Super Gene

The Blood-Pulse Sutra’s geno core was a miniature version of Han Sen himself. It was like a little figurine, shaped to replicate his body perfectly.

As Han Sen stared at it, his bewilderment heightened, as something most strange occurred.

It was as if he was watching time itself rewind around the miniature; he actually watched it get younger. It went backwards, becoming a teenager, a child, a baby, a fetus, and then blood.

Bronze Geno Core: Bronze Real Blood

Han Sen did not know what to say, and it felt as if his lingering thoughts had been left suspended. It was a strange sensation, seeing a figurine of himself grow younger in less than a minute.

“Child, the trail you tread is one you must blaze yourself. This is all I can do to help you.”

The light that hovered on the tablet then departed the stone, becoming the white-clothed man again. And this time, Han Sen was able to see his face.

Han Sen was certain he had never seen this man before. He did not look like Han Sen’s father, grandfather, or even his great-grandfather.

The man didn’t resemble Han Sen himself, either. They didn’t look at all related, so the reason why the man constantly referred to Han Sen as his child was completely unknown.

“Who are you? The leader of Blood Legion?” Han Sen asked, his raised voice gilded with a certain sternness.

The white-clothed man merely smiled, and he said, “Remember, your fate is not pre-determined. It is forged through your will and desire; no external, higher power governs it.”

After that, the light on the tablet began to fade, and the man alongside it. All that remained was the faceless tablet in the center of the lake. At that same moment, all the plants in the shelter came alive, crying rivers of blood as if to summon a world-ending flood.

“If that guy was the leader of Blood Legion, I wouldn’t be surprised. But even though he looked human, he carried the aura of a spirit,” Han Sen thought to himself.

At this point, Han Sen was relieved that he had taken the time and been fortunate enough to learn and practice both the Blood-Pulse Sutra and Life Door. Had he skipped one of those, it was highly likely he wouldn’t have been standing where he was at that moment. Repeatedly, people had come to believe he was a successor to Blood Legion, so it was certainly paying dividends, bit-by-bit, in his investigations.

The strangest thing, though, was that his Nine-Life Cat pendant was a relic that supposedly belonged to Blood Legion. Even here, of all places, it did not resonate any sort of power. It was as lifeless as it had been over the previous days.

If that man was the leader of Blood Legion, he should have been able to just sense the pendant’s presence. Others had done so before, so this was a given.

It was a shame he had gone now, though. He had vanished with the silent grace of a wisp. Any more answers Han Sen might have wished to glean didn’t seem likely to be gotten right now.

Han Sen turned his attention to the bleeding plants, and he watched a certain thicket bend and move aside to form a path for him.

“If that man thinks I’m a member of Blood Legion, the plants won’t want to hurt me, will they?” Han Sen wondered to himself.

Han Sen walked the trail and found himself exiting the garden, but it wasn’t by the same path he had used to enter. He had ended up going further, and he now found himself standing before a palace.

The entrance was wide open, and directly beyond it, Han Sen could see a bronze coffin. Strange symbols and enigmatic lines of text were scrawled and inscribed across it, and sitting atop the coffin was a beast.

The beast was asleep there, and its fur looked like a gentle fire.

“This is the place the survivors spoke of before they died; the beast sure does look like the Nine-Life Cat,” Han Sen thought.

As Han Sen pondered this curiosity, his pendant finally came to life. It began to pull Han Sen forward, clearly wanting to visit the beast. He was going to pull it out from beneath his clothes, but just before he did, Mister Li and the others came staggering forward from another direction. Mister Li seemed surprised to see him there.

“Han Sen? You’re alive! That brings this old mind some comfort; I feared we had lost you in the scrape with those wolves.” Mister Li’s rough voice was varnished with genuine concern for Han Sen’s wellbeing.

“I’m lucky to be alive; I can tell you that much,” Han Sen said, stressing each word with a nearly-winded facade.

Mister Li stepped forward, asking, “So, how did you escape the wolves?”

“I don’t know… there was so much going on. There were so many. It’s all a blur; but I went through the plaza with all those statues and reached a garden. I traversed it to reach this place.” After Han Sen’s half-hearted explanation, he approached the others with a question, asking, “And you, Mister Li? How did you and the others get here?”

“It was a trial that was no different than your own adventure. But you… you only have a bronze geno core. For you to make it through on your own, well, you weren’t kidding about that luck you possessed, eh?” Xu Yanmeng’s words were fine at face-value, but the tone with which he spoke expressed doubt about the validity of Han Sen’s tale. He wasn’t entirely convinced, that was for sure.

The wolves were strong, and stronger than the average mutant creature, that much was certain.

They might have been okay, in a series of one-versus-one matches. But an entire pack of the beasts had assaulted the group, and the team was fortunate to make it through.

For Han Sen to escape their pursuit with no wounds, that was suspicious.

Han Sen wasn’t planning to explain, though, and their doubts did not concern him. He merely asked them, “Is this the bronze coffin they spoke of?”

Mister Li and the others examined their surroundings, having not taken them in when they first laid eyes on Han Sen. Their faces turned a ghastly shade of pale when they saw the coffin, as was described. The beast was sitting atop it, just like they had heard.

The previous team had all ended up dead after coming here. There were more people in that team, so the new team’s prospects of making it out themselves did not seem good.

“It sure looks it.” Mister Li did not take his eyes off the beast that was lounging atop the coffin.

“Mister Li, how should we proceed?” Zhong Sanxiao asked. He sounded very polite and respectful, this time around. Something must have occurred earlier on, for Zhong Sanxiao to regard Mister Li with admiration now.