Chosen: Beyond Fate

Chapter 76: Mercy

It worked! ƒrēewebnovel.com

A thin stream of blood dripped from Ji Jue’s nose as he gritted his teeth and pushed his ability further. “Restoration!!!”

This time, the command triggered a violent backlash of spirit matter. The wailing in his ears grew even more ferocious, echoing within his very soul as it launched an assault on him.

When it came into contact with Fluid Alchemy’s operations, everything collapsed. The wildly writhing man froze and showed signs of dissolving. In particular, the mutated limbs that had spread outward began to wither away.

This was Ji Jue’s first time using the Purification aspect of Fluid Alchemy. He hadn’t expected it to be so immediate.

These “people” were creations of Fluid Alchemy, so they had almost no resistance to it at all. In just a few seconds, all the abnormal mutations had peeled away and vanished completely. The entire camp finally seemed to recover from its frozen state.

“Mom, Mom!”

The moment Ji Jue released his hand, the child nearby was the first to rush forward, hugging the person in the net and crying out desperately.

But there was no response.

The swollen man had returned to his original form. If anything, he was even thinner than before. After Ji Jue moved his hand away, he no longer moved at all. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

He still seemed alive, yet his eyes remained hollow. It was as if a portion of his soul had been completely lost along with the mutation. There was an overload in spirituality, and his physical self had collapsed. A damaged creation, no matter how it was repaired, could no longer return to its original form.

Ji Jue let out a tired sigh and cursed under his breath.

97 sat down beside him. “Thank you.”

“For what? It didn’t even succeed,” Ji Jue replied.

He wiped the blood from his face. After the blood disappeared, a dark purple, net-like pattern became more and more visible instead, a result of ruptured capillaries. Soon, under the restoration of the Mouth of the Ancient Ones, the damage faded away completely. Only then did he notice the surprised look in 97’s eyes.

“What is it?” Ji Jue asked.

“No, I was just taken aback. So you really do feel sympathy for us.”

Ji Jue didn’t reply.

“Thank you. And thank you for feeling sad that he couldn’t return to how he was,” 97 said. “You’ve already done more than enough, Mr. Ji. For things like us, Ironification Syndrome is the most terrifying thing. Losing control of yourself and turning into some inexplicable monster... Staying alive like that is even more frightening than death. Being able to keep him in his current state, even like this, is already amazing.”

He patted Ji Jue on the shoulder and sincerely said, “Thank you.”

“Stop talking about that.” Ji Jue sighed, unwilling to continue the topic. He pointed at the crying child. “What’s going on with this guy? Why is it calling everyone ‘mom?’ If I’m not mistaken, you’re all men, right?”

“That’s not wrong. But here, everyone can be said to be its mother. To be precise, everyone in the rift realm is. Even those monsters. Xiao Jiu is a ‘newborn’ produced in this cycle, but the others are different. You understand what I mean, right? Everyone here has been processed through the cycle an unknown number of times.” He tapped his head. “Basically... everything has been mixed together.”

This was the workshop’s cycle mechanism. All products deemed scrap were uniformly collected, dismantled, sorted, mixed, reshaped, and then fed back into production once again. They then became brand new “people” who followed the preset design, walked along predetermined paths, and acted out the roles assigned to them, whether as street peddlers or high officials and wealthy merchants.

From that point on, day after day, year after year, they move in a dazed, muddled state, carrying out actions they themselves could not understand, like a ritual of worship or an endless sacrificial offering. Until one day, within this life that was almost indistinguishable from that of a human, they truly came to understand what they really were.

They had genuinely believed themselves to be human, but the moment they discovered what their true nature really was, the dream came to an end.

Once their inherent design and identity lost all meaning, once they came to comprehend what they truly were, those creations that could not accept themselves would plunge into chaos, and ultimately descend into complete madness. They acted on instinct, destroying, slaughtering, seeking death, and longing for an end.

After everything was utterly destroyed, it was all once again reclaimed by the workshop. The spirit matter was cleansed, their consciousness reset, then produced anew, and they were given new roles, new “lives.”

And so it continued, day after day, year after year, generation after generation, accumulating over time.

For four hundred years, that initial despair had been continuously passed down. By the end, the madness hidden beneath all their consciousness had grown as deep and vast as the ocean.

Ji Jue remained silent, almost suffocating. It was impossible to imagine just how desperate one would become after repeated cycles of reincarnation, when one discovered that life was nothing but an illusion, the self was emptiness, and fate was so merciless.

If it were the creation of modern alchemy, it would merely be a case of spiritual overload leading to collapse. Fluid Alchemy was different. Its greatest advantage and feature was that it caused a creation’s form and structure to gradually converge toward its essence.

When that essence had already completely collapsed, once such crazed spirit matter awakened from its slumber, the original human form would vanish without a trace, and they would become nothing short of monsters. They would suffer day and night and cry out all the time, as if their life was hell. They were unable to live, yet unable to die.

