Chapter 38
As the echo of the Cancer plague's ultimatum continued to spread without limit—traversing galaxies, piercing layers of dimensions, and seeping into every boundless universe—Ling Xu remained seated within the town hall, immersed in calm and controlled meditation.
This time, there were no disturbances shaking the foundation of his soul.
His breathing was steady, his consciousness flowing in harmony with the Dao.
There were no longer any signs of imbalance in his cultivation—no subtle tremors hinting at collapse, no cracks within the triangle of Latitudes inside him.
That structure was now whole, solid, and harmonious, no longer spreading wildly like thirsty roots tearing through dry soil, but pulsing steadily like an energy core that had found the perfection of its path.
Only a strange stillness remained, a silence that felt like the surface of a lake deep within a forest untouched by wind, humans, or beasts, where beneath that tranquil surface, something vast moved, something dark pulsed, something hungry waited to be born.
"The 9,999th trace," Ling Xu whispered within his heart, his voice no longer trembling, no longer hoarse, but flat, empty, like someone who no longer needed to strive because everything that needed to be done had been done, "is gathered. All of them."
At the same moment, just three steps away, Huan Zheng opened his eyes.
Not with a sudden motion, but slowly, like someone waking from a pleasant nap, and within his heart, he murmured, his inner voice as lazy as ever, yet beneath that laziness lay a satisfaction he could not conceal.
"This transformation… is far easier than before. Much easier."
He did not need to count how many Longitude he had gathered, nor check whether his foundation was strong enough, because he already knew—since that night in the seaside city, since he nearly blew himself apart because of his ego, since he stabilized his foundation from the Leg to the Head of Humanity—that when the time came, he would surge through the gate of Bright Sky without obstruction, like water flowing to lower ground, like fire burning whatever it touched, like Huan Zheng himself, who always did things lazily yet somehow always succeeded.
But suddenly, within that faint satisfaction, Huan Zheng felt something.
Not from within himself, but from outside—from the air that suddenly grew heavy, from the walls of the town hall that subtly trembled, from the worn wooden floor that suddenly felt as if it were breathing, and when he turned toward Ling Xu—who still sat cross-legged with closed eyes, still enveloped in that faintly pulsating greenish-gray mist—
He realized that the message that had just spread across the universe was not ordinary, not merely an ultimatum from a newly awakened Cancer plague, but something deeper, older, more terrifying.
A message born from pure hatred, hatred that could not be measured because it knew no bounds, like the universe itself, which was infinite precisely because it could not be contained.
"Is your hatred for humanity truly that deep, Liu Xin?"
Huan Zheng's inner voice echoed softly in his mind—this time without any trace of laziness or casual tone, but sharp and focused, like an investigator piecing together fragments of truth.
"Or is this no longer merely your will?" he continued, the thread unraveling further, "but something dwelling behind your Humanity Star—something that has finally awakened, riding your hatred as fuel… turning your body into a vessel to devour entire civilizations?"
Hhhh!
"Without caring whether you are ready or not, without caring whether you will survive or be reduced to ashes along with the fire you ignite."
He froze—something he rarely did, because Huan Zheng was a man who was always moving, even if lazily, always calculating possibilities even half-heartedly, but this time, he could only sit still, staring at Ling Xu without blinking, allowing the girl's ongoing meditation to continue uninterrupted, because he knew that if he stopped her now, in the midst of a transformation nearly complete, nothing could guarantee her survival, nothing could ensure she would not be trapped between realms, nothing could prevent her from becoming a breathing corpse without a soul.
And within Ling Xu's consciousness, in the deepest space, where the triangle of Latitudes pulsed with a new rhythm and the Bright Sky Longitude began to shine like stars born in a dark night sky, something happened.
Not an explosion, not an earthquake, not an eruption, but a rumble—a rumble so powerful, so constant, so relentless, like waves crashing against cliffs for thousands of years without pause, like the voice of a mother screaming as her child is torn away by those who know no mercy.
"I will tear apart every piece of their flesh," Ling Xu roared within his mind, his voice no longer a whisper, no longer flat, but loud, echoing, rebounding through the walls of his consciousness like sound trapped in a cavern with no exit, "grind their insides, flay every one of those humans who violated my mother, one by one, slowly, so they feel what she felt before she was beheaded and turned into a collection by those monsters who call themselves the Second Divine!"
And every word he spoke, every vow he declared, every hatred he unleashed from the deepest part of his heart, created a terrifying aura—not one born from the Cancer Plague, not from his Humanity Star, not from the newly formed Bright Sky Longitude, but from something that had always been the embodiment of his hatred toward human civilization—a hatred he had never shown to anyone, always burying it beneath his faint smile while preparing herbs for wounded soldiers, always hiding it behind his dim gaze while walking through crowded markets in sky cities, always concealing it beneath the mask of a patient and compassionate healer who never discriminated among patients, even though deep inside, every time he saw a human face, he imagined what it would feel like to sever it, what it would feel like to violate that body, what it would feel like to slowly strip away that life until nothing remained but a silence more terrifying than screams.
And the Cancer plague residing within Ling Xu, which had only faintly pulsed among the Latitude fragments, which occasionally surfaced when Ling Xu felt anger, fear, or despair but never fully emerged, felt that hatred.
To be continued…