anger; only his eyes lowered slightly. But his shoulders slackened a little, as if he had let out a breath. "This way, both you and the Zijing Group will have nothing to do with everything that happened here—nothing to do with it at all." He softly recited it twice in his heart. Major Luo's gaze turned toward the crowd descending in a black press, like heavenly troops coming down. Spiritual radiances of every color surged into the sky and swayed, overlapping until they dazzled the eye. Powerhouses gathered like clouds. Most of what met the eye were Titled Extraordinary, and even powerhouses above Level 6 were not rare. After all, the leaders of the three great institutions had come at the head. The subordinates they brought were naturally the elite upper ranks of each institution, every one a figure of weight in Tinghai City. A stamp of the foot from any of them could shake all of Tinghai City to its foundations. Facing them, Major Luo's calm figure looked solitary and small. "Luo Tunan? Third son of the Luo family of the Zijing Group?" In the crowd, someone recognized Major Luo, and also noticed that Deputy Director Liu seemed to be taking Major Luo as the one in charge. "He looks like the mastermind!" Just then a secretary whispered a few words at Elder Song's ear, and Elder Song whipped his head around. "The supervisor of our Special Control Bureau's Branch 36? Fine... We searched half the day, and it turns out our own Special Control Bureau produced a great vermin!" His face was iron-blue. He shouted harshly, "Luo Tunan, your crimes are out. Surrender and be taken!" "No one can save you. Not even the Zijing Group!" "Every person and every power dragged into this must pay a bloody price for everything tonight!" At those words, Major Luo only shook his head. "No one will come. No one will come to save me, and I don't need anyone to save me." "The only one who can ever save himself... is himself!" His voice had not yet fully fallen. "Whoosh! Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!" Countless figures rose and dropped. Nine deformed freaks, bringing a troop of tall Black Warriors whose momentum was terrible, hurried to Major Luo's side and crowded around him in a tight ring. "Father! We have come late!" Nine freaks, each deformed and yet extremely alike in looks, shouted together. Their voices were like thunder, neat and unified, and the officials could not help turning to stare. Only then did the officials discover, in shock, that these nine freaks bore a full nine-tenths resemblance to Major Luo. "...Father?" The crowd looked at one another, expressions odd. Major Luo himself was only about thirty. Where would nine sons this grown have come from? At this moment the Nine Dragons of the Luo Family were each battered and wounded, but the eyes they turned on Major Luo were forever devout and clear. With a resolve that looked on death as a return home, they kept Major Luo protected behind them. Surging momentum spread. The momentum of the nine even merged and twined together, and together with the flashing spiritual light it bared fangs and brandished claws. Even standing on the opposing side, the officials could not help sighing inwardly. These nine sons, come by so cheaply, were filial indeed. Young as he was, Major Luo actually knew how to raise his children. "It's a biological experiment... a cloning experiment!" The director of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau knit his brows hard. "Under the Special Control Protocol, cloning is a field of research the Federation prohibited by explicit decree long ago. This is a grave crime!" "And not only that." Beside him, the commander of the Disaster Response and Investigation Agency gave two cold laughs. "It seems the demon summoning that happened before in the Ruin Realm was this brat's doing as well!" "There was a human brain inside that alloy skeleton? What a blasphemous art!" People looked around them, and at once the talk broke open. "Those black-clothed warriors look like mass-made biological weapons too. They ought to be the result of some extremely cruel biological experiments..." "The scale of this underground base, and how complete the ritual equipment is, could never have been built in a short time. How long has he been lying low and running it?" "Funds, resources, rituals, connections, technical support... Who stands behind Luo Tunan? The Zijing Group, or something else?" Amid the clamor of many voices, scattered clues were rapidly pieced together. The enormous shadow hidden beneath the prosperous surface of Tinghai City was gradually taking a clear outline before these great figures. This mastermind, hidden behind Tinghai year after year and lying low on the deep seabed, finally surfaced at this moment. He had finally stepped into the open, and stood opposite everyone. "It was clearly so close to success. What a pity..." Major Luo stood quietly at the center where every gaze met, as if he could not hear the talk and accusation sweeping in from all sides. He knew the secret kingdom he had managed with such painstaking care, and disguised layer upon layer, had had its curtain roughly torn open. He also clearly heard the sound of his underground kingdom collapsing. He knew even more clearly that all of this was thanks to that one arrow