Volume 2, Chapter 57: The Dissonant Cathedral and Meeting Someone from the Past
My left knee made a loud cracking sound as I stepped off the last train car. I winced. This mortal shell is useful for staying under the radar, but it comes with all the annoying baggage of biology. Cold weather makes my joints stiff. It's a strange irony. I am the source of all Phoenix fire in the universe, yet here I am, shivering in a damp rail yard because I forgot to wear a heavier coat.
The train had finally stopped at Sector Seven.
The air here didn't smell like the North. It didn't smell like snow or pine or even the sharp, clean scent of high-altitude oxygen. It smelled like a burnt-out vacuum cleaner. There was a metallic tang in the back of my throat that made me want to spit, but my mouth was too dry for that.
I adjusted my glasses. This mortal shell—Professor Lakas—was starting to annoy me. My lower back had a dull ache from the three-hour crawl through the ventilation shafts, and my left boot had a persistent squeak. Is this what mortals deal with every day? Constant, minor physical grievances? It's a wonder they ever find the time to build civilizations.
"Professor, the energy readings are spiking," Yuhao whispered.
He was crouched beside me, his Spirit Eyes glowing with a faint, steady gold. He looked steady. Five years of training at the Anito Academy had changed him. He wasn't the scrawny kid who stumbled into the forest anymore. His shoulders were broader, and his breath was rhythmic—the Eight-Cycle Breath. He was ready.
"I see it, Yuhao," I said.
But I saw more than he did. I saw the energy threads of the room we were about to enter. And they were wrong. They weren't just chaotic; they were insulting.
We stepped out onto the observation catwalk of the central hub. I stopped. My hand tightened on the cold steel railing.
Below us was a massive structure of glass and black stone. It looked like a cold, clinical cathedral. In the center, suspended by heavy cables, sat a tank the size of a small house. It was filled with a thick, swirling violet sludge—Liquid draining force.
Inside that sludge, I saw her.
Bi Ji. The Emerald Swan. The most beautiful healer the beast world had ever produced.
Her long green hair floated in the purple muck like dying weeds. Her wings were pressed tight against her back, and the natural sheen of her skin was flickering. It was like watching a masterpiece being slowly scrubbed away with sandpaper.
"They're… they're using her," Xiaotao hissed. She was standing on my other side, her hands already beginning to shimmer with heat. "That machine isn't just taking her power. It's turning it inside out."
"It's inverted," I muttered.
Chen Feng's tech wasn't just tools. It was a crime. He had taken the pure life-giving energy of the Emerald Swan and forced it backward. By pushing her life force through a corruptive process, he was creating a stable, negative loop to keep the Abyssal Portal open. It was like taking a clear, beautiful signal and playing it backward at full volume just to see how long the speakers would last.
ROAR.
The sound hit us like a physical wall. It wasn't a human scream. It was the sound of a mountain breaking.
On the far side of the chamber, I saw him. Di Tian. The Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King.
He was massive, but he was a mess. His black scales were cracked and bleeding gold. He was caught in a web of glowing purple arrays—Dragon-Suppression Traps. Every time he tried to lunge toward Bi Ji's tank, the Baybayin anti-code etched into the floor would pulse. The markings were jagged and wrong, flickering with a violet light that seemed to eat the air around them.
Di Tian wasn't fighting a person. He was fighting a cage designed to kill his very nature. He was blinded by rage, his draconic fire sputtering as the traps drained his spiritual sea. If he kept this up, he'd shatter his own soul before he even touched the glass.
"He's going to kill her if he breaks that tank while the energy is inverted," I said. "The feedback will erase her."
"What do we do?" Bei Bei asked. He already had his hand on his sword, blue lightning dancing across his knuckles.
"We divide," I said. I looked at Yuhao. "Yuhao, you're the only one who can reach him right now. Not with words. With Dumog."
Yuhao nodded. He didn't ask questions. He just jumped.
Yuhao landed on the floor of the cathedral like a cat. The suppression traps tried to lock onto him, but he moved with the Diamond Glide. His feet barely touched the ground at 45-degree angles, staying in the blind spots of the automated sensors.
