Chapter 46: The Holy Spirit Is Simple; It Is Humans Who Are Complex…
“Your brother was a warrior. He died in the winter defending the Eternal City.”
“You are a warrior too. Mama is proud of you.”
Holding him, his mother spoke through her tears.
Having just survived the genetic mutation, Sirius nodded vigorously. A few scales had sprouted along his arm, stinging with pain; he didn’t dare scratch them, terrified that whole sheets of skin would peel off and expose the raw, bloody flesh underneath.
He was seven years old that year.
The City Lord required a vast army of bio-soldiers, yet provided them only with the lowest-grade Gene Serums.
The soldiers didn’t need to be powerful—they just needed to be passable enough for this Wasteland.
“My Lord, I beg you, please don’t abandon him… I only have two children, and my eldest son died fighting for you. Please, this is my last child… I beg you, save him.”
The City Lord looked down, slowly prying off the hand desperately clutching his ankle.
“I remember you, lady. Thirty-five years ago, you were still a serf. Your children were outstanding.
“However, I must correct one of your points. Neither of them died for me—do not place such a heavy burden of responsibility on my shoulders. They fought for themselves, so that you could live in the city and enjoy an opulent life with peace of mind.
“Let go. Considering you’ve lost two sons, I won’t hold your loss of composure against you.”
His mother fell ill and died that winter.
He was nineteen that year.
So tired, so sleepy. What is hurting so much?
He wanted to fall into an eternal sleep, yet why was there always a voice pressing him: “Are you truly resigned to this?”
Are you resigned to this? You arrived in Gusu City, you gained fame, status, and money. You could forget all those unpleasant memories and start anew. The flames of hatred will only burn you from within.
“I… am not…”
I don’t understand. I don’t forgive. I am not resigned.
Sirius snapped his eyes open. Though he couldn’t feel his body, he stubbornly shoved aside the rocks weighing down on him, crushed stone and dust cascading down from his temples.
Whether it was because there were no light sources around or because he had gone blind, Sirius couldn’t see a thing, yet he possessed an instinct almost like that of a wild beast.
Xiang Chenxi was right ahead; they had fallen almost simultaneously.
Fumbling around, he picked up a stone from the ground, locating its sharpest tip.
Sirius didn’t have much strength left; the flame of his life was nearing exhaustion. Strangling someone to death was too exhausting—using a weapon would be much easier.
Sirius was a name he had chosen for himself. Rhine had told him it was the brightest star in the night sky, its name meaning “glowing” and “searing.”
Rhine had also said he hoped Sirius’s future life could radiate light and heat like Sirius itself.
Sirius thought to himself that he wasn’t the kind of existence that brought light or heat. He was just a cold piece of stone.
If only I could kill the City Lord with my own hands. Unfortunate that the old bastard never left the Main City, always surrounded by guards.
But it didn’t matter—he could kill the City Lord indirectly by killing Xiang Chenxi.
If the future Holy Son of the Divine Court died in the Eternal City, the City Lord would inevitably be held accountable.
Stumbling, he practically crawled over to Xiang Chenxi’s side.
The young man lay on the ground, unconscious.
The automatically deployed protective shield had fended off the vast majority of the impact for him, even briefly sheltering Sirius who had fallen nearby. Otherwise, both of them would have perished in the underground collapse.
Xiang Chenxi was virtually unharmed, having fallen unconscious merely from the collision. Having weathered that wave of severe tremors, the protective device’s energy had just run out.
Sirius raised the weapon in his hand, gripping it tightly in his palm as he muttered softly, “Sorry.”
Even though he was completely blind, he stabbed with precise accuracy toward Xiang Chenxi’s neck in the dark.
At that moment, Xiang Chenxi’s body twitched. He snapped awake, instinctively dodging the weapon thrusting at him.
It couldn’t even be called conscious awareness—it was merely an instinct honed from facing countless assassination attempts over the years.
