Chapter 449: Grade-X Quality: World Core

Qi Suian endured the full force of the Red Sea, withstanding its immense pressure as he forcefully seized the fleeing Red Sea Witch.

"Today, I’m going to beat you to death, no matter what." Blood seeped from Qi Suian’s skin as all his internal modules ran on overload.

"God says..." With Qi Suian’s hand clamped around her face, the Red Sea Witch struggled to speak. "You will die in the Red Sea!"

The next moment, Qi Suian’s body was crushed and sliced by the Red Sea, his form twisting into an amorphous shape.

Only one hand remained, still locked in a death grip on the Red Sea Witch.

"Your god is useless." Qi Suian ground out the words. At the same time, he crushed her head, causing it to explode.

Red and white matter splattered everywhere.

But the Red Sea Witch did not die. Within the Red Sea, she was an immortal and indestructible being.

Qi Suian was not faring well either. The two divine pronouncements—"violence forbidden" and "die in the Red Sea"—were taking a constant toll on his body.

One was a control effect, the other a damage effect, leaving him with no adequate means to fight back.

Meanwhile, the Red Sea Witch began to regenerate.

Qi Suian also spotted a Five-Colored Crystal Stone located where the Red Sea Witch’s heart should be.

The Apocalypse Game grew anxious, quickly flashing the previous mandatory mission prompt to inform Qi Suian that the crystal was the World Core.

Anxious now himself, Qi Suian severed his own hand, using his flesh and blood as a propellant to lodge it directly into the witch’s heart.

The Red Sea Witch revived, only to find Qi Suian’s hand embedded in her chest. She was momentarily devastated and dumbfounded, with no idea what was happening.

The next moment, however, an excruciating pain erupted from her heart.

"You... damn you! You’re trying to take God away!"

As his arm tugged, the Red Sea Witch naturally sensed Qi Suian’s intention.

"So, the ’god’ in your heart was the one to whom Cain sacrificed Abel, wasn’t it?" Qi Suian’s amorphous body squirmed closer to the Red Sea Witch.

Countless tentacle-like limbs wrapped around the Red Sea Witch’s arms, legs, and torso.

It was a good thing Qi Suian wasn’t a creature out of an adult game. Otherwise, with this setup, he could have single-handedly dominated a hundred heroines, from Magical Girls to Knightesses.

The Red Sea Witch herself might have been played with until she was utterly corrupted.

But compared to such things, he was far more interested in power.

Using his severed arm as an anchor point, innumerable tendrils began to tear through the Red Sea Witch’s flesh, spreading inside her body to wrap around the World Core.

The moment he touched the World Core, however, Qi Suian could feel the Red Sea’s suppression and damaging effects intensify.

Simultaneously, a powerful repulsive force emanated from the World Core.

It was trying to violently shake off his tendrils.

Qi Suian had withstood the pressure of the entire Red Sea; the World Core’s repulsion paled in comparison.

"I will never let you take God!" The Red Sea Witch began to struggle. If she lost the World Core, she would lose everything.

Her desperation to protect the World Core even eclipsed her fear of Qi Suian.

But her struggles were futile. The tendrils continued to pull, finally ripping the World Core completely free from her body.

Once the World Core was extracted, the Red Sea Witch’s body began to age and wither.

The entire Red Sea began to tremble violently. Cracks spiderwebbed across the barren land, the crimson seawater started to evaporate, and even the space itself began to shatter.

At the same time, Qi Suian noticed the crimson vortex was growing unstable.

But there was good news. With the World Core separated from the Red Sea Witch, the Red Sea’s control and suppression over Qi Suian vanished.

’Shit, a worldwide backlash.’

At the same time, bolstered by his protagonist’s halo, Qi Suian’s intuition screamed a warning as the suffocating feeling of imminent death washed over him.

He was certain that if he didn’t escape the Red Sea in time, he would undoubtedly die.

Not even his Rebirth from Death or his protagonist’s halo could save him.

[Warning: Surrender the World Core immediately!]

[Warning: Surrender immediately...]

This was when the Apocalypse Game decided to chime in.

It clearly knew Qi Suian was in mortal danger. To prevent the World Core from falling back into the hands of the Blood Race World after his death, the Apocalypse Game started spamming warnings.

And what would happen to Qi Suian after the Apocalypse Game obtained the World Core? It couldn’t care less.

His death would be even better—a double blessing for the Game.

Qi Suian ignored the flood of warnings. His first priority was to revert to his human form and grip the World Core tightly.

Putting it in his Subspace Pocket was out of the question. After all, the Piercing Demon had once managed to snatch the last heir of the Villeries family right out of it.

Let alone the Blood Race World, which was now backed into a corner. Especially since he was inside the unstable Red Sea.

If the collapsing Red Sea collided with his Subspace Pocket, there was a high chance the pocket dimension would be torn apart entirely.

The World Core would be lost for sure.

