Chapter 699: Chapter 699: The Shadow Behind the Mask
Koma let out a raw, hysterical laugh, her bloodshot eyes widening as she glared directly into Ethan’s demonic smile.
"Do you truly belive that your petty alchemical threats can frighten me?" Koma spat, her voice cracking with defiance. "This tomb curse has been relentlessly mutating inside my flesh, tearing at my meridians and torturing my nervous system for nearly an entire year! I have survived agony that would cause your soft, pampered capital doctors to shatter into pieces! Do you believe I am afraid of a little more pain?!"
"I don’t believe you are, no," Ethan replied smoothly, his gravelly voice entirely unbothered as he straightened his posture. "A hardened peak Golden Core expert who has endured a localized curse for a year is undoubtedly a stubborn creature. But tell me, Elder Koma... do you think that your young companions possess that exact same structural threshold?"
Before she could even process his words, Ethan turned his head toward the door frame. "Captain, bring the other two inside immediately."
"Right away, Doctor!" the vanguard captain barked.
A moment later, a heavy hum filled the corridor as four armored guards hurriedly wheeled two floating medical stretchers into the center of the interrogation room. Lying upon them were the two young female disciples Ethan had treated earlier, their skin still carrying a faint, sickly tint under the harsh runic lights of the flagship.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Koma hissed, her shackles rattling violently as she tried to lean over the table toward them. "They are merely innocent subordinates who followed my administrative directives! They know absolutely nothing about the core coordinates!"
"Oh, I highly doubt that," Ethan chuckled, a slow, deeply amused sound that made the hairs on the back of the General’s neck stand up. "You see... you women appear to possess an immense amount of confidence in your theatrical capabilities. In fact, your group has far too much confidence. Do you wish to know how I find your little deception?"
He walked slowly around the stretchers, his heavy boots clicking against the metal floorplates.
"The medicinal paste I synthesized targeted your baselines," Ethan explained, stopping right between the two young girls. "According to the chemical absorption rate, all three of your physical vessels successfully processed the counter-agent and fully regained consciousness at the exact same moment. Yet, only you made a loud, aggressive scene to draw our attention, while these two young ladies right here chosen to remain still, pretending to be comatose."
Ethan suddenly bent down, his amethyst eyes locking directly onto the closed eyelids of the disciple on the left.
"Did you calculate that we are so incredibly stupid that we wouldn’t notice your shifting heart rate and the micro-tremors in your breathing metrics the moment your leader began to scream?" Ethan mocked, his voice dropping into a chilling whisper.
Behind the observation glass, the high-tier medical staff of the flagship exchanged tense, highly volatile glances. They were completely stunned. In all structural reality, their own diagnostic arrays had indicated that the two young disciples were still entirely comatose.
Is this Doctor Ethan truly an unmatched, omniscient genius who can read biological baselines with his bare eyes? the head medic thought, his brow sweating profusely. Or is he merely a master executing a terrifying psychological bluff to violently break the prisoners’ spirits and extract the information?
The two young disciples remained still, their chests rising and falling with a slow, forced rhythm as they desperately tried to maintain their facade. Ethan watched them for a brief moment, letting out a soft, mocking sigh when neither of them showed any physical reaction to his words.
He slowly turned back to Koma, leaning against the edge of the slate table with a relaxed, entirely casual posture. "Well, let it never be said that I did not grant your inner circle a fair opportunity. Since we have a few moments before the main army arrives, allow me to share a brief historical chronicle with you."
Koma glared at him, her jaw tightly clenched, but she remained completely silent as Ethan’s gravelly voice filled the quiet interrogation room.
"In the ancient past, this specific biological degradation was widely considered by the uneducated masses to be a literal supernatural curse," Ethan began, his amethyst eyes flashing with an intellectual, detached coldness. "Because it uniquely afflicted those who breached ancient vaults, it was universally recorded across the borderlands as the ’Tomb Raider’s Sickness.’ The common practitioners truly believed that the resentful, vengeful souls of the long-dead emperors were actively punishing the intruders from beyond the veil for disturbing their eternal rest."
