Chapter 46: Chapter 46—Surpassed Supreme Beings
Chapter 46—Surpassed Supreme Beings
Lei Cheng entered the death state on the bed while Hua Mingyue kept counting beside him. He lost all his senses.
A strange weightlessness followed. His consciousness drifted, and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer in his room.
He was getting pulled in a certain direction at insane speed by some kind of force, his own body lying far below him. His senses had become completely different, yet couldn’t focus on them.
’I don’t have much time.’
He invoked Life Intent and felt his soul-body stop getting pulled. His body was covered by green energy. The world below came into view—Azure Cloud City, the Lei courtyard, his room—all compressed beneath him as if he were standing just above the city, just below the gray fog.
He looked up at the Bizarre Qi and muttered, "Instant Enlightenment."
[ Ding! Your Supernatural Ability—Instant Enlightenment—has activated! ]
A notification flashed in his vision, followed by another in quick succession.
[ Ding! You have comprehended the Dao of Bizarre—Bizarre Intent {1%} ]
[ Ding! You have comprehended the Dao of Bizarre—Bizarre Intent {10%} ]
[ Ding! You have comprehended the Dao of Bizarre—Bizarre Intent {22%} ]
[ Ding! You have comprehended the Dao of Bizarre—Bizarre Intent {44%} ]
Every increase came with an indescribable understanding, as though the world itself were revealing another hidden truth.
The moment the five-second mark arrived, the Life Intent he had planted near his heart swept in and destroyed the Death Intent in a single overpowering rush. The heartbeat restarted.
Thump! Thump!
His body shook as his soul was pulled back by some kind of force.
When he opened his eyes again, air rushed into his lungs with startling force. His chest rose sharply. Breathing had never felt so unfamiliar—or so welcome.
Hua Mingyue was looking at him and smiling.
"Good." Her purple eyes gleamed. "Looks like you achieved something extraordinary."
Even powerful supreme beings could only dream of it.
She stood and glanced at the ceiling. "You achieved something that even supreme beings failed to do."
"I don’t think I’m anything special," Lei Cheng shook his head. "The supreme beings would have done it if they had my enlightenment ability."
Hua Mingyue’s voice rose. "This is where you are wrong." She turned toward Lei Cheng with a bright smile. "Supreme beings cannot easily enter the state of death—and even if they did, the time required to comprehend Bizarre Dao at their matching level would be insane."
"Their bodies would perish if they spent that long," Lei Cheng cut in, his lips curving up. "Indeed, I did something unbelievable. But it’s all because of my ability."
"All because of that ability indeed," Hua Mingyue nodded. "But the fact is that you have that ability."
She paused. ’I never read about that kind of ability in any book. Just how powerful is it?’ She instinctively moved to open her third eye, but stopped. Her heartbeat rose. She felt an oppressive force blocking her.
She patted her chest. ’What was that?’
"What’s wrong?" Lei Cheng stood up.
"Nothing." Hua Mingyue shook her head. ’Is it your past life’s arrangement?’
Lei Cheng sat down and sensed something new inside himself.
A cold, airy, almost chilling intent—distant and strange.
His own Life Intent trembled instinctively, as if it had sensed an enemy. He forced it down. ’Bizarre Intent is hiding from my Life Intent,’ he muttered.
Hua Mingyue grinned. "Of course it would hide."
Lei Cheng looked at her. She asked, pulling out a beautiful butterfly-inscribed paper fan and fanning herself, "Can you guess why?"
"When I was trying to fuse Blood Qi and Bizarre Qi before," he said slowly, "They could only draw Bizarre Qi with ten percent Bizarre Intent, while Blood Qi contained only ten percent Life Intent. The two intents naturally clashed. If Life Intent was stronger, it erased the Bizarre Intent. If Bizarre Intent was stronger, it overwhelmed the Life Intent. Only when both intents were perfectly balanced did they have a chance to fuse."
Hua Mingyue gave a small nod. "Exactly."
Lei Cheng stood up, then hugged her before he could think better of it.
For once, she did not move immediately. He could feel it—beneath her usual indifference, she had genuinely been afraid for him.
Then she pushed him away with a flat look.
"If you really died," she said, "what did you think I would do?"
Lei Cheng spread his hands. "Rush to the underworld and drag me back."
"Correct," Hua Mingyue nodded indifferently. "So your death doesn’t matter."
’Though not at that power yet. But I will reach it anyway.’ She turned away as though the conversation were finished.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For worrying about me."
It was the first time he had thanked someone in this world without expecting anything in return.
He clicked his tongue and watched her go, who didn’t respond.
’She knows how to act,’ he thought with a faint smile. ’But is she really as composed inside as she appears on the outside?’
He patted himself down. ’It worked.’ Though he had acted calm, he had actually been afraid inside. ’Now, let’s return to the experiment.’
---
The sun had risen to its peak, and strong sunlight fell across the courtyard, tinted faintly dark by the gray fog’s effect.
Lei Cheng entered the garden again, energized by the fact that he had finally broken through something even the ancient beings had never solved.
The prisoners stood where he had left them. The ones who had agreed to the experiment looked at him blankly. They had already accepted the possibility of death.
"Good," he said. "Let’s continue."
He chose one at random—a middle-aged man, with a thin body, and a long scar over his left eye. The eye itself had been damaged and removed. He was almost malnourished beneath his prison clothes.
Lei Cheng recalled the man’s criminal record.
Member of the Bamboo Snake Gang. He had stolen from poor farmers, extorting protection money from people who were barely surviving themselves. The kind of criminal who justified himself with a gang name and then preyed on people weaker than he was.
