Chapter 69 Burn Paloth to Ashes

Bright red liquid slowly seeped into the crystalline pink crumbs, threads of crimson spreading and permeating through the gaps, making it somewhat difficult to distinguish which part was blood and which part was powder ground from rubies.

[You have a new communication, from: Jackal—]

"It's not even six o'clock yet, up so early? Good morning, Jackal, this is Nandou."

"What are you doing?"

"Ah... brewing some genetically modified oatmeal for breakfast."

Song Shi pinched a wooden stick, stirring the mixture in the beaker while answering.

"Last night's mission, failed?"

Jackal's voice carried little emotion.

"Yes, the situation was quite complicated at the time, I missed, I'll refund the deposit later."

"The client is extremely angry right now."

"I can only say, I apologize."

Song Shi stared at the beaker, confirming the degree of mixing, his tone sincere: "But it can't be helped, ability is limited, alas, sorry."

"I see."

Jackal paused: "Never mind the deposit, I don't have the rule of refunding deposits here, but given this failure, 'Nandou', my commission for your next mission will increase by five percentage points."

"No problem, it's only natural."

Song Shi said: "Remember to apologize to the client for me, truly sorry."

The two hung up the phone shortly after.

"Emerald Pharmaceuticals... probably someone else preparing to target me again."

Song Shi muttered to himself.

Last night's "Carmen" incident was obviously directed by Emerald Pharmaceuticals, intending to fish out someone—combined with the words of that "Carmen", their initial target wasn't even the [Dawn-Bringer].

Initial target...

Competing companies like [Chesim Bio-Comprehensive Security]? Or certain anti-corporation forces or individuals?

Song Shi favored the second view.

As for how "Carmen" found him through Jackal's channel, not entirely impossible, but at least not in the short term. As a middleman, leaking the information of both trading parties was a major tabu in the industry.

Moreover, Jackal was one of the most famous middlemen in the Deep Moss District. Given his net worth and status, even when facing Emerald Pharmaceuticals—

He would still have to sit down for a while before kneeling.

"Hmm, just right."

Song Shi temporarily put these thoughts aside and turned his attention to the beaker.

The mixture of his own blood and ground ruby powder boiled rapidly under the heat of the welding torch, emitting a series of bubbling sounds.

Song Shi picked up the beaker and drank it in one gulp.

Ingesting everyday items like rubies and agates along with one's own blood was one of the prerequisites for the Second-Circle Psionic Art, [Boiling Blood].

But that was not the crux.

The most crucial prerequisite for acquiring [Boiling Blood] was to accomplish a deed of "following one's true heart, using the weak to defeat the strong."

As for what constituted the standard of "using the weak to defeat the strong," this was adjudicated by the [Great Source] Path.

This naturally brought up the acquisition methods of Psionic Arts.

Simply put, a psion had two ways to acquire Psionic Arts: one was through the "Path," and the other was through "Miscellaneous."

The "Path" nurtures the "Psion," and the "Psion" pushes the "Path."

Whenever a psion died, he would transform into a star, ascend into his own Path, and become a part of the Path—so theoretically, the Path carried all the mysteries of past psions.

Naturally, this included "Psionic Arts."

Even if a certain "Psionic Art" was originally created by a specific psion, after his death, that "Psionic Art" would become part of the Path. Even if the former left no inheritance behind, it still had the possibility of being manifested in the future.

And the most common way to obtain Psionic Arts from the Path was through "Rituals."

The [Path] made the monopoly of Psionic Arts meaningless, so the major psionic aristocrats, organizational factions, and nations truly monopolized the "Rituals." Even if someone occasionally acquired their secret Psionic Arts through the Path, it generally ensured the uniqueness of the heritage.

The [Path] was the first method.

The second method, "Miscellaneous," was very easy to understand...

Direct empowerment by high-level psions, the inherent heritage carried by certain psionic secret treasures, sealing "Psionic Arts" into certain physical entities through special methods to pass them down, studying step-by-step according to various secret manuals, self-research and development by psions... all of these counted as "Miscellaneous," and frankly, there were quite a lot of varieties.

"Following one's true heart, using the weak to defeat the strong," Song Shi recited.

