Chapter 675: The Thief of Divinity

The Pale Hand.

One of the Thirteen Ultimates.

When Lu Xin first arrived in Flame City, he had already seen it once—suddenly, an elite priest from a Black Box had borrowed its power. Before anyone could even react, Dracula had his heart stolen by it.

From that moment, he knew it was in Flame City.

Or perhaps, it isn’t about being in Flame City at all; at its level, presence is a complex matter.

After that encounter, Lu Xin had longed to see it again, yet it never reappeared.

Until now—at the critical juncture of his battle with the Hell Embryo—it had suddenly shown up.

And shockingly, its first act upon appearing was to steal his Black Particles.

Or rather, to steal his divinity…

It had traversed countless layers of space; neither his sister nor his father could have stopped it.

Worse yet, he had never expected it.

Until then, Lu Xin had no notion that his Black Particles could be stolen…

……

……

Instinctively, the Black Particles in Lu Xin’s eyes began to vanish.

It was a natural reflex—as if, when someone grabs your wallet, you immediately try to snatch it back.

But once the Pale Hand clutched his Black Particles, it yanked them viciously, with no hint of relenting.

Because those stolen Black Particles were now beyond his reach, he couldn’t reclaim or hide them.

Especially since moments earlier, while he was battling the Hell Embryo, his Black Particles were most active and most vulnerable to capture.

So, was it all just a trap?

Lu Xin abruptly glanced at the Hell Embryo. Was its fight with him merely a ruse to allow the Pale Hand to steal his divinity?

Yet, when he looked over, he saw that the Hell Embryo was already beginning to collapse.

This wasn’t as it had planned…

Everything happened so suddenly and defied explanation, leaving Lu Xin no time for further thought.

The tug of the Pale Hand had drawn out most of the Black Particles from his body.

They buzzed and layered, corroding the Pale Hand’s grip.

Still, the Pale Hand held on tightly, straining with all its might.

Within him, a desperate urge to fight back flared, but his weakened body knew no means to fend off the theft…

Under the relentless tug, his body arched into a bow.

Strand by strand, his Black Particles were being yanked away by the Pale Hand.

“My brother’s in trouble…”

In the distance, his sister’s face turned deathly pale as she dashed forward.

But before she could reach him, the Distorted Force Field naturally formed around the Pale Hand flung her away.

“Brother…”

Tears streamed down her worried face as she tumbled onto a human-shaped spiderweb, only to roll and leap forward again.

“Don’t go any further…”

A Black Shadow coiled around her, yanking her back.

Crimson eyes emerged from the shadows as his father gritted his teeth, “I’m coming…”

Even as he spoke, the Black Shadow surged forward in a rolling mass, forming a colossal body. It swung a massive fist toward the Pale Hand, while an atmosphere of unbridled terror seeped through the air.

“Buzz…”

Yet the Pale Hand remained unyielding; its mental force field instantly shattered the Black Shadow.

Even the trembling ripple of its Mental Power issued out a faint, cold laugh, “Worthless cur—a stray mutt…”

Lu Xin heard the taunts, utterly powerless to respond.

He even felt his consciousness gradually blurring and beginning to dissipate.

It was as if his entire self were propped up by a single bone, and now that bone was detaching from him.

In that moment, all cognition, memory, perception, and emotion crashed down in a thunderous collapse. Scene after scene flashed through his mind, then slowly faded, leaving his body feeling an unprecedented lightness…

So, could this be the end—his life snuffed out in this manner?

At his final moment, Lu Xin remembered the funeral held in the underground pit of the Flame Building.

A fierce sense of injustice suddenly surged within him—this wasn’t the death he had envisioned…

He had desired a calm and dignified passing, not this abrupt, unprepared demise.

……

……

“What on earth happened in there?”

Below the Stadium, countless onlookers craned their necks to gaze upward.

Their view was obscured by the human-shaped spiderweb and severed by the chaotic mental turbulence, leaving them only to see the core of the spiderweb falling piece by piece—as its vital power dwindled.

Something seemed to be unfolding inside, yet no one could tell what it was.

Only Dracula abruptly lifted his gaze toward the center of the Stadium, sensing something eerily familiar.

