Chapter 1148: 135. Active Pollution

The warmth in his mouth and the faint taste of blood made Muen freeze.

For a moment, he still had not reacted to what exactly Hamreign had flung at him... and then the surging burning sensation immediately spread into every limb and bone.

It was like peeling his skin open, tearing his flesh apart, exposing the bones that had been shattered into dregs.

Taking those twisted, bent, fractured bones—even the ones embedded into his organs—and piecing them back into the shape they were supposed to have, then heating a furnace of red-hot molten iron... and pouring it directly over them.

The intense pain made Muen’s expression immediately twist, and a low roar that was hard to suppress came from his mouth.

One had to know that after all kinds of inhuman tempering, his pain threshold had long since become absurdly high. Even when Hamreign had just beaten him violently, and his little life had nearly been directly snatched away... he had not made a sound.

But the pain now, how could it be only ten or eight times worse than before?

This was simply hundreds of times more torment.

No, even higher. That pain was like a surging tsunami, wave after wave striking his fragile nerves.

Imagine red-hot molten iron flowing, rolling, and cooling through every blood vessel, every bone, every inch of flesh and blood in the body... extreme pain and extreme itching combining with each other, every nerve seeming to spasm and tremble.

Painful! Too painful!

That woman did it on purpose! She definitely did it on purpose!

Although he knew this was a kind of treatment method, and could roughly guess that what had just been thrown into his mouth was a precious drop of dragon blood.

But even thinking with his knees, there was definitely deliberate revenge hidden inside this.

After all, it was not as if he had never been tempered by dragon blood before. That time with the old girl had indeed been very painful too... but it was far, far away from this time.

Even that time with the old girl had clearly carried the suspicion of deliberately increasing the pain.

It had already been deliberately increased, and still could not remotely compare. One could imagine the degree this time...

A mighty calamity was actually this petty?

Was it not just being mentally broken by a tiny fifth-rank martial artist like me, then having me jump in her face and mock her? Was that necessary?

Blue veins bulged on Muen’s forehead, and his body kept rolling on the ground—of course, the advantage of this rough method was also obvious. After only this little while, he could already roll around.

“Muen! Are... are you okay?”

Marcie hurriedly came over, anxiously looking Muen up and down at this moment. His miserable state, with blood spraying all over his body, made her heart twist with worry...

But she could do nothing at all.

She could not even grab his hand and help him share the pain.

Because she already knew she was a polluted sinner, and touching him casually now would instead increase his burden.

“I’m... I’m fine.”

Muen breathed deeply and violently. Even breathing felt like stuffing knives into his lungs. This pain was too terrifying. He could not even pass out... the moment he passed out for one second, he would immediately be woken up by the pain. The brain’s protective mechanism was completely useless under pain that had been deliberately applied.

“Then... is there anything I can do to help you?” Marcie still could not help asking tentatively.

Muen shook his head.

Marcie’s eyes dimmed.

“I’m sorry. We’re too useless.”

“No... I brought all of this on myself. It has nothing to do with you, with all of you.”

Who told him to be so stupid?

His own stupidity—he could not blame anyone else.

“But in the end, you still did it for us...”

“Marcie.”

“I’m... I’m here!”

“Do you trust me?”

Muen suddenly forced his body to stop trembling, raised his head with difficulty, and looked into Marcie’s eyes.

“Eh?”

Marcie was slightly stunned, then became somewhat flustered. She did not understand why Muen was asking this kind of question.

But she still answered seriously almost from instinct, “Of... of course. I... I of course trust you!”

“Next, I may do some not-so-good things to you. Can you truly trust me completely?” Muen asked again.

“Of course!”

A faint light bloomed in Marcie’s eyes.

She still remembered when she first met him, how much she had suspected and disliked this guy with his upper body naked.

But now, she thought she was already the person in this world who trusted him the most.

Besides, it was only trusting him... compared to what Muen had done for her, for them, it was far too insignificant.

“I will trust you, Muen... no matter what happens,” Marcie said with incomparable seriousness, kneeling beside Muen.

Even if he asked her to die.

She added this in her heart.

“Thank you.”

Muen thanked her, then looked toward the others.

“Will you trust me?”

“...”

There was silence for a moment.

Everyone looked at one another.

To be honest, now was fundamentally not the time to discuss whether they trusted him or not. Even though everyone here was an experienced Pioneer, their brains were somewhat not enough to deal with the current situation.

But they all knew one thing.

“Asking this kind of question is looking down on people a little too much.”

Theresa, who was being held by Landa, sneered. “Does Mr. Muen think we are the kind of people who have no idea how to repay kindness at all, and would not even trust someone who fought desperately to save us?”

“What I am about to do next will be very terrifying,” Muen said with great seriousness. “So terrifying that it will be hard for you to accept.”

“Ha. No matter how terrifying it is... could it be more terrifying than spending your whole life working for light, even becoming half a body for it, only to discover that you fundamentally do not even have the qualification to see light?” Theresa snorted, then patted his own chest.

