Rain.
The sound of it hitting the broad leaves was muffled, patter, patter, like someone's heartbeat.
Jiang Chen was lying under this giant leaf, mud and water dripping down his tattered clothes, forming a small, murky stream.
His entire body was in pain, the agony of being torn apart by a spatial rift, like countless dull knives scraping back and forth in his bone seams.
But this pain was real, proving that he was still alive.
That was enough.
He tried to move his fingers, their tips sinking into the slick mud, a chill seeping in through his fingernails, making him shiver.
The cold warning in his mind still echoed.
【Warning: Heavenly Dao Law has marked this abnormal fluctuation.】
【A “Fate Corrector” has been activated.】
Fate Corrector… Jiang Chen chewed on the words, a smile-less arc forming at the corner of his mouth, pulling at the wound on his face, making him gasp in pain.
It sounded like a storybook had gone awry, and the storyteller had sent an assistant to put the plot back on track.
And he was the anomaly.
He raised his eyes, looking through the gaps in the branches and leaves at the gray sky.
The rain was blown diagonally by the wind, like an endless net.
He used to think he was like the most inconspicuous insect in the net, to be devoured by the owner of the web whenever they felt like it.
Now, he seemed to have become the insect that bit through the net.
And then, the owner of the web was enraged.
An indescribable sense of exhaustion washed over him; he was too tired, his eyelids heavy as if filled with lead. He slid down an old, moss-covered tree root and curled up in a naturally formed tree hollow.
The hollow smelled of old rotten wood and dried mushrooms, not pleasant, but at least it blocked most of the wind and rain.
He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into his body.
His Dantian and Meridians were no longer the parched, cracked desert they had been.
A peculiar energy slowly flowed within them; it had no color, no form, not even temperature.
【Formless Life Essence】.
That was the name the System gave it.
Jiang Chen could feel this power gradually repairing his damaged body. It wasn't fast, like a gentle hand carefully mending a tattered garment.
He tried to activate this power; as soon as the thought arose, a wisp of “Formless Life Essence” obediently separated from his Dantian and surged towards his broken ribs.
A tingling itch spread, and the pain rapidly diminished.
This thing… was more effective than any Spirit Pill or Spirit Medicine.
Moreover, it seemed to possess a peculiar “concealment” attribute; it stayed quietly within his body, and from the outside, he appeared no different from a Mortal with no cultivation.
Next, he focused his attention on his eyes.
【Eye of Insight (Elementary)】.
He opened his eyes again and looked outside.
The world had completely changed.
The raindrops were no longer raindrops, but extremely thin, faint silver lines, falling from the sky and merging into the earth—this was the most basic “Natural Momentum.”
A startled wild rabbit darted out from the grass nearby; on its body, Jiang Chen saw an equally slender, but vibrant orange line, wiggling crookedly towards a thicket to the west.
He subconsciously deciphered the information of that line.
【A common wild rabbit. In half a quarter of an hour, it will find a nest of fresh alfalfa in the thicket fifty zhang to the west.】
This was… destiny?
Even a rabbit's fate was prearranged?
Jiang Chen's heart inexplicably tightened.
He raised his hand and brought it before his eyes.
Through the “Eye of Insight,” he wanted to see his own fate trajectory.
However, there was nothing on his hand.
No gold lines, no silver lines, not even the faintest black lines.
His hand was just a hand—skin, bones, flesh, nothing more. It was as if he, as a person, simply did not exist on that giant net called “fate.”
That's right.
He wasn't “without fate.”
He was… unable to have his fate woven.
That's why he could act like a reckless man who stumbled into a chess game, casually messing up the intricate pieces.
In a flash of thought, he pulled out the item he had “taken” from Lin Feng's hand.
Thousand-Year Stone Stalactite.
It felt warm to the touch, like a piece of warm jade, with a faint, visible white halo lingering on its surface.
Under the gaze of the “Eye of Insight,” this Spirit Medicine looked different again.
It was entwined with layers of pure, almost transparent silk threads, each thread radiating vibrant vitality, filled with the aura of “growth,” “transformation,” and “nourishment.”
This was its original “fate.”
It should have been absorbed by Lin Feng, becoming part of his “Supreme Dao Foundation.”
Now, that fate had been forcibly interrupted.
Jiang Chen didn't hesitate, aiming the tip of the Stone Stalactite at his mouth and tilting his head slightly.
Instead of the imagined sweetness, a bitter, stony-smelling juice slid down his throat. Immediately after, that bitterness instantly transformed into a chilling torrent that rushed into his stomach.
