vncnus Chapter 20 The Outburst of Divine Power and the Salvation of the World Through Music
Chapter 20 The Outburst of Divine Power and the Salvation of the World Through Music
The highest-level soul guidance laboratory, located three underground floors in Mingdu, Sun and Moon Federation.
Entering this place, you're greeted by a pungent smell of ozone that makes your throat uncomfortable. Everywhere you look, there's metal—cold, reflective. Rows of instruments stand side-by-side, their red and green lights flashing. You don't know what they do, but just looking at them makes you feel tense.
The circular operating table was in the center. Tang Wulin lay shirtless on it, secured by four metal chains engraved with dense runes. His chest heaved violently, his breathing rapid and heavy. Sweat streamed down his face, dripping onto the metal table with a creak and then disappearing.
"Teacher..." He forced his eyes open, his pupils golden and vertical. His voice trembled as he spoke. "It feels like there's a fire burning inside me, burning fiercely. It feels like it's going to...go burst out."
Mo Runshu stood in front of the control panel. He wasn't wearing his usual speaker's uniform; instead, he was wearing a white lab coat with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He watched the data on the screen, the bars jumping up one by one, red and moving very quickly. His face was tense, but he didn't stop moving, constantly pressing something on the control panel.
"Wu Lin, bear with it." His voice came through the loudspeaker into the isolation room, lower than usual, but steady. "The data from the Spirit Tower says that there's something called the tyrannical factor in the Golden Dragon King's bloodline, and that's what's causing you pain. Today, your teacher isn't going to remove it, but rather guide it onto the right path. Once you get through this, you'll never have to suffer that pain again, and you'll be able to truly grasp that power."
He turned to look at Yue Wanwan. "Activate the third stage of the gene lock, inject the neutralizing agent. Push the dosage to the maximum."
Yue Mianmian froze for a second. Her lips moved, and her voice rose. "Runshu, what are you doing? This is too risky! How old is he? His body can't withstand such a large flow of water! This isn't guidance; this is defying the rules of the divine realm!"
"It's precisely because he's still young that we need to do it now." Mo Runshu gritted his teeth, his eyes never leaving the screen. "Once he grows up and his bloodline awakens, what will I use to save him? I can't just watch the child I raised turn into a creature that only knows how to kill." He didn't speak loudly when he said this, but you could tell he was suppressing something.
Yue Mianmian didn't reply. She lowered her head and moved her fingers a few times on the control panel.
Suddenly, a dragon's roar echoed through the laboratory.
It didn't come from outside; it came from Tang Wulin's body. The sound was so loud that you could feel it vibrating in your chest no matter where you stood.
Then things went wrong.
The golden scales on Tang Wulin's right arm, which had been suppressed, suddenly began to grow wildly, climbing up his arm and covering half of his face in just a few seconds. An extremely ancient aura exploded from his body. It wasn't a feeling of strength, but rather that standing there made you feel small.
The walls of the entire laboratory were shaking. The numbers on the instruments were jumping faster, so fast you couldn't see them anymore.
"Warning! Energy levels are out of control! The gene lock is collapsing!" someone shouted.
Mo Runshu's hands flew across the keyboard so fast they were almost invisible. "Increase the output! Control it!"
"We can't control it! Speaker!" The operator's voice changed. "That Dongxi... it's moving on its own! It's devouring our energy!"
Tang Wulin called out.
It's not the kind of scream you hear, it's the kind where your throat feels like it's been torn apart.
His right arm suddenly swelled up, and golden claws extended, three times their usual length. He grabbed at the chains, and the alloy, which was said to be unbreakable even by Soul Saints, snapped in an instant as if made of paper under the dragon's claws.
The broken chain flew out and smashed into the wall, leaving a dent.
Mo Runshu put down the control panel and rushed into the isolation room.
Tang Wulin raised his head. His eyes were no longer eyes; the entire pupil was a dark gold, without a white base or defined pupil. He looked at Mo Runshu, his expression not one of anger, but emptiness.
"die."
He uttered a single word. The voice didn't sound human; it was as if something else was speaking through his mouth.
A golden dragon claw phantom appeared out of thin air and slammed towards his face.
Mo Runshu didn't have time to think and raised the shield in his hand to block it.
The shield shattered. He was sent flying, crashing into the control panel behind him, denting the metal surface. He slid off the panel, half-kneeling on the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Yue Mianmian screamed, not a scream, but the kind of scream you can't utter. She rushed over and knelt beside him, pressing one hand against his chest, blood seeping through her fingers. Her hand trembled, and her voice trembled too. "Brother Mo! Brother Mo, look at me! Don't scare me!" Her tears fell drop by drop onto his face; she wiped them away with her sleeve, but they just kept flowing, and she wiped them away again.
Mo Runshu's lips were white. He smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile; it was a forced one. He said he was fine. Then he coughed, spitting out blood-tinged foam that landed on Yue Mianmian's sleeve.
"You said you were fine!" Yue Mianmian's voice cracked. "Your ribs are broken, and your internal organs are injured. How am I supposed to come with you—what did you say when you came? You said there was no risk at all! Is this your 'risk'?"
Mo Runshu didn't reply. He turned his head to look at the golden shadow in the distance. Tang Wulin stood in the ruins, a crack appeared in the void behind him, revealing a huge dragon face, dark gold, with emotionless eyes.
