Panshi Fortress, Medical Center, Special Care Ward.
The pale light from the ceiling illuminated everything in the ward with stark clarity.
Chen Xue huddled in a chair in the corner of the ward, her hands clasped tightly in front of her chest, her knuckles white from the force.
Deep in her amber eyes, the nightmarish scene from the training ground lingered—Chu Hang's indifferent, god-like pointing, Ling Chen's instantly ashen, deathly still face, the spurting blood, the bottomless rule-created pit… and… Ling Chen's figure vanishing as if evaporated!
Fear and worry, like cold vines, tightly wrapped around her heart, making it almost impossible for her to breathe.
Lin Wei stood by the window, her back to the ward. Her Discernment ability, like the most precise radar, scanned the empty bed repeatedly, searching for the faint residual aura of Ling Chen in the air.
That aura… carried a heavy scent of blood and… a deep-seated, dying despair. But… the person… was gone! As if completely erased from this world by an invisible eraser!
She pursed her lips tightly, her gaze complex and unreadable. The last image captured by her Discernment was the abyss-like, fleeting cold will deep within Ling Chen's soul… That was definitely not something a heavily injured, dying person should possess! But… where was he? Could it be… that he was truly… completely annihilated by the rules?
The ward door was suddenly pushed open! Bringing with it a cold and oppressive gust of wind!
Qin Weiguo strode in like an enraged god cast in iron!
His face was as dark as the sea before a storm, his eyes burning with uncontrollable rage and… a hint of unexplainable surprise and doubt!
Behind him, Chu Hang was like a silent shadow, his pure white mask reflecting a cold sheen under the lights, his bottomless eyes calm and unruffled, yet seemingly containing a storm capable of devouring everything.
"Where is he?!" Qin Weiguo's gaze, like a tangible blade, swept over the empty bed instantly, landing on Chen Xue and Lin Wei, his voice low and full of pressure, "Where is Ling Chen?! Where is he?!"
Chen Xue suddenly stood up, tears instantly welling in her eyes, her voice choked with sobs and trembling: "Commander… Ling Chen… he… he's gone… at the training ground… he…"
"I know what happened at the training ground!" Qin Weiguo interrupted her sharply, his voice filled with undeniable authority, "I'm asking! Where is he! Now!"
"We… we don't know either…" Lin Wei turned around, her voice carrying a barely perceptible hoarseness, "He… disappeared… at the ventilation duct… the blood trail… also stopped…"
Qin Weiguo stared intently at the empty bed, then suddenly turned his head to look at Chu Hang! His gaze as sharp as an eagle's! "Chu Hang! Your rules! Where exactly did you send him?! Alive, I want to see him! Dead… I want to see his corpse!"
Chu Hang slowly raised his head. His gaze from beneath the mask calmly met Qin Weiguo's oppressive scrutiny. He did not answer immediately.
His vision, like the most precise probe, slowly swept over every corner of the ward. The air… still retained a strong scent of blood and… an extremely faint, yet unusually tenacious… trace of cold will.
That will… like a venomous snake lurking in the abyss, carried a… heart-pounding… sense of familiarity!
Just then!
Buzz—!!!
The space within the ward, without warning… violently twisted! Like a giant stone thrown into calm water! The air groaned under the strain! The light instantly became blurry and distorted! The monitoring instruments emitted a piercing alarm! The data on the screens flickered wildly!
Immediately after!
Thump—!!!
A dull sound, like a heavy object falling to the ground!
A figure, covered in blood and barely breathing, as if thrown violently from the void by an invisible giant hand, heavily crashed onto… the bed!
It was… Ling Chen!
He was covered in dark red, viscous, not yet fully coagulated blood! The bandage on his left arm was already completely soaked through with blood and torn! Revealing beneath… a gruesome, bloody wound, deep enough to expose bone!
His chest heaved violently, each breath accompanied by a wheezing, blood-flecked rasp, like an old bellows! His face was ashen, bloodless! His lips were cracked, and dark red frothy blood constantly overflowed from the corners of his mouth!