shot from afar, from Egret Mountain. That arrow had carried thunder and fire, crossed half the city, and without room for argument exposed him in the city's storm. Still that Bai Zhou... Now three leaders of departments standing at the peak of Tinghai had come in person at the head of their people. Powerhouses beyond counting surrounded every side. Major Luo looked like a demon sealed in by a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers. Even if he were the Great-Strength Bull Demon King, there would be no road of escape. Elder Wu was still tangled with Instructor Shi, who pressed the chase without letting go. He cursed her as a "madwoman," and now and then looked toward Major Luo with an ugly expression, as if signaling. "Hateful. That worthless Fine Arts Society failed to bring that person back. Otherwise Father would already have succeeded by now. Never mind these people—all of Tinghai would have become our ideal heaven!" The nine of the Luo family gritted their teeth in fury and muttered, "If we had gone to seize the person ourselves, maybe..." Then Major Luo shook his head, cutting off the words of his nine "sons." "Children." He said it softly. "Do you know why I kept you here, and would not let you go on chasing those two?" There seemed to be, about Major Luo, a field of composure that inexplicably settled the Nine Dragons of the Luo Family. "Why, Father?" Big-mouthed Luo Jiu looked at Major Luo, eyes full of a child's longing. "You... will know in a moment." Even as he answered, Major Luo tipped his head back and looked around at the crowd encircling the ritual altar, at those fully armed official elites with cold, stern faces. The swaying firelight crackled, stretching his shadow until it fell across the ritual altar. No panic showed on the Major's face. Instead his tone, for no clear reason, let out a light laugh, and the corner of his mouth hooked into a strange arc. "I say—since things have come to this, there is no need for all of you to go on half-hiding, is there?" "Or will you watch with open eyes as I fall into their hands, and then have all those deeds of yours that cannot bear the light shaken out, pile by pile and item by item?" When his voice fell, the air nearly congealed. No one answered Major Luo. Many only turned to look at the colleagues beside them, eyes suspicious. Until— "Inside this base are all of your files. If I die, those pasts too painful to look back on will also become known to these three great figures..." Major Luo said, "I know that doing this breaks the rules, but I have no choice now. If you want to kill me, please first preserve yourselves and get through the pass before your eyes." "Think. You and they are all of the upper ranks." His voice carried a note of bewitchment. "So long as you kill them all, whatever happened here—won't it still be whatever you say it was?" "Slaughter one another. Success makes a king, and only defeat makes a bandit—who is the traitor and the rebel faction, the winner decides!" "Therefore." Major Luo lightly clapped twice. "Please, all of you, show yourselves!" "Pa! Pa! Pa!" The crisp sound of applause echoed in the stagnant air. Alarm bells rang in the hearts of the official experts. At once they looked warily at the companions around them, and at the corners in the shadows. "Boom! Boom! Boom!" The high official of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau nearest Director Qi, one who had entered the ranks above Level 6, suddenly erupted all over with surging momentum. In the instant dangerous spirituality flashed, he raised a hand without the slightest warning and clawed toward the heart in Director Qi's back! In the ranks of the Disaster Response and Investigation Agency, a research director in a white lab coat flicked his hand. A specially made bomb exploded with a roar and bloomed open in the crowd. Behind Elder Song of the Special Control Bureau, two people suddenly surged up and, extraordinary weapons in hand, launched a ferocious assault on Elder Song. For a time shrieks came in waves and booms exploded. Everywhere was a tumult. Quite a few mid- and high-level cadres from different departments and institutions—some usually righteous and awe-inspiring, some honest and unremarkable—rose almost at the same moment and struck killing blows against the colleagues of yesterday. "Why? What did he use, exactly, to move you?!" Director Qi of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau turned and blocked the attack from his subordinate, roaring in disbelief. For the traitor before his eyes was clearly an old comrade-in-arms with whom he had served more than fifteen years! But if one spoke of this feeling of being betrayed, it was certain cadres of the Armory present who felt this lost bewilderment most of all. After all, even Elder Wu—a founding elder of the Armory, an idol familiar by name to many juniors of the Armory, the signature figure of the Armory—had taken the lead in rebelling, and was even now being chased through the sky and hacked at by the chief instructor of the Swordbearer... "You don't understand at all how painful a feeling it is to watch yourself age, and walk toward death, with your own eyes..." Facing the bewildered questions of the Armory's juniors, Elder Wu's expression showed a measure of pain. "The