Chosen: Beyond Fate

Tom—or rather, Tang Qian—had had enough of these ancestors in every sense of the word. His damn opponent was already practically on top of him, and they were still arguing over the price?!

“Take it! Just take it! Take it all! When I’m dead, see who’s still paying you! You’ll be left waiting for some idiot kid to burn you joss paper[1]!”

“Fine, then...” Fourth Great-Uncle let out a helpless sigh. “Let’s treat it as a discount. For this little amount of money, I’ll give you five minutes at most.”

With that, he opened his mouth, tossed the counterfeit Empia inside, and swallowed it whole.

Disturbingly, flesh and tissue grew from Tom’s body. Right beside that bearded face, another head suddenly sprouted from his neck. It had white hair and a cascading long beard, and his frail, aged skin that seemed on the verge of collapse took over Tom’s body.

When those murky eyes slowly lifted, they burst forth with a terrifying, bone-chilling brilliance. The new face looked down at the two stunned brothers before him and said, “Same as always. You defend, I attack.”

“Alright.” Tang Qian nodded, instantly discarding the broken sword and shattered blade. His six shriveled arms, now dried and wrinkled with age and scars, reached out into the air, clenching tightly.

A long spear interwoven with crimson and black materialized within the raging wind. With a single sweep, it stirred up overwhelming, soul-shaking waves in the air.

A Chosen One directly selected and summoned by the Supreme Benevolence Swarm had manifested, unleashing the matrix known as Asura!

On those two faces bound by bloodline, identical expressions of cold solemnity appeared.

“Die!”

A pale, corpse-white tornado rose from the ground. Storm and death came rushing in at terrifying speed.

***

Amid earth-shaking tremors, the narrow safe house shook frantically.

The flickering lights had already been extinguished by static interference. In the darkness, only a phone camera remained, emitting one last faint glow to illuminate a tear-streaked face that could no longer form coherent words from all the sobbing.

“I’m sorry, brother... sorry, Mr. Lin... sorry, Mr. Ji... A Yi, thank you, buddy. If I die, please don’t do anything reckless. Just run, okay? Survival matters more. No need to throw your life away because of trash like me. And tell Ji Jue I’m sorry. After this, please ask him to take care of my cats. If I die, I’ll reincarnate as a beautiful woman and repay him properly...”

A Yi’s face had turned a strained, dark shade. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Second Brother.”

“Huh? What is it?”

A Yi looked like he was about to cry. “Can you PLEASE shut the fuck up!!!”

He was reaching his limit. Even though he kept gulping down spirit matter supplements without pausing, the entire villa was being torn apart outside. Because of the violent shaking, just maintaining the illusion was draining him completely.

Chen Yubo could not see what was happening outside, but he could clearly sense it. So many vicious spirits and malevolent ghosts were crawling everywhere, searching for them. It was only a matter of time until they found this safehouse. Once that happened, there would be nowhere left for either of them to run.

Boom!!

With a violent tremor, cracks reappeared across the entire villa. A Yi’s face went pale as the illusion flickered and briefly collapsed. In that second, countless residual spirits stormed in, forcing their way through the walls.

Then... nothing happened. One, two, three, four, five, six... There were at least a dozen of them. After passing through the wall, all of those remnant spirits had somehow vanished without a trace.

What the hell?

A Yi turned around in a daze, seeing Chen Yubo looking equally confused, holding two cats in his arms. Under the phone camera’s light, Chen Yubo’s shadow looked extremely small, while the shadows of those two cats were slowly expanding.

“Meow!”

The cats continued to play as if nothing was wrong, unaware of fear or sorrow. Within their shadows, something opened its eyes lazily and glanced outside. All those residual spirits vanished completely. Only a blade-like, wing-shaped shadow spread out within the safe house, as if it were about to fill everything.

What... exactly was that?

“What’s wrong?” Chen Yubo asked blankly.

“Nothing.” A Yi forced himself to swallow, squeezing out a stiff smile. “N-no, it’s fine.”

Outside the safehouse, the storm rose from the ground like an earth-shaking tidal wave. Amid deafening roars, the villa trembled fiercely, teetering on the brink of collapse, unable to withstand repeated devastation.

Beneath the shattered ceiling fragments, the berserk Centaur grew once again; at this point, he had already transformed into a bone-armored giant over five meters tall. Furious, he roared. Having gone completely mad, he trampled everything in sight.

“Fuck you, die! Die! Die! Die! DIE!!!”

As the ground shook, Horsey, spewing smoke and flames, sprinted forward. One of its legs had transformed into a wheel, swaying unpredictably under the crushing force, before suddenly leaping into the air. All three arms gripped the massive iron-blade axe and brought it down brutally onto Centaur’s skull.

The axe shattered, and blood gushed like a fountain. Cracks spread across the horse-like, grotesque exoskeleton as blood sprayed out continuously like a leaking pipe.

Centaur howled in agony, reaching up to pull the broken axe fragments from his face, but Ji Jue had already reloaded and aimed the muzzle at his face.

Then, he pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Four gunshots merged into a single rolling lightning bolt. Four massive holes appeared in Centaur’s face, including his jaw, cheekbones, and skull. Everything was blown apart into a bloody, mangled mess.

This time, he could no longer regenerate as quickly as before. Under Horsey’s relentless attacks, his healing had slowed way too much. Furthermore, the overclocked Horsey had already opened its maw, devouring with savage greed, ruthlessly sucking that life-rich blood without restraint.

Boiling dragon blood surged through its mechanical structure, producing a piercing, almost anguished wail. The cluster of five glowing eyes on its face blazed with brilliant light. It was trembling with excitement.