Moving at extreme speed, he used his physical body to forcibly shatter the spatial fragments blocking his path, continuously dashing forward.

The shrinking crimson vortex couldn’t stop Qi Suian; he brutally carved out a path to survival.

As long as he was determined to escape, getting out alive wouldn’t be difficult.

"Stay behind and perish with the Red Sea!"

A resentful voice echoed from behind him.

Amid the churning Red Sea, a hundred-meter-tall wave took the shape of a twisted human face.

It was the face of the Red Sea Witch Lilith.

Qi Suian wasn’t surprised that she had come back to life. Desperate times called for desperate measures. With the World Core in the hands of an outsider like him, the Blood Race World would no longer stick to pedantic rules.

Reviving Red Sea Witch Lilith—the one most familiar with the Red Sea—to stop his escape was a logical move.

A tendril of seawater shot out and grabbed Qi Suian’s leg. Acting like a human hand, it began to drag him back, trying to keep him within the collapsing Red Sea.

It was imbued with a rule-like power, one that guaranteed a successful drag upon capture.

Seeing this, Qi Suian couldn’t find a way to break free from the troublesome grip. But that didn’t matter. He simply chopped off his own leg.

’If she wants my leg, she can have it.’ It wasn’t as if he couldn’t grow another one.

It looked like a human leg, but it was actually just a mass of Profound viruses.

As he passed through the crimson vortex, he didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, he spun around and unleashed a Ghost Energy Storm, a Dark Energy Beam, and a barrage of missiles.

A new wave had just begun to surge through when the entire crimson vortex collapsed under the assault.

At the same time, the sense of mortal danger that had been plaguing his intuition finally vanished.

The seawater that had spilled into the real world twitched twice before losing all vitality, turning into ordinary water that seeped into the soil.

"I made it out." Qi Suian let out a sigh of relief. But as he looked at the World Core in his hand, a smile spread across his face.

[World Core]

[Quality: X]

[Trait: Unknown]

Qi Suian looked at the World Core in his hand. Just like the X-rank Sun in a Bottle, it had an X-quality rating and unknown traits.

This meant that even the Apocalypse Game couldn’t analyze its true nature.

’I’ve hit the jackpot. With this, I have the potential to become a world myself.’

’I can even turn the tables and make the Apocalypse Game a part of me.’ Qi Suian’s injuries were severe, but he was already recovering.

On the other hand, his losses were also immense.

The anticipated fuel-related profits from the Dragon Race were completely gone.

To get those profits, he would have had to recover his fibrous bodies, but all of them had been lost in the Red Sea. Not a single one had escaped.

Secondly, his relationship with the Apocalypse Game had grown even more strained.

Because he refused to hand over the World Core and had ignored its numerous warnings, the Game had stopped issuing warnings and had moved on to "obliteration."

Now, "obliteration" had even been upgraded to "forceful obliteration."

It had the distinct air of someone throwing a flustered, impotent tantrum.

"I’m not giving this to you," Qi Suian stated calmly.

No one would be willing to trade it for the pittance the Game was offering.

The reward was the restoration of his "survivor" status, something he couldn’t care less about.

That was tantamount to the Apocalypse Game expecting him to hand over the World Core, become its lapdog, and even have his X-rank talent, Celestial Fate: Profound, downgraded to SSS-rank.

Restoring his survivor status would inevitably place Qi Suian under the Game’s control. To do that, the first step would be to downgrade his protagonist’s halo to a level the Game could manage.

The Game couldn’t control an X-rank, so it had to be SSS-rank.

Then the obliteration protocol would actually work on him, and his life and death would be in the hands of the Apocalypse Game.

What was he supposed to get out of that? Was he tired of his freedom? Did he suddenly want a master to serve?

If the Apocalypse Game hadn’t branded him a "Rulebreaker" from the very beginning, Qi Suian might have just tolerated it.

But they had been enemies for so long; for the Game to still expect such a sweet deal was just naive.

Having ignored the warnings, Qi Suian now needed to find a safe place to recuperate.

As for using Rebirth from Death to recover, he had no such intention for the time being.

Not because he was trying to tough it out, but because caution was paramount.

The Apocalypse Game was one thing; as long as he didn’t hand over the Core, his "Rulebreaker" status prevented the Game from taking it by force.

What he feared was the Blood Race World itself.

Rebirth from Death took time. Even if it was only for a moment, Qi Suian was unwilling to take the risk.

He hadn’t even dared to put the Core in his Subspace Pocket, for fear that something would go wrong during the process.

He simply tore open his own abdomen and stuffed the World Core inside.

’I’ll let you stay inside me for now. It won’t be too late to study you after I leave the Blood Race World.’ Qi Suian didn’t dare study it at the moment.

There were too many variables, and he couldn’t afford the loss of potential profit if he lost the World Core.

’Six and a half days left. I hope they won’t be too difficult.’ Qi Suian even considered that he might become as unlucky as a character from *Final Destination*.