Chapter 737 88: Narcissus

Inside the main office of the Lianwei Zhongyu Branch.

The female assistant stood before Yang Ling. After a slight bow, she presented a transcribed telegram from headquarters.

"Miss, the Jibei Dao Government may have already dispatched their team to search for the Lost Object. Lianwei Zhongyu must get involved, so headquarters hopes we will activate the backup plan and act first, before our second wave of personnel arrives. They've placed you in charge of this matter."

Yang Ling took the telegram and glanced at it. "But activating the plan requires a lot of High-Energy Nutrient Supplements," she said. "Are our existing reserves enough?"

The female assistant said, "Everything's been prepared in advance. The Processing Bureau has tightened its lockdown and even used it as a pretext to confiscate some of our supply, but that was just the portion we'd set aside to deal with inspections. The company had already stored more than enough for our operation before any of that happened."

Having said her piece, she looked at Yang Ling, seemingly awaiting an affirmative response.

Yang Ling said softly, "I'll follow the plan."

The assistant said nothing more. She gave another slight bow, stepped forward to take the telegram from Yang Ling's hand, and then departed, her expression as impassive as when she had arrived.

After the assistant left, Yang Ling walked over to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a small box of pills. She then entered an elevator installed for her private use.

The elevator descended, level by level, finally arriving in a subterranean hall. As she stepped out, her footsteps echoed with sharp clarity in the vast, dimly lit space.

She walked straight to the large porcelain jar that housed the embryo of an active Consciousness Body. She tapped her Realm Token and waited. A moment later, a large volume of shimmering, fluorescent High-Energy Nutrient Liquid began to pour from the tubes connected to the jar, filling it.

Although this active Consciousness Body was only an embryo, it had been modulated to be force-matured with massive quantities of High-Energy Nutrient Liquid. It could never reach its complete, natural form this way, but another method could be used to compensate, allowing it to attain the full combat power expected of an active Consciousness Body.

This process would weaken the Consciousness Body's Life Force and potential, but the parent company's goal was the Lost Object. Compared to a Third Level Relic, the sacrifice of a single active Consciousness Body was certainly a worthy price.

Yang Ling opened the box of pills she was holding and took out a thumb-sized, scarlet pill, which she then swallowed. Only a few seconds passed before a wave of dizziness washed over her. Her breathing became ragged, and a cacophony of strange sounds and noises began to churn in her ears.

A strange vision appeared before her eyes. For a moment, the massive porcelain jar seemed to disappear, replaced by what looked like a young, scaleless fish with smooth skin and four limbs. It was lifting its conical head to gaze at her, but a moment later, the image vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and everything returned to the way it was.

But the spiritual resonance brought a powerful wave of nausea. She covered her mouth, took a few steps forward, and rested her hand on the porcelain jar.

As more High-Energy Nutrient Liquid poured in, the jar began to emit a soft glow. After an unknown amount of time, a stirring sound came from within, and a bizarre organism slowly crawled out of the opening at the top.

At a glance, the organism resembled a fish over three meters long from head to tail. It had slender yet powerful limbs on its underside. Its head was small in proportion to its body, with concave ear-holes on either side. Its form was streamlined and its surface was smooth, hard, and blue-black, shimmering with a liquid luster.

When it took a deep breath, its skin flickered with a soft, neon-like fluorescence. The tubes that delivered the High-Energy Nutrient Supplements were still attached to its body, but it severed them with a slight twitch. Then, it gracefully and silently crept down the side of the jar.

Yang Ling's eyes were still closed; the pill's effects had seemingly left her consciousness in a haze.

The creature circled her once, then slowly pressed against her side. Its ribs gradually parted, revealing an internal cavity lined with white, soft tissue. Long tendrils extended from within, draping over her body and limbs, with some of them piercing her skin.

Yang Ling's mind cleared slightly. She raised a hand to look at the attached tendrils, then glanced at the reflection on the jar's smooth surface. Without turning her head, she took a deep breath, opened her arms, and leaned back into the creature's body, nestling into the soft tissues inside.

She watched as its parted ribs slowly closed, completely enveloping her. In that instant, she felt their bodies and consciousnesses forge a unified connection, as if they had merged into a single being. 'It's like I suddenly have a powerful new body,' she thought, 'brimming with an incredible amount of Life Force.'

This was "Narcissus," Lianwei Zhongyu's active Consciousness Body. Once fused with a person like her, who possessed compatible Spiritual Power, it could unleash tremendous combat power. Both parties could draw strength from each other.

