Chapter 203.1: Predicament Part 1

The explosives mixed with various aberration toxins detonated, wiping away the traces they had left around the ruins and creating a vast cloud of poison that thoroughly contaminated the area. Mixed into it was also a considerable amount of ash left behind after the Dissociation Technique had destroyed the alchemical items.

Together, they would be more than enough to throw any Aether Chosen Ones attempting to track them off the trail for quite some time, sparing Xu Guan a great deal of trouble.

The journey continued in silence. The vehicle drove on for a long while before finally stopping in a corner of another ruined district. Ji Liu climbed out and draped a camouflage tarp over it, blending the truck almost perfectly into the surrounding piles of rubble.

Tong Shan let out a long exhale. He asked, “Is this place safe?”

“Yes. After the latest shift, this place became one of the side paths that overlaps with the previous route. You can only get in here by following a specific route,” Xu Guan said. “And I never reported its existence.”

Tong Shan gave a faint nod. The tension finally left his body. Across his skin, scarlet cracks rapidly spread like a spiderweb.

Before anyone else could speak, the sharp-eyed Ji Jue reacted quickly. With lightning-fast precision, he drove the Mercy Bone Blade straight into Tong Shan's heart.

The cracks came to an abrupt stop, and even Tong Shan’s rapidly paling face regained a faint flush of color. His condition was forcibly stabilized.

The corner of Tong Shan’s mouth twitched into a faint smile. “Did you disinfect it after you stabbed Ji Liu in the ass?”

“Shush.” Ji Jue waved for the others to move aside. Mercury tentacles sprang from his back and quickly made space inside the vehicle. Only after laying Tong Shan flat did he wipe away his sweat and carefully cut open the protective suit, fully exposing the wound on his back.

The gaping tear that pierced straight through him had been held together by telekinesis. Now that the telekinetic force had dissipated, nothing concealed it any longer.

“When did you get hurt?” Ji Xue asked in shock. “Did he stab you at the very end?”

Tong Shan merely smiled without answering.

Ji Jue sighed as realization dawned on him. “It was at the very beginning, wasn’t it?”

The moment the Burning Star Manifestation appeared and the Heretic Cult detonated the explosives buried beneath the ruins, Ling Zhi had launched his first attack from behind, and Tong Shan had chosen to protect his teammates before protecting himself. Only after making sure they were safe had he found the opening to launch his ruthless counterattack, disguising the whole thing as a carefully prepared trap.

From beginning to end, he had pretended nothing had happened, and had actually managed to fool even his opponents.

“Before I begin, let me ask one thing. Other than me, is there really no surgeon here?” Ji Jue asked, clinging to a last sliver of hope as he looked around at everyone.

The answer was exactly what he had expected.

“You do it,” Tong Shan said. “I’ll cooperate.”

“Whether you cooperate or not isn't the issue. Stripping away contamination is a lot of work.” Ji Jue sighed. “Can I ask for extra pay?”

“Are you looking down on the Security Bureau, or are you looking down on the Tong family?” Tong Shan replied with an amused smile, not minding at all.

He didn’t care about that bit of money, nor did he think Ji Jue would really raise the price at a time like this. If they were really going to talk about payment, Jiang Xuan, that simpleton, might not understand, but there was no way Tong Shan didn’t know the cost. Just those few minutes of fun Jiang Xuan had enjoyed were enough to make him work for Ji Jue for free until next year.

“Come on, be serious. This is my first time doing this, you know.”

Ji Jue pulled a bottle of disinfectant from the medical kit and splashed it into the air. With a faint burst of telekinesis, the liquid atomized into a fine mist, sterilizing everything around them. Then, with the help of a third hand made of his spirit matter, he slipped on a pair of sterile gloves.

They kept things as simple as possible. A token round of disinfection would have to do. If Tong Shan survived, they could always pump him full of antibiotics once they got back.

Ji Jue withdrew the Mercy Bone Blade, and the accumulated knowledge and experience of countless surgeons flowed through his mind. Following his instructions, everyone carefully turned Tong Shan onto his side, exposing the charred wound on his back.

Shadow poison flowed through it, lingering like a ghost that refused to leave.

