Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 32: Left Life, Right Death

“It was… poison too?”

Gu Dao’s eyes widened in absolute despair. He opened his mouth to speak, but a sudden, violent wave of dizziness crashed into his mind, dragging him down into unconsciousness.

At that exact moment, the thick mist rolled over them, swallowing the figures of Xu Qing and Gu Dao whole.

Two hours later, at a crossroad on the edge of the forbidden zone’s jungle, a sharp pain lanced through Gu Dao’s body. He gasped, his eyes snapping open.

For a fleeting second, he stared blankly at his surroundings before panic set in, and he scrambled to his feet.

After frantically scanning the area and confirming there were no immediate threats—and no sign of Xu Qing—he finally let out a ragged breath. He touched his face, immediately noticing that the swelling had completely subsided. His body felt normal, almost exactly as it had before the poisoning.

“I’m not dead?”

Gu Dao’s heart hammered against his ribs. The euphoria of surviving a disaster washed over him. As he steadied himself, his gaze fell upon a stalk of bamboo planted in the dirt beside him. A single line of text had been carved into its surface.

*Insurance expired.*

Staring at those two words, a complicated knot of emotions tightened in Gu Dao’s chest. A flush of shame crept up his neck at the memory of his own petty tricks. After a long silence, he let out a soft sigh and bowed deeply toward the dense, fog-choked depths of the jungle.

“Thank you.”

Muttering to himself, he turned to face the crossroad. Two paths stretched out before him. The path on the right was the only route back to the scavenger camp. The path on the left led entirely away from the camp, winding toward Songtao City.

He stood frozen, sensing no one in the immediate vicinity, and weighed his options in heavy silence.

*The camp leader hails from the Vajra Sect, and their sphere of influence blankets every city in this region. Even if I manage to flee to Songtao City, escaping the camp leader’s wrath will be nearly impossible—especially since all his men are dead.*

Gu Dao’s hands clenched and unclenched. He knew of exactly one way to guarantee his survival: return to the camp, play the informant, and pin the slaughter of the subordinates entirely on the kid. By offering up the boy, he could wash his own hands of the blood and live to see tomorrow.

It was a blatant betrayal of his own conscience. The kid had, after all, just saved his life. But as the seconds ticked by, the moral struggle in his eyes hardened into ruthless decisive intent.

*In this meat grinder of a world, my own survival is all that matters. I can’t afford to bleed for anyone else!*

Crushing the guilt rising in his throat, Gu Dao shifted his weight and bolted down the right path, sprinting frantically toward the camp.

But the very instant his foot crossed the threshold of the right path, a streak of cold light shrieked through the air from behind him with terrifying velocity. In a fraction of a second, it punched clean through the back of his skull.

*Crunch.*

Gu Dao’s entire body violently convulsed. Blood and brain matter sprayed across the dirt. His eyes bulged from their sockets as he collapsed, his limbs twitching erratically against the ground. The world in his fading vision was eclipsed by an approaching silhouette, rapidly dimming into an eternal, suffocating black.

He breathed his last.

Xu Qing stood over Gu Dao’s corpse, his expression entirely devoid of emotion, and silently wrenched the iron spike free from the man’s skull.

Xu Qing harbored no illusions about the ugly truths of human nature. That was why he hadn’t simply walked away. He had stayed behind to offer Gu Dao a final test.

Left meant life.

Right meant death.

Gu Dao had chosen death.

Without a flicker of hesitation, Xu Qing retrieved a packet of corpse-destroying powder and sprinkled it over the body. The powder hissed upon contact, rapidly dissolving the corpse into a bubbling pool of gore. Turning his back on the gruesome scene, Xu Qing melted into the shadows, sprinting deeper into the jungle.

As for the camp leader’s inevitable fury, Xu Qing couldn’t care less.

He moved like a phantom through the dense foliage. Though the mist still clung to the trees, it barely hindered his pace. By the time dusk painted the sky in bruised hues of purple and orange, Xu Qing had traversed the fog and arrived at the canyon’s medicine hut.