Then, she suddenly looked down, her heart pounding wildly as if gripped by fear.

……

……

“Hisssss…”

Even though Lu Xin had, for the first time, felt a desperate will to survive and struggled for his life, a wisp of Black Particles was still being torn away—like a struggling, living entity coiling around the Pale Hand.

At last, the final bit of Black Particles was about to be wrenched from Lu Xin’s body.

The theft was nearly complete.

A serene, almost unfamiliar look of calm spread across Lu Xin’s face.

Meanwhile, his father and sister began to blur, as if their very existence was being casually erased.

Everything changed in an instant.

Around Lu Xin, the Hell Embryo fell into a deathly silence, devoid of any sign of life.

Then, suddenly, the embryo twitched—a delicate silver pair of scissors emerged from it.

The sharp blades gleamed eerily under the kaleidoscopic lights.

The scissors swiftly reached the Pale Hand’s wrist, and then the blades snapped shut, clamping onto it.

They closed gently, as if severing a sheet of paper.

“Shear!”

The Pale Hand was cut apart.

A violent shudder emanated from the severed hand.

From the broken stump burst an indescribable surge of Mental Power—a mix of astonishment, terror, anger, and defiance. It lunged forward, the jagged wrist cutting toward the detached palm, as if desperate to reclaim it.

But the palm still clutched the Black Particles.

The particles had scarcely left Lu Xin’s body completely.

After the palm was cut away, the Black Particles instantly rushed back into Lu Xin, dragging the Pale Hand with them.

“Phew…”

Lu Xin jolted awake, as if emerging from a nightmarish ordeal.

In the next moment, he saw the Pale Hand’s severed wrist—a grotesque, terrifying stump—hovering before him.

Simultaneously, he felt as though something inside him was struggling to break free from his body.

Before he could react, he suddenly noticed a woman’s figure emerge from next to the embryo.

It was Mom!

She held a pair of scissors in her right hand and a Black Nail in her left.

The moment she appeared, she swiftly drove the Black Nail into Lu Xin’s right hand.

In the next moment, accompanied by a soul-wrenching pain, Lu Xin felt the struggling force within him vanish.

Yet where the nail pierced his palm, the skin began to whiten rapidly.

In the following moment, understanding dawned on him as he looked up in shock.

Mom stood before him clad in a white small formal dress, her hair meticulously styled. However, the dress bore blotches of grime, locks of her once-perfect hair had fallen, and she was even missing one high heel.

It was the most disheveled image of Mom he had ever seen.

But as she faced the severed stump of the Pale Hand, she laughed with pure delight.

There was even a trace of smug defiance in her gentle eyes.

Meeting Mom’s gaze, the Pale Hand’s stump hesitated and slowly ceased its movement.

It trembled and seethed with anger, but finally, without a word, it receded.

……

……

The oppressive aura in the air suddenly lifted, as if the atmosphere had exploded and then returned to calm.

Lu Xin stared at his right hand, now transformed into pale skin.

Subtle, exquisite yet eerie patterns flowed across it.

He could sense a strange Mental Power within the hand—a Black Nail had pierced his palm, yet it also forcibly anchored this power that wasn’t originally his.

“So, what exactly is going on?”

After a while, he finally looked up toward Mom.

Mom turned around, a joyful smile on her face unlike any Lu Xin had ever seen, nodding gently, “It’s a success.”

“Success?”

Lu Xin still looked puzzled, his eyes filled with confusion as he regarded her.

“Yes. That thieving, opportunistic guy had his eyes on you.”

Mom continued with a smile, “He knew you were not to be trifled with, but his own greed got the better of him. He abandoned years of planning for a chance to steal your divinity.”

“But…”

She smiled slightly, adding, “What he didn’t know was that I had set my sights on it as well.”

“After all this pretense and patience, I finally found the opportunity to snatch his prize for you.”

“…”

“Divinity alone isn’t enough.”

Amidst the stunned silence of Lu Xin, his father, and his sister, she explained with a smile, “Only by adding this hand will you have what it takes to overcome the Trial of Strength set by your Teacher. Do you understand?”