Things started falling from the entire lab. The ceiling cracked, and the lights flickered.
Just as the crack was about to tear open completely, a piano melody rang out in the air.
The sound wasn't loud, but once you heard it, everything else disappeared. The dragon's roar was gone, the alarm blared, and even your own heartbeat seemed to slow down. It wasn't suppressed; it dissolved. Like something smoothing out the chaos bit by bit.
The zither music played several times, each note different. The feeling had changed. The violent aura emanating from Tang Wulin slowly receded, like the ebb and flow of the tide—not fast, but you could see it receding. The golden light also faded, and the dragon's face closed. Tang Wulin's eyes changed from dark gold back to their normal color, and his body swayed before he fell.
A figure in blue had appeared behind him at some point, supporting his back with one hand.
Xu Tianqi.
He was dressed in a long blue robe and held a zither in his hands. Behind him stood the shadow of a large blue bird with wide, outstretched wings, which completely enveloped Tang Wulin.
Mo Runshu struggled to stand up, but Yue Mianmian held him down. He looked at Xu Tianqi, his expression inscrutable. It wasn't fear, nor submission, but rather a feeling of—"I never expected it to turn out like this."
Xu Tianqi didn't look at him. He looked down at Tang Wulin, his face expressionless, but if you stared at him for a while, you'd feel that he actually had something, he just didn't show it. "Mo Runshu, you're too arrogant. You think you're saving him, but you're actually killing him. He has the bloodline of the Golden Dragon King, that's something your instruments can't handle. If I had arrived a moment later, that attack would have been more than just a broken bone. You saw it yourself, he didn't hold back with that claw. If you died, who would clean up this mess?"
His words weren't harsh, but every single one was hurtful.
Mo Runshu, his face pale, leaned against Yue Mianmian's chest. He looked at the unconscious child in Xu Tianqi's arms, his eyes reddening. His Adam's apple bobbed, but he remained silent. After a while, he spoke, his voice so soft you could barely hear him unless you strained your ears. "Do you really think I did all this just for the Federation?"
He paused for a moment.
"I don't have any children with her. I've raised him for so many years, I've always treated him like my own child. I just... wanted to help him cure his illness so he could live a peaceful life in the future. Was I wrong?" As he spoke, his voice changed, not from crying, but from something blocking his throat. He swallowed hard, managing to swallow the thing, but the tears didn't go down; they slid down from the corners of his eyes, mixing with the blood at the corner of his mouth.
The entire laboratory fell silent. The piano stopped playing too.
Yue Mianmian held him, her hands trembling.
Xu Tianqi remained silent. He looked at Mo Runshu, his eyes now filled with something different—not pity, but something else entirely. He had initially thought it was a scientist's crazy experiment, but this was the first time he had heard of this hidden story.
Mo Runshu closed his eyes and stopped looking at him. His lips moved slightly, and he said something, but it was too soft to hear. Some people nearby heard it and said it sounded like, "Wu Lin, Dad is sorry." They didn't know if it was true or not, but the voice was too soft, so they probably misheard.
Xu Tianqi stopped watching. He plucked a string on the zither, and a beam of azure light descended from his hand, enveloping him and Tang Wulin. He was leaving. Before departing, he left a message, not loud, but everyone heard it: "He needs true guidance. Not suppression, but transformation. Before he awakens, I will teach him what true control is."
The light faded. The person was gone.
The laboratory fell silent. Broken glass, cracked alloys, and still-smoking instruments littered the floor. The lights flickered, an unnatural, erratic glow. No one spoke.
Ten thousand meters above the clouds.
The wind was strong, but Xu Tianqi carried Tang Wulin as they flew ahead, and the person in his arms wasn't woken by the wind. Tang Wulin stirred slightly on the way, his eyelids opening a crack, and he saw the face of the person holding him.
He said something very softly, so softly that you wouldn't hear it if you weren't right next to him. "Teacher... have I gotten into trouble again?" He wasn't faking it; he genuinely thought he was still in the lab and that it was Mo Runshu who was hugging him.
Xu Tianqi didn't correct him. He looked down at the child in his arms. He remembered the expression on Mo Runshu's face when he said those words. His gaze changed, becoming less harsh, though he probably didn't realize it himself.
"It's not your fault. It's because your teacher loves you too much, to the point of losing his composure."
Tang Wulin closed his eyes again, mumbling incoherently, "Then... will I still be able to go back to see Teacher Mo in the future...?"
Xu Tianqi was silent for a while. He looked at the sky ahead; the clouds were thick, obscuring the view below. "We'll talk about the future later," he said, neither saying yes nor no.
Tang Wulin didn't ask any more questions. He was in a half-dreaming, half-awake state, and he didn't know whether he had understood or not.
Xu Tianqi looked down at him again. He said something, his voice not loud, but every word clear. "Follow me, and I will teach you to control power with the Dao, not to suppress it with techniques and rules. Don't let the suffering you've endured today be in vain; remember it."
He dimmed the light from the zither, and the wind subsided. Tang Wulin, nestled in his arms, gradually regained his composure.
He asked one last question: "Would you like to come with me?" Tang Wulin didn't open his eyes, but he nodded slightly, so slightly it was almost imperceptible. "Yes."
Xu Tianqi remained silent. A string was plucked, producing a clear sound, and the two figures transformed into a streak of blue light, disappearing into the distant horizon. At the edge of their vision, that point of light vanished in a flash.