“Whatever you want to do, just do it. Good or bad, I will not make even a sound.”

“Me too!” Landa hurriedly followed.

And the approval of the two of them was like opening a faucet. The voices of the others agreeing also poured out in front of Muen.

Everyone’s will was extremely unified.

After all, they had already reached a dead end. What reason was there not to trust someone who had fought for them?

As for terror, as for that unknown result... to Pioneers, this was the thing they least needed to fear.

Because they had long since grown used to that fear.

Finally, even Alan, hidden inside the armor, lowered the sword in his hand, expressing agreement.

“Very good.”

Muen revealed a smile. His gaze swept over everyone, and finally returned to Marcie again.

“Then stretch out your hand.”

“Stretch out my hand?”

Marcie blankly stretched her hand out.

Even now, she still had completely no idea what Muen wanted to do.

Then she saw Muen also stretch out his hand... and grab hers in one motion.

In an instant... that palm, which had only just recovered from severe injury, was once again eroded by terrifying Pollution. Muen’s injuries had just healed, and he was precisely in a weakened stage, so the speed of the Pollution’s erosion was clearly much faster than when they had touched before.

“M-Muen!”

Marcie almost screamed. Her arm instinctively flung, wanting to shake Muen’s hand away.

“It’s fine.”

However, Muen’s hand held tightly, like an iron clamp, completely giving her no chance to break free.

“It’s fine,” he said in a low voice, his words deep and powerful, like a prayer.

“But...”

The Pollution was eroding Muen’s flesh and blood. His hand once again became something unlike a hand, and it was still spreading upward. If this went on...

Marcie was unbearably anxious, but under Muen’s calm expression and powerful words, gradually, her heart also seemed to calm down.

“You... what exactly are you going to do?”

“Wait a moment. I’m charging up.”

“Charging up?”

Marcie was completely confused.

Muen shook his head and did not say anything more. He merely closed his eyes.

His consciousness sank deep into his mental space.

This place was still no different from before. The deep space continuously transformed into a familiar appearance according to his thoughts, and the pitch-black great sun hung at the highest point of the space... only, in terms of details, it was very different from his memory. For example, those densely packed cracks.

A calamity had just raged through this place and had almost directly crushed his mental space.

Muen glanced to the side again. In the deepest corner of the space, the Black Book quietly appeared—when Miss Dragon had been pulled in just now, it had directly disappeared. He had absolutely no idea where it had hidden. From beginning to end, it had not made a single sound, yet now it had popped out.

This thing was still like this. When it encountered a special, terrifying existence, it slipped away faster than anyone and hid deeper than anyone.

For example, the old girl. For example, Miss Dragon...

“Forget it...”

He had long known that the Black Book was unreliable, so in this incident, Muen had more or less never placed all of his hope on it.

“I can only hope... that my hypothesis can succeed. Otherwise, this Annabawei will most likely be the place where I am buried.”

Muen eliminated distracting thoughts, and his consciousness continued sinking deeper...

Passing through his mental space, until he arrived at a certain place in his consciousness.

There, he felt a scorching heat.

—That drop of Miss Dragon’s blood.

Under the nourishment of the vast life force in this drop of blood, Muen’s body was rapidly recovering. If he did nothing and just slowly absorbed the power contained inside it like this, not only would his injuries recover, he might even gain quite {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} a few benefits.

“Speaking of which, why does this drop of blood always give me a familiar feeling?”

This thought suddenly appeared in Muen’s heart... but very quickly, he threw it to the back of his mind.

Now was not the time to care about that kind of thing. The important thing was...

“Compared to letting me gain benefits, you should play a greater role.”

Muen’s consciousness slowly condensed, allowing his mental power to wrap around that scorching heat bit by bit.

Pfft.

In the outside world.

Black flames appeared out of thin air before Marcie.

She blinked, staring somewhat curiously at this strange black flame that leaped like a spirit.

She had never thought... that there were black flames in this world.

As deep as night.

But, strangely, they did not make any sense of disgust arise in her.

“Are you ready?”

Muen opened his eyes. His pupils had already completely turned pitch-black.

And within that pitch-blackness, there was also a faint hidden thread of gold.

“Mm!”

Marcie took a deep breath seriously, doing her best to make herself appear less panicked. “I’m ready!”

“That’s good.”

Muen nodded.

Then that cluster of black flames suddenly dropped, landing on the back of Muen’s hand and beginning to burn.

On the hand Muen was using to hold Marcie, the Pollution and distortion on it were both rapidly being burned away. The old rotten flesh was devoured within the flames, and new flesh and blood regenerated again within the flames. This transformation of life and death made Marcie stare dumbfounded.

“Hold your breath and focus your mind!”

Muen suddenly shouted in a low voice, and made the black flames that had originally only been burning on his hand spread along the palms where the two of them touched...

“I am going to... begin polluting you!”