wounds I took on that battlefield are eroding everything of mine at every moment. I must raise Gu to share this pain!" "No use saying more!" Elder Song said coldly. Even as he raised both fists and blasted the attackers away, his aged body suddenly straightened. The muscles all over him swelled, and with a rip they burst his suit. The muscle-knotted old man slightly hunched his back, one that could clamp a crocodile to death. Veins stood across his brow. His terrifying momentum was like a giant beast of the primordial wilderness descending into the human world. "Kill!" he said, low, and charged into the rebels like a tiger into a flock of sheep. Wherever he passed, men were sent sprawling. "Money can make a ghost turn a millstone." Major Luo spoke softly, as if instructing his nine "sons." "There is a ghost in everyone's heart. Some seek fame. Some chase profit. Some are tangled in contamination. Some are affected by their wounds. Some are unsteady in spirit. And some are bent only on climbing high... So long as these ghosts are stirred up, the human shell will be replaced by the ghost, and change completely." "And the one who stirs up the hundred ghosts in human hearts—" Major Luo said faintly, "will naturally become the 'Ghost King' who dominates Tinghai!" These people who had stood out on the spur of the moment all, like Elder Wu, possessed strength and authority far greater than Major Luo himself. So of course they were not Major Luo's subordinates, but "allies" who held compromising leverage over one another and satisfied one another's secret needs. At first it was borrowing the Zijing Group's tiger skin as a cover. Then it was relying on a share of the profits from the Human Material industry chain, and on sharing the results of the biological experiments... Later, more and more "great figures" joined this network, and the network itself became Major Luo's greatest capital for drawing in newcomers. As for whether, in the course of all this, the Zijing Group had actually put forth its strength— that, only heaven knew. But in the end, like a secret gathering, the great figures had put on masks and appeared here. Behind the city they linked with one another, shared intelligence, and shared in the profits. Here they could bare any desire of theirs without the least concealment, and their desires and needs would be satisfied here to the greatest degree. Major Luo, the spider who wove the web, stood at the very center of the web, enjoying the convenience the whole web brought. Without Elder Wu, Major Luo would have had no Red Spider. Without this great web, Major Luo's underground base and those industry chains could never have been built, much less have stayed hidden and unknown for long. Of course, the underground base and the industry chains were themselves compromising leverage Major Luo had actively handed to these people. To a certain extent, it was just as the Gem Witch had said to Bai Zhou... If Bai Zhou had truly gone to report Major Luo, that leverage would have been dragged into the open with him. Tsk! But Major Luo also knew that this power was, in the end, rootless duckweed. Just as he himself had said: "The only one who can ever save himself... is himself!" However many and however wide his connections, they were still not his own subordinates. Only enough benefit could barely drive them. Letting them help with small favors was fine. Moving their lips to cover a little commotion was no problem either. But asking them to share life and death—that was a vain hope. When great disaster loomed, they would inevitably fly apart in a panic, each on his own. Today's scene had come about only because Major Luo had torn off the mask and left them nowhere to retreat. Even if they succeeded, the first one they killed would inevitably be the Major himself! So, from a very, very long time ago, Major Luo had planned today's "Ascension to Sainthood." Originally, he truly had almost succeeded. If not for Bai Zhou... "Why rebel! Hasn't what the Special Control Bureau gave you been enough?" "No use saying more. Kill me, or be killed by me!" "Fail, and we are rebels. Succeed, and the right to speak is in our hands... You are the traitor!" "Kill!" The slaughter shook the heavens. The whole underground cavern seemed to move the earth and rock the mountains. Yet Major Luo's side, in the end, lacked true combat power of the highest tier. Elder Song of the Special Control Bureau, Director Qi of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau, Commander Qin of the Disaster Response and Investigation Agency, Chief Instructor Shi of the Swordbearer... four people, all combat power of the highest tier, tigers among sheep, with not a single foe who could meet them for even one exchange. On Major Luo's side, by contrast, only Elder Wu showed a performance clearly a cut above the other powerhouses above Level 6—and he, of all people, was pinned down by Chief Instructor Shi of the Swordbearer alone. Soon the battle took on a one-sided shape. Major Luo's side could see that there was no escaping a final ruin! "Luo Tunan! Do you still have means you haven't used?" Elder Wu's eyes bulged. "If not... all of us are done for!" At these words, the gazes of some shifted onto Major Luo. "Him? An extraordinary who isn't even Level 5?" Director