Xiang Chenxi bit his lower lip. A sharp, piercing screech echoed by his ear as the stone grazed his skin, driving straight into the ground.
“Sirius?” Xiang Chenxi’s tone was filled with surprise. He propped his body up and scrambled backward, his palm pressing into the crushed gravel, sending sharp stabs of pain through his hand. “Can we talk this over? Whatever price they offered you, I’ll pay double!”
Xiang Chenxi’s voice was still so gentle.
Unfortunate that Sirius didn’t want money—he only wanted Xiang Chenxi dead.
Darting forward, the stone blade in his hand plunged straight through Xiang Chenxi’s heart.
Excruciating pain contorted Xiang Chenxi’s features, yet he still maintained his dignified smile: “God forgives you, Sirius.”
The hand Xiang Chenxi pressed behind his back was frantically mashing the emergency distress button.
Sirius couldn’t see. Expressionlessly, he pulled out the blunt instrument and drove it into the next target: the spleen.
He knew that certain people were very hard to kill.
After the spleen was the neck—to sever Xiang Chenxi’s head.
Protected by the cervical vertebrae, this area would be much harder to pierce, but as long as he found the right angle, it would do.
Sirius thought detachedly.
The stone blade had dulled slightly. Sirius pinned down Xiang Chenxi’s hands, stabbing repeatedly several times before managing to drive the tip in just a tiny fraction.
He panted, the blunt blade grinding through flesh. Right before he exerted his full force, he heard Xiang Chenxi’s hysterical scream: “Sariel! Come over and kill this bastard already!”
BOOM—!
It was the sound of a stone wall being blasted apart.
Sirius felt a blast of freezing wind, carrying the scent of snow and death.
His feet dangled in midair as Sariel grabbed Sirius by the head with one hand, lifting him straight up.
A heavy punch struck his abdomen, shattering bones and rupturing his spleen.
A metallic, sweet taste filled his throat. Having previously unlocked his genetic limit, Sirius was already at the end of his rope, his internal reserves deeply depleted—to the point where he couldn’t even cough up blood.
Pitch-blackness hung before his eyes as Xiang Chenxi’s raspy, enraged roars echoed in his ears.
Clutching the wound on his neck tightly, Xiang Chenxi cursed in a sharp, distorted screech: “Kill him! And that group that came with him! No! Killing them is too easy—turn them all into human trunks! Lock them in the Holy Spirit Hall, use Gene Serums to regenerate their flesh, and then slice off their meat blade by blade to feed the snakes! I want everyone to know the consequences of assassinating me!”
Sariel remained unmoved, standing motionless like a sculpture.
Xiang Chenxi burst into tears: “Sariel, it hurts so much…”
Sariel replied, “Understood.”
He opened his hand.
Sirius hit the ground. The faces of many people flashed through his mind—Rhine, Xiang Nanli, Andrew, Dongfang Qingdi.
Sorry…
If he had known this would be the outcome, maybe he… Never mind, there were no ‘ifs.’
Dongfang Qingdi hadn’t originally intended to bother with Sirius.
Although they were colleagues, he had far more important and urgent matters to attend to: reuniting with Xiang Nanli.
Dongfang Qingdi couldn’t contact Xiang Nanli.
The earthquake had destroyed the local cloud network equipment, shrinking his signal coverage radius by a whole margin—to say nothing of Xiang Nanli leaving the Arena directly afterward.
The earthquake had also altered the terrain and the intricate, crisscrossing pathways.
Dongfang Qingdi felt that his life had never been this pathetic. Falling from the second basement level, he had landed straight into a pit of snakes, submerged in bloody water.
The companion spirits—born a step ahead of the Holy Spirit—assumed their feeder had sent another side dish, happily lunging forward to bite Dongfang Qingdi’s body… only to break their own teeth.
Heh heh heh, what a joke. The outer shell of his body was forged from space adamant, worth millions of credit points per gram, and he weighed 80 kilograms! Forget these companion spirits; even if the Holy Spirit came in person, biting through him would be impossible.