“Ugh…”
Jiang Chen grunted, feeling as if his entire body had been thrown into an ice cellar.
But the next second, a scorching fire erupted from his Dantian!
Cold and hot, two completely opposite forces clashed wildly within him, like two out-of-control beasts tearing at each other.
His skin was sometimes pale as paper, covered in frost, and sometimes red as charcoal, emitting steam.
His bones groaned under the strain, and his Meridians felt as if they were about to be torn apart inch by inch.
This was not absorption; this was suicide!
Any other Cultivator would likely have exploded and died by now.
Yet, just as the two forces were about to destroy everything, the “Formless Life Essence” in his Dantian stirred.
They were like a school of sharks smelling blood, silently pouncing—not to suppress, not to harmonize, but to… devour.
Whether it was the bone-chilling cold or the body-scorching heat, once they touched the “Formless Life Essence,” they were like a mud ox entering the sea, instantly assimilated, dissolved, and ultimately transformed into the purest, attribute-less “Formless Life Essence” itself.
This process was extremely painful.
Jiang Chen felt as if his Soul had been ground on a millstone.
He didn't know how long passed, but when he finally broke free from that tearing sensation, the sky outside had already turned completely dark.
The rain had stopped.
He slowly exhaled, a strange medicinal fragrance accompanying his breath.
His internal and external injuries had actually healed by seventy to eighty percent.
More importantly, he could feel that the “Formless Life Essence” in his Dantian had grown several times stronger than before, flowing quietly within his body like a small stream that was beginning to take shape.
【Host absorbed “Thousand-Year Stone Stalactite,” Formless Life Essence increased by a total of 45 units.】
【Current total Formless Life Essence: 57 units.】
【Physical strength enhanced, Meridian toughness enhanced.】
The gains were immense.
Jiang Chen clenched his fist, feeling an unprecedented sense of power.
He stood up, ready to leave his temporary hiding spot, when his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of something.
In the corner of the tree hollow where he had been curled up, a palm-sized spider had already woven half a web.
The silver spider silk gleamed with a metallic luster in the faint light filtering through the gaps in the branches.
In the “Eye of Insight,” at the center of this web, there was an extremely thin thread of fate pointing towards the entrance of the hollow, foretelling a hapless moth that would fly into it.
Jiang Chen looked at the web, silent for a moment.
He reached out and, with two fingers, gently pinched a main strand of the spider web.
Then, he pulled.
The complete web instantly deformed and collapsed.
The spider crawled around the broken web in confusion for a couple of circles, seemingly not understanding what had happened.
Jiang Chen's “Eye of Insight” clearly saw that the thread of fate predicting the “moth” also quietly shattered and vanished into nothingness.
He didn't gain any power.
Because this spider was not a “Child of Destiny.” Its fate was too insignificant, and the backlash was negligible, unable to even be captured by the System.
Yet, a strange pleasure, mixed with a sense of control, surged within Jiang Chen's heart.
He withdrew his hand, not sparing the spider another glance, and turned to disappear into the darkness behind him.
Like a child who had found a new toy, he began to anticipate where the next “Child of Destiny” would appear.
And about an incense stick's worth of time after he left.
Two figures, like ghosts, landed beneath the tree where he had previously hidden.
Leading them was a white-haired, stern-faced Elder in a green robe, holding an ancient bronze Heavenly Secret Disc.
The Heavenly Secret Disc's needle was now trembling slightly, pointing in the direction Jiang Chen had left.
“Elder Zhao, the ‘Heavenly Secret Disc’ has reacted,” a middle-aged Disciple beside him whispered, a hint of excitement in his tone, “That traitor named Jiang Chen really didn’t die in the cave!”
The old man, addressed as Elder Zhao, ignored him, merely stroking the edge of the Heavenly Secret Disc with his finger, his eyes sinister.
“Not a traitor,” he spoke slowly, his voice hoarse, like two stones grinding together, “but an ‘anomaly.’ The ‘Fate Anchor Point’ of the Myriad Bat Cave was forcibly usurped, causing the entire plot node to collapse. Such an anomaly is intolerable to the Heavenly Dao.”
He raised his head, looking towards the dark dense forest where Jiang Chen had disappeared, his eyes devoid of anger, only a cold calm, as if a gardener was looking at a weed that must be uprooted.
“The Heavenly Dao has already issued a decree; correction begins.”
“Pursue.”
