Chương 143: This is it. Don't get scared now.

Don't get scared now.

Don't get scared now. PJ's eyes shimmered with a glossy, undulating glow as she watched Feormere approach the door. The instant his fingers brushed the handle, the world detonated. The door and the entire front wall vanished in a thunderous blast of splintered wood and stone as six masked figures burst through the wreckage. They were wrapped head to toe in layered black cloth, faces shrouded, movements sharp and disciplined.

They did not hesitate, swarming Bi Luo with feral precision, fists, boots, and blunt weapons striking in a coordinated frenzy meant to overwhelm in seconds. PJ's gaze narrowed. Feormere did not die. He moved. Not wildly, or blindly, he flowed. His body slipped between strikes with a smooth, instinctive grace, ducking a cudgel, twisting past a boot, rolling beneath a crushing elbow. He did not meet force with force.

He redirected it, stole momentum, and used angles that should not have existed in a cramped hallway now torn open to the night. PJ felt something tighten in her chest. She had watched his growth for a long time. Years had flown by. Ever since the two worlds fused, fate had tugged her toward him with an insistence she found deeply irritating. At first, she had planned to remain unseen. Hide somewhere insignificant. Wait and observe. Then, when the time came, take what she needed and leave.

But then she had arrived at the forests of Landradad. This growth from one of Feormere's earthen skills intrigued her, so she chose to sneak in and claim a small portion for herself. But the moment her foot touched the soil he had nurtured, it responded to her presence like a living alarm, exposing her to his sight. That had been the first humbling moment of shock she experienced in this young, new world. So she adapted.

She donned her identity of a Volduran Seer, a role that granted her access to Landradad without suspicion, thanks to her years of seed planting among the Voldura. She let Feormere come to her for answers. Let him seek guidance. From there, she watched. Listened. Occasionally peeked unseen. Piece by piece, a picture of this young Progenitor formed. Feormere was confident, often arrogant. A Progenitor who spoke to leaders and residents with the same careless tone.

He ignored status, dismissed power, and treated fate like a problem to be solved rather than feared. She found herself appreciating that more than she cared to admit. She even liked his oddities. That only made what came next more troublesome. Learning he was a High Human had unsettled her. Deeply. The voice in his head worried her even more. If her suspicions were correct, he was brushing against something unstable, something old. Madness, perhaps. Or something worse.

She had met so many who claimed to hear the voices of ancient beings. Killing him would be the only mercy she could offer before he descended into madness completely. The faint clink of metal hair drew her focus back to the present. She had been pulling strings since the moment this gate began. Every ambush. Every confrontation. Every carefully timed escalation. She guided them all with a delicate hand, never close enough to be seen, never obvious enough to be suspected.

Feormere believed the world inside the gate was aimed against him. That belief was by design. The only variables she had failed to account for were the two young girls who had latched onto the body he now wore. Their interference had been… inconvenient. Emotional. Unpredictable. Still, even that had its use. PJ herself was the reason Feormere had inhaled the petal. She had nudged the moment. Bent probability just enough. Allowed the accident to occur.

And now, as Feormere twisted past another strike and dropped one of the masked attackers with a sharp blow to the throat, PJ allowed herself a thin, satisfied smile. His body was ready now. Ready to survive what came next. She watched with cold focus as Feormere dismantled one masked figure after another. Reluctantly, she began to acknowledge how exceptional his footwork was. It was far beyond what his grade should have allowed.

He moved with a clarity and efficiency she had only seen in seasoned D-grades, and more than a few C-grades across her thousand years of existence. Every step conserved motion. Every turn stole space. He did not fight like someone reacting. He fought like someone who already knew where the next blow would land. The house groaned under the strain of battle. Beams cracked. Walls split. With a final shudder, the structure gave way, collapsing in on itself as Feormere burst free into the open night.