His eyes were tightly shut, his eyelids trembling violently, as if he was enduring unimaginable pain! His life force… was as faint as a candle in the wind! As if the next second… it would be completely extinguished!
"Ling Chen—!!!" Chen Xue let out a heart-wrenching scream!
She rushed to the bedside without hesitation! Silver light surged wildly from her palms! Like the gentlest stream, it instantly enveloped Ling Chen's broken body! Trying to soothe his pain and heal his wounds!
Lin Wei's pupils constricted! Her Discernment instantly locked onto Ling Chen!
She clearly "saw"! Inside Ling Chen's body… multiple internal organs were ruptured! His meridians were broken inch by inch! His bones were covered in cracks! His mental core was like a glass lamp covered in spiderwebs! On the verge of complete collapse!
That intense, almost life-devouring aura of death… was so real… that it made her soul tremble! This… was definitely not an act!
Qin Weiguo and Chu Hang's gazes, like four cold searchlights, were fixed on the suddenly appearing Ling Chen!
Shock! Disbelief! Absurdity!
He disappeared! Under the rule's judgment! In plain sight! Disappeared deep inside the ventilation duct! As if he had evaporated! And then… as if he were trash… from the void… thrown back into the ward?!
What… what on earth was going on?!
"Uh… cough cough cough…" Ling Chen's body suddenly twitched! He coughed violently! Large, dark red blood clots with fragments of internal organs poured from his mouth! Splashing onto the white sheets! A shocking sight! He "laboriously" and slowly… opened his eyes!
Those eyes… were unfocused! Lifeless! Filled with extreme pain! Confusion! And… a hint of… faint light… like someone who had crawled back from hell, having survived a catastrophe!
He "blankly" rotated his eyeballs, his gaze "struggling" to focus on Qin Weiguo and Chu Hang. His lips moved, emitting an extremely faint, mosquito-like, intermittent sound:
"Space… space… torn… so… so painful… I… I feel like… I was… torn apart… and then… then thrown… back…"
Space torn?! Thrown back?!
Qin Weiguo's pupils suddenly constricted! He sharply turned his head! His gaze, like burning flames, fiercely pierced Chu Hang! "Chu Hang! What is going on?! Your rules… also have a teleportation function?!"
Chu Hang… was silent.
Beneath his pure white mask, those bottomless eyes, for the first time… showed extremely clear… fluctuations! Confusion! Surprise! And even… a hint of… unexplainable… bewilderment!
His rule… was the "Protagonist's Law"! It was the distortion of causality! It was the forceful rewriting of reality by will! It was the absolute judgment of "villains die from talking too much"! It was the compulsory halo of "protagonists don't die"!
But… teleportation? Space tearing? Throwing the target back into the ward?
This… completely exceeded his understanding of his own abilities! Exceeded… the script's setting!
He slowly raised his hand. At his fingertips, an extremely faint, almost transparent wisp of dark purple energy residue, like a wisp of smoke, coiled and flickered around his fingertips.
That was… the residual mark of the rule's judgment. Within the mark… there seemed to be… a hint of… an extremely unfamiliar, chaotic fluctuation with the characteristic of space tearing?
Could it be… that during the rule's judgment, the energy went out of control, accidentally triggering a space tear?
Sending him away? And then… due to some unknown rule echo… throwing him back?
Is this… possible?
Chu Hang's gaze once again fell on Ling Chen, who was on the bed, barely breathing, as if he could die at any moment. That real dying state… that unfeigned pain and fear from the depths of his soul… that intensely pungent smell of blood…
Everything… pointed to one fact—his rule's judgment just now… indeed heavily injured him! Almost killed him! The space tear… was just an… unexplainable… accident?
"Rules…" Chu Hang slowly began, his voice still cold, but with a barely perceptible… hesitation and… confusion, "The judgment… touched… the spatial barrier? Causing… an unknown… anomaly?"
