Chapter 42: You said “the Gate,” right?

The Gate of the Absolute

Boom!

Just after Wu Zhong absorbed the third one, the earthen pit before him erupted.

Ya Bai and Feipeng burst out of the ground, leaping high.

“Ugh ugh ugh ugh… Hmph!”

The former was drenched in blood, his hair streaked with gray. His once-strong muscles were gone, gaunt and shriveled, yet a thick aura of blood energy swirled around him, electric arcs flickering.

This was clearly a life-and-longevity sacrifice, returned to power the multiversal force.

Swoosh! Ya Bai lifted a leg and stomped down heavily.

Fortunately, Wu Zhong had already absorbed three waves of mental illnesses in a row; his physique had multiplied sixfold. His senses were sharp and his reactions quick. He yanked Yang Chunsha, planted his feet, and shoved with all his weight, toppling backward.

Both of them were launched several meters away together, narrowly avoiding the stomp by a hair.

Shards of rock flew. The stone slab beneath that kick shattered to pieces.

The two mercenaries scraped past them and were not injured.

But the old lady was hit by the debris, grazing wounds across her body. She tumbled off her chair with a couple of surprised noises and couldn’t get up.

“Huh?”

The old lady moaned softly, her eyes blank, as if asking: I was watching a TV show — why am I hurt?

“She has dementia… I need to go over.”

Wu Zhong had noticed earlier that the old woman had dementia; she’d been enjoying the spectacle as though watching television.

He realized he could absorb—he could absorb her too, and save her at the same time.

Wu Zhong dared not keep “farming” Yang Chunsha, so he hurriedly transferred the insomnia he’d absorbed from Ya Bai back to her.

Then he shoved her: “De Biao! Drag them for a while!”

“Huh? Me?” Yang Chunsha blinked in astonishment.

She’d just become part of the Mad Blood Clan, with twice the constitution of a normal person — and now he wanted her to take on these two top mercenaries?

But when she saw Wu Zhong lunge toward the old lady, she understood without being told. She grabbed a book, pushed off with her foot, darted out, and her chest flared with searing light as the pages of the book flipped wildly.

Ya Bai’s body trembled, blood pumping from his chest, one arm gone to half its length.

Half a slab of rock protruded from his lower body, and his abdomen poured blood.

Yet his pressure remained terrifying, exuding a domineering aura.

Feipeng looked worse for wear, his breath uneven. He laughed wildly but spoke with difficulty, “So they’re Mad Blood Clan…”

“Fools, you don’t even know that dementia isn’t a mental illness? Hahaha…”

At those words, Wu Zhong, who was holding the old lady’s hand, froze.

Huh? It’s not a mental illness?

Yang Chunsha also paused: “Right, dementia isn’t counted as a mental illness. I saw that on a forum.”

Wu Zhong snorted. Fine, fine, it’s not.

After all, he was the original Mad Blood Clan member with the Mind Barrier trait; anyone could be absorbed!

He landed beside the old lady and was about to lean in and gently bite the spot where the stone had grazed her arm.

At the same time, Feipeng lunged at Wu Zhong, and Ya Bai charged at Yang Chunsha.

Four people paired off and clashed.

Feipeng, laughing crazily with hatred, struck at Wu Zhong without mercy. On one hand, he realized there was no turning back; mutual trust no longer existed between them. On the other hand, he and Ya Bai thought alike: Wu Zhong’s “incurable” condition might be a side effect of a ghostly mark attached to the disaster artifact. Kill him, inherit the artifact, maybe they’d be freed!

“You brat, go die!” Feipeng unleashed an empty-sky sword palm.

“You…” Wu Zhong, worried about the old lady, turned to take it head-on.

His hands weren’t fully functional yet. He could only barely shove the old woman out of the way and then lift his leg for a flying kick.

Boom! He was knocked two meters backward, but with his boosted physique he landed steadily.

Feipeng was also pushed back by his raw strength, coughing and laughing maniacally, then regrouped and attacked again.

