Chapter 312-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation

It had always been the way of the world—people climb upward, water flows downward. What made Ye Zheng think she had the power to drag the Higher-dimensional World down with her!

Surging, splashing water drenched the man from head to toe. He wiped his bedraggled face, revealing eyes even more ferocious with rage.

"You think this is enough to destroy us for good?"

Ye Zheng lowered her hand, still laughing. A fine drizzle of water droplets fell from the sky, trickling down her sharp jawline.

"Us? The company turned you into a monster, yet you can't let go of the power they gave you. Does directing all your hatred at me help you ignore your own cowardice?"

"Shut up! You think everything is under your control?"

Killing Ye Zheng was merely his first step. Of course he wouldn't spare those who had hurt him either. Now that he controlled their most vital asset—Main System—he could easily bring those wolves in sheep's clothing to their knees.

But Ye Zheng would never kneel. He could only sever her neck—even if it meant destroying this world as the price!

"Power from a low-dimensional world only gets infinitely diminished in the dimensional passage. Your ascension is a pipe dream—"

"But my dimensional strike downward is effortless!"

Percy's blue pupils were overwritten by golden data streams. In Ye Zheng's eyes they looked like cryptic patterns from the future, some incomprehensibly precise force churning within, about to unleash world-ending devastation.

The man moved faster than she'd anticipated. In the blink of an eye, the golden data streams vanished from his pupils—he appeared to have readied the ultimate weapon from the other world.

Then he kicked the Holy Sword off the ground where he'd tossed it, so consumed with fury he wanted nothing more than to run Ye Zheng through with his own hands.

While fused with the Holy Sword, he had received a synchronized warning from Main System: the protagonist cannot die in his own story. In other words, in this world, he was now immortal!

The man, blinded by hatred, let out a cold laugh. So what if the world of King of the Demonic Domain truly existed? Before the crushing disparity in power, Ye Zheng was nothing more than a somewhat clever paper cutout.

Perhaps, before the firepower from that world even arrived, he could personally sentence her to death as king of this one!

Wang Tao reached out to catch the sword, but his right hand grasped empty air. The Holy Sword clanged to the ground some distance away, a few inconspicuous butterflies fluttering past the blade.

His expression went utterly blank—somehow even more shocked than when he'd seen the water surge toward the Higher-dimensional World. He sank into a daze of confusion and bewilderment, and in that stupor, he heard a somewhat unfamiliar voice.

"Percy, what are you doing?"

A girl with a high ponytail barged into view, a butterfly perched on the crown of her head—a vaguely familiar image.

"...Lucy?"

After Wang Tao's consciousness had fully merged, even looking at Ye Zheng carried a faint sense of unfamiliarity, let alone Lucy. Ever since Ye Zheng had thoroughly derailed the plot, Lucy hadn't even had the chance to appear before Emperor Vincent.

In the original plot he'd designed, Lucy had impulsively run back to the West District and stumbled into the Hope Project base, where she was turned into a mindless Dragon-Human. Then Ye Zheng had taken her support role and fully integrated into the Protagonist Team, and curing Lucy became one of the team's driving motivations.

Lucy's existence was meant to add diversity to the Protagonist Team; after Ye Zheng's introduction, her presence became redundant.

These distant memories flickered through his mind. The man looked at the girl before him and found her increasingly unfamiliar the longer he stared.

"Aren't you mistaken? These Demonic Domains were absolutely not brought by Ye Zheng and the Demon Dragon. I've seen with my own eyes these past days how they fought against—"

"Save it. One look at him and I can tell he just wants to kill Ye Zheng."

Sierra cut Lucy off from another direction, speaking with well-practiced certainty. Plenty of people wanted to kill Ye Zheng—and the thought of so many competitors annoyed Sierra to no end.

Her slightly impatient stride halted abruptly. Sierra looked down—a golden, gleaming sword lay across her path. She recognized the wretched thing and gave it a vicious kick. The seemingly light sword didn't budge an inch, and the searing pain in her toes twisted her expression.