Qi of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau smiled coldly. "Perhaps he has a few schemes, but before absolute strength... "—he is nothing at all!" However. Amid the chaos, beneath the nervous clustering of the Nine Dragons of the Luo Family, Major Luo appeared exceptionally calm. At some moment no one had noticed, he had stepped onto the ritual altar, murmuring low: "3.1415926535897932384..." "He's reciting... pi?" Someone finally made out what Major Luo was murmuring, yet looked baffled. "Because pi is a constant that cannot be calculated to the end." After a while, Major Luo stopped his recitation and said quietly: "People have pushed the decimal places of pi out to tens of trillions of digits, and are still calculating onward. Some schools of thought even hold that once the decimals after pi are calculated to exhaustion, it would mean the universe is not real." "Quite inconceivable, isn't it?" He said, "The digits of pi will never repeat, and they are endless. And yet it symbolizes a perfectly self-consistent circle." "This means that, so long as people are willing, anyone can find any set of digits after the decimal point. That set may be a birthday, or a phone number, or all the numbered mysteries of the human world." "Simply a merciful mother! An infinitely great 'Saint'!" At the center of the battlefield's chaos, Major Luo sighed out murmurs like words spoken in a dream, which no one could understand at all. "It contains all things and takes in everything, and it holds limitless potential to be carried further." A trace of earnest piety came over Major Luo's expression. "So, before every great undertaking, I silently derive this sacred and lonely number in my mind, to ease my own tension." "I mean—" He slowly opened both arms, and softly, solemnly recited: "This moment has finally arrived." "Though it falls short of what was expected, the ability the deity expects of me will be achieved tonight." "Wh...?" The Nine Dragons of the Luo Family turned to look at "Father," doubt of differing degrees on their faces. Major Luo looked at them as well, at the nine children he loved most. One had a head as large as a bushel. One had two arms hugely thick. One had legs like awls. One had a single red nose. One had a chest bulging high. One had a pair of ears that stuck out to catch the wind. One had a pair of pupil-less white eyes. One had bare feet like palm-leaf fans. And one had a great mouth gaping open like a bottomless black hole. "You nine are all good children. All very obedient." Major Luo looked at them, and his expression softened. "The reason I did not let you go chase those two, but required that you remain here on this night, is actually because..." A snap. Major Luo snapped his fingers. The Nine Dragons of the Luo Family, nine freaks each with a deformity of his own, seemed abruptly fixed where they stood. In the next instant, beneath gazes of disbelief: "Puh! Puh! Puh-puh-puh!" Nine muffled, sticky bursts exploded one after another, like ripe fruit splitting open from within. On the bodies of the nine who had once called themselves the "Nine Dragons of the Luo Family," flesh and blood in one place or another bulged high and burst their clothes, then exploded with a boom. Blood-mist sprayed, mixed with pus. Then, from the hideously split wounds of those bulges, accompanied by a tooth-aching rustle, nine huge spiders of a vivid, demonic color slowly crawled out... Blood-red spiders. "Rustle... rustle..." Jointed limbs scraped over ground and flesh, making minute, horrifying sounds. Nine red spiders swayed swollen, full, bright-red abdomens, clustered at Major Luo's feet, and formed a circle. They raised their foremost pair of jointed limbs and, lifting different objects, held them high toward Major Luo— Two arms, still twisting. A pair of elegantly contoured ears. A huge mouth, opening and closing. Two eyeballs, rolling blankly... Hidden deep within those deformed organs, the nine organs newly born from inside them were held up by the spiders— offered together to the Major! "Thump! Thump! Thump!" All of them were huge and living. Some even went on pulsing as usual in the pool of blood, as if they had never left a body. Eyeballs rolled wildly. Ears twitched. Arms waved. The mouth a spider held up even opened and closed in midair, letting out a naive, puzzled voice: "Fa...ther?" The Major had once heard the stories of the carp offering treasure and the monkey offering a peach: the carp in the water repays a kindness by offering a pearl, and the monkey in the mountains repays a kindness by lifting an immortal peach in both hands. At this moment, the spiders crawling out of the blood, holding up nine organs... How alike those stories were they? Now it was these children's turn to "repay the kindness." "I told you. You are good children." On the clamorous battlefield, Major Luo looked at the blood all over the ground. For some reason, some of the blood was not red, but black and green... "Those bad people—even their blood is black." Major Luo spoke, his expression especially gentle, as if he were humming a lullaby to coax a child to sleep. "Then what about us?" A spider's hair-covered claw held up Luo Jiu's big mouth. The big mouth opened and closed, naively asking "Father." "You..." Major Luo