Standing in the pool, Dongfang Qingdi snapped the necks of a few snakes nearest to him. From their tiny brains popped a few small crystals, resembling crushed diamonds.
Dongfang Qingdi froze, realizing that these were actually the bio-energy sources he currently lacked the most.
Some companion spirits had them in their brains, while others didn’t. Dongfang Qingdi snapped a heap of them at top speed, collecting a handful of tiny stones whose combined weight didn’t exceed 3 grams.
Very well. Tossed into the energy tank, refining them will yield roughly 0.15% reserve battery power, taking 15 minutes. It’d be better to cling onto Xiang Nanli for a few extra minutes instead.
One of the steps in the Holy Spirit’s incubation involved using the placental root system to absorb these companion spirits.
Suffice it to say, Dongfang Qingdi’s contribution to ruining the Holy Spirit’s smooth birth was undeniable.
Despite the tantalizing energy right at his fingertips, Dongfang Qingdi still intended to find Xiang Nanli first.
He began tunneling upward.
There was no other choice; the paths were completely caved in, the elevators were out of service, and only a few underground structures had survived. To get out, he had to clear out these earthworks—a process best described as “tunneling.”
Or he could use space jump technology directly.
However, Dongfang Qingdi considered that unworthy due to the massive energy consumption.
He usually reserved it for emergency situations. The last time he used it was to help Xiang Nanli block the laser beam from that mechanical Crawler.
Dongfang Qingdi shuttled through the crushed rock, clearing more than half of the tunnel. Before reaching the surface, however, he spotted Sirius and Xiang Chenxi first.
Dongfang Qingdi didn’t care why Sirius wanted to kill Xiang Chenxi. Even when Sariel made his entrance, Dongfang Qingdi didn’t so much as turn his head.
That was until Xiang Chenxi’s foul mouth blurted out his vicious plan—a plan that just happened to fall right onto Dongfang Qingdi’s ears.
Unfortunately, Xiang Nanli was also among “that group that came with him.”
Therefore, they couldn’t be allowed to leave alive.
Dongfang Qingdi couldn’t reach Xiang Nanli, but based on the faint signal transmitted by the Gospel, he knew his sub-unit, “Alpha,” was currently surviving.
In other words, Xiang Nanli was still alive and in good condition.
Dongfang Qingdi’s figure flashed, vanishing from the spot.
Sariel spun around abruptly: “Who’s there?!”
Sensing the abnormal airflow, he swung his greatsword without a second thought.
The blade carved a deep fissure across the stone wall.
Sariel quickly realized he had fallen for a trick; someone was creating a diversion. Furthermore, this person’s strength was terrifyingly formidable—he hadn’t even clearly seen who the intruder was.
Who on earth is it? One of those higher-ups from the Human Alliance’s Investigation Bureau? A future warrior from Immortality Tech?
No, Sariel was already thoroughly familiar with those people’s combat styles and dossiers. This was a complete stranger.
A thousand tangled thoughts flashed through Sariel’s mind, but barely half a second had passed from swinging his sword to realizing what happened.
Sariel caught a whiff of an enticing fragrance, reminiscent of golden osmanthus.
It was the scent of a dead soul—Xiang Chenxi’s scent.
He turned his head in disbelief, witnessing Xiang Chenxi with an equally stunned expression.
How strange. Why can I see… my own body?
With a heavy thud, Xiang Chenxi’s head dropped to the ground, kicking up a small cloud of fine sand.
The cross-section of his neck was smooth and clean—perhaps there wasn’t even much pain involved.
The headless body fell to its knees, crashing onto the ground with a loud boom.
Heaven and earth fell silent for a single instant.
Sariel gripped the greatsword in his hands tightly, knowing the enemy had not left.
He was enraged, and thus, all the more composed.
