Strictly speaking, this wasn’t the first time Gu Shen had killed a transcendent.

But this time, the influence of the Ruler of Truth on his decision-making had been significantly reduced.

From the beginning to the end, Gu Shen was absolutely rational every moment.

This was the first time he had killed with a sober consciousness.

The girl and the shadow were embracing each other, collapsed in the dirty mud. Her beautiful face gradually lost color; a thin, narrow hole opened between her pale brow; and warm liquid flowed out. She was like a bird that had fallen asleep and was hibernating.

After confirming that the aura of her life had disappeared, Gu Shen withdrew from the state of activating the Ruler of Truth. The sense of weightlessness from falling from the peak instantly assaulted his mind. He slowly squatted down as the entire world spun. It was only through sheer willpower that he maintained a final trace of clarity in his mind.

The first thing Gu Shen did was to check the silver scissors. The once shining silver scissors in the pool of blood had become dim. His previous guess was right. It wasn’t a sealed object but one imbued with Qu Shui’s ability, allowing it to cut shadows. After she died, the scissors reverted back to an ordinary item.

Then he silently gazed at the eternally sleeping girl and called Hu Danian.

“Hello, who is it?” Hu Danian, who had not slept well for a week, had been in a deep dream when the phone call suddenly woke him up. He was obviously not in a good mood.

“It’s me, Gu Shen. The insomnia caused by the Solemn Stone Sculpture and the serial murder case in River Shoal are two separate cases,” Gu Shen said calmly. “That serial killer… is with me.”

“What???” Hu Danian was instantly wide awake.

It took him another five seconds to react.

Trying his best to digest the immense amount of information in Gu Shen’s short sentence, Hu Danian hurriedly asked, “Are you… alright?”

“Well, I’m still alive.” Gu Shen glanced at the scene. “But I’m not in good shape and won’t be able to hold on for long. I need you to deal with the scene… I’m now in the No.97 cave in River Shoal…”

Though this place was remote, it was only in the middle of the night that no one would pass by.

Once dawn broke, it was hard to say.

He had used the Ruler of Truth twice, and his mental power was already on the verge of collapse. If he pushed himself further, he could hold on for ten minutes, half an hour at most.

After a brief exchange of information, Hu Danian said anxiously, “Hang in there. I’m coming!”

He hung up.

Gu Shen took another deep breath. The feeling of overdrawing his mind for the second time today was terrible. It was as though a black hole had opened at the top of his skull, and his willpower and consciousness were about to be sucked into the black hole. It was like he had drunk too much, and he felt he could black out at any moment.

No!

I can’t fall asleep!

He gritted his teeth and summoned the Blazing Fire again. When the warm fire dispelled the darkness, his body felt much warmer.

To stay conscious, Gu Shen began forcing himself to think.

Transcendental essence…

This term jumped into his mind.

When solving the mass insomnia case, Gu Shen had felt the transcendental essence that Chu Ling mentioned for the first time.

His Blazing Fire was a transcendental ability with extremely high growth potential, but it was still weak and needed to rely on absorbing essence to strengthen itself. However, the transcendental essence from the Solemn Stone Sculpture was quite limited, and the benefits of repeatedly using hypnosis to remove the mental imprints were minimal.

After all, they were merely imprints from a Class D sealed object.

In consideration of handing in the mission, Gu Shen didn’t intend to take the risk of extracting the transcendental essence of the stone sculpture itself. There was a high chance that this sealed object would undergo a thorough examination. At present, he didn’t want to expose his transcendental ability in front of outsiders.

Under the enhancement of the Blazing Fire, the colors in his vision changed.

The riverbank of River Shoal was no longer dark but divided into clusters of color, and the most striking one… was Qu Shui.

As the world faded from the night, the girl became the sole patch of black.

A small black spot lay among the vibrant colors, as though it had absorbed all the darkness in the world.

Is this the… essence of a transcendent? Gu Shen gazed at the dead girl in the Blazing Fire world.

In the real world, after Qu Shui died, blood flowed out from between her eyebrows and formed a pool of blood. In the vision covered by the Blazing Fire, wisps of shadows were converging toward her like snakes. These shadows were the result of the attraction of her ability spreading autonomously. But now that she was dead, the shadows slithering back and forth over the pool of blood couldn’t be contained.

Some shadows were already beginning to dissipate.

Judging from this sign, it wouldn’t be long before the transcendental essence dissipated entirely and no longer gathered in her body.

The essence of transcendents… will dissipate into the world upon their death, he concluded in mind. No… the word dissipate isn’t accurate.

Even in Gu Shen’s extreme exhaustion, his mind still worked quickly.