“We want it to stop.” 97 murmured softly to himself, as if praying to a demon or a god. “Anything is fine, as long as it can stop.”

Ji Jue didn’t respond.

***

Perhaps it was the dawn of a new day, or perhaps only a few hours had passed. Ji Jue was awakened by the cheers and blessings from the camp.

Stepping out of the tent, he saw 97 among the crowd, surrounded by others who were holding weapons and were fully armed. They were preparing for an expedition. Noticing Ji Jue’s gaze, 97 smiled and waved at him, as if bidding farewell, before turning away.

Another expedition was underway. The crowd cheered and shouted, sending them off with applause and hope.

Ji Jue even saw the Seer among them.

At the very back, near the entrance of a makeshift shelter, she sat in a wheelchair, being pushed by someone as she watched the exploration team depart. The gate closed once more.

Noticing Ji Jue approaching, she said something in a soft voice, and the person beside her quietly left.

“Have you made up your mind, Mr. Ji?” the Seer asked.

Ji Jue shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet. My instincts tell me I don’t really like you.”

“That’s normal. Figures who are always evasive and mysterious never earn trust. Compared to someone as honest as you, I, a nonhuman creation, am indeed more deceitful.” The Seer smiled. “Please forgive me, sir. Some stakes are simply too precious. There is only one chance, and I cannot casually entrust it to someone who may not be reliable.”

“Can’t you explore yourselves?” Ji Jue asked.

“Well.” The Seer nodded with difficulty. “Do you think we would achieve anything?”

“I don’t know,” Ji Jue said.

“I’ll tell you then. Perhaps we might find scattered clues, perhaps even locate some warehouses or traces left by Mercury, but a true breakthrough? A real change? No. It won’t happen. It will never happen. From the very beginning, everything has already been decided. We are tools, and tools cannot step outside the operational scope set by their master. Even if the core of the workshop appeared right before us, we would only ignore it, or even fail to comprehend it.”

“And you?” Ji Jue asked. “Aren’t you the Seer? An all-knowing Seer. Not even you can find it?”

“I can, of course I can,” the Seer promptly answered with a mocking smile. “But what then? A tool can never destroy the work left by its master, because that is an instruction engraved deep within our spirit matter.”

Others could not perceive it nor enter the matrix’s location. And even though the Seer had long known and understood this aspect, she still could not act. This was a cycle destined to have no outcome.

A futile expedition would be launched again and again, but it would lead to nothing.

Ji Jue asked, “Do they know?”

The Seer did not answer. After a long silence, she let out a helpless sigh.

“Mr. Ji, if you wake from a hell filled only with torment and realize your own miserable fate, then it is best not to wake the others who are still asleep. But those who have already been awakened are increasing in number, so you must make them believe that hell can still be broken. Otherwise, what awaits them is only despair. Yes, that’s right. I’m lying. I am not all-knowing. I have deceived them, more than once.”

The Seer let out a calm, faint laugh. “In truth, I can do nothing. I am nothing more than a liar. Even the survival of this camp lasts only fifty or sixty years at a time. Each cycle, we all return to the workshop, once again reduced to completely altered forms. But I must make them believe that the future holds hope. No matter how distant that hope may be. Humans need lies. So do we. In fact, Mercury’s plan had no flaw. The only oversight was... did she perhaps make us too human?”

Tools did not fear hell nor feel despair. Tools did not seek release. Only humans did.

Heaven and hell were both created by humans. All they could do was silently endure this suffering, unaware of time, unaware of an end.

Ji Jue stared at the camp for a long while, then let out a self-mocking laugh. “Why me? Seer, if you truly know anything at all, you should understand I am no different from any other outsider.”

“Maybe you are just lucky?”

“I’ve never had good luck. Only bad luck, or worse, including you coming to find me,” Ji Jue clarified. “Please give me an honest and direct answer.”

The Seer turned her head and looked at him, and whatever remained of her eye was fixed on him. “You have learned Fluid Alchemy, haven’t you? This is Mercury’s workshop. According to the instructions she once left behind, anyone who masters Fluid Alchemy will be automatically registered within the core and granted basic inner-layer access permissions.

“But the permissions you’re granted are far more than you realize. Your spiritual identity recognition circuit corresponds to the Central Heat Reaction Furnace from the past. That authorization module added a small annotation to your clearance.”

The Seer raised her finger and, right before Ji Jue’s eyes, slowly traced a small symbol, conveying an instruction left by the ancient furnace. “It says you can be trusted.”

Ji Jue’s pupils contracted. He recognized the meaning of that symbol. It was a rune originating from the Supreme Benevolence, Ascension.

In alchemical interpretation, it represented acceptance and containment, symbolizing protection and bestowal. Its meaning was “mercy.”