He sprinted toward the village centre, breath ragged, body battered, four masked figures tearing after him with relentless intent. Exactly as she had planned. It took another twenty minutes of pressure, pursuit, and carefully applied desperation before Feormere's steaming, bloodied form was driven where it needed to be. The steps of the meditation building loomed before him ominously. Twenty more masked figures emerged, blocking every avenue of escape.

Feormere took a deep breath before bolting inside, crashing through the doors and charging straight toward the flower. PJ smiled. He thought this gate was about endurance. About surviving the beatings. Surviving the girls who desired him. Surviving their scheming mothers and their watchful fathers. He believed the goal was to make it to the end of the day intact. He was wrong. This gate had never been about endurance. It was about a single moment. The flower. Its true name was Drodendrum Vantafora. A relic of myth.

A fantasy that existed nowhere in the Multiverse beyond this gate and the depths of PJ's mind. The tale of Bi Luo Zuo was ancient, forgotten by most. A story of a boy who reached for the stars, consumed what gave his people purpose, and paid for it with his life. That was how the story was meant to end. But PJ could not allow that ending today. She had waited too long. Planned too carefully. Bent too many threads of fate to fail now.

Bi Luo's body had been honed by her through suffering, sharpened through conflict, and reshaped by Feormere's unnatural adaptability and impossible instincts. Together, they had formed something unprecedented. Something that might survive. She stood resolute as Feormere entered the meditation chamber, now thick with roiling red clouds. He did not falter. He crossed the room in a heartbeat, seized the flower by its stem, and in one smooth, fluid motion, consumed it whole.

The masked figures vanished, their purpose complete. The world inside this hidden gate fell silent. Darkness pressed in as a deep, resonant hum filled the space. PJ lifted her gaze, uncertain whether the sound came from the gate itself or something far older responding to what had just occurred. She looked back down. Feormere's body convulsed as the flower's true power surged through him. Flesh burned. Bone screamed. His form blackened and cracked as if reduced to ash, only to be rebuilt again in the same breath.

This was the moment that killed Bi Luo in the story. The point of no return. PJ smiled as Feormere endured. He did not drown in the power. He shaped it, bent it, claimed it. He was not consumed; he was the consumer. PJ started to laugh. If he weren't an obstacle, if he wasn't in her way, if he hadn't tried to stop her, she would have taken him as one of her slaves and made him live a life of servitude. Instead… Well, he would find out soon enough.

__ Uriel's hum flooded the world as Joe fought to contain the power tearing its way out of him. Muscle ripped. Teeth shattered in his mouth. Pain screamed from every nerve, but his focus never wavered. Not once. He would not fail here. The moment he swallowed the flower, clarity struck like a blade, and he saw her. PJ hovered above the world, high in the sky, threads coiled around her fingers. The gossip, the ambushes, the relentless pressure that herded him from one disaster to the next.

None of it had been a coincidence. He had been guided, cornered. A puppet. That knowledge burned hotter than the flower's power ever could. She had touched his bond. She had used him. Stripped him of choice and called it fate. No more. Joe roared, a sound torn from somewhere older than thought. The raging energy carving through him stalled, then shuddered and froze. He dragged it inward by sheer force of will, hauling it down into the core of himself. Not letting it run, not letting it consume.

He crushed it inward, compressing it tighter and tighter, ignoring the blood streaming from his eyes and ears. He squeezed until the world narrowed to a single point. Until his entire existence felt like it had been folded into a grain of light. He relaxed, and the power stopped rebelling. Silence rushed in, heavy and absolute. He collapsed, consciousness flickering as a message flashed across his vision. Congratulations, High Human. Quest complete. You have achieved a perfect score, unlocking the bonus scenario.

You will be moved now. The world blinked. Joe found himself standing in a garden. Flowers stretched in every direction, their colours impossibly vivid, layered with hues that did not exist anywhere he had ever seen. The air was calm, clean. He drew a deep breath and felt no pain. He straightened, heart beating loudly as he looked down at himself. He was finally back in his real body. No more Bi Luo.

