Forge a path to success

He walked away step by step, his tall figure turning into gray mist and dissipating as if he had never existed. Far away in Yingshi Town, the small church also turned into mist and dissipated, leaving its location a desolate wasteland. Vande felt that his last hope had also vanished, and for a moment he was at a loss, not knowing what to do, when he heard a faint sound beside him.

"Thanks, it wasn't your fault anyway..." the assassin chuckled. "Next time you travel, remember to choose a safe place..."

This guy is seriously out of his mind. What do you mean it's none of his business? Chu Hengkong originally had nothing to do with any of this. It was he who summoned the assassin from his hometown, it was he who forced the assassin to face these dangers. If it weren't for that summoning, the assassin would never have had anything to do with the real machine in his life.

This wasteland already has enough dead souls; it cannot bring in another one.

It couldn't quite explain why it was acting—guilt, a sense of responsibility, or both—or perhaps it simply didn't want to see its friends die, didn't want to see such a meaningless end as dying after victory.

The assassin's skin was ice-cold; he didn't even have the strength to breathe. Vande strained his memory, trying to find a breakthrough from his existing knowledge. His gaze lingered on the assassin's left arm. His limb was fused with his own tentacles. He saw the closest thing to him.

It had an idea.

"Don't be afraid, Chu Hengkong." Fan De mustered his courage. "I'm here... to save you!"

·

The desolate wind blew up the sand and gravel, and the illusory images in the sea sank and rose again. Qi Su stumbled across the beach and came to the array he had drawn that morning.

This small magic circle miraculously survived the previous battle. The circle and its materials remained intact, surrounded by a ring of large, flowing beads. The assassin had left all the resources he brought here, perhaps to expedite his escape, or perhaps because he had anticipated his inability to come in person.

Qi Su inserted her short staff into the magic circle, representing the centipede shell of dust, the giant armor of shadow, and the remains of her own corpse, representing light. The three remains lit up in turn, the flowing beads shattered, and a surge of current formed a vortex. The divine power of the swirling dragon was poured into it, opening a passage to the outside.

A sense of tension coiled around her like a snake. The Immortal Machine was dead, but the invasion of the Empire of Truth might not have completely disappeared. Despite the guidance of the Dragon God's power, she couldn't say for sure where that passage led.

Beyond the vortex might lie a desolate wasteland, another desperate situation, or even the stronghold of the Truth Empire. Qi Su had no way to confirm this; she had exhausted all her strength just to activate the formation.

So she cried out, her voice echoing towards the other side of the vortex, where no one was known to exist.

"This is Yingshi Town in the Netherworld God Kingdom. There is a man here named Chu Hengkong! He saved us all, and now he is about to die!"

Beyond the tide, all was silent; Qi Su wept uncontrollably.

"If you are also children of the Dragon God, if you know this name, please come and save him!"

Then, a sound emerged from the flowing water, responding with worry, anxiety, and pride. A golden figure rushed out first, followed by a man who replied helplessly.

"Of course, we know him."

"He is our pride."

·

Chu Hengkong felt himself sinking into the sea, with strings of bubbles rising to the surface as he sank. The bubbles were colorful, like soap bubbles in the sunlight, drifting towards the luminous sea surface, their light sometimes as round and smooth as the sun, sometimes as proud and arrogant as a dragon.

He recalled a casual conversation he had with Ji Huaisu, when they sat on a floating island gazing at the ocean, watching the illusions conjure up various phantoms. Ji Huaisu said that many people drawn by the illusions would walk into the sea, and people thought they would die a painful death, but the experience was actually fantastical and blissful.

You will see many bubbles, each one concealing an illusion, a dazzling and colorful spectacle, like being in the world's most beautiful amusement park. If you delve into it, you will melt away in your fantasies, becoming new bubbles that merge into the ocean. But if you close your eyes and refuse to see those beautiful things, you will drift away from the bubbles and sink into the abyss, succumbing to the extreme cold.