He paused, walking smoothly around the floating stretchers as the flagship’s medical staff watched intensely from behind the glass.
"Thousands of years passed, and absolutely nothing changed," Ethan continued. "People continuously babbled about spiritual curses and wrathful ghosts while countless tomb raiders rotted from the inside out. But one day, a supreme sovereign of a major kingdom suddenly contracted the exact same lethal disease. This presented a massive logical anomaly to the court. The king had never set a single foot inside a ruined vault, nor had he ever executed a grave robbery. He was entirely innocent of such acts."
A dark, mocking smile played on Ethan’s lips as he looked at Koma’s tightening expression.
"I will not bore you with the extensive operational logistics of the tale," Ethan murmured. "To make a long chronicle short, after investing a truly monstrous, world-shattering amount of national wealth to hire every divine physician across the continent, the sovereign successfully managed to preserve his life. And through that massive clinical investment, the true biological reality was finally unearthed."
He leaned in closer to Koma, his voice dropping into a chilling whisper.
"It was discovered that the king had become heavily infected because the grand throne room he sat in every single day had been constructed directly above the ancient, decaying ancestral mausoleum of the royal line," Ethan revealed. "For some completely absurd, highly volatile reason during the structural foundation of the empire, the ancient architects that it would be a magnificent idea to place a living palace right on top of a massive, leaking tomb core."
Ethan looked at Koma’s pale face, noticing the slight twitch in her brow as the historical context sank in.
"Now, I guess you must be sitting there thinking to yourself, what on earth does an ancient royal chronicle have to do with my current situation?" Ethan asked, his gravelly voice dropping into a cold voice.
He smoothly tapped the side of the crystal vial holding the skull-faced beetle. "The connection is simple. During the extensive alchemical experimentation executed on that dying king, the royal physicians successfully developed several highly interesting, unconventional techniques to trace the origin of these biological symptoms. You see, no one in the court wanted to be falsely accused of treason or tomb desecration, so to weed out the liars, they designed an unusual, highly volatile diagnostic procedure."
He paused, a dark, clinical glint flashing across his amethyst eyes. "They officially classified it as the ’Expulsion of the Demon.’"
Without a single wasted motion, Ethan reached into his spatial ring once more, pulling out a handful of brittle, pale blue root fibers and a small obsidian mortar. His hands became a blur as he crushed the raw plants together, rapidly processing them until they formed a dark, pungent paste that emitted a faint, oily sheen under the runic lights.
"The initial green paste I aggressively applied to your chests earlier is a high-potency stabilizing agent, structurally designed to force your meridians to temporarily contain the toxic load," Ethan explained, lifting the obsidian rod to display the fresh, dark mixture. "However, if I take this specific counter-catalyst and place it directly over the core of your chests, it will violently trigger an inverse chemical reaction."
He stepped closer to the first floating stretcher, his shadow looming heavily over the seemingly unconscious disciple.
"The moment this compound touches the skin, you will vividly feel the dormant tomb curse aggressively ignite, flowing through every single pathway in your nervous system like liquid fire," Ethan whispered, his tone dripping with an absolute, unyielding malice. "The toxin will fully activate in a fraction of a second, decomposing your internal organs from the inside out while you remain entirely awake to experience the baseline agony. Let us see how long your little theater lasts... We shall commence the diagnostic trial with this young lady right here."
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From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.
Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.
Body Refinement Realm
Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement
Spiritual Gathering Realm
Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation
Spiritual Core Realm
Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)
Spiritual Soul Realm
Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion
Golden Core Realm
Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction
Spiritual Sea Realm
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
Dao Manifestation Realm
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
Spiritual Transcendence
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
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Sword mastery levels
Sword Intent.
Sword Aura.
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