Transcendental essence… should always exist in the world, just like air. Most transcendents can’t see it, but it is undeniably present. When transcendental breathing techniques are in operation, the essence is absorbed and stored. When a transcendent dies, it is released.

But it won’t dissipate. It will only return to the unseen ‘Void’ and then go through some kind of cycle to another place that can store it. Therefore, even lifeless sealed objects can have transcendental essence as long as they meet the conditions for storage.

If I want to strengthen my Blazing Fire, I need to absorb all kinds of essences. The essence from my breathing technique, the essence from sealed objects, and the essence from other transcendents can all become ‘nourishment’ for my Blazing Fire.

As soon as this thought emerged, Gu Shen’s eyes landed on Qu Shui. According to this situation, my Blazing Fire should be a mental-type transcendental ability. But how am I going to take away her essence?

Gu Shen thought about it and felt that there was only one way.

Immerse the Blazing Fire into Qu Shui’s mind.

Logically speaking, the girl was already dead, and her consciousness had already dissipated, so she shouldn’t have a mind left.

However, after removing the imprints of the stone sculpture a few times, Gu Shen had familiarized himself with his Blazing Fire ability.

Unlike ordinary mental-type transcendental abilities, the Blazing Fire seemed to have an incredible sensing power. He could sense the mental and spiritual fluctuations carried by living beings and objects. Under the power of the Blazing Fire, these fluctuations could be established into order and then constructed into a dream with symbolic meanings.

From Zhou Yexin, the Blazing Fire had seen the dream that had remained for more than ten years.

The shadows on her body still contain very powerful mental fluctuations. If I want to absorb the essence, I can only try this way. Gu Shen wiped his face hard, pulled himself together, and decided to give it a try before he lost consciousness.

Swoosh.

Under the control of Gu Shen’s will, the small flame attached to his glabella slowly left and landed on Qu Shui’s glabella. The wound where a bloody hole had been opened gave off a faint smell of burnt flesh under the Blazing Fire’s scorching.

Although the Blazing Fire had only displayed the hypnotic power of the mental type, it was still a physical flame with an extremely high temperature.

Except for the Blazing Fire’s master, Gu Shen, anyone else who came into contact with it would be burned by it.

Since it possessed heat, it could burn physical objects.

This also meant that… if this small flame could grow into a fiery tide that could burn down tens of thousands of ghosts in the Cage of Ghosts one day, then burning down a city would be as simple as a flick of the wrist.

In just two seconds, blood no longer flowed from the bloody hole on Qu Shui’s forehead. With the descent of the Blazing Fire, the extremely high temperature directly evaporated the blood flowing out.

In the colorful River Shoal, the small black shadow finally made contact with the Blazing Fire.

The world returned to darkness.

The river water surged and roared.

Gu Shen leaned against the muddy stone wall of No. 97 cave, lowered his head slightly, and sank into a ‘slumber’.

…

Tired.

Very, very, very tired.

Tired to the point of not wanting to open his eyes, he just wanted to keep sleeping like this forever.

His body was like a piece of seaweed that was repeatedly pounded by the heavy waves of the sea and repeatedly crushed by the invisible undercurrents.

Falling.

Falling.

A resounding smack exploded like thunder.

Gu Shen abruptly woke up.

A large hand picked him up from a bathtub, and he felt a fiery sting on left cheek. Before he could react, another slap landed on his right cheek.

“You pig!”

The person holding him was a skinny man. His refined round-framed glasses were fogged up, but his face was full of ferocity. After the two slaps, Gu Shen’s consciousness returned. The Blazing Fire had immersed him in Qu Shui’s residual dream.

Even though the owner was already dead, Gu Shen still couldn’t move his body freely.

The sensations now were abnormally real.

He could feel his limbs, but they felt as though they were filled with lead. Similarly, his mind was extremely exhausted, but it was a completely different exhaustion compared to overusing the Ruler of Truth. What was surging in his mind at all times was despair, as if his consciousness were on the brink of giving up at any moment.

Is this… Qu Shui’s father?

The man’s face was vaguely overlapping with the silhouette he had seen in the Profile world… It was very similar.

Just as this realization surfaced…

Smack!

The third slap came hard, making Gu Shen reel in dizziness and feel like vomiting. He had submerged into Qu Shui’s perspective.

The girl was knocked backward, and half of her body slipped out of the bathtub. At this moment, Gu Shen saw ‘his reflection’ in the mirror. It was a small and skinny body without any sense of beauty to speak of. It was covered in wounds and scars, and there were several fresh cuts oozing crimson on her wrists. After soaking in cold water, her flesh had shriveled up, creating a ghastly sight.

Were those scars on Qu Shui’s wrists… inflicted at this time?

From the corner of his eye, he saw a body… dismembered and scattered, with beautiful long hair wet with crimson blood.

