Chapter 57: Immaculate Heart

"How boring!" Su Mu sighed. If he had never seen the brilliance of the Nightmare World, perhaps dying like this wouldn't have mattered. It was like a man who had always lived in the dark and grown used to it—if only he had never seen the light.

The gates to a new world had just opened, yet he was about to die.

"Tsk, what a boring life." Su Mu rolled over, then pulled a shriveled dumpling from his pocket.

The dumpling's skin had long since dried out and gave off a sour stench. It was the very one Tingting had secretly hidden away when Ye Fanyu snatched her food earlier.

He popped the dumpling into his mouth, chewed it lightly, and swallowed.

"So delicious."

Su Mu slowly closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, quietly waiting for death to arrive.

A second later, his eyes snapped open. A terrifying, sharp gleam erupted from his dark pupils, so bright that even his Tinted Glasses couldn't conceal it.

"Ha... hahaha..."

Uncontrollable laughter burst from Su Mu's lips. He rejoiced like a child with a new toy.

"I love surprises like this!"

He raised his hand, staring at the changes taking place across it. His slender, fair palm was radiating a soft white glow.

He had always relied on his Snakewood Cane to walk, so his right hand constantly rubbed against its grip. Because his skin was naturally thin, faint calluses had inevitably formed on his palm. Now, those calluses were vanishing right before his eyes.

His already fair hand grew increasingly smooth, taking on a translucent, jade-like luster.

He abruptly sat up in bed, his body feeling indescribably light. A gentle, pure power surged from within him, like a silent spring rain nourishing parched earth.

He walked over to the mirror and discovered that even his appearance had quietly transformed. In the past, his hollow cheeks, pale skin, and bloodless lips had inevitably given him a harsh, cold demeanor.

Now, his cheeks had filled out slightly. His skin had lost its corpse-like pallor, replaced by a healthy, flawless white reminiscent of mutton-fat jade. Even his lips had regained a rosy hue.

Su Mu smiled at his reflection. He looked like a refined, elegant young master, making it hard for anyone to feel malice toward him.

His first impression of this new skin was its cleanliness—an immaculate, spotless purity, as if not a single speck of dirt could be scrubbed from it at a bathhouse.

At the same time, his spiritual strength began to shrink—or more accurately, to purify! A miraculous force was expelling all the impurities from his spiritual energy, decreasing its total volume while drastically elevating its purity.

Suddenly, Su Mu looked up at the sky. His gaze seemed to pierce through endless dimensions until he finally beheld a "net"—a formless, intangible, yet omnipresent web. Every node upon it twinkled with a star, resembling the vast cosmos: mysterious and magnificent!

The moment he laid eyes on this "net," its name naturally surfaced in his mind—the Bronze Law!

And there, suspended upon the Bronze Law, a star as flawlessly white as jade occupied one of the nodes. It cast down a beam of white light that bathed Su Mu's body.

In an instant, an invisible connection was forged between the two.

Su Mu finally understood the reason behind his transformation.

He had become a transcendent and awakened a transcendent power. His transcendent power was named—Immaculate Heart!

"A gift from Tingting?" Su Mu smiled silently. That pure, innocent little girl had selflessly shared her power with him.

Perhaps only someone like her could possess the flawlessly pure Immaculate Heart!

He carefully sensed the power granted by the Immaculate Heart, feeling as though he had possessed it since birth. The moment he obtained the Immaculate Heart, its functions became crystal clear to him.

Immaculate Heart: Transforms the user's physique into a flawless vessel, granting a minor boost to physical attributes and spiritual strength. It drastically elevates the purity of both flesh and spirit, providing strong immunity against all forms of corruption.

This "corruption" included toxins, curses, abnormal status effects, negative emotions, and the like...

Strictly speaking, the Immaculate Heart wasn't considered a tremendously powerful ability. It lacked any active skills and was entirely passive; it was the sort of power women obsessed with beauty might adore. It possessed neither the lethal destructive force of the Five-Finger Flame Bullet nor the indomitable defense of Heart of Steel. But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was... he had survived.

The Immaculate Heart bolstered Su Mu's physical constitution and purified his total spiritual capacity, effectively extending his lifespan on two different fronts.

According to his estimates, he could live for at least another year!

"Is this what it feels like to be alive? Not bad at all." Su Mu lay back down on his bed and slowly drifted off to sleep, a peaceful smile lingering on his lips.

It had been a long, long time since he had last enjoyed a good night's rest. Previously, every time he slept, he had been expending his own life force and stepping closer to death's door. But tonight, he could finally sleep peacefully.

...

...

"Leader, welcome to the Imperial Capital. We will soon check into the presidential suite of the Manlin Cashton Hotel. I must ask you to make do with these accommodations for now. Your private estate has yet to be completed, which is a failure of my supervision. Please punish me," a middle-aged butler in a tailcoat with meticulously combed hair said respectfully.

Su Mu nodded and followed the butler into the most luxurious hotel in the Imperial Capital.

"Your room is on the 118th floor, the highest suite currently available in the Imperial Capital. The hotel management just asked me to convey that your presence here is a historic, glorious moment for their establishment."

"Understood. You may leave."

Su Mu entered the room, lay down alone on the lavishly oversized bed, and closed his eyes to sleep.

It was a truly surreal experience, falling asleep while inside a dream.

It couldn't be helped, really. The moment he fell asleep in the real world, he would appear in this dreamscape. Having already grown tired of playing around in this dream, his only desire was to get some proper rest—leaving him no choice but to go to sleep while dreaming.

The night passed without incident.

Early the next morning.

Su Mu awoke from his slumber and let out a satisfying stretch. But just as he was about to get out of bed, his expression shifted slightly.

"It's full again?" To his astonishment, his newly condensed spiritual energy had completely replenished itself after just one night's sleep and had even increased by one percent.

If his previous spiritual capacity had been 100, after its purification and condensation, it had dropped to 50. He had assumed that after sleeping, it would increase by one percent of that new baseline of 50. What he hadn't expected was for the condensed 50 to instantly refill to the original brim with high-purity spiritual energy. Ultimately, it had still increased by one percent based on the original total of 100.

This meant compressing his spiritual strength was entirely pointless.

Fortunately, the physical enhancements granted by the Immaculate Heart were actively doing their job, keeping Su Mu from teetering on the verge of death once again.

However, his previous estimation of having one year left to live had to be drastically revised. At this rate, he probably only had about a month left.

Su Mu let out a wry chuckle. "Fate truly is fickle. How interesting."

He got out of bed but didn't bother to wash up. There was simply no need—his body was utterly flawless and immune to grime, so washing would just be a waste of water. Instead, he planned to meet with his subordinates and set the next phase of his plan in motion.

The moment he took a step, a sudden wave of dizziness washed over his mind. His spiritual energy began to surge inexplicably, and even his eyes behind his Tinted Glasses turned a brilliant azure, as pristine and translucent as sapphires catching the sunlight!

"This is..." Su Mu realized in astonishment that another trace of the Bronze Law had just manifested within his body. But what was truly bizarre was that he hadn't connected to the vast net of the Bronze Law to obtain it. It felt as though it were something he inherently possessed—something that had naturally awakened simply because his spiritual capacity had crossed a certain threshold.