Almost the moment he stepped into the clearing, the faint, mournful howl of a wolf echoed in the distance. Xu Qing ignored it.

He approached the hut with practiced caution, meticulously inspecting the perimeter to ensure the subtle traps he had left behind remained undisturbed. Only after confirming his sanctuary was secure did he push open the wooden door and step inside.

The medicine hut was cramped, lacking even a bed to sleep on. Instead, the walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with small, hand-built wooden compartments. Inside each cubby rested a staggering variety of medicinal herbs and harvested poison glands.

Some of the materials had already been dried and processed; others were perfectly preserved in their raw state. The collection was dense, numbering easily in the hundreds.

Xu Qing’s gaze swept over his hoard, a deep sense of satisfaction warming his chest.

This was the culmination of everything he had gathered in the forbidden zone since he began studying under Master Bai. The vast majority had been scavenged from the outer periphery, with a rare few plucked from the deadly inner depths.

Poisonous flora made up the bulk of the collection; genuine healing herbs were scarce.

After a brief inventory check, Xu Qing sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes narrowing in thought.

Master Bai had never outright handed him the formula for the White Pill, choosing instead to bury the ingredients and steps within his daily lectures. But Xu Qing was meticulous. He took exhaustive notes and possessed a razor-sharp memory, allowing him to piece the formula together long ago. The problem was… he didn’t have all the required herbs.

“I can’t refine it perfectly according to the original formula,” Xu Qing murmured to the empty room. “But if I break down the medicinal properties, I should be able to substitute the missing components or synthesize a viable alternative.”

He had no idea if this makeshift alchemy would actually work, but even a failure would serve as invaluable hands-on experience.

Making his decision, Xu Qing flicked his wrist. Seven or eight different herbs floated out from their respective compartments, landing neatly in a row before him.

He inspected them closely, then rose and walked out to the backyard. Beyond the clusters of vibrant, deadly flowers lay a small patch of tilled mud where several delicate herbs grew. These were temperamental plants with strict time limits—flora that would wither rapidly if separated from the soil for too long. Xu Qing had carefully transplanted them here, inadvertently cultivating a miniature herb garden over time.

As he approached the garden, the wolf howls from the surrounding woods grew louder, more distinct.

Xu Qing’s expression remained utterly placid. He ignored the noise, carefully uprooted three specific stalks from the mud, and returned to the hut.

Retrieving a heavy stone basin, he began the concoction process, drawing upon every ounce of knowledge Master Bai had drilled into him.

Whether he was stripping leaves, extracting sap, or carefully dusting pollen, his movements were surgical, striving for absolute precision. As he continuously ground and mixed the ingredients, the slurry in the stone basin gradually darkened into a thick, pitch-black sludge.

“Still missing five core herbs…”

Xu Qing scanned the wooden compartments. After a long period of silent calculation, he selected a few more toxic and medicinal plants, attempting to force a chemical balance using the principles of Yin and Yang polarities.

It was an agonizingly complex process. He worked through the night, his hands stained and his brow furrowed in concentration. It wasn’t until the first light of dawn crept through the cracks in the walls that he finally managed to stabilize the mixture.

Staring down at the bubbling, tar-like sludge in the basin, Xu Qing frowned.

This looked absolutely nothing like the pristine White Pill he had envisioned. But he had come too far to simply dump it out.

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed a large handful of Seven-leaf Grass and crushed it into the basin, strictly adhering to the proportional ratios he had calculated.

Instantly, the liquid violently boiled. The pitch-black hue began to shift, lightening rapidly—but the reaction died out after merely three breaths.

When the bubbling ceased, the sludge had settled into a murky, unappealing brown.

Xu Qing hesitated. He brushed his fingers against the Purple Crystal resting against his chest, drawing comfort from his immense natural resistance to toxins. Cautiously, he pinched a small glob of the brown mud, rolled it into a crude pill, and brought it to his nose.