Intense discomfort surged throughout his body.

It finally settled in his stomach.

The girl cried out and seemed to want to vomit, but her throat felt sour. Perhaps because she had not eaten for too long, she retched but only vomited some acidic water.

“Daddy…” A broken cry came from the girl’s throat. She curled up and pleaded desperately, “No… please…”

Other than Gu Shen, no one else witnessed it.

In the bathtub, a dark shadow loomed larger and larger, like a shark about to leap out of the sea.

This wasn’t a dream… It was the reality recorded by the transcendental essence. It was the scene when Qu Shui awakened transcendence.

A man who had lost his mind.

And a girl struggling bitterly to persist.

This shattered and agonizing dream fully bloomed the moment the black shadow propped itself up in the bathtub and broke through the water.

The man’s shocked and panicked face was instantly engulfed by the black shadow. Countless black shadows entered his eyes, nose, and mouth, almost causing his body to burst apart. He was slammed into the wall by the strong impact and slid down weakly. Meanwhile, the girl still remained curled up…

There were always unfortunate souls played for fools by fate in this world. The moment they awakened transcendence, because of intense mental stimulation, they directly became out-of-control individuals.

She was a one-in-a-thousand lucky person yet also a one-in-a-million suffering person.

Suddenly, Gu Shen felt that he had regained his freedom. After enduring the intense pain, he was no longer confined within the girl’s small body. Instead, he slowly stood up, and his illusory consciousness turned into a ball of Blazing Fire.

As a third party, he entered this reality-imbued dream.

The Blazing Fire swirled and condensed into a physical form.

Gu Shen silently observed the girl curled up in the corner of the bathroom and then glanced at the unconscious man on the floor.

Guided by the Blazing Fire… he witnessed this dream. It was the purest spirit remaining in Qu Shui’s transcendental essence.

Once they lost control, transcendents would have no rationality to speak of, and their actions would be entirely guided by their essence.

And in this essence, Gu Shen only sensed… suffering and torment.

This was why her behavior had been so erratic, so crazy.

Her father had killed her mother and was about to kill her too. Under such despair, even without the transcendental awakening, Qu Shui would have still suffered a mental breakdown.

The Blazing Fire appeared in front of Gu Shen again.

It pulsated slowly, transmitting a clear mental fluctuation.

Gu Shen looked at the curled-up girl. In this dream, the ‘transcendental essence’ he wanted to absorb should be within her.

Would he have to kill her again to seize the essence?

Gu Shen was silent.

Silence lingered for a long time before he approached.

…

“Cold… cold…” The girl was trembling as she huddled in a corner with her arms wrapped around herself.

She didn’t dare to look at anyone, and every pore of her body was quivering. Thousands of black shadows wrapped around her, wanting to form a big cocoon.

The entire world turned black.

All light vanished; darkness engulfed.

… Until a large, clean bath towel covered her.

Qu Shui stiffened.

She struggled to raise her head, only to see the blurry outline of a figure. This person’s entire body was pitch-black and chaotic. However, there was a very small but warm flame floating between his eyebrows.

“Put it on… It will feel better.”

When the figure’s voice fell into the trembling girl’s ears, it was as though a glimmer of fiery light had suddenly appeared and illuminated the dark world. The tiny flame blocked the thousands of large shadows from engulfing her and closing her within a cocoon.

Looking at the trembling girl, Gu Shen sighed softly and said to the Blazing Fire, “If I have to kill her again before I can take the essence, I… can’t do it.”

Killing Qu Shui had been because she was already an out-of-control individual.

Tonight in River Shoal, it had been either you die and I live, or you live and I die.

But now, the pitiful girl in this dream was just a suffering person wandering in the illusions of nothingness.

He would never show mercy to enemies… But he couldn’t bring himself to act against someone like her.

Even in a dream, he couldn’t deceive himself and act against his principles.

The Blazing Fire seemed to understand Gu Shen’s words and swayed gently in response.

After Gu Shen made his choice, the surroundings of this dream began to collapse, and the colors faded away. The transcendental essence attached to Qu Shui gradually began to dissipate on its own due to her death.

“Let’s leave it at that,” Gu Shen said calmly. “There will be other opportunities to absorb essence in the future.”

He looked back once more and prepared to leave this dream.

Suddenly, a voice called out to him. “Big Brother…”

In the collapsing dream, the tearful girl’s voice slowly bloomed as the mirror shattered. “Thank you…”

The transcendental essence symbolizing madness, anger, and venting suddenly calmed down.

“The fire between your eyebrows… is so beautiful… I fell in love with it at first sight…”

The dream collapsed.

The girl smiled gently and stretched out her hand.

In her pale palm lay a small black cocoon.