152: Chapter 152 The World Within the Cocoon
Where... am I?
My consciousness feels as if it is floating in a vast, endless, and warm ocean.
This ocean is very peculiar.
The blue represents the gentle life aura belonging to Blue Star.
The gold represents the overbearing law energy belonging to the Xuan Realm.
And the gray represents the deathly, chaotic power belonging to the Desolate Ruins.
Three completely different energies collide, entangle, and fuse within this ocean in a marvelous yet violent aesthetic manner.
And my consciousness simply drifts with the tide in this chaotic ocean.
My memories are fragmented.
Countless memory fragments belonging to my past life as 'Mo Wen' revolve slowly around me like twinkling stars.
I see my ordinary yet warm childhood; I see my youth spent rushing about for a living; I even see myself lying on a hospital bed, feeling my life slip away bit by bit... the powerlessness and... the resentment.
Countless memory fragments belonging to my current life as a 'mosquito' also flash frantically around me.
From the confusion of breaking out of the shell for the first time, to the ecstasy of drinking that scalding blood for the first time, and then to the shock of seeing that god-like, high-and-mighty Girl in White Robes for the first time.
The mosquito's, the human's...
The past life's, the current life's...
Countless memories, countless fragments, and countless versions of 'me' continuously fuse and separate within this chaotic ocean.
Who am I?
Am I that youth from Earth, 'Mo Wen', who died with resentment on a hospital bed?
Or am I this reincarnated mosquito, struggling to survive in this cruel world through devouring and evolution?
My consciousness falls into an unprecedented... confusion and... chaos.
I feel as though I am being assimilated and decomposed, bit by bit, by this chaotic ocean.
I am about to dissipate completely.
However, just at this moment—
"Buzz—!"
From the deepest depths of my chaotic and collapsing sea of consciousness, the myriad manifestations evolution codex, which had been silent like a background element, suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, dazzling... golden light!
That golden light was like a sun at the dawn of creation, instantly illuminating my endless, dark sea of consciousness!
At this moment, that ancient codex seemed to have completely come 'alive'!
It was no longer a cold 'system' that only knew how to issue tasks.
It turned into a massive, greedy furnace that seemed capable of devouring everything!
In an incredibly domineering and unreasonable manner, it frantically pulled, devoured, and compressed that chaotic ocean composed of the three violent planar energies toward itself!
Then, using my last shred of true spirit—which was swaying precariously in the storm—as the 'core', it began a deep-level, 'life-reshaping' frantic transformation of me!
Intense pain!
An agonizing pain originating from the very source of my soul, ten thousand times more painful than being torn apart by spatial turbulence, suddenly submerged me completely!
I felt my soul, my consciousness, and my everything being crushed and reassembled over and over again by that golden furnace!
I wailed, I struggled!
I wanted to give up!
However, at the very instant I was about to be completely swallowed by that endless pain—
An incredibly familiar, cold, yet strangely tender and firm voice seemed to cross endless time and space to ring directly in the depths of my soul.
"Mo Wen, don't be afraid."
"I am here."
That was Lin Qingzhi's voice!
Her voice was like a bolt of lightning cutting through the endless darkness, or like a lighthouse that would never go out in a violent storm, instantly providing direction for my lone boat that was about to sink in the chaotic sea!
For the first time, it wasn't through the Symbiotic Bond.
Instead, I 'saw' her from the level of the soul.
I 'saw' her holding a blood-colored, faintly warm insect cocoon, walking with difficulty through a gray-white world without light, filled with death and despair.
I 'saw' her pale, bloodless face and those cold yet determined phoenix eyes.
I 'saw' the will to protect contained within her fragile body—a body that looked like it could collapse at any moment—a will powerful enough to move heaven and earth!
I even 'saw' a corner of her proud, Emperor's heart—which had always been covered in hard ice—slowly melting for me.
And beneath that corner lay a loneliness and fragility that even she herself had never noticed.
So...
So it turns out she isn't actually that indestructible.
It turns out she also needs... protection.
A feeling of equal love that I had never experienced before, filled with the desire to respond to her mountain-heavy protection, erupted from the deepest part of my soul!
No!
I cannot sink like this!
I want to go back!
I want to return to her side!
I want to tell her personally!
This time, it's my turn... to protect you!
"Boom—!"
Under the strong call of external emotions and the frantic guidance of the internal codex, those three violent energies that were originally conflicting and repelling each other within my body miraculously reached a perfect... balance!
Centering on my brand new, incredibly tough soul, they began to rapidly rotate, compress, and condense!
Finally, at the core of my completely reshaped, brand new body, they condensed into a grain-sized, chaotic-colored object that seemed capable of devouring all light...
An Embryonic Demon Core!
As this Embryonic Demon Core condensed, a terrifying aura that seemed ready to rule the world and make all demons submit flashed from within my body!
The moment of breaking the cocoon is about to... arrive!
And at this very moment—
In that deathly and dangerous cave in the Desolate Ruins, a tiny crack suddenly appeared on the surface of the blood-colored cocoon that Lin Qingzhi was holding tightly in her arms with a 'crack'.