Chapter 129: The Sacrificial “Cup”
Xu Zhi didn’t make this decision after any careful deliberation—it was all driven by a “I just feel like it” impulse. So naturally, she had no real expectations for what might happen after she swallowed the fragment.
That’s why she was genuinely surprised when, the moment she consumed the shard, the pure white space around her instantly crumbled, revealing cracks and a view of the city center.
That’s it?
That’s all it took?
Of course, it wasn’t that simple.
As the white space disintegrated, Xu Zhi found herself replacing the position where the “moon” used to be. She didn’t seem to notice that she wasn’t standing on solid ground anymore—she was floating in midair.
Though the “moon” had transformed into a girl, the light it emitted didn’t vanish entirely; it just dimmed significantly.
The other aberrants, who had been fighting with Yi and the Little Aberrant, noticed this and let out furious roars, abandoning the two familiars and leaping toward Xu Zhi, trying to drag her down and devour her!
Strangely, even though they leapt high enough, they couldn’t actually reach Xu Zhi. It was as if an invisible barrier made of shimmering light stood between them. But the aberrants didn’t give up.
Yi and the Little Aberrant took the chance to regroup and positioned themselves nearby, ready to assist.
On the other side of the rift, the entities hiding in the midnight shadows and spying on the real world began to stir frantically. Their previous low mutters exploded into a chaotic uproar. Amid the darkness, Xu Zhi could almost see their twisted limbs writhing violently.
In a daze, Xu Zhi actually started to understand some of what they were saying:
“…Human!”
“Corrupted process.”
“…Must be eradicated!”
“She will fail.”
“…There is no exit.”
“Impossible!”
“She’s weak—there’s no way she’ll succeed.”
“Yes. Nothing to worry about.”
The more Xu Zhi listened, the more off it sounded.
What was that supposed to mean?
They were looking down on her?!
That last part—“nothing to worry about”—made her so angry her eyebrow twitched. What the hell?
Well then, now she was determined to succeed.
But… what did they even mean by success?
Did they mean successfully digesting the shard?
Fueled by the rage of being underestimated, her already unstable emotions surged violently. The hidden path of the “Cup” within her flared to life. But as that Cup-aligned power surged, her original “Moth” attribute responded like a territorial beast—furious at the intrusion—and began fighting back inside her body.
The instant the clash of attributes began, Xu Zhi could no longer focus on the mocking whispers. Her head felt like it was about to split open—and it wasn’t over yet.
When the two attributes collided, Xu Zhi lost most of her ability to think. Her vision blurred, so she didn’t notice that the game console—which had supposedly been under maintenance—was floating out of her pocket. The screen that once said “Under Maintenance” turned to static, glitching violently. After a few electrical crackles, the screen flashed once, then went completely dark.
At that moment, a brilliant light exploded around Xu Zhi. It was the same light that the moon had previously emitted—as if that extinguished glow had been reignited through her.
But at the heart of the radiance, Xu Zhi was in agony.
She felt like she was being shackled over fire, her entire body burning up. The two clashing powers in her head suddenly quieted down, shrinking away like quail in the face of the overwhelming blaze.
Even so, Xu Zhi’s consciousness began to fade.
This blazing force wasn’t just scorching her physically—it was testing her will. And her will, under this pressure, was on the verge of collapse, as if it was being melted down.
In the haze, a familiar voice echoed in her mind. It sounded weak, but also filled with urgency and concern:
“You can’t digest it. Quick—sacrifice the Cup attribute path in your body to it.”
Xu Zhi didn’t know whose voice it was, but she instinctively trusted it. In fact, she felt that if she couldn’t trust this voice, there was no one else in the world she could trust.
So without hesitation, she followed the instruction. But—how do you sacrifice something?
Xu Zhi located the Cup-aligned transcendent energy hiding in a corner of her body and, with great difficulty, pushed it toward the blazing force.
The moment it made contact—it melted instantly.
The flame then surged forward, following the path of that contact, hungrily devouring all traces of Cup-aligned energy in her.
Xu Zhi didn’t resist. In fact, she let go completely, allowing the energy to rampage through her body, hunting down every last remnant of the Cup.
Once the final trace was consumed, Xu Zhi’s brain suddenly throbbed in pain. Something invisible and violent—bloody, primal—was yanked out of her mind. The shard, no larger than a thumb, accepted the sacrificed, still-incomplete Cup pathway and its qualification.
A corner of the shard turned red.
But the red part quickly separated from the main body, falling from Xu Zhi’s body and floating midair.
Forcing her eyes open, Xu Zhi saw the tiny red shard—barely a millimeter in size—and how every aberrant below immediately went rabid with desire. They no longer even noticed her glowing figure.
Hundreds of aberrants began stepping over each other in a frenzy, trying to seize the red fragment. They even ignored the stronger aberrants around them, as if bewitched—eyes locked on that one piece of crimson.
But tragically, their efforts were as futile as trying to scoop the moon from a lake.
Xu Zhi once again heard voices from beyond the rift.
They were cursing, questioning, furious that a mere human had sacrificed the Cup to the shard.
“Humans are ignorant!”
“…It’s weakened. Can it still leave?”
“It’s enough! As long as it doesn’t—”
“Seeking death! Without an attribute, she has even less chance—”
“But how was she the Cup-Attribute?”
“That’s not important.”
“Still not done?! The rift is wide enough—before it notices, we must leave!”
“It’s coming. Just one last piece—”
“If not for this human—”
“Then so be it. Now the shard carries the Cup—it’ll be even more valuable.”
Listening to the resentment in their voices, Xu Zhi realized one thing:
She had definitely ruined their plans.
She looked at the aberrants below, going mad trying to get to the red shard, then glanced at the Little Aberrant urgently staring up at her.
“Come here!”
She forced her hand to lift and reached out, effortlessly grabbing the crimson shard that hundreds of aberrants were literally killing each other for.
When the Little Aberrant leapt onto the crowd and reached her, Xu Zhi handed it the fragment and commanded, “Eat it.”
