There was no choice!

"Yes!" The thought crashed down like a falling boulder!

Buzz—

A wave of dizziness instantly overwhelmed her, and her consciousness was violently dragged into an unknown abyss!

...

hot.

A warm liquid welled up from my nose, flowed over my lips, and tasted of rust.

Immediately afterwards, my ears started to itch, and something came out, dripping down my neck, sticky and gooey.

Jiang Chan collapsed to the ground, her limbs feeling as if their bones had been removed, utterly powerless. Each heartbeat felt like a drum pounding inside her head, thump! thump! thump! making her vision go black.

That's not the worst part.

My mind is like it's been forcibly crammed with ten thousand out-of-control images, which are still exploding wildly:

The massive city was ablaze, black plumes of smoke shooting into the sky, and countless blurry figures screamed and ran through the inferno before being engulfed by collapsing boulders...

The dark, viscous sea roared, easily swallowing the densely packed houses along the shore, leaving only floating debris...

A monstrous bird, its hideous form blotting out the sky, swooped down with a piercing cry, its sharp claws tearing through the child's fragile defenses and snatching up the crying infant...

Chaos! Destruction! Death!

Countless fragments of broken, distorted images, filled with despair, surged like an out-of-control torrent through her narrow sea of ​​consciousness, tearing at every inch of her awareness.

pain!

It wasn't physical pain, but the pain of having my soul torn apart and bursting apart by countless violent messages!

It's worse than death!

This is the price to pay.

The price of the substitute body.

She could feel herself lying on a cold, hard ground, surrounded by an extremely dense and oppressive energy fluctuation that made it hard for her to breathe.

This energy instilled in her an instinctive fear, as if she were facing an unimaginable behemoth.

She barely managed to turn her eyes, her blurry vision catching a glimpse of the side.

Several other people, dressed in tattered, gray robes without any markings, were also lying sprawled not far away.

Some of them were still convulsing and foaming at the mouth; some were already motionless, staring blankly at the dark palace ceiling; and one was curled up, whimpering like a wounded wild animal.

Everyone was covered in blood, bleeding from all seven orifices.

This is the core of the Sky-Gazing Palace.

Just now, the enormous ancient mirror that floated in the center of the hall—the Sky-Gazing Mirror—shone with boundless light.

It's as if it's forcibly peering into something distant and terrifying.

Then, the terrifying backlash from that spying, powerful enough to annihilate the strategist's soul, slammed into these human punching bags that had been brought up, as if it had found a flood outlet.

Jiang Chan is one of them.

Number: Guihai.

Celestial Secret Virus?

A large-scale pollution core simulation array?

Grafting false prophecies?

Pointing to that law enforcement elder?

Why leak this to higher-ups and cause them to become suspicious?

She's just a disposable human lightning rod now, lying here bleeding from all seven orifices, waiting to be dragged away and thrown away like trash! Send her to pollute the core of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion? To dig a pit for the elders? This is more absurd than letting an ant trip an elephant!

A sense of powerlessness and absurdity welled up inside her, almost overwhelming her.

Just then, fragmented pieces of the original owner's memories flooded into her chaotic consciousness like a tidal wave:

Fragment 1: A thin little girl, the original owner of this body, was taken away by a cultivator wearing a robe embroidered with star patterns. The man looked at her as if he were looking at a rare ore.

Fragment 2: A dark, narrow cage, crammed with people whose eyes were equally numb or empty, each bearing a cold name branded on their wrist. She was pinned to the ground, a scalding brand etched onto her wrist—Guihai—the excruciating pain causing her to faint.

Fragment 3: The first time I was dragged into the Sky-Gazing Palace... intense pain... like ten thousand knives were twisting in my brain... I was thrown back into the cage and lay there like a dead dog for three days before I could barely move.

Fragment 4: Watching his companion next door, numbered "Guiyou," go completely insane after an even stronger backlash, crying and laughing all day long, and finally dying silently one day, he was dragged out and disposed of like a bag of garbage.

Fragment 5: The last memory is being dragged back into the Sky-Gazing Palace and enduring a devastating backlash... and then, everything ended.

His soul is becoming increasingly broken.

Memory confusion.

Final destination: death.

It was disposed of like garbage.

This is the life of Guihai, the body of the substitute for the calamity.