269: Graft Curse

Three months later, when the alloy gate, strong enough to withstand solar storms, opened with a low rumble, Li Xue凝, Dean Li, and the others waiting outside looked at the man who emerged from within.

His face bore the fatigue that months of continuous work couldn't hide, but his eyes were exceptionally bright.

“You succeeded?”

Li Xue凝 went up to him.

“Mm.”

Su Lei looked at her, a hint of a smile appearing on his tired face.

He stepped aside, opening the passage to the laboratory.

“Come in and take a look; it’s a Meeting gift (jìan miàn lǐ - greeting gift) I’ve prepared for those guests who have come from afar.”

With curiosity and excitement, everyone entered the mysterious laboratory that had been sealed for three months.

However, the sight inside the laboratory instantly froze them.

The vast laboratory was empty.

In the very center of the laboratory, an eyeball floated silently.

It was a giant eyeball, over ten meters in diameter, made entirely of a translucent material between crystal and metal, emitting a faint glow.

Its pupil was a pure darkness, capable of devouring all light.

In the depths of that darkness, countless chains formed by golden Law power were faintly visible, flowing like breath.

“What… what is this?”

Dean Li, the doyen who had dedicated his life to human science, was the first to break free from the shock.

He pushed up his presbyopic glasses, which had slipped due to his astonishment, and his voice was dry.

As the Federation's top scientist, he could sense that this eyeball before him was not a creation that any known science could explain.

The Laws flowing within it, the aura it exuded, had far exceeded the scope of what he had learned in his lifetime.

It was a miracle of a higher dimension.

“I call it, Abyss Gaze.”

He looked at everyone: “It is a gift I’ve prepared for the prisoners in Purgatory who have been hungry for billions of years, a bait for them to taste the moment they descend.”

Abyss Gaze.

This was just a codename he had casually made up, a smokescreen to conceal his true intentions.

His real plan was far crazier and simpler than they imagined.

During the three months the laboratory was sealed, he used the computing power of the crown of wisdom to deduce over a hundred million times, and the final conclusion was only one: the hunter beacon curse attached to the key was unsolvable at the rule level.

Any attempt to solve a trap made of the rules themselves, within the rules, was futile.

The only way to break the situation was to overturn the chessboard.

Since I cannot become that beacon, then I will find an unlucky fellow to become the beacon for me.

A perfect sacrifice.

“Transmit my order.”

Su Lei turned, his gaze seemingly piercing through the walls of the bridge, looking towards the distant Star Domain.

His first command after coming out of seclusion echoed through the command center of the Spear of Indomitable Will with the highest authority.

“Order the Ghost Ship to recalibrate its course.

Destination, the chaotic Star Domain we came from.”

...Kuiper Belt, the ruins at the edge of the B798 asteroid belt.

This place, once a cosmic graveyard due to a battle between divine beings, gradually returned to its former tranquility after months of chaos.

Of course, this tranquility, characteristic of an outlaw territory, was built upon violence and bloodshed.

Countless interstellar scavengers and small pirate groups, like hyenas, gathered here, snatching the wreckage of warships and resources that survived the disaster.

In the deepest part of these ruins, three starship wrecks, like mountains, floated silently, their hulls covered with energy burns and huge holes, silently narrating their past encounters.

These were precisely the flagships of the three Suigu Town pirate fleets that Su Lei had instantly crippled.

At this moment, inside the bridge of the flagship Bloodsail, only suffocating despair remained.

On the bridge, hundreds of surviving pirates were confined in place by an invisible force, unable to move.

Their faces were filled with numbness.

In the past few hours, they had witnessed countless scavenging ships and small pirate ships, attempting to pick up scraps, being instantly twisted, compressed, and torn into pieces by an unknown force the moment they approached these wrecks.

They knew very well that the owner of this treasure trove, the man like a demon god, had returned.

Just as all the pirates thought they were about to be annihilated, a figure appeared without warning in the center of the bridge.

It was Su Lei.

“You, come here.”

The one-eyed pirate leader's body trembled.

He wanted to resist, to roar, but when his gaze met Su Lei's emotionless eyes, all his courage and ferocity were instantly shattered.

He felt as if he was being stared at by an ancient Vicious Beast.

Under that absolute suppression originating from his Soul, his body uncontrollably walked out of the crowd, step by step, to stand before Su Lei.

“M-master…”

He struggled to squeeze out two words from his dry throat.

“Very good.”

Su Lei nodded, extended his hand, and placed it on the one-eyed pirate's head.

A pure and domineering Divine Soul power surged into the other party's Sea of Consciousness.

“Ah!!”

The one-eyed pirate let out a scream that was not human.

He felt as if his Soul was being brutally stabbed with an iron poker, then violently stirred.

This excruciating pain, originating from the very Origin of his Soul, was far more terrifying than any physical torment.

Su Lei remained expressionless, ignoring the other party's screams and convulsions.

His Divine Soul power transformed into countless sharp surgical knives in the other party's Sea of Consciousness, brutally yet incredibly precisely stripping the one-eyed pirate's Soul Origin from his chaotic Sea of Consciousness.

Immediately after, he took out the Purgatory Key and gently pressed it against the one-eyed pirate's brow.

Using his vast Divine Soul power as a medium, he guided the curse power, which was attached to the key and twisting like a living thing, to graft onto the bundle of Soul Origin, full of sin and bloodshed, that he had stripped away.

This was his method of overturning the chessboard to break the situation: grafting the curse.

Since the curse targeted the user's Soul Origin, then all that was needed was to replace this Soul Origin with another person's.

This idea seemed simple, but in reality, it required two extremely stringent conditions.

The caster must possess Divine Soul power strong enough to guide and transfer the curse without damaging it.

The chosen vessel's Soul must be sufficiently dirty, evil, and filled with negative emotions; only such a Soul could perfectly bear the curse from Purgatory, which was also full of chaos and slaughter.

This one-eyed pirate leader, whose hands were stained with the blood of countless innocent people, was undoubtedly the most perfect sacrifice Su Lei could find.

The entire grafting process lasted ten minutes.

For ten minutes, the one-eyed pirate's screams never stopped.

His body convulsed violently under extreme pain, and white foam mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed from his mouth.

The surrounding pirates could only watch their leader endure this torture, not daring to even breathe loudly.