"Wow," he said, letting out a breath as he basked in his real body's feel. No more weak limbs, no more lack of muscles. Footsteps disturbed his reverie as a broad, muscled figure stepped forward, parting the blooms without harming them. Recognition sparked, dredged up from fading borrowed memories that were no longer his to carry. He knew that face.

"Soaring Eagle," Joe breathed, awe tightening his chest as he bowed low. Soaring Eagle returned the bow with calm precision and settled into a stance that felt both simple and impossibly deep. Joe blinked as a final message flared across his vision. Soaring Eagle would like to teach you his Martial Art. Do you accept? Y/N Joe accepted before the thought had fully formed, a grin tugging at his lips as he mirrored the stance. Just before the lesson began, his eyes flicked sideways, and he nearly lost his footing.

Twirling and Dances stood watching, with Cere and Gretel beside them, their expressions calm.

'Focus!' Uriel whispered, her voice firm for the first time since the gate began. Joe exhaled and let the world narrow. Soaring Eagle moved. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. There was no wasted motion, no excess force. Each step flowed into the next with perfect rhythm, every strike born from balance rather than strength. Joe recognized fragments of what he had learned in the village.

Punching's clean blows, Grabbing's control, the variations he had adopted under pressure. All of them were here, refined and unified, stripped of their flaws. What he had copied before were shadows. This was the whole. The display ended, and a sense of calm expectation flowed out from Soaring Eagle. Joe stepped forward and began. At first, his body fought itself. Old habits clashed with new intent, borrowed movements bleeding into refined ones.

His footing faltered, his timing slipped, and frustration threatened to creep in. Soaring Eagle stepped up beside him. A hand corrected his shoulder. Fingers adjusted the angle of his elbow. His fist turned slightly, his grip softened, his stance settled. Nothing was rushed. Nothing was forced. Each correction rewired him, not through repetition alone, but through understanding. Time unravelled. Days passed, or weeks, or years. Joe was so focused, he barely noticed the flow of time.

He moved, corrected, learned, and moved again. The garden never changed, yet he did. When the lesson ended, and applause echoed softly around him, Joe stood with a full beard streaked in grey, his body lean and steady, his mind quiet in a way it had never been before. He could not remember how long he had practiced. Ten years, perhaps. A hundred. The number didn't matter. He walked toward the four women seated nearby. Their faces felt familiar, yet no names surfaced.

He had not spoken in an age, or even thought of anything outside of his motion. He knelt and raised a hand in thanks, the gesture coming from somewhere deep inside him. Light flared. Two of the women vanished, and in their place stood two young girls, no older than seventeen. They smiled and reached out, fingers brushing through his grey beard. The touch grounded him, gentle and strangely familiar, stirring something warm and long-forgotten in his chest.

Another flash of light washed over him, and the weight of years vanished. He was no longer old, no longer bent beneath time. His beard remained, but his body was young again, whole, and steady. More importantly, his memories were now sharp and undiluted. No longer a mash of himself and Bi Luo. He remembered Zevra's request, PJ's strike against Corel. The abduction, the gate, all of it. Twirling and Dances knelt before him now, radiant and smiling, as though they had known him for longer than they had.

Joe returned their smiles and spoke for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

"Hey, girls. We finally meet properly. I'm Joe. Thank you for guiding me and letting me live out Bi Luo's final day." He bowed his head. Both girls stepped closer and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, grounding him in the moment.

"It's nice to meet you, Joe," Twirling said, laughing softly.

"Though I did prefer Bi Luo's face. Still, you aren't quite so bad."

"You pass," Dances added with a small, pleased smile.

"A prince, not a frog," Joe laughed, the sound light and unguarded.

"I'll accept that. Thank you. Truly." The girls faded like motes of light caught in a breeze, their warmth lingering just long enough to be felt before it was gone. Joe straightened, the smile leaving his face as he drew himself inward. The moment was over. What remained was unfinished business. He vanished. Joe reappeared at the heart of a treasure trove, its vastness unfolding around him in silent grandeur.