A stomach-churning, putrid stench assaulted his senses. His survival instincts screamed at him not to swallow it.

“Is this even edible…?” Xu Qing muttered, his face twisting in a rare display of conflict. After a moment of heavy deliberation, he lowered his hand, carried the pill outside, and walked past the herb garden.

The moment he stepped into the tall weeds behind the garden, the wolf howls erupted again, frantic and close. Xu Qing didn’t break his stride, heading straight for the source of the noise.

Hidden among the overgrowth sat a sturdy cage constructed from thick Iron Vine Wood.

Inside lay a skeletal Black Scale Wolf, its breaths shallow and weak.

The second it laid eyes on Xu Qing, the beast scrambled to its feet, baring its fangs and issuing a low, guttural growl. But the sheer, unadulterated terror in its eyes betrayed its aggressive posture.

Xu Qing had encountered this Black Scale Wolf during a deep-jungle foraging run. The beast had attempted to ambush him. Instead of killing it, Xu Qing had overpowered it, dragged it back, and locked it in this cage to serve as a living test subject.

Spotting the foul-smelling brown pill in Xu Qing’s hand, the wolf began to violently tremble, backing itself into the furthest corner of the cage.

It was no use. Xu Qing thrust his left hand through the wooden bars, his grip locking around the wolf’s throat like a vice. Ignoring its desperate whimpers and thrashing claws, he dragged the beast forward until its snout was pressed against the bars.

Xu Qing’s expression was a mask of cold indifference. His eyes held no pity as he forced the pill against the wolf’s jaws.

The Black Scale Wolf shivered uncontrollably. Finally, broken by the suffocating threat of death radiating from the boy, it opened its maw and swallowed the pill.

Silence hung in the air for a long moment. Then, thick black smoke began pouring from the wolf’s pores. It violently retched, hacking up bile as a grotesque, tumor-like bulge rapidly swelled on the crown of its head.

*Pop.*

The bulge violently ruptured, spraying black fluid. The wolf’s legs gave out, and it collapsed into a heap, gasping for air.

Xu Qing’s brow furrowed in deep disappointment. He tossed a few scraps of raw meat into the cage, turned on his heel, and returned to the medicine hut to brood.

“Why didn’t it work? The final activation phase is completely unstable. It didn’t dissolve the Mutagen in the beast’s body… it detonated it.”

After a long period of silent analysis, Xu Qing deduced the missing link: a catalyst. He needed a binding agent to purify and direct the chaotic medicinal properties.

“If I need a catalyst, snake venom should do the trick.”

With a wave of his hand, three distinct poison glands flew from their compartments. He ruthlessly squeezed their venom into the stone basin. The moment the toxic fluids mixed, the brown sludge hissed violently, spewing a thick cloud of acrid green smoke.

Recognizing the lethal toxicity of the fumes, Xu Qing immediately swept his arm through the air, generating a gust of wind that blew the poisonous cloud out the window. He then pushed the basin aside, leaving the mixture to ferment.

While he waited, Xu Qing sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing, sinking into the cultivation of the Sea Mountain Technique.

He didn’t open his eyes until dusk painted the room in shadows. Checking the basin, he found the sludge had fermented into a highly viscous paste. He rolled another crude pill and marched back out to the Black Scale Wolf.

A few minutes later, amidst a series of muffled, explosive pops echoing from the cage, Xu Qing trudged back into the hut, his face dark with frustration. He sat back down, his mind racing through variables. He even retrieved a genuine, fully refined White Pill, carefully dissolving it in water to study its composition drop by drop.

Days bled into one another. Six full days passed in a blur of obsessive experimentation.

Xu Qing completely isolated himself from the outside world, pouring every ounce of his focus into reverse-engineering the White Pill.

He decimated his stockpile of herbs. The backyard garden was stripped bare. He tweaked, altered, and refined his makeshift formula over ten separate times.

