Chapter 157: Returning to the Hospital

"It hurts like hell!"

Inside the manor's grand hall near the northern city wall, the corpses of six hundred people still littered the floor.

Blood pooled everywhere, seeping out of the hall and spilling into the courtyard, though no one had discovered it yet.

The green-eyed old man, sitting cross-legged right in front of the divine statue, suddenly let out a sharp cry and opened his eyes.

He stood up with a shudder, raised his palm to look at it, and then touched his cheek, only to find his skin aging at an unimaginably rapid pace.

Without even needing to look in a mirror, he could tell his vision had grown dim and the light of his life flickered like a candle in the wind.

Using his soul as a sacrifice to manifest a divine avatar for his operations—by all rights, even if that avatar were beaten, injured, or destroyed, his true body should have remained unaffected.

Yet, at this very moment, the green-eyed old man felt a surge of horror.

Not only had his divine avatar been annihilated, but the soul imprint itself had been brutally severed, as if it no longer existed in any corner of this world.

Human souls are peculiar things; no matter how weak or scattered they become, as long as the true spiritual imprint remains intact, they can return to the Heavenly Divine Court to reforge a sacred vessel.

At the very least, they could hide within the Divine Kingdom and peacefully live out the rest of their days.

Apostles like him, who wandered far and wide stirring up massive waves, were rarely killed precisely because of this failsafe.

Death itself was not terrifying; what was terrifying was the complete dissolution of the soul and true spirit, leaving no way ever to return.

However, this time, after half of his soul imprint was torn apart and dissipated, his soul was instantly rendered incomplete. The aggregate of consciousness residing within his physical body began to dissolve along with it.

This process was irreversible, and worse still, he could no longer communicate with the deities.

Gathering the very last remnants of divine radiance within his body, he pulled out a sheet of letterpaper, bent over the table to scribble a few lines, and muttered an incantation under his breath.

Without a breath of wind, the paper ignited spontaneously, floating up into mid-air and glowing with faint golden patterns.

In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a blue robin, pierced through the roof, and vanished from sight.

"The ability to devour divine imprints and sever spatial passages—such a method poses far too great a threat to my Lord's grand cause. He must not be allowed to grow. I can only hope this draws the Archist's attention."

The green-eyed old man raised his eyes toward the azure sky...

At the final moment of his life, he did not prostrate himself in prayer once more. Instead, he pulled back the curtains and gazed out at the mortal scenery of the world.

"I still feel a trace of attachment. How I long to see the faith of the Divine Kingdom blossom everywhere across this land."

With a soft sigh, the green-eyed old man's body turned to drifting ashes, leaving behind only a small pile of dark dust in the living room as if to prove he had ever existed.

***

Before even reaching the hospital, Xiao Nan had actually regained consciousness.

It was simply that he hadn't figured out how to respond to people's upcoming inquiries, or perhaps he was simply unwilling to leave someone's embrace.

Therefore, he kept his eyes shut tight, feigning unconsciousness.

A tearing agony rippled through his body, telling him he had truly gone too far this time.

Those final streams of spatial energy had used his physical body as a bridge, pouring directly into the bronze mirror's inner dimension. While the harvest seemed enormous, everything came at a steep price.

He felt as though his entire body was a shattered burlap sack, riddled with holes everywhere, including his skin and muscles.

His meridians had been shattered into countless disconnected fragments.

So severe was the damage that he couldn't even command a single finger.

The most agonizing part was his skeletal structure.

His bones were now far more brittle than those of an eighty or ninety-year-old person.

They felt weightless, as if some essential substance within them had been completely washed away...

He suspected that if Qin Shuang moved him even the slightest bit too roughly, she would snap his bones entirely.

Fortunately, indifferent and aloof though she usually seemed, the young woman proved quite adept at taking care of someone.

Her movements were exceptionally gentle. When her hands touched Xiao Nan's body, it was like a soft ripple of water, perfectly supporting and stabilizing his limbs and torso.

Until he was loaded into the ambulance, not even the tiniest, unwanted vibration had occurred.