He reached Di Tian just as the Dragon King was about to unleash a desperate, suicidal burst of black flame.
"Senior! Stop!" Yuhao shouted.
Di Tian didn't hear him. He swung a massive, clawed hand that could have flattened a tank.
Yuhao's eyes narrowed. Facing a Level 99 existence with only Soul Sage strength was pure insanity. If he tried to take this head-on in his normal state, he would be crushed in less than a second.
He had no choice.
"Eight-Gate Overdrive… x20!" Yuhao roared.
A deep, vibrating crimson aura exploded around him. The Heart-Pulse Ignition had begun. Using the Eight-Cycle Breath, he forced his soul power to compress inside his heart and then released it in violent waves. His physical strength and speed skyrocketed. The air around him began to burn from pure density. At x20, a normal Soul Sage could match a high-tier Titled Douluo for a short time—but the cost was brutal. Muscles tore. Meridians cracked. Most people would collapse after sixty seconds.
Yuhao could last longer.
The Crystalline Vessel technique Lakan had taught him made the difference. His Silver-Bone Foundation had turned his skeleton into refined spirit steel, strong enough to handle the crushing G-force without buckling. His Wing-Stream Meridians had expanded into crystalline pipes that circulated the overloaded energy in a continuous loop, preventing the heat from melting his marrow. Even so, blood already trickled from the corner of his mouth. Three to five minutes was the absolute limit before his body started breaking down for real.
At the same time, Yuhao activated both Martial Soul True Bodies.
His Spirit Eyes True Body manifested first—a massive vertical spiritual eye that floated behind his head, glowing with layered golden rings. Because it was a Body Martial Soul, it fused naturally with his physical form instead of competing with it. Then the Ice Devil Titan True Body erupted. A colossal spectral ice ape formed around him, its frost-covered muscles overlapping his own frame. The two True Bodies did not fight each other. The Spirit Eyes rode on the Titan's shoulder like a second head, allowing Yuhao to combine spiritual precision with raw physical power in a single body.
Now he could move.
Instead of blocking the dragon's claw, he used Agaw. He stepped into the flow of Di Tian's movement. The Silver-Bone Foundation groaned under the pressure, but it held. He grabbed the dragon's wrist, not to stop it, but to guide the momentum. Using his entire body as a pivot, he spiraled with the force of the strike.
It was spiritual Dumog. He wasn't wrestling the dragon's flesh; he was catching the dragon's grief.
"Calm… the… heart," Yuhao grunted through clenched teeth.
His third eye—now fully merged with the Spirit Eyes True Body—opened wide. A beam of pure, calm gold light shot into Di Tian's forehead. He was sharing the steady rhythm he had learned at the Anito Academy—the calm, controlled beat of a soul that knows its place.
Di Tian froze. The black fire in his eyes flickered. For a second, the Dragon King saw the truth through the fog of his rage. He saw the inverted energy of the tank. He saw that his own violence was the very thing that would finish Bi Ji.
"Hold him there, Yuhao," I whispered from the catwalk.
But we weren't alone.
The doors at the far end of the cathedral hissed open. Dozens of guards in reinforced heavy armor poured out, their soul-tool rifles humming. And behind them, the air began to freeze. Not the clean cold of the North, but a heavy, oppressive chill that felt like a grave.
A Level 99 Abyssal General stepped into the light.
It was twelve feet of jagged black plate armor. It didn't have a face, just a single glowing violet slit where a visor should be. It carried a polearm that looked like it had been forged from frozen shadows.
Looking at it now, it made sense how they had managed to take Bi Ji from the forest even with Di Tian protecting her. The portal Chen Feng opened was still weak—it could only support Abyssal creatures of Level 99 and below. But that limitation didn't matter as much as people thought. The Abyssal world was a higher-tier plane, closer to a 4D semi-divine realm, while Douluo Planet was still only 3D. In a place like that, Level 99 beings weren't rare elites. They were common soldiers. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of them could be sent through without the Abyss feeling the loss. Di Tian was strong, but no single Level 99 dragon could hold off a coordinated pack of equally powerful Abyssal Generals forever. They had overwhelmed him, pinned the others down, and dragged Bi Ji away while he was forced to choose between dying uselessly and living to save her later.