“Hmm. Rampant Slaughter, Absolute Abyss, and a trace of... Shadow Sun, I think.” Ji Jue picked up a tiny bit on his fingertip, then let out a breath of relief. “Good. I’ve dealt with most of these before.”

Thankfully, there was no trace of White Hall contamination. Although he had encountered the Undying Disease before, White Hall harbored far more than a single type of pathogen. One glance at the hospital's infectious disease threat rankings was enough to show how terrifyingly diverse they were. If it had been one of those, all Ji Jue could have done was stabilize Tong Shan with another stab and offer little more than a placebo.

Tong Shan had a piercing wound through the back, damage to the heart and left lung, aberration contamination, countless fine cuts and bruises all over his body, and even severe trauma to his soul, which was probably the backlash from exceeding his limits when he unleashed his Rebirth form.

Most of it fell within the scope of what surgery could solve.

As for the aberration contamination, he had Pacifier and Mr. Watch to rely on. If the contamination was in nonessential tissue, he simply cut it away. If it involved a vital organ, he used the attraction between aberrants and drew it out with high-purity aberration toxin, then cut away the contaminated section. If it had gone deep into the marrow, he temporarily sealed it off with spirit circuits.

Combined with the medicine carried by the Security Bureau and the assortment of spirit medicines generously provided by Young Master Lou, they managed to eliminate nearly ninety percent of the contamination. The tiny bit that remained was no longer much of a threat.

The hastily improvised surgery lasted only half an hour. With the aid of Flawless Craft, the entire procedure progressed at remarkable speed. Finally, Ji Jue attached the Mouth of the Ancient Ones along with two other blessed pieces of equipment that accelerated healing.

“Sorry,” Ji Jue said as he peeled off his bloodstained gloves and tossed them into the biohazard container. “This is as far as my skills can take me. Injuries to the soul and the matrix aren’t something that can heal overnight. You’ll need a hospital visit and a specialist craftsman to deal with those. All I can do is stabilize your condition and keep it from getting worse.”

“That’s enough.” Tong Shan drank in large gulps with a straw from the water bottle Ji Xue held for him. With the replenishment of sugar and medicine, his previously deathly pale face regained a bit of color.

Of all those injuries, half had come from Ling Zhi and Yan Chong’s attacks. The other half were self-inflicted, the price of pushing himself far beyond his limits to eliminate the two Chosen Ones in a single decisive strike.

After all, even the incomplete Disaster Prevention Book wielded power that normally required the Transcendence Realm just to activate. Before it had been fully transformed into a domain, the only thing bearing that pressure was his own soul.

The fact that Tong Shan had escaped with nothing worse than an overloaded matrix, completely depleted spirit matter, and severe soul trauma was proof enough that the Tong family was unbelievably wealthy. Every imaginable life-saving measure had been stacked onto him.

As for the two Blessed Creations that had shattered after saving his life, Ji Jue quietly slipped the broken remains into his pocket without the slightest hint of guilt. Even if they were beyond repair, he could still dismantle them and use the materials as feed for Deus Ex Machina. Did they think the surgery was free?!

The oppressive silence lingered until Tong Shan broke it. “The situation doesn't look good. The scale of the Heretic Cult this time may be even larger than we estimated. Those bastards may have very well mobilized everyone.”

Using numerous illegal churches as fronts, the Heretic Cult had spent the century after its appearance drifting between the Federation, the Empire, the Central Lands, and the Thousand Islands of the Endless Sea. They were like flies breeding in a sewer, appearing wherever there was filth.

Now, they had somehow mobilized such enormous resources and slipped quietly beneath Spring City. There was no way they had come here just for an anniversary team-building event. Even the permanent investigation base had been silently infiltrated and destroyed. They had laid a trap with ease and waited for the reinforcements to walk right into it.

Just how many people had they sent this time?

There were definitely more than several hundred of them. There could even be thousands. When it came to mass-producing disposable pawns, the Heretic Cult had an advantage over the Federation. Once someone was polluted by the aura of an Upper Abomination, the dead became resources, and the living naturally became tools. Pair them with a mess of random matrices, and they might not even need blessings. Just hand them an assault rifle, and they were ready for the battlefield.