As for the Black Scale Wolf…

During the final test, the pill had caused the Mutagen within the beast’s body to instantly spike past its absolute limit. Worse, the pill acted like a hyper-magnet, violently ripping ambient Mutagen from the surrounding spiritual energy and forcing it into the wolf. Unable to contain the sheer density of the corruption, the beast had violently exploded into a shower of bloody mist.

Had Xu Qing’s shadow not instinctively flared to life, absorbing the shockwave of concentrated Mutagen, the blast would have heavily contaminated his own body.

Staring at the empty cage had left Xu Qing feeling profoundly defeated.

He knew the White Pill was a masterwork of alchemy, and attempting to forge it without the proper ingredients was an act of sheer arrogance.

Yet, the grueling process had not been entirely fruitless. His practical understanding of medicinal properties had skyrocketed. And his final iteration of the pill, while a catastrophic failure as a cure, possessed a terrifying utility of its own.

It did the exact opposite of a White Pill.

Instead of purging Mutagen, Xu Qing’s creation acted as a localized black hole, violently dragging ambient Mutagen into whatever consumed it.

He looked down at the stone basin resting before him.

A thin, translucent green membrane coated the surface of the basin—a seal forged from melted Seven-leaf Grass. Beneath that fragile barrier lay a pool of liquid so black it seemed to swallow the light.

The membrane was an absolute necessity. If it were removed, the liquid wouldn’t even need to be ingested; mere exposure to the air would cause it to violently suck in all surrounding Mutagen.

That magnetic pull was half the reason the Black Scale Wolf had detonated.

Xu Qing let out a slow breath and rubbed his temples. He shifted his focus inward, sensing the surging, powerful currents of spiritual energy coursing through his meridians. The sheer vitality of his cultivation washed away the lingering sting of his alchemical failures.

Though the pills had been a disaster, his relentless cultivation over the past week had yielded incredible results. He had officially reached the absolute Perfection of the Sea Mountain Technique’s fifth layer.

“Tonight… I should be able to break through to the sixth layer.”

Xu Qing took a deep, steadying breath, pushing all thoughts of alchemy from his mind. His eyes burned with cold anticipation as he marshaled his spiritual energy, preparing to batter against the bottleneck.

In this ruthless, post-apocalyptic meat grinder, every incremental fraction of power he gained directly translated to another day he got to stay alive.

Later that night, as a pale moon hung high above the forbidden zone, a deafening rumble erupted from deep within Xu Qing’s body.

The internal shockwave was far more violent than any of his previous breakthroughs. Xu Qing, who had assumed his body was already purged of impurities, suddenly felt his pores open, violently expelling a thick layer of foul, black grime.

An unprecedented sensation of absolute clarity and unblocked power flooded his meridians. At that exact moment, a low, guttural roar echoed from the shadows behind him.

The phantom of the mountain fiend—an entity that previously only manifested when he threw a full-force punch—now materialized into the physical world behind his back. It was massive, radiating an aura of pure, unadulterated savagery. But it was no longer a one-legged monstrosity; it now stood firmly on two thick, muscular legs.

More importantly… atop the phantom’s shadowy head, the jagged silhouette of a nascent horn had begun to form!

This was no longer a mere mountain fiend. This was the embryonic form of a Kui!

The instant the phantom fully materialized, the embryonic Kui unleashed a silent, soul-shaking roar that rippled outward in all directions. Across the dark expanse of the jungle, the nocturnal cries of countless mutated beasts abruptly choked off, silenced by sheer primal terror.

Xu Qing slowly opened his eyes. A brilliant flash of purple light illuminated the cramped medicine hut, striking through the gloom like a bolt of violet lightning.

Bathed in the purple glow, with the terrifying silhouette of the Kui looming behind him, the expressionless Xu Qing radiated an oppressive, suffocating aura of absolute lethality.

After a long moment, the purple lightning faded from his irises, and the Kui phantom dissolved back into his shadow. Xu Qing looked down at his hands and murmured softly into the quiet night.

“Sea Mountain Technique, sixth layer.”