Chapter 195: The Arrival of the “Moment”
Faint golden threads extended from the cracked shell of the gaming console, weaving their way into Xu Zhi’s body, stabilizing her collapsing spirit and disintegrating flesh.
As the explosion’s epicenter began to spread outward, the shockwaves battering Xu Zhi finally weakened slightly.
During that brief yet devastating blast, her body had been remade several times over—though still of flesh and blood, it had been reforged again and again within the blazing solar furnace. Even her soul endured that tempering. If she could survive this trial, both her spiritual power and the extraordinary energy stored within her would far surpass that of other transcendent beings of her rank. As for the toughness of her physical body, the difference would be absurdly vast.
When the onslaught at last subsided, Xu Zhi’s blank consciousness began to return. She didn’t even know what had happened—only that everything went white, and when awareness returned, she found herself here.
To her, it felt as though only a moment had passed. Her eyes were heavy; she could barely open them. Everything before her was blood-red—as if the whole world had been dyed crimson, or perhaps it was just her vision, flooded with blood.
Amid the thick, oppressive red, however, glimmered a faint thread of pale-gold light—small, yet not weak.
“What… is that?”
Xu Zhi’s muddled thoughts drifted through her mind.
[It’s the Lamp.]
As if responding to her heart’s question, a familiar voice echoed in her head.
She wasn’t startled—she knew that voice well. It was the Narrator.
If the golden light belonged to the Lamp, then all this suffocating scarlet must be the power of the Cup, right?
Xu Zhi’s mind was still foggy, yet she managed to cling to a thin thread of thought amidst the haze. The sensation was strangely surreal.
As for pain—she could no longer feel it. It was as if all her nerves had been severed. Her body was beyond her awareness; she was nothing but a brain floating in a void.
“What’s… happening now?”
“How long… has it been?”
She asked in confusion.
[Not long. The explosion just ended.]
Hearing that, Xu Zhi quietly let out a sigh of relief. She had feared that while she was unconscious, everything might have already been over.
Fatigue, deep as a mountain, filled her mind and heart. She wanted nothing more than to sink into blankness—perhaps even sleep—but she knew she couldn’t. No matter how tired she was, she had to stay awake.
As time trickled by, the number of Lamp lights around her began to rapidly diminish. Her vision slowly cleared from crimson to something more discernible. Her body stopped being shredded and reformed over and over; her wounds healed quickly, her severed nerves reconnecting.
Pain returned—sharp and raw—and that pain was precisely what snapped her mind back into focus. As sensation came alive again, the fog clogging her brain also began to thin.
Xu Zhi soon noticed that within her body, along with the Moth-type extraordinary energy that filled her core, another energy—no weaker than the Moth’s—was flowing into her.
That was the Lamp.
These two different extraordinary attributes coursed through her harmoniously, without the slightest sign of conflict.
Of course, Xu Zhi knew this harmony only existed because the world’s rules were gone. If the laws still held, she would be suffering unspeakable agony by now.
Yet instead of relief, Xu Zhi’s brow furrowed.
She could feel her aura climbing rapidly. Her once-damaged, near-collapsing body was not only restored but strengthened beyond what it had ever been. Her mind was growing sharper, her extraordinary rank pushing against its current limit.
But more importantly, something deep inside her—the fragment she had long carried—was beginning to stir, drawn by the Lamp’s power. Guided by that light, the fragment intertwined with the Authority within her.
The instant she touched that fragment, Xu Zhi felt her very soul tremble. A strange sensation surged from the depths of her being—as though she had suddenly “understood” countless things. It was as if she had glimpsed a forbidden existence—or crossed a line that separated ordinary transcendents from…
From what?
Xu Zhi didn’t know.
But she did know that she had crossed a boundary—and from now on, she was no longer the same as ordinary transcendent beings.
All of this was because of that fragment.
It was an incredible thing—something she probably wasn’t meant to obtain at this point in time. Like a cheat code she had somehow stumbled upon early.
So this was the moment the Narrator had been waiting for.
With the Lamp’s aid, the fusion between her and the Authority proceeded astonishingly smoothly. Xu Zhi could feel her soul gradually merging with the fragment—something she had long swallowed but only now truly began to absorb.
It brought immense change to her, though she didn’t have time to sit and feel it fully. As the fragment fused completely, Xu Zhi sensed that the Path—the one that had vanished—was reappearing before her.
All she needed was a trigger, and she could break through the forbidden boundary where that Path had once ended.
[Open your eyes.]
The Narrator’s voice came again.
Xu Zhi’s eyes had been open all along—so this command wasn’t literal. It was telling her to use her ability.
At once, the faint gray of her pupils shimmered with threads of gold. She didn’t realize that her Eyes of Revelation had changed again—she only knew that when she used her power to gaze into the deep darkness around her, the world itself transformed.
This was no longer the world of shattered earth and drifting fragments, illuminated only by lightning flickering through endless black skies. The deep-blue sea below, which she’d once thought was ordinary water, now made her heart tremble with reverence.
The sky was no longer black and silver—it had become broken gold.
Countless intricate, solemn markings spread across it. Xu Zhi couldn’t tell if they were symbols, text, totems, or something else entirely. To her eyes, they were the visible manifestations of the world’s rules.
Those golden traces were almost completely destroyed; most had vanished, and the ones that remained were cracked and fragmented. Shards and dust of golden Rule fragments drifted down from the sky into the roaring ocean below. The sea devoured them greedily.
Even though the Rules were in ruins—none intact—the sight still shook Xu Zhi deeply. It was the kind of awe and terror that came from seeing something utterly beyond human comprehension.
And then she remembered—this wasn’t the first time she’d seen such markings.
They were not identical, but once, long ago—at midnight—she had caught a fleeting glimpse of the Rules themselves.