Behind the first General, three more Level 99 Abyssal Generals stepped through the doorway. One carried a massive two-handed cleaver made of the same frozen shadow-metal. Another had long, whip-like arms that ended in curved blades. The last one was bulkier, its armor covered in glowing violet runes that pulsed like a heartbeat. Four of them in total. For the Abyssal world, that was just a standard response team.
"Interlopers," the first General spoke. The voice didn't come from a throat; it was a psychic vibration that made my teeth ache. "The Hub must be fed. You will be the new fuel."
"Not today," Xiaotao growled.
"Xiaotao, Bei Bei, Tang Ya—perimeter," I commanded. "Don't let them touch the tank. If a single stray shot hits that glass before the energy is corrected, we all die. Go."
They didn't hesitate.
"x20 Overdrive! Ignite!" Bei Bei shouted.
The air around the three of them erupted. Their auras shifted from their natural colors to a deep, vibrating crimson. The Heart-Pulse Ignition had begun at full force. Like Yuhao, they had trained in the Crystalline Vessel technique since their days at the Anito Academy. Their Silver-Bone Foundations kept their skeletons from collapsing under the G-force, and their Wing-Stream Meridians circulated the overloaded energy in a continuous loop. Because of that, they could hold x20 for three to five minutes instead of the usual one-minute limit that would cripple a normal Soul Sage.
Bei Bei moved like a blur of blue and red. He used the Gunting technique, his hands moving like scissors to clip the barrels off the incoming heavy armor before they could even fire. Tang Ya was right behind him, her Blue Silver Grass glowing with a radiant, pearlescent light. She wasn't just tangling the guards; she was using the Tapyas vibration to shatter their armor plates on contact.
Xiaotao was the hammer. She stayed near the tank, her Phoenix fire burning with a steady, controlled heat. Her Crimson Flame Hawk soul spirit manifested behind her, adding sharp bursts of focused flame. She stood in the path of the soul-tool projectiles, letting them bounce off her iridescent skin as if they were nothing more than raindrops.
They were holding the line against the regular guards. But the four Generals were already moving.
The lead General ignored the kids completely. It saw me. It sensed that even though I looked like a middle-aged professor with a squeaky boot, I was the biggest threat in the room. The other three spread out, forming a loose triangle to cut off any escape routes. The space around them began to distort under their combined pressure.
"You," the lead General hissed. "You do not belong in this shell."
I took off my glasses and folded them neatly, placing them in my breast pocket. I really didn't want to break this pair. They were comfortable.
"You're right," I said. "I don't."
I took a step forward. My left knee made a loud crack. I winced.
"But it's the only one I have right now," I muttered.
I didn't call my martial soul. I didn't summon a single ring. I didn't need to.
I opened the 8 Extra-Meridians.
The sensation was like someone had opened a fire hydrant inside my veins. One by one, the 36 Heavenly Star Acupoints ignited across my body. These weren't ordinary pressure points. They were internal reservoirs—sub-dantian nodes that absorbed Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy and acted as both batteries and pressure valves. When the Overdrive flood hit, the energy didn't crush my heart. It was distributed across thirty-seven points instead of one. That was why I could push far beyond what a normal mortal body should survive.
This shell had been built exactly the same way my real body was ten thousand years ago. The complete Batong-Pilak skeleton, the fully opened Extra-Meridians, and all thirty-six Star Acupoints were recorded in the Seven-Tone Chaos Nirvana technique. I had simply rebuilt the same foundation when I created this mortal form.
"x20 Overdrive," I whispered.
The lead General lunged. It was fast. It moved with a speed that would have decapitated a Titled Douluo before they could blink. Its shadow-blade cut through the air, leaving a trail of void behind it.
I didn't even bother raising a shield. I used the Eight-Directional Flow.
I stepped at a 45-degree angle. The blade missed my shoulder by a hair's breadth. I felt the cold from the void, but it didn't touch me. I moved inside the General's reach, my movements smooth and economical. No wasted energy. No flashy poses. Just geometry.
I struck the General's chest with a simple fist. Panununtukan.
