Chosen: Beyond Fate

The mercury flowing around him surged and trembled violently. After a series of transformations, it swiftly contracted. Aside from the protective layer covering his clothes, the spirit intelligence of the knockoff armor had been sealed back into the mercury bead.

Immediately after that, as eight mercury beads shattered concurrently, eight extraordinarily flexible mercury limbs stretched from Ji Jue’s back.

In the blink of an eye, joints reconstructed themselves within the liquid mercury. The frames hardened, and the limbs came under control. Thanks to the “friendship fee” Mr. Yu had so kindly given to him, and with the assistance of the Iron Essence blessing, eight mechanical arms harder than composite metal were instantly formed from Ji Jue’s spine.

Then, they erupted into motion. They did not even require any direct operation. All Ji Jue had to do was think of the command, and the eight mechanical arms carried it out perfectly. They blocked incoming strikes, broke through defenses, thrust forward, swept enemies aside, guarded his blind spots, and launched counterattacks.

Sure, it was nothing worth mentioning in front of Professor Ye. But for stomping small fry? It worked every single time.

As long as Ji Jue did not run into an absurdly broken skill like the Dissociation Technique, thanks to Pacifier’s boost to his control, he could multiply his damage output by more than eightfold in an instant.

With this coordination, the liquefied stone clinging to his body was peeled away with ease. The flaming sword that came cutting through the air was snapped beneath closing iron pincers. Attacks coming from every direction were dismantled one by one almost effortlessly.

Then came the merciless counterattack. One of the mechanical arms slammed into a barrier and bounced back without doing a thing.

Seeing that his armor had protected him, the man’s eyes lit up, and he burst into laughter. “Everyone, get behind me! I’ll deal with—shit, stop!!”

He did not get even one second of feeling smug before his laughter turned into a shrill scream, because right beneath Ji Jue’s raised right hand was...

I was going to keep this friendly and beat you with ordinary techniques. But since you insist on making things hard, then I’ll let you witness the signature move passed down through Tidesound Workshop. This is the Dissociation Technique!

With a single palm strike, a deep fissure appeared in the once-radiant inner armor of the man as he screamed. Ji Jue had punched a large hole straight through the armor piece. Spirit circuits slipped in like scalpels, tearing through every gap in the spirit matter and ripping it apart from within. The core was crippled in an instant, breaking down into thin strands of essence that Ji Jue grabbed and absorbed.

The mechanical arm swept out again and punched forward, smashing into that twisted face. The man fell backward, flat on his back.

Ah, youth. One hit, and he’s out like a light, Ji Jue thought.

Screams filled the room as bodies kept hitting the floor and slamming into walls. Whether the opponents wailed or begged for mercy, Ji Jue paid them no mind. Almost absentmindedly, he knocked down everyone who stood in his way until he heard a terrified scream.

Bang!

A hardened barrier formed by Spirit Morph blocked Ji Jue’s punch. Lou Feng, who had shrunk into a corner, was horrified. “Why the hell are you hitting me?! Are you insane?! I didn’t even fucking provoke you!”

“I’ll hit you too while I’m at it!”

Without thinking, Ji Jue slapped him hard across the back of the head, sending him staggering. Then, Ji Jue turned and walked away.

You bastard, you fucking...

Lou Feng gritted his teeth and his fists clenched hard. But soon, they loosened again.

Calm down. Calm down, Lou Feng. He’s from Tidesound, Ye Xian’s disciple, and a rabid dog by nature! Let it go. Let it go. Don’t stoop to the level of a lunatic like him.

As wails rose in the room, Zhou Cheng struggled to his feet. He watched as Ji Jue stood guard at the doorway and knocked down every opponent one by one, not letting a single person escape. After today, Zhou Cheng would probably become everyone’s laughingstock. His expression twisted, growing more and more vicious.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled an arrowhead from his robes. It was wreathed in a dark, icy aura. From a distance, he aimed it at Ji Jue’s back. Just as he was about to pour spirit matter into it, he heard a tremendous bang.

Pain shot through him. The arrowhead flew from his hand and landed on the floor with a clatter.

Zhou Cheng screamed and turned around, only to see that a heavy machine gun had risen at some point from the armored vehicle that had crashed into the corner. It aimed straight at his hand and fired a short burst.

