Chosen: Beyond Fate

On the third floor of the hospital...

In the near-eternal twilight, it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. A scruffy-bearded man crouched in the corridor, angrily stomping out his cigarette.

“Damn it. How long have they been in there? Why aren’t they out yet?”

A thin, haggard man glanced at him. “Be patient. Look at Ximin. She’s so calm. Learn from her.”

Beside them, a woman with a sallow face was kneeling on the ground in prayer, murmuring scriptures and texts without the slightest change in expression.

Who the hell could stay as calm as a lunatic?

The bearded man, An Jiexiu[1], was speechless. His face twitched, but he didn’t dare say another word.

“In any case, don’t rush,” Kong Yebai[2] said. “Whatever the High Priest has instructed must be handled properly. Carry out this sacred duty well, and you’ll receive purification and blessings.”

An Jiexiu forced a smile. “Yes, yes. It’s just that I’ve seen that old guy dragging a corpse pass by several times. I was worried that if something happens—”

“Don’t worry. As long as you don’t make a move in front of them, even if you beat him to a pulp, those things won’t interfere.” Kong Yebai smiled reassuringly. “The High Priest thinks highly of you. Make sure you perform well this time.”

“Of course, of course!” An Jiexiu nodded with a smile, though inwardly he was cursing.

Fuck, what rotten luck. If it weren’t for the money, who the hell would get mixed up with you lunatics from this twisted cult? To hell with your Holy Spirit and your sacred rites. A paycheck’s a paycheck, no matter where it comes from. Once this mess is over, I’m heading to Central Plains. What can these damn bastards even do then?

While he was lost in thought, the woman kneeling in prayer suddenly opened her eyes.

“They’re out,” Wang Ximin[3] said.

At the end of the corridor, the sealed door slowly opened.

“Oh, come now, we’re all family here, no need to see me off.” Ji Jue smiled and waved, politely declining the send-off. “This is far enough. I’ll be fine from here.”

Beneath the cover of his sleeve, he casually slipped over another bulging blood bag.

The old ghost, whose body had already become half ethereal, lit up with delight. His face broke into a broad smile, and even his cloudy, old eyes seemed to regain their sparkle. He glanced at Ji Jue with the warmth of a grandfather looking at his own grandson.

“Come by when you have time.”

“You can count on it! I’ll be dropping by all the time!” Ji Jue replied, pushing his cart as he waved goodbye. “I’ve got work to do, so I’ll get going.”

“Go on, then. Everyone’s busy.” Cradling the still warm blood bag, the old ghost watched him disappear into the distance. At last, he let out a wistful sigh. “Being busy is good... Being busy is good...”

The gate slowly swung shut behind him.

Ji Jue looked at the pile of bottles and vials stacked almost like a small mountain on his cart, and couldn’t help but break into a wide smile.

What a wonderful place. Especially after giving gifts, it got even better!

It was basically like going grocery shopping. He just tossed whatever random stuff he saw onto the cart like it cost nothing at all. If he had known a place like this existed, he would’ve just applied straight to the warehouse instead. Why bother going to obstetrics and gynecology at all?

He was definitely coming again next time!

“They’re out.” Kong Yebai’s eyes lit up. He pressed down on An Jiexiu’s shoulder. “Do what we agreed on. Take the lead. Ximin and I will support you. We will finish this as quickly as possible, understand?”

A grin surfaced from beneath An Jiexiu’s scruffy beard. “Relax. I do this kind of thing all the time.”

The moment he bent over, his body seemed to shrink into itself. His back hunched, his frame becoming thin and frail. He walked with a feeble, drifting gait, looking utterly harmless.

He pierced the blood bag, and a streak of crimson flowed from his chest. After turning the corner, his steps already began to stagger. He looked on the verge of collapse, as if death were imminent.

“Help, h-help...”

Large teardrops rolled down his face as he leaned against the wall, waving toward Ji Jue.

Behind him, in the hidden space around the corner, the woman who had been kneeling in prayer kept her eyes closed. Her hands were pressed together, and her lips moved in constant, murmuring chants. In that almost fanatical devotion, the surrounding spirit matter became increasingly restless, flowing silently like water toward a distant point.

