[Gate of Spirit Sealing: Closing Failed]
[Revival Procedure Cannot Be Forcibly Halted]
[Corruption by the World’s Law continues. Life-grade hierarchy is in rapid decline...]
The Unsealing Key had accidentally opened the spirit-sealing gate to the second chamber of the subterranean corridor, forcing all the flesh-and-blood beings sealed within to reawaken.
Su Chen’s unintentional act had, in a way, killed these thousand-plus slumbering beings all at once.
They could have slumbered peacefully within the flesh seal until the end of the eon, but were instead brutally torn into this era of Magic that rejected their very existence.
In less than a minute.
The thunderous roars from deep underground had already weakened, becoming hoarse and fractured.
At that moment, the three Flesh Giants had already degenerated severely, their bodies shrinking dramatically.
Once their sealing shells flaked off completely, the flesh on their bodies underwent a reverse disintegration. Forcibly degraded by the suppression of the world’s Law, their original muscle tissue began to rot. Even their exposed bones calcified, as if weathered by the wind.
‘They’re just half-crippled husks now.’
Su Chen stood at the edge of the sinkhole, his Windbreaker whipping in the foul air that gushed from the chasm.
A portion of his Strong Will descended straight into the sinkhole, eventually reaching the collapsed subterranean corridor to investigate the changes within.
‘Not many of the others are left. After degenerating into cavemen, they were basically powerless against the crushing weight of the collapsing rock strata.’
Since his Telekinesis had advanced to Lv. 11, his abilities in geological surveying and Fault Scanning had improved remarkably.
The three giants, their divine might long gone, were now hunched over like dying beasts.
Before their individual consciousnesses faded completely, or perhaps because they detected the scan from his Telekinesis, they immediately stole the lives of the surrounding Warriors under their command. Then, they began to dig desperately downward, using their mangled limbs to claw at rock crevices, brutally tearing open a new passage into the deeper earth.
Unlike the priests he had encountered before, who had attempted a desperate final gamble, these far more powerful and venerable beings cherished their lives. They would rather become twisted things, neither human nor ghost, than give up on survival.
There was even more space deep beneath the chasm; at the very least, an unexplored subterranean river flowed to an unknown destination.
‘Trying to run?’
‘Not on my watch.’
Su Chen’s gaze turned cold. In an Aurora Flash, he instantly appeared inside the half-collapsed second chamber.
‘Melted Core Collapse!’
A surge of geothermal energy, compressed to its critical point, erupted forth. The air was instantly sucked out of the chamber as gravity twisted.
A collapse field, like a miniature black hole, formed with his palm as the singularity. One of the hunched beasts, which had degenerated into the form of a giant insect, didn’t even have time to screech before its entire rear half twisted, shattered, and imploded.
The front half of its body, which had already burrowed underground, continued to wriggle on instinct. Its jointed legs thrashed wildly, attempting to escape via the deep subterranean river.
“Rise!”
Su Chen flicked his fingers upward. His Lv. 11 Telekinesis shot deep into the earth’s veins like an invisible giant hand and grabbed hold.
VMMMM!
It was as if an immense gravitational force was pulling everything toward it.
In an instant, rubble flew everywhere as an entire section of the earth’s crust peeled upward like a sheet of metal. The creature’s mangled body hung suspended in mid-air, still struggling. Its hundreds of festering compound eyes glimmered, releasing waves of bizarre Spiritual Power, but Su Chen paid them no mind.
Su Chen gave it no chance to recover.
He clenched his palm.
The Telekinesis Field constricted abruptly, crushing down like an iron band of immense weight.
The giant insect’s torso instantly exploded. The resulting blood mist was evaporated by the intense heat before it could even disperse. However... a small, thumb-sized insect with golden markings shot out from the ashes and debris, a perfect execution of a cicada shedding its golden shell.
It moved with incredible speed, silently boring straight into a fissure in the ground.
“Heh.” Su Chen had already anticipated this with his Global Perception. He raised his left hand and tore open the Void.
‘Void-Devouring Maw!’
A dark vortex materialized from thin air. Layers of gravitational force coiled around the golden-patterned insect, forcibly yanking it out of the rock strata.
What was even more absurd was that every time he crushed it, a new individual would regenerate from the remains, its Life Force growing more vigorous each time. It was as if every act of Destruction was injecting it with some kind of regenerative energy fed by its de-evolution.
In a single second, it had “died” and been reborn seven times.
Its size did not increase, but its aura grew more and more substantial.
An extremely dangerous fluctuation emanated from it. It was... like a new life taking form. It even began to emit the fresh, warm scent of human vitality.
‘Something’s wrong.’ Su Chen’s expression grew even colder.
This wasn’t simple regeneration.
It was undergoing a transformation of its very destiny with each Destruction. It had even become inexplicably tinged with the aura of a Rune and suffused with a trace of a scent familiar to him—as if it were stealing heavenly secrets by siphoning off a sliver of his own fate.
‘This is very wrong!’
In a flash, an idea struck him.
‘If I can’t deal with it effectively within the ruins of the Underground City, I’ll just take it outside.’
“Go!”
A surge of Telekinesis erupted from Su Chen, grabbing hold of the golden-patterned blur. Amidst overlapping Light and Dark Particles, he instantly reappeared on the surface.
「The next instant.」
The midday sun poured down like a golden waterfall, bathing the golden-patterned insect.
The insect immediately let out a screech so sharp it felt as if it could tear one’s soul apart.
Everything about it began to evaporate like a snowman under the fierce summer sun. Its unnatural life force was violently suppressed by the Law of the present world, and the cycle of its fateful transformation came to an abrupt halt.
The scent of vitality quickly withered. The substantial Rune aura collapsed like a tower of sand, its power gone. The insect gradually shriveled into a small, desiccated husk.
‘It’s over.’
Su Chen looked down, his gaze falling on the small, dried insect in his palm, which was curled up like a withered leaf.
It had lost all signs of life. Its body was grayish-white; at a glance, one might even mistake it for a cordyceps fungus. Interestingly, this little thing was no longer in danger of being annihilated by the world’s suppressive Law.

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