"The scene left behind is extremely bizarre. If someone truly dedicated investigates, they'll still be able to spot something amiss," Xiao Nan thought to himself with his eyes closed, recalling the events that had just transpired.

Dangerous? It had been perilous indeed. What worried him most were the two figures who had arrived shortly afterward.

From how Principal Sun Zhongli had addressed them, he knew one hailed from the Empire's Arbitration Agency, and the other from the Higher Education Alliance. They had rushed over at top speed, but clearly, they were still a step too late.

"The spatial rift has vanished. All I have to do is stick to my story—that the spatial crystal was lost within the spatial folds during the chaos.

There are plenty of variables in such anomalies anyway. Even with Grandmaster-level experts at the scene, it's impossible for them to tear open space to verify my words; that goes far beyond their capabilities."

Having figured out how to hoodwink others, Xiao Nan finally set his worries aside. He had silently lost the school's ultimate treasured artifact, an incident that could be dismissed as trivial or blown up into a full-scale, rigorous investigation.

Since he couldn't possibly explain how he had managed the high-end operation of shattering the spatial crystal and triggering spatial energy,

he had no choice but to pin everything on the Barbarian Gods and the sudden emergence of the miniature spatial passageway.

Immerisng his consciousness deep within his mind, he looked at the spatial landscape, which seemed to have completely changed, feeling a mix of uncertainty and sorrow.

This time, the harvest could be said to be immense. Yet, practically speaking, it was also as good as nothing.

Because on one side of the spatial plaza, where white mists and golden clouds drifted, three ethereal crystals now floated in a circle, enclosing a colorful passage at their center.

The passage looked unassuming, but when Xiao Nan focused his spiritual will upon it, he could faintly sense a breath of wind blowing from the opposite side.

"That must be the barbarian wilderness. And without a doubt, it's the territory directly controlled by the sect of that green-eyed old man."

That tangible, oppressive divine might made Xiao Nan's soul feel deeply uncomfortable, even with just a slight mental probe.

So, while the harvest was undoubtedly huge—he had acquired a miniature spatial passageway—what came with it?

If he were so inclined, he could go forth to explore or gather resources. Rumors said that foreign realms were overflowing with spiritual stones and wondrous herbs grew all over the mountains.

The potential gains were unimaginably vast.

Yet, formidable enemies awaited on the other side.

Without sufficient strength of his own, wouldn't stepping in there be tantamount to seeking death?

Was it a one-way trip or a round trip? Could he find his way back if he went?

Xiao Nan asked himself, knowing full well that his current frail condition was nowhere near enough to arm-wrestle with deities.

Rashly probing the unknown carried far too many risks.

Therefore, it was best to shelve the matter temporarily and wait until his strength reached a certain threshold.

Perhaps when he reached the end of his path and had no choice but to risk his life for progress, he would reconsider entering the passage.

For now, it was better not to think too much about it.

Aside from this somewhat useless spatial passageway, there was another matter within the bronze mirror's dimension that demanded his attention.

That was the center of the plaza, which used to project illusions; it now featured the phantom of an additional spatial crystal, within which drifted gray, misty vapors.

It felt as though the moment he threw himself upon it, he would be able to absorb the information contained within.

This phenomenon was identical to the previous two times he had acquired analytical talents.

The regretful part was that Xiao Nan currently possessed no physical body at all—his state was even worse than during his very first entry into the dimension.

He discovered that he was merely a ball of light, a wisp of breath, drifting hazily and insubstantially through the space, incapable of touching a single thing.

"Decades of hard work wiped out in a single morning, right back where I started."

He understood what had happened: the earlier combustion of his soul power had consumed far too much... his spiritual force had scattered so widely that he couldn't even coalesce it.

To say nothing of his previous Embryonic Breathing realm, he probably didn't even possess the spiritual strength of the meditative state right now.

Of course, this was only temporary.

Xiao Nan sensed that across this vast, expansive domain of space, familiar yet unfamiliar threads of mental intent were converging toward him.

His mental resolve was growing stronger by the bit...

Perhaps before long, those cloud-and-mist-like entities within the space would melt into his soul.

Not only would it allow him to recover his spiritual realm, but it might even elevate him to an entirely higher plane.