Dong dong dong!

The air crackled repeatedly as fists and legs flew.

Wu Zhong stood in front of the old lady as a shield. Using his legs, he met Feipeng blow for blow, occasionally using an arm.

“This won’t do. I can’t farm mental illnesses like this.”

Wu Zhong frowned, breathing heavily. Though his physique had risen dramatically, both hands were still crippled and his chest caved in.

“And… my arm armor actually shattered?”

With a hiss, Feipeng used his palm like a sword; the blade-like light struck and the arm armor burst.

Wu Zhong’s heart hammered. Is that sword light that powerful? It could slice through materials ten times stronger than special alloy steel?

Luckily, the arm armor self-healed quickly; purple ichor sealed the rupture.

Right — Xia Heng had shown similar self-repair when he fought Zhang Qinglang earlier.

Armor could repair itself quickly, but his severed arm could not. After repeatedly taking hits while barely doing a makeshift reattachment, the cut tore open again.

“Ugh ah!”

“Take my cannon!”

Wu Zhong lifted his leg, braced his right arm with a single knee, palm glowing.

Feipeng instinctively dodged, twisting through the air — he’d learned those dodges by habit.

But Wu Zhong hadn’t actually fired anything; he only shouted to scare him.

Ssshhh!

Wu Zhong seized the chance to step back and turn; his armgear whipped, the lightning-like fingers jabbed at a nearby banyan tree.

This was the old lady’s yard tree — who knew how long it had been planted, but it was thick and sturdy.

The symbiote-arm fingers, like blades, carved into the trunk.

That thick tree was shredded in a few strikes; he seemed to be making a shield.

“Huh?” Feipeng was puzzled. A makeshift wooden shield?

“Die!”

Feipeng’s form flashed like lightning, and his next assault came.

Wu Zhong was frantic, but he didn’t dodge anymore; he kept chopping at the tree.

Clang!

At the last moment, Wu Zhong slipped behind the rough, solid wooden shield.

Feipeng’s sword light failed to make any progress.

“Huh?” Feipeng’s eyes were full of astonishment.

That looked like a door plank — a shield cut from the tree right there, improvised on the spot — and yet it managed to block his full-strength strike without shattering?

“Come on!”

Wu Zhong gripped something like a doorknob and lifted the great shield. He was shoved back two steps by the mighty force before regaining his stance, but he wasn’t hurt.

Just think of it as being forced one step back.

“What is that of yours…” Feipeng muttered, laughter strained on his lips.

Wu Zhong popped his head out from behind the shield and blathered: “My wood, indestructible!”

“Haha? That’s called indestructible?” Feipeng’s eyes hardened and he slapped the giant shield until it cracked, and a surge of force blasted through.

Ugh!

Wu Zhong groaned, feeling his arm go numb as if hit by electricity. That surge of energy dove into his body and ran rampant.

“You think a broken shield can stop me? Hahaha.”

Feipeng’s internal strength was dense and powerful, making the already-wounded cavity in Wu Zhong’s chest ache even more.

Smoke hissed from Wu Zhong’s nose and mouth, his whole body burning hot, his face reddening.

On the brink of death he felt a tremendous fear. After Feipeng’s internal energy invaded, he felt like his entire life was being squeezed by someone!

Feipeng poured inner strength into Wu Zhong’s meridians. If this had been before, he could have used many internal-injury techniques to kill a man.

Now, because of the wild laugh, he couldn’t control his inner strength finely. So he resorted to the crude but blunt method: pounding the Governing Vessel and Life Gate!

It was basically bullying — taking advantage of an opponent who had no inner power cultivation. Any mediocre martial artist with inner strength would have been able to withstand his rough infusion.

“Hahaha! Watch as my inner power shatters your Life Gate!”

Gagging blood, Wu Zhong croaked hoarsely, “You said ‘the Gate’… right?”

He felt the invading inner power converge along the central back line of his body, concentrating beneath the spinous process of the second lumbar vertebra where a depression sat.