suddenly smiled. "No. We." He said, "—we will forever be myriad reds and purples!" The words had not yet finished falling. "Creak! Creak!" The skeleton robot forged of black alloy, "Liu Zhen," walked over. "Hum!!!" The nine great organs seemed to sense something. Of their own accord they leapt up into the wind and fitted themselves into the robot's body. "Clack! Clack! Clack-clack-clack!" Organs and frame fit perfectly, as if this skeleton had long been waiting for them to return to their places. Soon the black skeleton vanished—a bare-chested man appeared before everyone. People who witnessed this amid the chaotic battle showed horrified gazes, and hurriedly called the others to turn and look. This was... another Major Luo, Luo Tunan! Or rather— a face similar to Major Luo's, but a height of a full two meters thirty-three. From head to foot, every inch of the body's detail was like the most perfect sculpture. In every respect there was a strange feeling of being "perfect," "beyond reproach," "without flaw." A perfect body. Major Luo looked up at this tall body and sighed aloud: "How many experiments. How many bodies of material... The offcuts were all taken to feed the demon, and made into Black Warriors. The very worst scraps were taken to turn a profit on the Human Material industry chain." "But the most central, most perfect organs were all used to make nine people. Nine living copies of myself." He looked at the silent Deputy Director Liu beside him and said, "But in truth they were all flawed too. They could not bear perfection. They could only bear a part of perfection." "Fortunately, they are my children, and also copies of Luo Tunan. Through their warming and nurturing... these perfect organs no longer have any rejection toward me." "And the masterpiece sewn together from them—" Major Luo looked again at the tall "himself" before his eyes, his gaze burning: "is this." He said, "A perfect Saint Body!" After a brief silence, Deputy Director Liu nodded. "It is now." "Plop, plop, plop..." Then, beneath Deputy Director Liu's calm gaze, Major Luo's body began of itself to rot and collapse. The sight was quite horrifying. Flesh came away. Eyeballs rolled free. White bone loosened... On the other side, as if in answer, the eyes of the "Luo Tunan" who stood a full two meters thirty-three gradually gained spirit. —The Major was reborn within. Perfect eyes, perfect hands, perfect legs, perfect chest, perfect mouth, perfect ears... Everything was in its most perfect form. A saint stood upon the high platform, eyes compassionate, mourning heaven and pitying the people. The chaotic battlefield witnessed his birth. His blood even showed, inexplicably, as red-purple, flowing visibly beneath the skin and writhing like a living thing, noble beyond words. —Red-purple, red-purple, a thousand reds and ten thousand purples! Red symbolizes transformation. Purple represents sanctity. Blood of a thousand reds and ten thousand purples, jointly driven by the nine perfections gestated by the nine dragons of red and purple. This was the purpose for which the Major had made the nine dragons— to piece together a perfect person! The ultimate person, the complete person, the person without flaw—called a Saint! "He... he killed his own nine sons!" "What is that thing?" "What are those rotting corpses all over the ground?" The shocking change that had taken place here finally drew the attention of most of the people on the chaotic battlefield. But there were also extraordinaries of Major Luo's camp who seemed to see hope, and who tangled the opponents before them even harder. A boom. Ferocious momentum bloomed. Major Luo spread both arms. A casual clench of his fist wrung a piercing sonic boom from the air. Power flowed without end through his torso. Powerful. Incomparably powerful! Perfect. Perfection beyond compare! But... Major Luo still felt that something was off, as if this body still had a flaw. Or rather—he and his own body were not yet in harmony! In fact, this power was still worlds apart from the "Ascension to Sainthood" he had envisioned. "A Saint Body, or rather a half-saint body..." He murmured, raised a hand, and touched his brow. There, a scarlet symbol resembling an n, turned upside down, was shrieking with light! Beside him, Deputy Director Liu was carefully studying this inverted n with a complicated, obedient gaze. —An inverted demon true name! "O deity—or rather, my future self—please give me guidance." Major Luo lightly stroked his brow and whispered, "How should the ideal heaven be brought down into the mortal world?" "Hum!" The inverted "n" flowed with a mysterious scarlet light of dawn. His forehead burned. Major Luo seemed to hear the answer to the question, and abruptly turned his head. Across the battlefield tangled into chaos, his gaze traveled a great distance toward the foot of Egret Mountain. The flawless eyes slowly turned, as if following some target on the move. He saw it. Something racing at mad speed, wheels throwing sparks like lightning the whole way... A pedal tricycle? Major Luo's expression turned strange. "In any case, the sainthood-ascension ritual—" Major Luo's fist slowly clenched with force. Even as the air exploded in his palm, the clenched knuckles creaked. "lacks only the last two living sacrifices..."