Chapter Forty-Eight: A Helping Hand

Every capital city had a Transcendence Bureau, branches established by the headquarters of the Bureau in all major cities. Of course, the headquarters itself was not located in any city, but hidden somewhere on the continent, shrouded in secrecy.

At this moment, in an office, the Director of the Transcendence Bureau of the City of Energy, Yu Zhi, and the Director of the Transcendence Bureau of the City of Steel, Yu Ya, were gathered. The two were siblings.

Yu Ya crossed her legs, gently swaying them, occasionally revealing a tantalizing glimpse of black beneath her lab coat. Her fingers were long and delicate, as refined as jade shoots, her nails meticulously trimmed and coated with polish that gleamed under the light. One hand held a dossier she was examining, the other gripped the handle of her coffee cup; she inhaled the aroma before taking a delicate sip. The rim of the white porcelain cup was marked with a faint red imprint from her lips.

On the coffee table before the sofa lay a heap of unwashed plates, their greasy remnants congealed. Yu Ya seemed accustomed to such surroundings; she leaned forward to place her cup on the edge of the table, her movement unconsciously accentuating her alluring figure.

By contrast, Director Yu Zhi, seated behind the desk, looked disheveled: his beard scruffy, hair tangled, dark circles under his eyes, his face gaunt. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth as he smoked indifferently. Even as ash fell onto the desk, he couldn’t be bothered to clean it, continuing to scribble notes. Only when the butt began to burn his lips did he reluctantly stub it out in a nearby drink can—the ashtray at hand was already overflowing with cigarette stubs, leaving no room for more.

He reached for another cigarette from the box on the desk, placed it in his mouth, and with a crisp click of the lighter, Yu Ya’s brow furrowed from across the room. How annoying—it's his fault I constantly smell of smoke!

Just then, a screen beside Yu Zhi’s desk suddenly flickered with a red border, accompanied by sharp alarm beeps. It was a surveillance monitor for the Bureau’s key rooms; a red alert meant a sensor had been triggered somewhere inside. Both were startled by the sudden sound.

Yu Ya set down her documents and looked toward the desk, her cold, striking gaze flashing with vigilance, though she could see nothing. Yu Zhi, upon identifying the source of the alarm, sprang up with a thud, banging his head on the edge of the desk and grimacing in pain. Ignoring the throbbing, he pressed the intercom button urgently: “Hey! Yuanzi, what’s going on?”

As soon as he spoke, the cigarette dropped from his mouth, rolling off the desk and onto the floor. Yu Zhi instinctively realized there was plenty of waste paper at his feet; if he didn’t snuff out the cigarette, his office might soon fill with smoke. Everything here was his life's work. Stifling his anxiety, he bent down to retrieve the butt.

Meanwhile, in the Internal Value Detection Room, Yuanzi suddenly heard the director’s voice over the broadcast, as if a lost ship had found its lighthouse. She looked up at the surveillance camera, her voice trembling, almost in tears: “Director, something terrible has happened! The liquid in the container has turned red! I don’t know what to do!”

“What?!”

“That’s impossible!” Yu Zhi and Yu Ya exclaimed in unison.

Yu Zhi, still bent over, found the cigarette butt near the waste paper, quickly stood up, and banged his head again, wincing in pain. But he ignored it, yelling into the intercom, “Yuanzi, why are you just standing there? Cut off the detector manually and activate the drainage system—I’m on my way!”

Yuanzi nodded frantically. Since the control panel had failed, she should have thought of manual shutdown sooner... She hoped the person in the container was still alive.

After shouting, Yu Zhi hurried out from behind his desk, only to see Yu Ya had already slipped out ahead of him. By the time he reached the elevator, Yu Ya was already descending. Staring at the closed elevator doors, Yu Zhi felt a sharp pang in his teeth.

...

Inside the container.

In Ye Chen’s consciousness, he sensed nothing but endless darkness, cold and viscous, stirring terror and unease within him.

Damn it, this faulty detector is going to kill me!