He said that if you fall into the sea, you're doomed. Ji Huaisu said it wasn't like that. You have to keep looking and thinking, accepting but rejecting every fantasy, to float above the bubbles. He suddenly realized and said, "I understand! The ocean hates picky people. If you have a bad temper, the ocean will spit you out!"

The conversation ended with Ji Huaisu's spinning kick. At the time, he thought the Sea of ​​Illusions probably felt the same way he did—who would want to serve someone with such a bad temper? But now he felt that his partner's golden words were absolutely true; when you really fall into such a predicament, any piece of advice is priceless.

“Persist…” “…Remember!” “…Bone! Your…experience…!”

The light on the sea flickered incessantly, and the indistinct words turned into gray stones, sinking with him. The chill grew increasingly biting; he thought that if there was an abyss in this world, it must be behind him. It was a vast expanse of icy blackness, silent, indifferent, and gloomy, like the very bottom of the world.

He didn't want to die so miserably, so he opened his eyes wide, trying his best to see those colorful bubbles. The bubbles burst as he stared, turning into clear images: his abdomen was smashed open by a bear in the deep mountains, he was bitten by a crocodile in the sewers, he was shot by a sniper on a high-rise rooftop, he was slashed by Du Muyan in the club, burned by Kanin, pelted with rocks, and struck by the force field of real machinery...

What the hell? All I can think of are those unfortunate memories of getting beaten up! Aren't bubbles supposed to represent beautiful fantasies? How miserable must someone's life have been if even their dying memories are filled with this crap?!

Chu Hengkong grew angrier the more he looked. Everywhere he looked, there were vivid images of him being beaten, injured, and on the verge of death, as if the ocean had edited together all the darkest moments of its life and was broadcasting them in a grand finale. This anger made him muster his strength and reach out to disrupt the memories before him. As he reached out, he touched something as hard as cast iron. It was a pure white steel cable, hanging from the surface of the sea, cold and painful to the touch.

He gripped the steel cable, coiled it with his tentacles, and gritted his teeth as he climbed upwards inch by inch. Then, the many illusions transformed into the aftermath of his injury: muscles strengthened after healing, tendons and bones resilient after recovery, computational circuits iterating faster; superior skills, better agility, and optimized, upgraded movement patterns…

Something strange seemed to have infiltrated the area, but it didn't matter. He completely ignored these inexplicable fantasies about manufacturing workshops and production lines, and resolutely climbed the steel cable upwards. As he broke through the sea, he gasped for breath, ready to greet the blazing sunlight!

"...?"

But there was no sunlight on the sea; all that could be seen was a dazzling Milky Way. Beneath the Milky Way stood a fishing rod, its white steel cable serving as its fishing line.

Chu Hengkong blinked, realizing that he was the fish that had been caught.

The angler sat on the sea, his face obscured, only a hairy hand gripping a fishing rod was visible.

The angler blinked, seemingly confused as well. His voice was gentle and honest.

You've swum too far, little one. This isn't your home.

He released his grip, sending Chu Hengkong back into the sea. As he entered the water, the world spun 180 degrees; the surface became the seabed, and the seabed became the sky. He left the surface as he entered the ocean, and this time he saw real sunlight!

"!"

Chu Hengkong sat bolt upright, gasping for breath like a drowning fish returning to the ocean. He couldn't hear anything except his own heartbeat. He didn't know how long it was before his consciousness returned. He mechanically turned his eyes and saw the candlelight, the jade carving, the crisscrossing magic arrays on the ground, and familiar faces. Where was he…?

The headquarters building is on the 33rd floor, the Dragon Shrine.

"Ah Kong! Ah Kong!"

He saw the golden strands of hair, and Ji Huaisu patted his face urgently. Chu Hengkong nodded haphazardly, grabbed her hand, and stared at her blankly for a while.

“That’s great,” he said. “You don’t have much hair on your hands.”

