novelraw Chapter 437 - 421: The Black Core Was Forged by the Gods...
Chapter 437 - 421: The Black Core Was Forged by the Gods...
Zhao Jingyi’s body trembled instinctively, as if merely recalling that name caused her soul to shiver uncontrollably.
Zheng Hang gently placed his hands on her shoulders, exerting slight pressure with his ten fingers, and the coldness seeped through his fingertips, gradually pulling her out of the mire of fear.
He lowered his head, and the pair of eyes beneath his glasses were deep and dark, gazing into Zhao Jingyi’s eyes.
Zhao Jingyi stiffly raised her neck, staring into those eyes, as if gazing into another bottomless black abyss.
Zheng Hang’s breath softly brushed against her face, carrying a mesmerizing reassurance, yet faintly tinged with an indescribable eeriness:
"Zhao Jingyi, do not fear your past, and even more so, do not evade your future."
His voice was deep and slow, resonating with a hardness emanating from his bones, imbuing one with strength:
"Fear is merely a trap set by the wicked for you. Only by facing it head-on can you crush it.
And when you do crush fear, you will discover a brand new destiny paved beneath your feet."
Zhao Jingyi’s mouth was dry, and she lowered her head to look at her toe caps, where there was no path, just a puddle of turbid sewage, with shadows swaying within it, distorted and blurred.
Zheng Hang’s voice rang out again, firm and powerful:
"Zhao Jingyi, tell me, and I will help you break the chains of destiny binding you together."
Zhao Jingyi swallowed, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, her voice trembling as she asked:
"Why? Why do you want to help me? My classmates, my teachers, my family can’t help me, why are you willing to help me?"
Zheng Hang’s pupils contracted slightly, his face showing no smile; on the contrary, his expression became slightly twisted and ferocious.
He raised an arm, a jagged bone finger snapping out with a "click," more like a monster’s hook than a human finger.
He spoke fiercely, his voice carrying a chilling insanity:
"Because I too live in the abyss, neither like man nor ghost. Does anyone in the abyss need a reason to reach out to another in the same pit?"
Zhao Jingyi could no longer hold back, releasing sobs like a flood breaching a dam.
Her cries carried a heart-wrenching relief, for it had been an eternity since she last cried so freely.
"The laboratory I went to was Eternal Life Technology’s secret lab, used to research Calamity Corpses! Specifically, the reanimation of Calamity Corpses!
My mentor believed that within the Calamity Corpses lay the secret to human immortality!"
Zhao Jingyi tightly grasped Zheng Hang’s bone finger, without regard for the sharp bone spurs slicing open her palm.
Warm blood dripped onto the white bone, half silently absorbed, while the other half splashed into the sewage with a "drip, drip," causing the black shadow to ripple like a breath.
This scene held a bizarre yet sacred beauty.
Zheng Hang’s pupils contracted slightly, his five fingers reflexively pinching tighter, making Zhao Jingyi’s palm wound deeper, blood flowing along the white bone, staining the surface a luscious red.
Yet Zhao Jingyi found the palm’s pain oddly intoxicating, the more it hurt, the more at ease she felt.
The pain acted as a vivid tether, tightly linking her to the man before her.
The more it hurt, the more assured she felt, as if this pain became her courage to break free from the abyss.
Clearly,
the naive girl in the lab didn’t understand a simple truth—when someone in the same pit reaches out to you, it may not be to help you climb out of it together; perhaps he just wants to drag you from your abyss into his own.
The treacherous nature of destiny lies in that the path out of the abyss often leads to another abyss!
Zhao Jingyi trembled, speaking that name:
"Zuo Bai, my mentor is Zuo Bai, the chief scientist of Eternal Life Technology, the top scientific star of Zone 6, a terrifying mad scientist."
Zheng Hang squinted his eyes into slits, word by word asking:
"Reanimation of Calamity Corpses?"
Zhao Jingyi nodded fervently, her eyes still fraught with terror:
"My mentor believes that Calamity Corpses are not a byproduct of human mutation; on the contrary, humans are the defective remains left after the failed evolution of Calamity Corpses."
"Much like the Genetic Lock theory in Martial Arts, the human form is divinity’s punishment for Calamity Corpses."
Zhao Jingyi recounted words often spoken by her mentor Zuo Bai, even though she had never been able to grasp their deeper meaning, only feeling a chilling madness emanating from them.
Now, she poured all these words out to Zheng Hang.
"Living is merely a transition of life, but death is eternal, and the Calamity Corpses... embody living death."
Her voice trembled, and merely recalling it sent a chill down her tailbone.
"Calamity Corpses are eternal life, a forbidden realm of divinity. Thus, they are chained within the human form, meeting their final demise with humanity’s death."
Zheng Hang’s pupils flickered slightly, Zuo Bai’s theories left him deeply shaken, even somewhat enlightened.
Zhao Jingyi couldn’t comprehend Zuo Bai’s madness, but Zheng Hang could.
Because he increasingly believed—death should not be the end of life, death should be its beginning.
Humans gestate life for ten months, so is it possible, is the century of human life also a form of "embryo" with death being the final birth?
Could it be to give birth to...
Zheng Hang licked his lips, following Zhao Jingyi’s train of thought, harshly critiquing:
"You’re right, anyone who suggests such absurd notions is indeed a terrifying lunatic; all of it is nonsense!"
Zhao Jingyi’s expression became exceedingly complex, she seemed to have words stuck in her throat, unable to speak.
Finally, she spoke, her voice carrying a hint of struggle:
"I also believe my mentor is a lunatic, but his theories are not mere nonsense; the lab, led by him, researched the Black Core tirelessly..."
Zhao Jingyi paused, fearing Zheng Hang wouldn’t understand, and thus added an explanation:
"The Black Core is the crystallization left after burning the body of a Calamity Corpse."
Zheng Hang took a deep breath, he finally heard what he most wanted to hear.
Since there was no torture, every word Zhao Jingyi uttered had to be highly credible, right...
Indeed, helping others, opening up, and being candid and lenient is the most sophisticated "interrogation" technique.
Zheng Hang: "Hmm, what about the Black Core?"
Zhao Jingyi biting her teeth said:
"Although it seems incredible, all the lab’s research on the Black Core seems to lead to one result—that the Black Core is not a naturally nurtured substance within humans or Calamity Corpses, but some higher-dimensional force forcibly implanted it into humans and Calamity Corpses like the Black Core is..."
Zheng Hang pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, holding his breath, he had already formed a hypothesis in his heart.
And indeed, the next second he heard Zhao Jingyi, her voice trembling, say:
"The Black Core is a divine-forged... iron lock!!!"