The man's gaze trembled as he stared at the Holy Sword.

Only the protagonist who possessed Divine Blood could lift the Holy Sword—that was a rule set in stone since its creation. Even someone as powerful as Ye Zheng couldn't defy this rule and pick it up by force.

Because the Holy Sword was never a product of this world; it belonged entirely to him.

As for the country girl who had somehow lifted the Holy Sword five hundred years ago—that was probably because the story of King of the Demonic Domain hadn't yet begun.

He must have simply fumbled the grab just now.

Wang Tao snapped back to his senses and reached out to summon the Holy Sword directly. As if possessing a will of its own, the sword rose from the ground—but halfway through, it dropped again.

The man's face filled with shock. His back suddenly buckled as though an immense weight had slammed onto it, and he lost all control.

"You're not Percy."

A cold, sharp voice rang out, devoid of any emotional inflection.

"Who are you?"

Bai Muqing descended from above, landing at Ye Zheng's side.

The two stood shoulder to shoulder. Ye Zheng tightened the water threads in her hand that controlled the current.

"How are things outside?"

Ye Zheng turned to ask.

"Stable for now, but supplies are nearly depleted."

Most of the powerful Demonic Domains had been drawn to the East District by the Demon Dragon. The Demonic Domains outside had surged in frequency, but casualties remained manageable. The problem was that prolonged, unending combat and dwindling supplies would eventually spiral into far greater chaos.

"But it can all end today, can't it?"

Bai Muqing asked—though her tone carried an effortless certainty.

Ye Zheng watched Bai Muqing lower her head in concentration, guessing she was using [Divine Domain] to probe the rift in the sky.

The column of water that had erupted from the earth continued to pour upward, but the rift was like a bottomless abyss—impossible to fill.

Without warning, Bai Muqing's complexion changed. She jerked her head up as if struck by some unseen force and stumbled backward in confusion. Ye Zheng reached out to brace her back, steadying her.

"What did [Divine Domain] see?"

"...Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Same here."

Ye Zheng lowered her hand and sighed softly. [Stream] was her eyes and hands; all she had felt was total darkness and an ever-heavier, crushing pressure—like swimming into a bottomless sea.

As [Divine Domain]'s power wavered, the man pinned to the ground staggered back to his feet, furious and incredulous.

Bai Muqing was set up as the strongest female ability user, but in his design, there was absolutely no way she could suppress Percy this easily—not even in Percy's early, weaker stages...

In theory, with him controlling Percy's body, Percy's ability potential should have been maximized. Yet here, surrounded by these people, he felt nothing but the frantic agitation of a cornered beast.

He scanned the area and spotted numerous figures. Beyond Ye Zheng's group, several complete nobodies without so much as a name were watching him from a wary distance.

Ye Zheng had clearly become a traitor who forsook the God of Hope. Why were there still so many people standing behind her?

"If he's not Percy, then who is he?"

Lucy, standing to one side, took a while to process. She asked the question in a daze, her gaze shifting from that familiar face to the golden sword on the ground.

Percy had once told her that only he, chosen by the God of Hope, could wield that sword.

"Who cares who he is—I'm going to kill him!"

Sierra forgot all about Ye Zheng for the moment. Her previously unbeatable [Damage Nullification] had suffered its first failure at Percy's hands, and ever since, one freak accident after another had plagued her. That bastard must have tampered with her somehow!

"Hey, Sierra—your power doesn't work on him!"

Lucy immediately chased after Sierra. Sierra charged forward with seeming recklessness, one hand drawing her blade, a hidden sleeve-arrow glinting coldly beneath her clothes.

Against someone who wore his fear on his face, you didn't need some overwhelming ability. A single swift stroke would send his head rolling!

A murderous blade flashed in the man's eyes. Then, suddenly, a spark of gold ignited in his dulled gaze. Sierra raised one eyebrow, her heart skipping a beat for reasons she couldn't explain.