His partner's cheeks turned a lovely pink as she gritted her teeth and grabbed Chu Hengkong's head, shaking it violently. "You bastard!!" "Ouch. It hurts. It hurts." "Are you an idiot?!" "It hurts so much. It hurts so much."

"Overall, she seems to have a normal personality."

"No, I think he's gotten dumber."

Ji Qiufeng and Youyou were whispering to each other. Chu Heng raised his hands in surrender. Miraculously, he didn't feel much pain this time, probably because the technology in Huilong City had improved. He shook his head and saw Fan De wriggling his tentacles back and forth, looking rather awkward.

“Um… buddy…” Vander stammered, “I have good news and bad news, which do you want to hear?”

"I'm still alive." Chu Hengkong grinned foolishly. "For me right now, there's only good news."

"Oh, that's great!" Vande breathed a sigh of relief. "The good news is that you've successfully ascended. You're now a point mass 2, a rigid bone."

"I am grass."

Chu Hengkong then realized the true nature of the magic array on the ground; he was lying within the sealing formation. No wonder he woke up in a temple instead of a hospital room. He moved his body with delight: "Could this be bad news?"

“Ah, well, I think so too. It’s actually just not the best news.” Vande nodded vigorously. “I mean, buddy, you know you were pretty badly injured before, your whole spine burst. So to keep you alive until the rescue arrived, I used whatever I had on hand to do some temporary treatment for you…”

"Impressive, Vande, I didn't expect you to have this skill." Chu Hengkong touched his back, feeling a hard, new vertebra. "What did you use?"

Van Der didn't speak, but simply handed him a mirror and smiled sincerely. Chu Hengkong immediately sensed something was wrong. He looked at his back in the mirror and discovered a pure white, steel exoskeleton carved into it.

Chu Hengkong's face darkened visibly. He took a deep, deep breath, as if he were preparing to unleash a thousand-year-old aura.

"Van...de...?"

Van der revealed an innocent, harmless, and slightly shy smile.

Ji Huaisu grabbed Fan De with one hand, and the helpless demon kept screaming that it was going to be crushed. Her expression was as if she were reciting a death sentence.

“Congratulations, Akong.” She sighed deeply. “Your spine is now an immortal machine.”

Chapter 91 The Tide of Fate

Ten minutes later, at the Dragon Temple.

Major war criminal Vande was thrown into a rat cage to await his fate, while his own eyes loudly protested inside the cage, claiming that the living conditions were rudimentary. Meanwhile, Chu Hengkong, who had just woken up, was tightly surrounded by the crowd. He was lying naked in the array, with a ring of strange, unidentifiable relics pasted on his body, making him look like he was having an electrocardiogram in another world.

"Relax your body, concentrate." Youyou's gaze was sharp as a knife. "How are you feeling now?"

"It's better than ever before." Chu Hengkong moved his arms back and forth. "I feel like I could beat three of my past selves."

Ji Huaisu asked with a face full of curiosity: "All at once or a series of attacks?"

"It's not that detailed... Miss Ji, I'm warning you not to touch it randomly, this thing is dangerous."

Ji Huaisu crept up behind him and furtively tried to poke the exposed bone. Her fingertips recoiled as if electrocuted the moment they touched it, and barely perceptible ripples ran across the surface of the bone, turning her slender fingertips bright red.

Ji Huaisu sucked on her finger, tears welling in her eyes from the pain: "My bone bit me!"

"The kinetic energy reflection armor, a standard feature of ultimate-level mechs, returns more pain the harder you apply it." Ji Qiufeng chuckled. "This thing is too much of a burden for you. Can you turn it off?"

"Let me try……"

Chu Hengkong stretched his back muscles. He didn't know if he could command the bone—the immortal machine, which had long since died, probably didn't have the ability to receive commands either—so he used the basic stance from the Three Thousand Sets to fine-tune it using the technique of manipulating bones.

Stop. He thought. Rest.