I didn't hit the armor. I hit the vibration of the armor. I pulsed my soul power through my knuckles at the exact moment of impact, sending a frequency into the General's core that matched the inverted energy of the room.
The General staggered back, its black plates shivering.
"Impossible," it rasped.
"Everything is possible when you know the right rhythm," I said, almost bored.
I moved again. I was a blur of silver and gold, but to me it felt casual. I used Gunting on its polearm, my hands snapping the shadow-metal like it was a dry twig. I used Biakid to sweep its feet. The force of my kick sent a shockwave through the floor that disabled the suppression traps holding Di Tian.
I wasn't just fighting a monster. I was cleaning a room.
I looked over my shoulder. Yuhao had successfully calmed Di Tian. The Dragon King was standing still now, his golden eyes watching me with a mix of awe and recognition. He recognized the movement. He recognized the Source.
"Yuhao! Now!" I shouted. "The Hub! Use the Star-Pulse to invert the energy back to the Emerald Swan!"
Yuhao ran to the control console. He didn't use the buttons. He placed his hands on the metal casing and sent his spiritual power directly into the Baybayin anti-code. He was rewriting the markings. He was turning the jagged, broken symbols back into the smooth, flowing curves of the original language.
The violet sludge in the tank began to change. The purple faded, replaced by a soft, radiant green.
All four Generals shrieked at once. They abandoned everything else and lunged at Yuhao together.
I was already there.
I opened the 36 Heavenly Star Acupoints to their limit. The base 20x Overdrive from my heart was the core engine. Each Star Point then ignited in sequence, adding another full multiplier of my base power. One by one the Stellar Chain completed until the total reached 56x. The 36 points also acted as pressure valves and intake ports, pulling in Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy so the flood never crushed my heart or emptied my reserves.
For a split second, I wasn't Professor Lakas. I was the Iridescent Constellation itself—the living result of the body-refining art recorded in the Seven-Tone Chaos Nirvana. Every bone of Batong-Pilak vibrated in perfect harmony with the burst. The heat from my body was so intense that the air turned to plasma.
I didn't even strike. I just stood in their path.
The four Level 99 Abyssal Generals hit the aura of my 56x Overdrive and simply… evaporated. There was no explosion. No dramatic death rattle. They ceased to exist, turned into gray ash by the sheer corrected frequency of my presence.
I felt my heart hammer against my ribs. My mortal shell was screaming. My skin was glowing with a pearlescent sheen that was starting to smoke. I had to dial it back. Fast.
I took a deep breath, pulling the energy back into the 36 star-nodes. The red aura faded. The heat died down. The ache in my back returned with a vengeance.
I still put on a wide, childish smile, raised two fingers in a peace sign next to my eye, and said brightly, "Yay! That settles it!"
Yuhao, Xiaotao, Bei Bei, and Tang Ya all stared at me with the same deadpan expression.
The tank hissed. The Liquid draining force—now turned into pure life energy—drained away. The glass shattered outward in a harmless shower of green sparks.
Bi Ji fell forward. Di Tian was there to catch her. He didn't roar this time. He just held her, his massive draconic head resting against her shoulder. The Emerald Swan opened her eyes. She looked at Di Tian, then her gaze drifted to me.
She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. The way her wings trembled told me she knew exactly who I was. How could she not? I am the only Phoenix God. Even in this mortal shell, the pure essence of the Phoenix still flows through me. And Bi Ji carries Phoenix blood in her veins. In a very real sense, I am her God.
"Professor?" Yuhao walked over, his face pale from the effort of rewriting the markings. "What… what was that? You didn't even use a soul skill."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my glasses. I put them back on and adjusted them. One of the lenses had a tiny smudge. I cleaned it with my thumb.
"It was just a lesson in efficiency, Yuhao," I said. "Why use a hammer when you can just find the crack in the glass?"
I looked around the room. The heavy armor was piles of junk. The four Level 99 Generals were nothing but gray ash. The regular guards were unconscious. The cathedral was quiet.
"But I think we're done here," I said, still wearing that slight, cynical smile. "And someone really needs to tell the Federation to update their security. Squeaky ventilation shafts are a major oversight."
End of Volume 2, Chapter 57