Chosen: Beyond Fate

Like all unexpected troubles, bad news always arrived without warning. For example: closing the door and suddenly remembering you had forgotten your keys and left the gas on; finishing a meal and discovering half a cockroach in the plate; or waking up to find your pet had soiled the bed while your dream had vaguely involved eating chocolate.

Sometimes a teammate would suddenly lose it, pull the wire, and drag everyone down with them in an explosion. When that happened, there really wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. When people were completely speechless, they just couldn’t get a word out. This time, it was different. This time, they might never speak again.

Just as Kong Yebai picked up the radio and cried out, “High Priest, something terrible has happened,” everyone heard a faint ticking sound through their ragged breathing and pounding heartbeats. It was coming from inside Kong Yebai’s heaving chest.

When his confused teammates instinctively reached out and tore open his collar, they finally saw a black seam that even Kong Yebai had not noticed. The moment they realized what it was, the person in front could not help but widen his eyes.

“You fu—”

BOOM!!!

Just like that, with his last half-spoken curse still hanging in the air, he closed his eyes for good.

Flames and shockwaves erupted all around. Pulverized explosives and aberrant toxins surged forth, swallowing everything. Crimson energy roared and twisted, engulfing every bit of space.

Scalding crimson rain burst upward then outward like fireworks, merging with the violent heatwave. With a deafening blast, severed limbs were flung up to the ceiling, blasted out through windows, or hurled over collapsed walls, scattering across the corridors.

No one knew how many unlucky patients were instantly reduced to dust. Even more of them swarmed in right after, starving and frenzied like a taotie. They reveled in the carnage, licking and feeding with ecstatic, inhuman cries.

From within the thick smoke came piercing screams. In a corner, several crawling figures howled and struggled, trying to escape the burning ruins.

The hastily assembled nitroglycerin explosion was, after all, not comparable to Lu Feng’s fuel-based explosives from before. And the resilience of Chosen One individuals far exceeded common sense. Even after taking such a horrifying blast head-on, they still managed to cling to life.

There were three Chosen Ones: one Swarm, one White Deer, and one Ruins. All three were known for their extreme durability. Under such sudden devastation, they had already lost eighty to ninety percent of their life force.

Since trouble never came knocking alone, misfortunes followed one after another. Beyond the shattered wall, piercing laughter and crying could be heard. The monster fetus, crawling on the wall like a strange, feral dog, poked its head out and bared its teeth in hunger. After wildly inhaling a large amount of flesh and remnants of spirit matter, it focused its gaze onto a heavily injured Chosen One. Opening its massive mouth, it lunged.

“Ahhh!! Help, help me... help me!!!” he screamed miserably, rolling on the ground.

His teammates, who were relatively less injured, had no time to care about him. As if they hadn’t heard a thing, they scrambled toward the exit on all fours, not even paying attention to the increasingly frantic questions coming from the walkie talkie in the corner.

Unfortunately, what emerged through the thick smoke first was a pale, ghostlike face. As its flesh wriggled, it reshaped into a brand-new smiling face. The figure reached out toward the survivors and gently tapped them.

“Sleep. Have a good sleep. When you wake up, everything will be over,” Xie Lan said gently.

Grains of dust-like particles drifted into their noses and mouths. In the next second, a living poison formed from combined toxins and curses took root in their spirit matter and spread rapidly. In the blink of an eye, two survivors turned into stiff walking corpses, standing obediently beside him.

Material +2.

“Heh, that was fast. Isn’t that a bit too much?” Xie Lan slowly stood up, hands in the pockets of his white coat, glancing at the ruined office and clicking his tongue. “I was expecting a proper clash of titans. Since when did the Safety Bureau people get this unhinged?”

“Talking behind someone’s back like that isn’t a good habit. Especially when you’re also stealing other people’s loot,” Ji Jue said, emerging from the corridor behind Xie Lan.

“Oh? When did I steal anything?” Xie Lan asked, eyes wide with indignation. “At least I helped just now. You can’t just give me nothing at all, can you?”

Ji Jue nodded readily, as if he had expected this all along. “Fine. I’ll take the spirit matter, you take the biological bodies.”

Xie Lan shook his head. “What am I supposed to do with so many living corpses? A few test subjects are enough. You just took all the most valuable stuff. Aren’t you a bit too stingy?”

Ji Jue didn’t care at all about the man’s greedy demands. “We can flip it the other way around if you want. I don’t mind.”

If he couldn’t satisfy both sides, then he’d just be fair. Neither of them was getting what they wanted. At least Ji Jue could reuse the severed limbs, empty bodies, and scraps he obtained. Worst-case scenario, he could cultivate a batch of aberration toxins and turn them into bombs. But what use did a Vortex Chosen One like Xie Lan have for that much spirit matter? He didn’t even have a spirit matter cage.

Xie Lan shook his head. Seeing that time was running out, he could only click his tongue. “Fine. Let’s go with your plan.”

After the rough agreement was made, the two men stopped guarding against each other. A swarm of living corpses rushed in and began cleaning up the scene with great urgency.

By the time Xie Lan sent away a swollen corpse that opened its mouth and swallowed the last severed limb, the spirit matter cage at Ji Jue’s waist was nearly full, its skull eyes glowing a deep crimson. The Dissociation Technique matrix had finally allowed Deus Ex Machina to feed properly.

The efficiency of his spirit matter manipulation and his almost scavenger-like thoroughness left Xie Lan genuinely impressed. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were from different paths and their resource needs did not overlap, he would already have thought, This man cannot be allowed to live.

Just as their surprisingly amicable looting session came to an end, patients from a nearby corridor panicked and scattered in all directions, no longer daring to stay. A rush of footsteps followed.

One by one, stiff-faced doctors emerged from the shadows. Leading them was Mr. Qian, his expression twisted and grim. The stitches on his face had split open, and blood was slowly seeping out. His usual smile was completely gone.

“What happened?” His dark eyes swept over everyone present and landed on the devastated office. “What’s going on? How did another incident of this scale happen?!”

“I don’t know.” Ji Jue shook his head, pausing to think. “Maybe it was an improper use of electrical appliances? Perhaps the microwave exploded?”

Mr. Qian moved closer in a flash. Without warning, he appeared right in front of Ji Jue. Those hollow eyes stared straight at him as he lifted a half-broken skull in his hand.

“Wasn’t he just with you a moment ago?”

“Yes. When I left, everything was fine. Mr. Qian, you have to vouch for me. When I came back after finishing my rounds, I saw that some very valuable personal items in the office were missing, so I rushed over to find out what happened...” He sighed. “Oh, you never really know a person, do you? Who would have thought he was like this?”

Ji Jue bent down and picked up a Blessed Creation and put it into his pocket right in front of everyone. Under countless cold gazes, he sighed again with a look of regret.

Mr. Qian turned to look at Xie Lan. “And you?”

“I was just helping,” Xie Lan replied with an innocent smile. “We’re all one big happy family here, right? The hospital’s a family. When a coworker gets into trouble, how can I just stand by and do nothing? It’s a pity everyone was too badly injured. None survived. What a shame.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Qian asked.

“Exactly so.”

Both of them nodded in unison.

The distinct sound of chewing swept the area. All traces of the broken bones and trampled flesh disappeared completely, as if an unseen mouth had devoured everything. Along with the wailing of lingering spiritual remnants in the air, the damaged walls contracted and closed up, like some unseen giant was slowly healing itself.