The ripples on her back subsided, and Ji Huaisu cautiously poked it, finding it harmless this time. She then pressed her advantage and began scratching with her claws, prompting Chu Hengkong to quickly drape his coat over her shoulders: "Mind your image."

"You're not in pain, so what's the loss?" Ji Huaisu said matter-of-factly. "What's your analysis, Lord Youyou?"

“No abnormal information exchange, independent thought fluctuations, no abnormal limb deformities…” Youyou looked up from in front of a pile of jade tablets. “There are no signs of external contamination for the time being. But this is unprecedented, and you will inevitably be affected by the true machine. Afterwards, you will enter a period of observation, monitoring, protection, and defense. Everything will be carried out to the highest standards to ensure that you do not become some kind of crazy killing machine.”

“But he already was,” Jie An, who was observing, said.

“That’s the problem,” Youyou hissed, “Generally speaking, unlucky guys who get contaminated by real machinery become cold, expressionless, taciturn, prone to violence, and have a fondness for strange mechanical products. But he’s always like this, I can’t tell the difference.”

Chu Heng tried his best to protest, racking his brains to find a rebuttal: "I also play games and go fishing!"

“I think things are alright; at least he still knows how to talk back,” Ji Huaisu said with a wicked grin.

Everyone teased him for a while, the laughter mainly focused on his new bones. Afterwards, Ji Huaisu declared he needed to catch up on sleep and left, Youyou took the rat cage to interrogate Fan De, and Jie An busied himself preparing medicinal cuisine. Chu Hengkong ignored the pleading voice of someone whose eyes had drifted away and stretched his limbs in place. Ji Qiufeng stared at his retreating figure, his eyes flashing.

"How was your trip?"

“The world is vast, and I am but a tiny speck.” Chu Hengkong patted his shoulder. “You have such great vision.”

Bone Forging Technique, Qi Interception Strike, and most importantly, the One Qi Across a Thousand Autumns. Without Ji Qiufeng's relentless training over those three months, he wouldn't have even seen the Immortal Machine; he would have died long ago in the desolate mountains of the Divine Kingdom. Everyone says that the Dragon God is skilled in divination and knows the future, but after experiencing all this, Chu Hengkong feels that a martial artist's vision is no less far-reaching than the Dragon God's.

“It has nothing to do with perspective, it’s more about ‘fate’,” Ji Qiufeng laughed. “There’s a widely accepted theory called ‘the tide of fate,’ which says that human destiny is like a stream, and the destinies of all living beings converge into a vast ocean. The direction of fate is always changing because the streams vary in strength. A strong stream will assimilate the weaker tributaries, guiding them in directions they shouldn’t be.”

In the sea, knowing is possessing, and possessing is touching. Once you know of the existence of the currents, you reach into them, and from then on, your fate is pulled by them, helpless and adrift. Therefore, to avoid being swept away by the strong currents, one can only remain alone, neither exploring nor touching.

“However, there are also those who are born with unusual trends. Some people are different from others; they are unwilling to remain unknown and inconspicuous, and they prefer to go where things are complicated.” Ji Qiufeng tapped his shoulder. “People say that such people have a dark fate; they are like walking misfortunes, and wherever they go, trouble follows.”

Chu Hengkong shook his head helplessly: "What bad luck..."

“The people of the swamp call you the Son of the Trend, and there’s a reason for that. If you don’t quickly learn some kung fu, how will you get through any trouble?” Ji Qiufeng said. “Think positively, there are many unlucky people in the world, one more won’t make a difference.”

Hearing this, Chu Hengkong fell silent for a moment. He thought of the many souls lost in Yingshi Town, and the "past" he had seen in the mist. A once prosperous nation had perished just like that, because of the upheaval in the sea, because of the advance of the True Machines. And the Ultimate True Machines did not regard them as enemies; they simply advanced, obliterated, and disintegrated, leaving only wronged souls weeping in the wasteland.

He was much luckier than the remnants of the divine kingdom.