Podiums lined the chamber in perfect symmetry, each bearing a single item that radiated restrained, disciplined power. PJ floated beside him in a spectral form, motionless. A form that mirrored his own spectral persona. Joe chose not to hide the anger in his eyes as he turned toward her.

"You passed," PJ said.

"Of course I did," Joe replied flatly.

"And without your help." He turned away from her and surveyed the trove. This was the prize. As he floated toward the nearest pedestal, PJ remained where she was, watching.

"Not going to take what you came here for?" Joe asked, his form primed for motion.

"You first," PJ said. Joe paused, then shook his head. He understood the game now. She wanted him to choose first, to take an item, preventing him from claiming what she thought was hers. If he picked blindly, he would lose. Joe closed his eyes briefly and took a long, slow, deep breath before moving to examine everything. He took his time. Thirty full minutes passed as he read, assessed, and weighed every item in the trove. Each was extraordinary. Weapons that hummed with dormant might.

Life-saving artifacts layered with contingencies. Crafting relics, alchemical treasures, pills, seeds, and objects so rare he struggled to even categorize them. Everything was at least D-grade. Several were undeniably C-grade. Any one of them would eclipse the finest item he currently possessed. Yet there were no quarterstaffs. More troubling still, PJ did not react. Not once. No tightening of posture. No flicker of interest.

She floated in silence, patient and unreadable, as though the trove itself was irrelevant to her. That was the problem. Unease began to settle in Joe's chest. He still had no idea what she truly wanted, and until he did, every choice in this room was a gamble she was content to let him make. Everything in the trove carried echoes of either Uriel or Catalina. A necklace Uriel had once worn. A ring Catalina had crafted by hand. A pill they had jointly commissioned long ago.

The connections were unmistakable, as though the entire space had been curated around their legacies. Joe slowed his steps and stopped a short distance from PJ, letting his gaze wander. That was when he first noticed something strange… At the far ends of the trove, barely perceptible, two faint distortions shimmered in the air. One at each extreme, like heat haze caught in stillness.

Joe narrowed his eyes and tried to focus, but each time his attention drifted toward one of the shimmers, something nudged his awareness away. Not forcibly, just enough to make him move on. It felt like trying to look directly at the edge of a dream. He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. The discipline he had forged during the endless martial instruction still lingered in his mind, a quiet, honed clarity. He reached for it now and let everything else fall away.

When he opened his eyes again, his focus locked in place. The faint starlight in his gaze flared as he held his attention on the nearer shimmer. The distortion weakened, then peeled back. A hidden item, lying crookedly on the floor, revealed itself. Joe sucked in a breath. Joe repeated this same concentration on the second shimmer, which peeled away with the same flutter, revealing the second, hidden item. One was a thick black metallic pole, caked in rust. The other was a simple, plain crooked tangle of wiring.

Joe felt PJ tense, the first reaction she had displayed. He had found what she was looking for; he knew that with complete certainty. But which one was it? He glanced back at PJ and held her stare. A full minute passed, but she gave him no extra hints. No glance, no flicker, no tell. Her focus was absolute.

"Pick," she said sharply. Joe ignored her. She could not touch him here. Neither of them truly occupied this space. They were echoes, projections bound by the rules of the trove. Time was on his side, at least for the moment. He turned back to the podiums and thought. There were only two obvious paths. He could gamble outright and choose one of the hidden items, trusting chance to favour him. Fifty-fifty odds, clean and brutal. Or he could gamble differently, not on chance, but on information.

And he had one advantage PJ did not know about. Joe was allowed two selections. She did not know this because the second choice had only been granted after he completed the bonus scenario. That privilege had never been disclosed to her. The decision settled into place. He would force her hand. Joe stepped toward a podium that lay slightly closer to the left hidden item than the right. It was not perfect, but it was the best positioning available. If PJ lunged for the left, he could intercept her.