Lei Cheng looked at the man’s skeletal frame and shook his head.
"Why would someone with a body like this join a gang in the first place?"
The man came forward without much expression.
"Let’s begin." Lei Cheng did not waste time. They sat cross-legged, facing each other.
With practiced precision, he infused Blood Qi with Life Intent, then layered that with Death Intent, fusing the combined orange Blood Qi into the prisoner’s energy. This time, prisoner had witnessed the previous attempts. He began the Bizarre Qi fusion with some understanding of what was happening.
Lei Cheng had already begun to act.
He was suppressing the Bizarre Intent inside the Bizarre Qi using his own comprehended Bizarre Intent. Because he had comprehended Bizarre Intent, he could now control the existing Bizarre Intent within Bizarre Qi.
The fusion progressed.
Thread by thread, the prisoner’s Blood Qi fused with Bizarre Qi, increased, strengthened, and stabilized. A purple-gold energy burning like flames formed inside him—the result of Blood Qi carrying the fused Life-Death Intent while Bizarre Qi was drawn down through the atmosphere.
Lei Cheng grinned.
’This might be it.’
Hua Mingyue had stood up by then, serious now. She put away her book and forgot to open her fan as usual.
"This is the barrier the ancient supreme beings never passed," she said, her voice low and calm, yet carrying a heaviness. "The Bizarre Intent cannot be comprehended by the living. And yet you did it. If this works, Lei Cheng, you will have created a new path."
Her words carried none of their usual calm. Even she understood what this moment meant.
A heavenly thunder roared in the sky, shaking everyone in Azure Cloud City.
Then—
Crack!
A sound split the air from the prisoner’s body.
The fusion had nearly reached completion with only a few strands of Blood Qi remaining.
Thud!
Lei Cheng was flung into the air as the prisoner struck him on the chest. He spat blood but reacted instantly in midair. "Life Intent."
Bang!
A vine appeared from the ground, binding him in the mid-fall and lowering him gently back to the ground.
"Heal." He used Life Intent on himself and recovered at once.
When he looked back up, he was glaring at the prisoner.
"Do you want to die?" he roared.
The prisoner had barely opened his mouth when Lei Cheng stopped.
’Something is wrong.’
Hua Mingyue had opened her third eye briefly. It flashed crimson and closed again.
"So that’s how it is," she murmured, and opened her fan, returning to her usual composure.
Lei Cheng stared at the prisoner.
The man’s body was changing.
The thin frame filled out. Muscles expanded. The malnourished bones disappeared beneath the dense tissues. He grew larger, heavier, stronger—the body itself rebuilding from the inside out as though he had suddenly acquired years of nourishment in a single instant.
From a skeletal gang member to a bulky, muscular man.
"Where is he getting all that protein?" Lei Cheng muttered, momentarily stunned. "It looks like he spent years in a gym."
The prisoner stood up.
His eyes opened.
Royal purple-gold flames rolled off his body. The pressure radiating from him was unlike anything the previous prisoners had produced.
Lei Cheng nodded to himself. ’That’s the Blood Qi I created.’
He had succeeded. He had fused Blood Qi with Bizarre Qi.
Then he noticed the eyes.
Black.
Not the prisoner’s original eyes.
Lei Cheng’s brows raised.
The man cracked his neck. Then his joints, one by one.
"You are not him," Lei Cheng said slowly. "Who are you?"
The man answered in a voice that seemed to come from every side of the garden at once. "I am Lin Lin."
Lei Cheng frowned despite hearing a feminine name coming from the muscular man. "You’re using the body’s original name. That’s not what I asked."
"I am Lin Lin," the man repeated. "Yet not Lin Lin."
The voice was rasping, airy, chilling—echoing through the garden from all sides.
Lei Cheng looked around in confusion. "What kind of trick is this? Did fusing Bizarre Qi give you some kind of technique?"
Lin Lin shook his head.
"No. I didn’t gain any technique."
Lei Cheng stared.
The man looked up, and when he opened his mouth again, his tone had gone heavy with reminiscence.
"I still remember the days I spent on the farm with my parents."
His voice hardened. "Why was the world so cruel to us? Why did it force this on me?"
He roared. "When I was poor and farming just to survive, those gang members came and took money from us as protection fees. I joined them because they had power. I thought that was survival."
He spread his arms.
"Was that wrong?"
Then he turned his gaze on Lei Cheng and the others. "Was that wrong?"
Lei Cheng looked at him for a long moment. Pity could explain his past, but it could never excuse the choices that followed.
He answered plainly. "Yes. It was wrong."
Crack!
Lin Lin’s neck cracked as his head turned nearly a full circle.
"Wrong?" he hissed. "Then where were you when I was bullied?"
Lei Cheng exhaled slowly. "That is the survival of the fittest. You can only call it fate and a lack of power."
He raised a hand. "Shut up."
The ground beneath Lin Lin shattered as a green vine burst from below and wrapped tightly around him. Lin Lin struggled, blasting purple-gold flames with all his strength, but the binding did not break.
"How?" he shouted. "How are you this strong?"
Lei Cheng narrowed his eyes.
"I am a cultivator now, aren’t I?" Lin Lin’s head was still bent at an impossible angle as he stared back.
"Is your path that weak?" he muttered.
Lei Cheng hissed in irritation and turned toward Hua Mingyue.
Whatever stood before him clearly wasn’t the same man who had volunteered for the experiment.
"Who is he? He doesn’t seem like the same prisoner anymore."
Hua Mingyue answered, "He is..."