"Mr. Ji, what kind of place was the Divine Kingdom?"

“A very, very good place.” Ji Qiufeng smiled slightly. “Huilong City is too far from Longquan Township. Back then, the Netherworld God was our strongest support. The golden age of Huilong City was inseparable from its protection. He once personally guided Youyou in building the city, and His land was happy to trade with us. Many times we gathered under the cherry blossom trees and listened to the locals sing ancient poems and long songs.”

The man closed his eyes, hiding the deep sorrow within them.

“It’s all in the past,” he said softly, “like poems and songs that have faded away.”

Chu Hengkong sat quietly, finding it hard to believe that the Divine Kingdom had been so easily destroyed. However, sensing Ji Qiufeng's sorrow, he decided against delving deeper. He brought up the matter he cared about: "How are Qi Su and the others?"

“Their situation is special, I’ll think of a way.” Ji Qiufeng patted his shoulder. “But you should care about yourself first. You look like a minor heretic now, but in the old divine kingdom you would have been reduced to ashes.”

"now what?"

“We are more open than the Divine Kingdom.” Ji Qiufeng turned around. “Be careful of Ganggu, and get some rest.”

His footsteps faded into the distance, leaving only one person sitting alone in the temple. Chu Hengkong sat quietly, thinking of nothing. Normally, he would have jumped up to examine his new bones or analyzed the gains and losses of the battle, but today he didn't think so much. Those bygone stories were like a thin layer of dust covering his heart; he didn't feel much sadness, but rather realized that he was truly a little tired.

So he left the temple, walked down the stairs, and many of his men greeted him along the way. He overheard his brothers discussing "an epic battle taking place in a distant mountain range," and before half a day had passed, some gossip had leaked the news. After leaving headquarters, he wandered around for a while, sitting on the curb, watching the strange and wonderful vehicles and the diverse groups of people moving about in the city.

He suddenly felt that all of this was very distant from him, as distant as a scene on a screen. A chill crept up his spine, and his vision turned blood-red. The speeding vehicles slowed down, transforming from trailing afterimages of their taillights into almost still blocks of color. Pedestrians also slowed down, seeing only varying shades of blood, as if the streets had been smeared with blood.

The chill solidified, piercing his flesh, like a cold insect lurking on his back. A voice murmured within him, as if a mere touch could wipe away the crimson in his eyes.

"Not now," Chu Hengkong muttered to himself. "We'll talk about it next time."

The crimson faded, the chill dissipated, and the steel worm retreated back into its bones. He felt a bit cold and pulled his clothes tighter. Just then, he felt a sticky sensation on his ankle. Chu Hengkong looked down and met a pair of silly-looking eyes.

“Dude, you were acting like a complete idiot student just now,” Vander said, drawing out his words. “No way. We’ll talk about it another time. I’m going to find a better time to destroy the world.”

"Screw you."

He grabbed Vande with one hand and placed it beside him. The Eye Demon sighed, "You ungrateful wretch! I was interrogated for half an hour! That snake almost ate me!"

“She is actually a dragon,” Chu Hengkong corrected. “A dragon swimming freely.”

Vande's eyes turned pale: "...Really?"

"real."

“A dignified ancient dragon prophet of mass 5 is pretending to be a snake.” Vande looked worried and bitter. “I understand your temperament now. Everyone in this place is just as neurotic from top to bottom.”

Chu Hengkong smiled, his eyes like a cheeky little hairdryer, capable of dispelling any gloomy, ominous chill after just a few words. He stretched: "How does Youyou plan to exile you?"

“‘Afterwards, you will enter a period of observation, surveillance, protection, and vigilance—everything will be conducted to the highest standards.’” Van der mimicked her tone perfectly, then cried out in despair, “Why am I, such an innocent and harmless eye demon, being monitored as a suspicious individual?!”

"Honestly, do you really think you're not suspicious?" Chu Hengkong said. "Try to think positively, I'm the same way."