"Using the weak to defeat the strong" was a not-uncommon ritual element, pointing to quite a few Psionic Arts.

[Transcendence]'s "Desperate Situation," [Consensus]'s "Unbending Will," [Truth]'s "Eternity"...

Among these, the preliminary ritual requirements were not entirely identical, but the most crucial element across all of them was "using the weak to defeat the strong."

—How had he acquired "Boiling Blood" in his past life?

Song Shi thought to himself.

He had been quite interested in [Yenan], that nation located on the other side of the world, founded by exiles from the former "Seven Earths War."

Therefore, half a year after stepping into the Second Circle, he planned to leave the [Pan-Eastern Mainland Federation] and wanted to go take a look there.

Only.

As a freelance bounty hunter, something went wrong during an assassination mission targeting a gang leader, forcing him to shift from "assassination" to "frontal assault." The situation at the time was extremely chaotic, resulting in a fierce firefight after which, although he successfully killed the leader, he also ended up killing someone "who shouldn't have been killed."

—The offspring of a certain local prominent family.

That fellow had originally come to discuss some matters with the leader and accidentally ended up dying at the scene—he only found out afterwards that this once noisy local gang was actually secretly supported by the other party's family to act as their hound in the shadows.

Not long after he left the city, a group of mercenaries hired by this family cornered him in the badlands.

Song Shi had recalled the scene of that time more than once.

The dim, man-devouring sky, the endless horizon, the swirling dust storms across the sky, and the suffocatingly heavy atmospheric pressure.

He lay inside a rock crevice, holding down his bleeding wound, panting heavily—those mercenaries were already considered elites, and they wielded a large batch of restricted military equipment specially provided by the family, which almost cost him his life on the spot.

Yet I still survived.

Song Shi thought to himself.

Blood, gunfire, psionics, roaring, guerrilla warfare, hunting and counter-hunting.

After thirteen days of fierce combat between the two sides across the badlands, he ultimately won, executing the very last member of that mercenary group.

What happened afterwards was, conversely, not as clear.

He only remembered returning to the city, taking a full month and a half to slowly erode the influence of that prominent family, during which there were several near-death experiences, but he endured through all of them.

Until finally, on a rainy night, he dragged the head of this family, who was also the mayor of the city, out of his safe house and hanged him from the clock tower in the center of the city.

When the rain that had lasted the entire night finally stopped.

He was surprised to discover that the Path had bestowed the Psionic Art named [Boiling Blood].

It was only later, when he reached the Third Circle, that he learned from elsewhere that "using the weak to defeat the strong" was precisely one of the most crucial prerequisites for the acquisition ritual of [Boiling Blood].

"Therefore, it's quite a pity."

Song Shi extended his right hand, slowly gazing at the lines on his palm.

He had accomplished "using the weak to defeat the strong," but due to the ignorance born of his background, he hadn't completed the other ritual prerequisites—they were indeed not the critical ones, but they ultimately influenced [Boiling Blood] to a certain extent.

This led to the fact that among psions holding this Psionic Art, his [Boiling Blood] could only be considered of medium caliber.

Could it be that, having been reborn once, he still intended to retain this regret?

Only this time, how should he accomplish "using the weak to defeat the strong"?

Gazing at the patterns across his palm, Song Shi suddenly smiled.

He turned his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through the walls, passing through the overlapping, honeycomb-like dilapidated buildings of varying heights in the Deep Moss District, and falling upon the tallest skyscraper in all of Palose, shrouded beneath the artificial firmament.

On the huge mural of the skyscraper's exterior wall, a shattered white porcelain hand silently rose, as emeralds turned into olive leaves intertwined into a ring, swirling around it.

This was one of the "deities" of the Corporate Alliance, casting its mortal temple down upon Palose.

It stood in the past, it stood in the present, and it would stand forever.

"Sure enough..."

"How could there possibly be a more suitable choice than this?"

Song Shi closed his eyes and slowly opened them again. Red-gold molten fire flowed within his pupils, and a heartfelt smile bloomed on his face.

"Next."

Song Shi walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. The sun at the edge of his vision had just risen from the horizon, and there was still a while before dawn.

"—It's time to burn Palose to ashes."

(End of this chapter)