The pounding inner power should have ripped through and destroyed everything.

But that acupoint somehow held firm. Though Wu Zhong writhed in agonizing pain, face flushed red and feeling his body nearly tear apart, there was no fatal damage.

Wu Zhong didn’t fully understand: that point aligned with the Governing Vessel and corresponded roughly three finger-widths below the navel. It belonged to the dantian area, parallel and complementary — one a portal, the other the sea of qi — together called the dantian-life gate.

Traditional medicine describes this as the convergence of vital energy, and in Feipeng’s host universe it was even more so — the root of yuanqi, the source of life.

Even though Wu Zhong didn’t know the technicalities, it didn’t stop him from sealing that conceptual gate in the inner-power paradigm.

He didn’t know where the gate was or how to switch it on; this universe had no inner-cultivation rules, nothing like the novels and dramas. Where would he get that?

But Feipeng’s inner power invasion used a metaphysical meridian, hitting the conceptual dantian-life gate.

On Earth, you need to have a Life Gate before someone else can destroy it. This was a multiversal rule made manifest, inadvertently showing Wu Zhong where the gate lay, allowing it to be created in his body so he could feel the near-death pain — pain that would link with his life essence and be destroyed by the alien inner power’s intrusion!

Swoosh! Wu Zhong inhaled deeply and barely tugged at that sliver of life in the dantian-life gate, immediately turning it into an Absolute Gate!

Like the Gate of the Mind, a new “Absolute Life Gate” was birthed in the conceptual plane of his life essence.

Buzz buzz buzz!

Feipeng’s raging inner power poured in but gradually hit nothing, like a raging tide meeting a void.

Wu Zhong faced him across the huge shield, taking the terrifying batting of inner energy at his Life Gate, yet he only looked flushed and tortured.

He still didn’t die!

“Still alive? His Life Gate is so tough?”

Feipeng grew alarmed as he kept striking to no effect; his inner power was nearly exhausted and Wu Zhong still lived.

What the hell? Does this brat have inner power?

Impossible — he has no inner power at all! Could he be enduring it with a robust body and full blood alone?

Even a peerless master couldn't withstand such a pounding on the Life Gate without succumbing to fatal internal injuries.

The Life Gate — when invaded by external force — should mean life or death.

“Done playing yet…” Wu Zhong’s face flushed purple, veins bulging.

Being pounded in the Life Gate was genuine agony, a sensation of one’s mind going blank, teetering on death.

But having experienced near-death many times, he’d grown used to it.

Inner power poured into the Life Gate and, because the gate couldn’t be destroyed, it accumulated there and empowered the gate, becoming the gate’s “internal energy.”

Think of it this way: when the gate was created, that influx of inner strength was treated as part of the gate’s material.

“Huh? You can do inner cultivation? No, this isn’t inner cultivation.”

Feipeng, sensing the anomaly through qi guidance, was stunned. He felt inner-cultivation pressure from a man who supposedly had none.

But the location was wrong — why the Life Gate?

Everyone knows inner cultivation uses the dantian to store power, and the Life Gate is merely the portal to the dantian. Wu Zhong had used the Life Gate itself to carry inner power.

This made no sense; it was like someone buying a house but choosing to live inside the doorframe and declaring that their home.

No… the metaphor didn’t even cover the absurdity.

Inner power into the Life Gate is lethal — it’s like pouring magma into an ammunition depot, and the depot doesn’t explode!

Boom!

Wu Zhong suddenly shoved, instinctively channeling a burst of force from the Life Gate.

He felt his strength surge a bit.

Pfft! Feipeng was blasted away, the web between his thumb and forefinger numb.

He hit the ground with a thud, prop up by a wooden rod… clunk! His body bounced like a spring for a moment, then toppled over crookedly.

Pain distorted his features.

“Ah! My thirty years of cultivation, and you actually captured…”

Feipeng, exhausted and feeling the situation go wrong, sensed his inner strength was drained, no longer the arrogant force he’d been.

…