Sariel opened both eyes, which turned blood-red this time. Even the eye in the center of his forehead was dyed a vivid red by blood.
Sariel saw Xiang Chenxi’s soul fire.
A lotus-shaped golden flame burned atop the corpse, struggling desperately in its death throes, like a momentary burst of vitality before the end.
And then there was Sirius. His original searing blue-white flame had only a tiny speck of light remaining, on the verge of extinguishing at any moment.
Sariel extended his hand. The golden soul fire leaped into his palm, merging into his tall frame.
Xiang Chenxi instantly began wailing like a demon in his mind, though noticeably dumber, capable only of repeating over and over: “Sariel! Sariel!”
In terms of modern medical explanations, a doctor would likely say that witnessing Xiang Chenxi’s death had subjected Sariel to intense psychological trauma, triggering the birth of a secondary personality.
Sariel barked in fury: “Shut up! Keep crying and I’ll devour you!”
His mind finally fell quiet.
Amidst the pitch-black darkness, Sariel spotted Dongfang Qingdi. The other party was likewise studying him, waiting for the most opportune moment.
He couldn’t see Dongfang Qingdi’s soul fire.
Then, setting aside all impossibilities, whatever remained—no matter how improbable—had to be the truth.
“An Omnic?” Sariel let out a cold sneer. “Interesting.”
To actually discover an Omnic with such superior performance on this desolate surface.
He remembered this contestant. Seemed to be named… Donghuang?
Sariel recalled the former Donghuang Heavy Industry, along with the rumors associated with it.
Donghuang… Omnic… Donghuang Heavy Industry…
Alpha’s body? Or Alpha itself???
The moment this possibility crossed Sariel’s mind, a chill ran down his spine, sending shivers through his entire body. Yet, he still initiated a charge.
Knights never retreat.
Though he was but a single man, his momentum felt like that of a thousand troops and ten thousand horses.
Sariel swung his sword, slashing toward Dongfang Qingdi.
The underground quaked once more as the air erupted in a piercing howl!
A vast, radiant brilliance submerged the incubation pool!
In an unremembered corner.
The malnourished Holy Spirit extended a blood-red tentacle, fumbling around on the ground.
It brushed against a certain Sirius. Though it couldn’t tell what it was, it felt edible.
The tentacle quietly dragged Sirius back, swallowing him into the blood pool that incubated it…
The commotion from the fight overhead was far too terrifying.
When Dongfang Qingdi appeared earlier, it had already taken notice.
As usual, it urged its companion spirits to feed and feed back energy to the embryo.
Companion spirits were products hatched alongside the Holy Spirit. They existed in large numbers, their strength and quantity tied to the main body’s power.
They were responsible for gathering nutrients and observing the surrounding environment for the main body, eventually serving as supplements for the Holy Spirit itself—much like a caterpillar eating its own eggshell.
When companion spirits deemed the surrounding environment unsafe, they released a hormone that caused the main body to temporarily suspend incubation, biding its time.
A cluster of these companion spirits had been crushed to death by Dongfang Qingdi without the slightest effort, like squishing a pile of ants.
Back then, the Holy Spirit realized that this man was someone it couldn’t afford to mess with.
Fortunately, Dongfang Qingdi didn’t seem to have any intention of killing it; he looked like he was merely passing through.
Watching Dongfang Qingdi dig through three feet of earth in his attempt to leave, the Holy Spirit wished it could go out and point the way for him personally.
Seeing this terrifying harbinger of death about to leave, only for him to inexplicably double back halfway…
The Holy Spirit couldn’t comprehend it, but it was deeply shaken.
Sirius was dragged all the way into the depths of the blood pool by the tentacle, his body ultimately pressing against the surface of the white embryo.
His body began to melt, merging together with the semi-transparent shell. Beneath the shell lay a coiled, blood-red serpent.
The Holy Spirit was very simple; it was humans who were complex.
It merely wanted to eat its fill and hatch from its shell a little sooner.