Why won’t it stop?

If he hadn’t realized something had gone wrong with this test by now, he’d be a fool. To resist the mounting pressure, Ye Chen unhesitatingly activated his Breathing Technique, beast markings appearing across his face.

Bubbles beneath the mask's tubing surged upward in strange, large clusters. His heart, marked with a beast’s tooth, beat rapidly, like an engine about to explode.

Under deliberate control, his breathing was even faster than during normal practice.

In the next moment, he felt the pressure around him ease noticeably—but before he could rejoice, he was horrified to find that the Breathing Technique he’d instinctively triggered seemed to enrage the liquid in the container.

It was as if water had been splashed into boiling oil—the container erupted.

The liquid binding his body suddenly tightened its grip, as if it wished to crush him into blood and pulp.

In the darkness of his consciousness, Ye Chen felt himself sinking faster, plunging toward a bottomless abyss.

He gritted his teeth, intensifying his breathing to restore his internal value, though it was being consumed even more rapidly.

Unfortunately, the depletion far outpaced recovery.

Ye Chen cursed inwardly—why was his internal value so pitifully low?

Soon, blood began seeping from his mouth, nose, and ears. Next, his skin split open everywhere, hot blood gushing from every wound. The lacerations multiplied; at this rate, his body would soon be entirely flayed.

The surrounding liquid grew as scorching as lava, burning his flesh, pain tearing at him from every inch of skin.

Before long, the darkness around him began to shift, a faint red light emerging.

The red glow intensified, breaking through the gloom.

Yet this bizarre light offered no comfort; it was saturated with violence, bloodlust, and cruelty.

Ye Chen seemed to glimpse the end of his descent—a place where the red glow blazed, crimson liquid whirling in a vortex.

Just waiting for him to fall and be devoured whole.

The raging internal energy within Ye Chen made his meridians sting, threatening to rupture at any moment. Each heartbeat throbbed with agony, as if his heart could bear no more.

Never before had he used the Breathing Technique so recklessly.

Soon, his mere 57 points of internal value were nearly exhausted. Even if he managed to recover one point, it would instantly drop back to zero.

It’s over, this time I’m really finished...

Imprisoned, Ye Chen found himself with no means left to stave off death.

But at the brink of oblivion, an unexpected lifeline appeared.

Suddenly, in his consciousness, the door below the internal value indicator burst open, flooding his world with milky-white energy.

Its hue matched the energy coursing through his meridians, but it was purer, denser.

This energy spilled from the realm of his mind into his meridians, revitalizing the depleted flow.

Simultaneously, Ye Chen’s breathing technique changed.

He could not see it, but the beast markings on his face were replaced by another pattern.

The robust energy surged within him, endlessly, disregarding any concern for depletion. It actively repaired his damaged organs, and the wounds on his body began to heal rapidly.

Ye Chen sensed the change in his breathing, the rhythm of his heart strange and unfamiliar. Yet he could not control it, only let it function on its own.

At the same time, he realized he was dangerously close to the vortex's mouth, an invisible, immense force pulling him downward.

Perhaps in the next second, he would be swallowed whole.

“I refuse to die like this!” Ye Chen roared inwardly.

Suddenly, he felt a force pulling him upward, halting his descent.

He managed to look up—at some point, the door to his consciousness had appeared above his head.

Even more bizarre, a pitch-black chain dangled from within.

The chain seemed to descend from the sky, reaching into the abyss and wrapping around his waist.

In the next instant, the chain snapped taut, pulling him upward, though the vortex’s suction dragged him back.

A struggle ensued.

Ye Chen gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead, cold sweat soaking his back and dissolving into the liquid.

Ugh... the pain—it felt as if his body would be torn in two!

The contest lasted a full three minutes; just as Ye Chen was about to succumb to numbness, the vortex below began to close, the red light fading at a visible pace, the suction quickly diminishing.

As one force waned and the other grew, the pull at his waist surged, giving Ye Chen a sense of soaring skyward...