Yang Ling took a moment to adjust, naturally shifting the new body into a four-limbed stance on the ground. The limbs felt as if they had grown from her own body, and she controlled them without the slightest hint of sluggishness.

She made the body take a few light steps forward, landing almost silently. 'I feel like I can walk on the walls and ceiling at will,' she realized.

At that moment, the wispy, colorful tendrils hanging from her jaw twitched as if they had sensed something. They were her Domain Perception organs, capable of clearly receiving and probing for information from the external world.

Soon, the sound of footsteps drifted down from above. Upon detecting them, the ribbon-like fins on her back twitched, and the color of her body slowly faded, as though she were dissolving into the air.

Narcissus possessed a powerful Invisibility function, which would greatly increase its chances of survival in the Merging Land. The first priority after entering the Merging Land was not to defeat powerful enemies, but simply to survive.

The footsteps drew nearer until the female assistant came down into the hall. She saw the severed tubes outside the porcelain jar, walked over, and stepped onto the steel platform to look inside, only to find it completely empty.

Suddenly, she seemed to sense something. Looking up, she saw a streamlined head—part eagle, part fish—slowly materialize out of thin air. Then, its entire body appeared, a pair of long, narrow green eyes staring right at her.

Far from being afraid, her eyes took on a fanatical gleam. "Miss, the Fusion... it was a success?"

A stream of Spiritual Consciousness was instantly transmitted to her Realm Token.

'Yes.'

The assistant's usual impassiveness vanished, replaced by an ecstatic expression. She bowed and said, "Director Yang will be so pleased to see your high degree of compatibility, Miss."

'I need to feed.'

"Feed?"

The assistant straightened up, a strange light glinting in her eyes.

"Everything has already been prepared."

「Two days later. October 3rd.」

At 7:00 AM, a small sightseeing airship flew out from the port in Ji Yang District, just as usual, and came to a stop high in the sky over the open sea.

Chen Chuan stood inside the airship's passenger cabin. He raised the Snow Monarch Blade high and swiped it through the air before him. In an instant, a Rift was slashed open, spilling out a blinding light.

Over the past few days, he had let the Snow Monarch Blade absorb the remainder of the High-Energy Nutrient Supplements. Now, the Rift could easily remain open for over four Hours.

This meant he could use his entire morning for Spiritual Cultivation.

However, as the Snow Monarch Blade grew stronger, he could have kept it open even longer if he wished. The reason he didn't was that a long-lasting Rift might attract things from the other side. If he wasn't careful, he might also expose the Rift itself, which would be counterproductive.

Therefore, the current duration seemed just right.

He sat down on the spot, placed the Snow Monarch Blade beside him, and began the day's Spiritual Cultivation.

Four hours passed in a flash. Just as his cultivation was about to end, he suddenly perceived a sinister chill. A hazy shadow seemed to flicker on the other side of the Rift, and at the same time, his Second Self began to ripple violently, as if turning incorporeal.

He had actually seen many similar phenomena over the past few days, but the entity arriving today seemed anything but simple.

He grasped the Snow Monarch Blade and stood up, his gaze fixed ahead. Suddenly, it was as if an invisible entity slammed violently into the Rift, and the tear in reality, which had already begun to close, seemed to halt its contraction.

He stared intently. He could feel something trying to squeeze its way out from the other side, but his eyes saw nothing. Yet, on the floor below, a distorted shadow appeared.

SHIING...

He drew the Snow Monarch Blade from its Sword Scabbard. Before the scabbard had even hit the floor, he raised the blade and slashed forward, striking the Rift in an instant!

But as he unleashed the strike, a strange feeling suddenly arose within him. A light flashed in his eyes as his Spiritual Power surged forth, following the path of the existing tear as he brought his blade down.

The blade entered the top of the Rift, and when the Sword Stance concluded, it landed precisely at the Rift's very bottom. As the flash of the blade passed, the Rift itself vanished, as if it had been erased from the air.

The invisible presence at his feet vanished along with it. Only faint scorch marks and signs of corrosion on the floor where the shadow had been proved that it had ever been there.

Chen Chuan held his pose for a moment, then looked again at the Snow Monarch Blade in his hand.

'Looks like this blade can do more than just slice open Rifts; it can also mend them, instead of just letting them heal on their own,' he thought. 'My power must have been insufficient before, which is why I couldn't do it. But it makes sense, I suppose. The Fumu's splintered spawn could do this easily, to say nothing of the far more mysterious being inside this blade.'

He felt a surge of excitement. If that was the case, then his options for utilizing and manipulating this power had just expanded dramatically.

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