From behind the ceiling panels, hiltless blades glided through the air without a sound. Like a school of ravenous fish, they drifted forward, rapidly closing in.

“Help me! Sir, please help me...” An Jiexiu’s voice grew louder and more strained, his face twitching as he tried to draw Ji Jue’s attention. “I know this hospital is secretly experimenting on Chosen Ones. Save me, I’ll re—”

Before he could finish his sentence, he froze. The guy pushing the cart showed no sign of hesitation. He didn’t panic, retreat, or even bother to react, as if he couldn’t be bothered to look at him at all. Instead, he calmly pushed the cart forward until he was only five steps away from An Jiexiu.

Casually, he took out a freshly welded, still steaming homemade firearm from the cart compartment and pointed it at his forehead. “You’re pretty good at acting. Don’t do it again.”

His finger squeezed the trigger. The thunderous blast echoed through the corridor.

A grotesquely oversized mercury round burst from the rifled steel pipe that served as the gun’s barrel, hurtling straight toward him. The bullet rapidly grew larger and larger in the reflection of An Jiexiu’s wide eyes.

All An Jiexiu could do was ‌instinctively raise his arms to shield himself. Every trace of his disguise vanished. His body swelled back to its true size, while his arms, face, and even his torso took on a faintly crimson, metallic sheen. Heat radiated from him as though his body had been forged from red-hot iron.

Yet, the left arm he had raised to shield himself buckled under the impact of the bullet. A deep crack was gouged into it before his eyes. Mercury seeped into the torn flesh beneath the wound, sending waves of searing pain through his body.

What the hell kind of gun is that?! That’s a damn cannon!

“You motherfucking bastard!”

Heavy metallic armor rapidly grew from beneath his white lab coat, enveloping his entire body. In the blink of an eye, he had transformed into a man of iron.

But something else moved even faster, and the ceiling tore apart. The instant the gunshot rang out, dozens of hiltless blades, guided by telekinesis, rained down like a deadly storm.

The bastard seemed to have anticipated it all along, however. The moment he fired, he sprang backward. Then he yanked off his white lab coat, ducked under it, and pulled it over his head.

As if a mere lab coat could possibly stop blades powerful enough to pierce armor.

An Jiexiu’s eyes widened in disbelief. A large amount of solution seeped through the fabric. Empowered by Fluid Alchemy and the unique material reinforcement of Ember, the once ordinary white lab coat hardened in an instant. It became harder than steel.

The blades, which could have effortlessly pierced metal, struck the coat only to sink in a mere fraction of an inch. Some failed to penetrate at all, simply clattering harmlessly to the floor. They had already lost the force driving them before they could do any real damage.

A shrill scream erupted from the corner where Wang Ximin was hiding, and a violent gust of wind slammed into them.

By the time An Jiexiu realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

When the woman who had been kneeling in frenzied prayer finally opened her eyes, she saw the rabid hound that had broken free of its chains. It was a monster fetus that had crawled all the way from outside the building before breaking through the window and pouncing straight at her.

Its grotesque face, twisted between joy and savagery, split wide open into a monstrous maw. A torrent of freezing frost poured from it, instantly encasing her limbs in ice. Then, ravenous with hunger, the monster fetus leaped at her face and began devouring it.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

With unbearable screams, she struggled with all her might. Scattered waves of her telekinetic force tried again and again to tear the monster off her face, but the searing pain made it impossible for her to focus her mind.

In an instant, the fetus’s razor-sharp claws gouged out her eyes and ripped out her tongue before swallowing them whole. Blood poured down her mangled face.

“M-Mr. Kong... save me... save me! Save me!!!”

Bang!

A gunshot echoed through the corridor, and a bloody hole appeared in her face. She fell backward, staring at the ceiling. She never moved again.

The teammate she had been desperately calling for until her dying breath finally turned around. His reactions had slowed to a crawl, dozens of times slower than normal, as he sluggishly reached out toward her. Only now did he notice the faint coldness spreading across his neck, followed by a rapidly intensifying wave of pain.

Drowsiness surged from the depths of his mind, dragging his consciousness into a hazy, uncontrollable drift. Alongside it came an inexplicable sense of excitement. His organs seemed to be spasming, and his heart was convulsing in his chest.

No... this is... poison...