Sierra's movements were agile and swift. Wang Tao, having taken over Percy's body, was unaccustomed to combat. He didn't even have time to retrieve the Holy Sword and could only dodge the blade clumsily, hastily metallizing vital areas.

The screech of blade on metal was piercing. Sierra grimaced with irritation, her knife clanging yet again against the metal suddenly coating his skin.

The body's innate combat instincts gradually surfaced. The man grew increasingly adept at wielding the Metal Transmutation ability. As Sierra's impatience opened clear gaps in her movements, he instantly transformed his right arm into a jagged weapon and struck at her.

Yet Sierra dodged as if she'd anticipated it all along, and in the same motion, fired her sleeve-arrow straight at the man's forehead!

The sleeve-arrow, enhanced by that woman's ability-boosting power, could pierce even diamond. This fool who could barely handle his own abilities was as good as dead. She'd toss that woman a little reward when she got back.

A triumphant grin was already plastered on Sierra's face. The next instant, that grin froze.

The moment the arrow launched, the man suddenly arched backward in a spasm, bending his upper body nearly ninety degrees, arms flung wide. The listlessness on his face vanished entirely; his manic eyes reflected the violently pulsing black rift in the sky.

Ecstasy seized him.

"It's here—it's coming!"

Percy's body was ultimately born in this low-dimensional world. Even under the control of a higher-dimensional consciousness, his power was always capped by this world's ceiling.

How vast was the gap between the two worlds? A mere replica sword, empowered by Main System, had become an invincible divine weapon in this world. And what was coming now—was firepower capable of leveling an entire city in his world!

His consciousness could abandon this body and transfer back to Main System in the other world, but Ye Zheng had nowhere to run. She and this world were as good as dead!

"It's here."

Ye Zheng and Bai Muqing lifted their heads simultaneously. Bai Muqing's expression was grave beyond measure. Looking up, sensing that terrifying force, she tasted fear for the first time in her life.

"...Just as we discussed. Let's move."

As Ye Zheng spoke, the massive black dragon lowered its head. She leapt onto the Demon Dragon's back. The dragon reared its neck and unleashed a roar that shook heaven and earth.

"You'll come back."

Bai Muqing looked up, a stubborn certainty in her expression.

"Of course." Ye Zheng laughed.

She tapped her ear. "I'm hoping [Divine Domain] can keep us in contact."

"It will. I promise—[Divine Domain] will always be there."

"Ye Zheng, you must—"

"No! None of you are leaving here!"

The man's hoarse voice erupted in a shout. His body surged with seemingly limitless power; the energy gathering around him blasted Sierra to the ground. The entire sky rippled like wind-swept waves, and moments later, it churned like boiling water, white bubbles roiling endlessly to the surface.

In an instant, several beams of white light flashed down, unfurling their radiance from on high to blanket the ground below.

But before they could fully take shape, a black shadow sliced through them like a bolt of black lightning, its speed undiminished, rocketing toward the black rift at the zenith.

The violent air currents whipped the loose strands of hair from Ye Zheng's forehead. Her eyes were sharp and bright.

Lin Zhixing had once mentioned that the experimental base had been equipped with heavy weaponry to prevent alien spaces from posing a catastrophic threat to the other world.

Allowing Wang Tao to open the passage between the two worlds was extraordinarily dangerous. If she failed, the price would be her world's annihilation.

But only by doing this could she uproot the threat of the Demonic Domains once and for all—tear it out at the very root.

[One thing he said was right—you are absolutely insane!]

System cried out in her mind.

The price was too steep. How could anyone bear it?

Atop the Black Dragon, she spoke calmly: "I will win."

Ye Zheng's conviction was so absolute that even System was baffled—who was the higher-dimensional being here, exactly?

"Sometimes you don't need world-destroying power. A single drop of water is enough to move the world."

And she was that drop of water.

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