Soul of Negary
chapter-166

"Is this the place?" Lu Tong carefully glanced around their surroundings, especially cautious while staring at the ground to watch for anything that might jump out.

"Yes" Fang Ze had a complicated expression as he observed this foreign yet familiar scenery in front of himself.

After becoming a Disaster King, he rarely ever returned home anymore. He would either be using the DER division's training grounds to hone his skills with Disasforce, or travelling from place to place, constantly on the move. There wasn't anyone home to wait for him anyway.

However, now that the entire world had undergone this disaster, his home had also changed completely.

The original small residential district was now covered in purple vines, which was full of almost black heart-shaped leaves.

Watching these purple-black plants, everyone felt a certain ominous feeling emanating from them. In fact, sometimes, they felt like these purple vines weren't actually plants, but some other sort of living creature.

"Things like these are better off destroyed" Fang Ze declared after staying silent for a while: "Stand behind me"

His Disasforce madly surged forward. The purple-black plants were first disintegrated before being burnt by the high-temperature property of the Disasforce.

With a fearful high-pitched screech, the vines rapidly moved and madly swung about. A black dot slowly rose into the air from afar, seemingly the source of these purple-black vines.

As she hovered above, she spread her arms wide, the seemingly endless purple-black vines manifested as her dress, exuding both magnificence and ominousness.

"A Qiao!" Fang Ze hurriedly stopped his Disasforce, watching the girl who had manifested as the master of the vines in both shock and anger.

She was indeed He Qiao, her upper half seemed to be perfectly normal, albeit her skin was a bit pale and her visage seemed a bit vicious as she wielded a standard longsword in her hand.

However, from her waist down, her veins had literally popped out of her skin, extending and growing into these vines that were constantly swinging in fury, trying to attack them.

"Damn it, why did she turn into this form!?" Fang Ze protected himself with Disasforce, so whenever the vines struck him, they would instantly be disintegrated. However, with every vine that broke, the vines near He Qiao's hips would visibly move, seemingly pulling out more of her veins to manifest even more vines.

Each of the vines here were derived and were directly attached to He Qiao's body. Fang Ze then recalled how he destroyed the mass of vines earlier as well as He Qiao's ear-piercing screech of pain that followed.

"Wang Yuan!!" Fang Ze roared in anger and directly leapt into the sky, heading straight towards He Qiao.

Countless vines immediately followed him and weaved to form a giant net in the air, trying to stop Fang Ze's advance. If he used his Disasforce, he would naturally be able to destroy this entire net, but as her painful screech from earlier was still fresh in his mind, Fang Ze had no choice but to temporarily retreat.

The group of eight could only back out from the small residential district, watching from afar the vines spreading and covering it again. He Qiao who was hovering in the air slowly descended, her expression smoothened before she disappeared into the mass of vines.

"Origin Assimilation" Chang Xia curtly pointed out the reason for He Qiao's current state.

This situation had already appeared in Yu Guang Ming, Ye Kong, and even Fang Ze himself.

Those who released their [Origin] would also be corrupted by that [Origin], causing their rationality to slowly collapse and shift infinitely closer to their [Origin ].

For example, Ye Kong's [Origin] was'collapse'. When he released his [Origin], he was completely corrupted by his [Origin], finally turning into a fragmented monster that would perpetually collapse.

In Yue Bu, Fang Ze also underwent the same phenomenon. Having been trapped by the leather jacket man's ritual altar, he subconsciously exercised his Authority constantly while the immense Disasforce forcefully released his [Origin], at the same time shifting him to become closer to it.

If Liu Bian hadn't interfered with the ritual in time, combined with a certain factor of luck, his rationality would have shattered right then and there.

And now, He Qiao's symptoms were exactly the same as Origin Assimilation. Not to mention, her rationality had been reduced to almost nothing, leaving only a bit of essential instincts behind.

"There's still a chance to save her" Fang Ze was heavily blaming himself. As he knew that there was a conspiracy in Yue Bu, for the sake of He Qiao's safety, he didn't take He Qiao to Yue Bu with him.

Originally, he assumed that she would be safe thanks to the personnel here, never expecting Negary to incite this Great Cataclysm. From then on, his contact with He Qiao was cut off, only to reunite when He Qiao had already turned into this nearly mindless monster.

He Qiao's ability was [Sword of Life], through her sword, she was able to command plants to grow and spread following her orders, whenever she used this ability, a vine would appear and coil around the blade of the sword.

And now when she had undergone Origin Assimilation, what it manifested as was also vines, which meant that He Qiao's [Origin] was related to vines.

Other than the upper half, every other part of her body had already turned into vines. Furthermore, the more vines that were destroyed, the faster she would undergo Origin Assimilation, until He Qiao finally turned into a vine monster that had lost everything about herself that was human.

…

〖Now, let me see how you are going to resolve this issue 〗Negary sat neatly in the darkness, his gaze peering through everything in order to watch Fang Ze's choice.

In the beginning, He Qiao was still healthy. In an apocalyptic setting, her ability wasn't weak, combined with the aid of the guards that Fang Ze assigned to her, she was more than capable of dealing with any danger. However, the more she used her ability, the closer she became to achieving the second stage of [Origin] release.

Finally, as Lan Shan used her Authority to greatly boost the [Spiritual Inception] germ's growth, He Qiao officially underwent the second release of her [Origin].

Compared to the first stage of release, the second stage of release was considerably more dangerous as the influence of [Origin] on people grew to a terrifying degree. If the one who achieved release was a Combatant who had undergone enough training and mentally prepared themselves, it should be enough to avoid being assimilated by the [Origin].

However, He Qiao's ability advanced too rapidly, and this advancement was mostly due to outside circumstances, which led to her willpower being greatly insufficient to resist against the assimilation of her [Origin] and resulted in this disaster.

Naturally, part of this was also due to Negary's influence. Among the documents that Killer J took from the leather jacket man, there were quite a bit that was related to both Authority Holders and the Apocalypse Stone Tablet, as well as quite a bit of knowledge regarding supernatural altars and rituals that used Disasforce to achieve [Origin] release.

Using that knowledge, Negary guided He Qiao to become the half-way Origin Assimilated monster that she currently was.

〖Can you give up your companions, Fang Ze?〗 Negary was sure that the so-called [Protagonist Aura] couldn't be used without a limit, there must be an extent to even the power of miracles, otherwise, 'destiny' would be invincible.

Following common sense, He Qiao's rationality had already reached the verge of collapse and was practically incurable; in order to save He Qiao, Fang Ze would need to create a miracle.

And by forcing him to consecutively exhaust the power of miracles, Fang Ze's [ Protagonist Aura] would weaken, creating an opportunity for Negary to take action.

Of course, there was also the chance of He Qiao simply losing her life and Fang Ze explosively exerting himself in his rage.

1. Lu Tong is the newly named Authority Holder of [Traffic Jam], his name literally means "open path", which is the exact opposite of his Authority