If she went for the right, he could pivot and contest it, arriving at nearly the same moment. It would be close either way, but it was no longer blind luck. He rested his hand near the chosen pedestal and felt his pulse steady. He committed to the plan. Using his first selection to force PJ's reaction was the only move that gave him leverage. Uriel demanded it, and so did his own feelings. He ran the calculation one last time, adjusted his position by a fraction, and seized the necklace on the podium before him.

At the exact moment his fingers closed around the item, and his first choice was made, Joe felt his left bond tattoo warm. It was as if fate had spoken, and Joe moved toward the left hidden item at the same moment PJ did. PJ roared, partly in anger and partly in confusion as Joe surged toward the same hidden item she did. The sound tore through the trove, shaking the air as she glided just behind him. Joe grit his teeth.

She was close, impossibly close, her hand nearly brushing his spectral back, but not close enough. Joe was the first to arrive as he reached out and closed his fingers around the pole. Its surface was rough and corroded, like rust layered over something ancient and indestructible.

"No! How?" Pj screamed. Her hand passed through his, insubstantial, unable to interface as Joe pulled the item free and slipped it into his storage ring. For the first time since he had met her, true shock crossed PJ's face. Silence fell. They hovered there, staring at one another, the aftermath of the moment settling in. Then, almost in unison, they both triggered their exit. The trove vanished. As the space collapsed, Uriel's hum lingered, rich with satisfaction.

She watched as Joe was cast back into reality, prizes secured, victory almost complete. Now, all that remained was survival. Joe and PJ reappeared inside the cave deep within the mountain, the air stale and damp. Both reacted at once, each committing to a single purpose. One intended to kill. The other intended to survive. Joe triggered Space Jump, locking onto a small side cavern he had glimpsed during his descent. A microsecond before the jump completed, PJ struck.

Lightning tore into Joe's chest, a strike powerful enough to erase him completely. His body and soul were annihilated in a single moment… That was exactly what happened. That was where Joe's life ended for a second time. But… once again, luck was on his side as the necklace still grasped in his hand shattered. It was a lifesaving artifact, capable of negating a single fatal blow from a being up to C-grade. PJ, bound by the integrations restrictions, was limited to the peak of E-grade.

Her attack lacked its usual force, but even so, it was still strong enough to kill Joe outright. So the necklace absorbed the impossible, broke apart, and brought him the sliver of time he needed. Joe vanished. The sensation hit him all at once. The destruction of his body, the violent rejection of death, and the snap of displacement tore through his senses as he reappeared inside the small cave. He screamed, but the sound barely left his throat before the wall beside him imploded. PJ arrived.

She burst through stone and earth with raw fury, her grasp reaching for Joe. He reacted on instinct alone, triggering Space Jump again, this time straight upward into the main tunnel leading to the surface. PJ did not slow. She ripped through rock and soil in pursuit, her scream echoing through the mountain like something feral and unbound. Joe pushed himself harder than he ever had before. He jumped again and again, faster each time.

His body barely finished forming at one location before he shimmered out of sight and reappeared somewhere else. Each jump widened the distance between him and PJ, his focus narrowed to a single, relentless thought. Survive. He lost count of the jumps. Lost count of anything outside his one singular focus. Then the sky appeared. Joe emerged high above the mountain, suspended in open air. A heartbeat later, the mountaintop exploded as PJ tore free from beneath it.

Her eyes widened as she saw what her chase had created, and for the first time since the ambush began, something close to fear crossed her face. An otherworldly gaze settled on her, pinning her in place with absolute authority. The system seedling shimmered into existence, its presence sharp and furious.

"Again, you break our deal, invader. No more!" Joe drifted slowly toward the ground, guided by mana pouring from the seedling. He had won. He had survived. He closed his eyes as he tried to control his racing pulse. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the fury had drained from PJ's face, leaving behind something colder and far more dangerous. She spoke before the system could silence her.

"You cannot hide from me, Feormere. The moment you enter the Multiverse, I will hunt you. I will search, and I will find you. That is certain." Joe smiled. It was not kind, nor relieved, but sharp with promise.

"I can't wait to see you try." PJC-57xiv vanished, removed from the integration. Just like that.