After devouring large amounts of residual spirits and Centaur’s blood in quick succession, the broken structures and warped skeleton beneath its armor had fully repaired themselves. More than that, under the nourishment of massive spirit matter and life force, the ferocious dragon blood had awakened further, actively eroding and transforming this mortal frame.

Guided by Fluid Alchemy, its form once again drifted closer to its true essence.

Bang!

Mechanical fragments exploded outward. On Horsey’s now increasingly abstract “face,” two sharply curved, symmetrical horn-like structures had begun to grow.

Ji Jue stared in stunned silence.

It’s over. It’s really becoming like an animal now. Wait a second, if I’d named it Dragon Horse back then, would it have grown wings instead?!

Before Ji Jue could finish regretting his past decisions, he heard Centaur’s dying howl. It was as if, at long last, he had truly felt fear and despair. He poured every last bit of strength into a desperate struggle, shaking off the entangled Horsey, and, without even bothering with Ji Jue, who was already right in front of him, he turned and tried to flee in a mad dash.

But it was too late. The gun muzzle lifted once more, and a golden armor-piercing round shot out. Blood sprayed everywhere once more, and one severed leg flew into the air. The other leg soon followed.

Centaur collapsed to the ground, still unwilling to give up. He crawled forward with both arms, refusing to die. Only then did he notice, from the corner of his vision, that Horsey had already leapt into the air.

Under Ji Jue’s command, it gripped the broken axe, blade pointing up. The jagged, broken end stabbed down like a spear, piercing through his throat and pinning him to the ground.

The gun had already been reloaded again, but when Ji Jue didn’t use cursed rounds, its lethality was limited to pure physical destruction. Centaur’s wounds were closing rapidly. Even the severed bones in his legs were regrowing. Within just a few seconds, he was already recovering.

Seeing this, Ji Jue’s eyelids twitched. He almost spat blood from envy. So this is what Vortex-type Chosen Ones are like?

In just a few minutes, the damage he and Horsey had dealt was enough to kill seven or eight Ruins-types, a dozen Swarm-types, and hundreds or even thousands versions of Ji Jue. Yet, this guy still looked practically fine; his health bar was absurdly long, like it stretched beyond the screen itself. He was so hard to kill it was honestly ridiculous.

Ji Jue hesitated. In the end, he didn’t activate the Corruption Bullets. Once something was contaminated by corruption, it was basically only good for ammunition afterward; it couldn’t even be fed to Horsey.

Even though Horsey was already a corrupted construct and would probably be fine swallowing it anyway, corrupted stuff like that should be left for other things. Better not keep it for himself. It was already corrupted to begin with, and if he still forced extra corruption on top of it, it’d collapse even faster.

But a Vortex-type Chosen One was full of loot.

Ji Jue narrowed his eyes as he examined Centaur carefully, unable to hide his admiration. If that abundant, surging vitality could be fully extracted, it would surely push the awakening of the dragon blood to the next level.

“What fine material. Truly fine material.”

In the brief silence, he let out a faint sigh, suddenly understanding the joy Lawrence had once felt. He hadn’t done anything at all, yet somehow perfect materials kept growing right under his eyes.

How strange, and yet how delightful. Truly, it was something to look forward to.

That gaze made the roaring Centaur pause for a moment. For no reason at all, a chill ran through his body. When he sensed the pure, bizarre aura of Ember coming from Ji Jue, he finally understood what kind of ending was waiting for him. He began to tremble, cursing wildly.

“Fuck you, you bastard! Go to hell!” the horse-faced monster howled, struggling fiercely. “If you’ve got the guts, just kill me already!”

Horsey stood on top of him, its maw wide open. A mixture of engine oil and blood dripped from the corner of its mouth like saliva; it was already struggling to restrain itself.

Bang!

An armor-piercing round shattered Centaur’s elbow joint, stopping his struggle.

After that, one steel rebar after another was ripped out by Horsey and driven through Centaur’s limbs, pinning him firmly to the ground, like a specimen for dissection.

“Stop fucking dreaming, you bastard.”

Faced with Ji Jue’s slowly approaching smile, the utterly despairing Centaur erupted into frenzied curses. On his face, where crimson and ashen-green blood tones swirled, a final viciousness surfaced.

“Let’s die together!!!”

The broken exhaust vents spewed out a final surge of crimson, like raging flames.

The matrix went into overdrive, endlessly forcing his life force upward. Even his blessings shattered under this violent acceleration—no, more accurately, they were deliberately destroyed, all for the sake of unleashing a tidal wave of spirit matter.

His body swelled rapidly. Brilliant light rushed through his veins and organs. An irreversible fuse had been lit deep within his soul, turning him into a terrifying bomb capable of blasting the entire villa into the sky.

But before that could happen, the last thing he heard was Ji Jue’s voice.

“Don’t rush, sir. Sit down for a second.” He raised both hands and said in a gently soothing voice, “Let’s have a heart-to-heart talk.”

Splat!

Blood burst as if a floodgate had opened, spraying out from Centaur’s torn abdomen, staining that calm, gentle smile as it flowed down in streams.

Ji Jue brought both hands together like blades and thrust forward. They pierced straight into Centaur’s body and gripped his heart!

At Ji Jue’s fingertips, spirit matter flowed, and the intricate Pacifier matrix ignited with light. It effortlessly froze the vast tide of spirit matter, snuffing out the fuse of the imminent explosion.

A piercing, agonized scream burst from Centaur’s mouth. At that moment, he fell into hell.

1. Joss paper, also known as incense papers, are papercrafts or sheets of paper made into burnt offerings common in Chinese ancestral worship. ☜