He collapsed backward, his limbs twitching and contorting as he hit the ground. His face turned a sickly greenish-blue, and dark veins crept upward from his neck, spreading across his face. White foam quickly spilled out of his mouth.

Just before losing consciousness completely, the last thing he saw was a pair of tall boots gradually materializing out of thin air.

It was Tong Hua. She was breathing heavily, visibly tense, almost unable to stay on her feet. It was the first time in her life that she had experienced something this intense.

“Two against one?!” She stared in shock at her own achievement, unable to stop herself from blurting out, “Damn, I’m seriously amazing!”

In her left hand was a handgun that Ji Jue had crudely assembled for her in the warehouse. In her other hand was a needleless syringe, the vial connected behind it now completely empty.

Propofol, ketamine, fentanyl, morphine, pethidine, tramadol—these were the expired anesthetics scavenged from the warehouse. Since Ji Jue had refined them until they reached an almost absurd level of purity using Pacifier, they had all been mixed together and injected straight into Kong Yebai’s carotid artery.

Ji Jue had no medical license, nor did he know much about medicine. No one had any idea what kind of chaotic effect this cocktail would produce, but it worked, and that was all that mattered. Against an Entropy Chosen One, it was sufficient.

Unfortunately for Kong Yebai, the most powerful damage dealer of the three, a once-famous assassin before joining the cult, he never even got the chance to activate his matrix before falling victim to the poison.

If anything was to blame, it was just how broken the tracking abilities of Aether Chosen Ones were, and how absurd Tong Hua’s inherited matrix techniques were. Her observational ability, far beyond that of others of the same realm, allowed her to easily detect traces left by pursuers. Her Time Rewind matrix specialized in reading residual records and past information embedded in objects.

Combined with the ability known as Trace of History, Tong Hua had basically dug up nearly everything about the three of them from their footprints alone.

One was a Ruins-type user whose matrix was Red Copper, specializing in transformation and brute offense. One was an Origin Chosen One with a Myriad Defense matrix, specialized in telekinesis. And one was an Entropy-type with a Flying Gale matrix, specializing in air pressure manipulation.

One of them was at the Metamorphosis Realm, while the other two were at the Resonance Realm. Tong Hua had compiled their stats, body measurements, and even birth dates into a neat little table and placed it right in front of Ji Jue, asking him how he was supposed to win this fight.

How was he supposed to win, indeed? Ji Jue was honestly starting to wonder how he was supposed to lose such an easy fight.

So this is what the Aether path is like?!

Aside from the fact that Aether Chosen Ones were genuinely not that great at fighting, they were ridiculously efficient in every other aspect. They were practically an all-purpose tool for traveling, killing people, and looting.

An Aether-type’s foresight and tracking abilities, combined with an Ember-type’s methodical approach of striking weaknesses with precision and overwhelming force—if they couldn’t take down these three, that would be the real anomaly.

As for the last surviving Chosen One, the Ruins user who clearly realized something was wrong and immediately ditched his teammates to run, Ji Jue couldn’t even be bothered to chase him. He just stood there, leaning his elbow on his little cart. Then, he started counting down on his fingers.

“Five... Four... Three... Two... One!”

Before he even finished speaking, he heard a heavy thud, followed by piercing screams and cries of agony, deafening in volume.

1. The character 安 conveys peace, stability, and calmness. 洁 represents purity, cleanliness, and integrity, adding an elegant and virtuous nuance. 修 suggests self-cultivation, improvement, and scholarly refinement, implying someone who values personal growth and discipline.

To me, the name evokes the image of a composed, intelligent, and well-mannered man. ☜

2. The surname 孔 is associated with Confucian culture and intellectual refinement, and lends the name an air of dignity. 叶白 combines 叶 ("leaf") and 白 ("white"), and gives off an imagery of purity, simplicity, and nature.

To me, the name suggests someone who is composed, thoughtful, and understated rather than someone who is imposing or aggressive. ☜

3. The surname 王 is one of the most common Chinese surnames, with more than 107 million people named this way in Asia. It is the 8th name listed in the famous Hundred Family Surnames. The given name 西敏 combines 西 ("west") and 敏 ("quick-witted," "clever," or "agile"). To me, 王西敏 suggests a woman who is bright, capable, and composed. ☜