Zhou Cheng instinctively tried to reach out and pick the arrowhead back up, but the roar of gunfire kept coming. A storm of metal tore through the air.

The brutal barrage whipped past him again and again. He screamed and froze in place, not daring to move. After he came back to his senses, he realized that, in the middle of that violent spray of gunfire, countless bullet holes had surrounded him, precisely outlining the shape of a human body on the wall.

Finally, as the rising smoke and ‌dust drifted down, a crimson targeting beam landed on his face and locked on. A shoe stepped onto the arrowhead he had dropped.

“Oh, now this is good stuff!” Ji Jue sighed, as if still shaken. “If this had hit me, I’d probably be dead for good, wouldn’t I?”

“I-It’s all a misunderstanding...” Zhou Cheng’s face twitched. Covered by the shadow looming over him, he tried to squeeze out a smile. “I-It’s just a joke... Don’t... don’t...”

What answered him was a slap, followed by a rebuke filled with bitter disappointment. “Of all the things you could’ve learned, you chose sneak attacks?”

Zhou Cheng’s vision went black for a moment, and his head snapped sharply to the right. Then his vision blacked out again, and his head was forced back to the left. Ji Jue slapped him again.

“You tried to sneak attack, and you couldn’t even fucking pull it off! You got caught red-handed! How embarrassing! What a disgrace!”

***

“Scumbag!”

The slaps kept coming one after another, and the more Ji Jue hit Zhou Cheng, the better it felt. He vaguely heard footsteps rushing over, but he did not care in the slightest.

Come to think of it, Professor Ye had been away at that meeting for quite a while now. Surely those masters had not made things difficult for her too, right? Probably not.

For all he knew, she was sitting in the meeting room, awe-inspiring and commanding, unlike him, who had to suffer such cruel bullying and violence. What on earth had happened to the Taiyi Ring? Since when did the apprentices become this toxic? No wonder the internal strife was so severe. The rot had started right at the roots!

When faced with this kind of toxic behavior, one had to strike hard. For the sake of justice, one had to correct them thoroughly. The bullies had to fully understand their mistakes, feel genuine remorse, and from now on...

Ji Jue’s movement paused as he felt a slight sting in his pinky finger. He finally came ‌to his senses.

He lowered his head. Only then did he see Zhou Cheng, whose face was swollen like a pig’s head, as well as the small cut on his own little finger, scraped open by a broken tooth.

“Tch...” Ji Jue frowned and shook his hand. He looked down at his beaten-down opponent and said, “You may apologize now.”

“Huh?” Zhou Cheng stared. Because of the agony and dizziness, his brain seemed unable to process what he had just heard. “A-a-apologize? Me?!”

Ji Jue nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes. Apologize. Say ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough to make you go all out. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a good fight. I truly apologize.’”

Ji Jue had been looking forward to seeing what kind of special moves these guys could pull out. He had been looking forward to it for so long. In the end, after acting so high and mighty for all that time, they were just a whole truckload of weaklings. Never mind the Swarm Chosen Ones. If even a White Deer Chosen One had shown up, he would not have been this bored!

Ji Jue shook his head and sighed regretfully. Stomping weaklings really was no fun. High-level matches were still more entertaining.

Fortunately, there was still one opponent who seemed a little challenging. He raised his head and looked at Young Master Lou.

Lou Feng froze in confusion, then shifted a little farther back. Before he could even panic, he saw Ji Jue bare his teeth in a grin and chuckle. Lou Feng’s hair stood on end.

Don’t you fucking come over here! Lou Feng almost screamed on instinct.

Immediately afterward, he heard a familiar, angry shout. “Enough!”

In the past, whenever he heard that voice, he would tremble with fear and walk on eggshells. But now, hearing his teacher’s voice, he was so moved he almost burst into tears. What took you so long?!

The main doors burst open with a crash. Unfortunately, they only opened halfway before the metal hinges gave a mournful cry and snapped. The door slammed to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust and conveniently landing over someone who was still screaming.

A row of people stood in the hallway, their expressions grim, as if their children had died. After all, if they had arrived even a little later, someone could have really died.