He paused, his gaze from beneath the mask sweeping over Ling Chen's gruesome injuries, and finally… resting on Qin Weiguo's oppressive face.
"He… is back." Chu Hang's voice returned to calm, with an almost indifferent statement, "The rule… completed its… judgment. Heavily injured… dying. But… an accident… brought him… back to… the origin."
Origin? The ward?
Qin Weiguo stared intently at Chu Hang! Then stared intently at Ling Chen, who was coughing up blood on the bed! The doubts in his heart were like boiling magma! Rule judgment? Space tearing? Accidental teleportation? Heavily injured and dying? Back to the origin?
This explanation… was too absurd! Too… coincidental!
But… looking at Ling Chen's real, gruesome injuries!
Looking at Chen Xue's desperate silver light healing! Looking at the precarious vital signs on the monitoring instruments! Looking at Chu Hang's eyes, revealing confusion for the first time beneath his mask…
He… couldn't find any evidence to refute it!
Could it be… truly just… an unexplainable rule accident?
"Cough cough… ugh ah…" Ling Chen coughed violently again! His body curled up like a shrimp! More blood foam overflowed from the corner of his mouth! He "painfully" groaned, his eyes unfocused, as if he could fall into a coma again at any moment.
"Commander! He… he's dying! We must rescue him immediately!" Chen Xue cried out hysterically, her voice choked with sobs! Silver light surged wildly into Ling Chen's body, but it was like a mud ox entering the sea! Only barely able to maintain that faint spark of life!
Her ability only eliminated debuffs; its actual healing effect was not strong.
Qin Weiguo clenched his fists tightly! His fingernails dug deep into his palms! He looked at Ling Chen's dying state, then at the silent Chu Hang. Finally… he violently waved his hand!
"Full effort to save him! Save… his life!" His voice was low and hoarse, carrying an extremely suppressed rage and… a hint of unexplainable… powerlessness.
He turned and strode out of the ward! His retreating figure… carried a heavy weariness and… a lingering… gloom!
Chu Hang took one last look at Ling Chen on the bed. His brow beneath the mask, very subtly… furrowed.
The wisp of dark purple rule residue on his fingertip silently vanished.
The rules… seemed… not to have followed his script entirely.
This "extra" named Ling Chen… seemed to be entangled with some kind of… unexpected factor… that even the "Protagonist's Law" couldn't completely cover?
He did not linger.
His figure, as if merging into the shadows, silently disappeared at the ward door.
Inside the ward. Only Chen Xue's anxious calls, the monotonous hum of the instruments, and… Ling Chen's faint and painful gasps remained.
After everyone had left.
On the bed. Deep within Ling Chen's unfocused eyes, a cold and… playful glint… flashed and disappeared.
The Soul Jade Physique's cold will, like the most precise instrument, precisely controlled every cell of his body. Simulating the intense pain of ruptured internal organs! Simulating the convulsions of broken meridians! Simulating the unfocused state of mental collapse! Simulating… that intensely strong… dying aura!
Perfect! Flawless!
Rule teleportation? Accidental return?
This explanation… Chu Hang believed it. Qin Weiguo… for now, could only believe it too.
Because… they couldn't explain it. Couldn't explain why the rules would "lose control." Couldn't explain why space would "tear."
And even more, couldn't explain… how a "heavily injured and dying" person could "luckily" survive under the rule's judgment and "accidentally" return to the ward.
But all of this was merely Ling Chen subtly employing the power of his Reverse Scale set, causing his speed to increase dozens of times over in an instant, creating the illusion of spatial teleportation.
The unknown… is the breeding ground of fear. And also… the best cover.
Ling Chen slowly closed his eyes. At the corner of his mouth, in the unnoticed shadow, a very subtle… cold arc curved upwards.
The storm… temporarily subsided.
But no one knew that a massive beast tide would arrive in five days.
He needed… to conserve his strength. Waiting for… the final… harvest moment.