My whole family was brutally murdered? I awakened the thug system and went on a killing spree.

Martial God Tower.

The backbone of Beijing, a totem of humanity's extraordinary system.

The entire structure is cast from a rare, dark gold, unknown metal, and it stands over two thousand meters tall, with its spire disappearing into the clouds.

The surface of the tower is covered with densely packed high-dimensional symbols, each symbol representing the lifelong understanding of rules by an extraordinary expert.

Qin Meng walked down the deserted street.

Residents within Beijing's inner ring road had long since evacuated into the underground refuge system.

The shops on both sides of the street had their doors tightly shut, and the suspended streetlights were still on, casting a pale white light.

Occasionally, you can see a few stray cats peeking out from behind the trash can, only to shrink back in fright by the high temperature emanating from his body.

In the heart of the city's most bustling area, all that could be heard now was the sound of his footsteps.

The gates of the Martial God Tower were wide open.

There were no guards, no traps, and the doorway was fifty meters high, enough for a giant abyss beast to walk in with its head held high.

The interior is a hollow, cylindrical hall with no end in sight, and thousands of eternal lamps are embedded in the walls.

Qin Meng stepped inside.

The metal floor resonated dully as I stepped on it.

The weight of 1,240 points of physical strength pressed down on it, causing the floor to visibly bend downwards.

"Where are the stairs?" Qin Meng looked around but couldn't find them.

In the center of the hall is a circular platform with a diameter of ten meters, and the edges of the platform are engraved with complex teleportation array patterns.

This thing requires a specific mental key to activate.

Qin Meng walked onto the platform and looked down at the exquisite array patterns.

Lift your foot.

He stepped through the platform.

The moment the array shattered, the remaining spatial energy was conveniently consumed by the antimatter furnace.

Qin Meng looked up through the hole beneath his feet—the hollow structure inside the tower extended all the way to the top floor.

For him, a vertical distance of two kilometers was no different than climbing a flight of stairs.

Use your legs to exert force.

The metal floor at the bottom of the tower shattered into pieces, and Qin Meng's body rose vertically along the hollow passage.

With each floor he passed, the floor slab was breached by his size and mass.

Shattered metal and flying alloy powder tumbled in the air, then melted into orange-red liquid metal rain by the heat radiation around him.

Twentieth floor, fiftieth floor, one hundredth floor.

The internal structure of the Martial God Tower was reduced to a hollow iron pipe by his violent passage.

When Qin Meng crashed through the last floorboard, the scene before him changed.

Top floor.

It wasn't the glittering gold and splendor I had imagined; instead, it was surprisingly simple.

A spacious room, about 100 meters in diameter, with all four walls made of special glass, offering a view of the cloud-shrouded skyline outside.

In the center of the room stood a white jade table, on which the tea was still steaming.

Ji Wudao sat cross-legged behind the desk.

He changed into a plain white Taoist robe, and his hair was casually tied up with a wooden hairpin.

There was no blurry, aloof quality to his face; his features were clear—it was the face of a middle-aged man around fifty, with strong lines and high cheekbones.

The only abnormal thing was his skin color, which was pale with a layer of gray, a trace of the backlash after the higher-dimensional spiritual connection was torn apart.

"You arrived three hours faster than I expected."

Ji Wudao picked up his teacup and took a sip.

My hands were steady; there was no shaking.

Qin Meng leaped through the hole onto the top floor and stood upright.

The floor beneath his feet groaned under the weight of the metal.

"Did you brew this tea?" Qin Meng glanced at the teapot on the table.

"Pre-Qingming Longjing tea." Ji Wudao put down his teacup. "It was brewed before my seclusion, so it'll be ready to drink when I come out."

Qin Meng rubbed his ear: "Seclusion? I thought you were recuperating in there. Being attacked by a projection and having to lie in bed for so long, the martial gods in the capital are pretty low-class."

Ji Wudao didn't respond to that. He stood up and was about half a head shorter than Qin Meng.

The figure beneath the Taoist robe was rather thin, forming a stark contrast with Qin Meng's dark golden monster body.

"You killed twelve of my ninth-level opponents, broke through the chasm, and tore apart the Taiji Barrier."

Ji Wudao counted on his fingers, "You also ate two of my bio-mechs and half a fleet."

"You have a good memory."

"Do you know how much all these things are worth in total?"

Qin Meng tilted his head: "I don't know, but it's definitely not as valuable as you."

Ji Wudao smiled, but the smile was faint, and there was no joy in his eyes.

"Qin Meng, I have a question for you."

Ji Wudao walked around the table and slowly stopped five meters away from Qin Meng.

"How exactly did your physique break through the limits of carbon-based life forms? I've studied the laws of the extraordinary for thirty years and have never seen such a life form before."

"It comes from what you eat."

Ji Wudao remained silent for two seconds, then stopped asking questions.

He raised his right hand, his five fingers slightly spread.

The temperature in the room plummeted.

It's not a physical cooling process.

It's at the conceptual level.

Qin Meng's extrasensory perception detected an anomaly—Ji Wudao's body was undergoing microscopic changes.

Every atom in his body was oscillating at an accelerated frequency, far exceeding the upper limit of thermal motion of normal matter.

This is not a release of energy, but a dimensional leap of matter.

"I originally planned to rest for another three days," Ji Wudao's voice changed, taking on a metallic resonance, "but you, you mad dog, ran too fast, forcing me to leave seclusion early."

His Taoist robe began to tear.

It wasn't blown apart by the wind, but rather the cotton and linen fibers that made up the robe collapsed at the atomic level, turning into extremely fine dust that drifted away.

The exposed body is not made of flesh and blood—but a crystalline skeleton composed of pure high-dimensional matter.

Transparent, hard, with regular patterns flowing inside that are hard to look at directly.

The true form of the transcendent realm.

The transition from carbon-based to a higher-dimensional crystalline state.

They gave up their flesh and blood in exchange for direct control over the laws of physics.

"When projecting, I only used less than 10% of my strength."

Ji Wudao's crystalline skeleton emitted a soft white light. "You can tear apart the projection, but that doesn't mean you can tear apart the real body."

Qin Meng stared at the strange, completely transparent object in front of him.

It's quite novel, though.

He cracked his knuckles: "Have you finished talking nonsense?"

Ji Wudao did not answer.

He disappeared.

There was no disappearance of the concept of speed.

Instead, his crystal skeleton jumps directly from one coordinate to another in this three-dimensional space.

Spatial folding. Ignoring distance.

Qin Meng was hit on the back of the head.

This was the first time he had been hit in a vital spot since his physique broke through a thousand.

The force was greater than he had anticipated.

Qin Meng's body was blasted through the special glass wall of the Martial God Tower by this attack and flew hundreds of meters outward.

The glass shards, manipulated by Ji Wudao's rules, condensed into hundreds of transparent spears in mid-air, which shot towards Qin Meng's body.

Qin Meng somersaulted high in the air, his feet slipping into the air to stop his momentum. Hundreds of glass spears pierced his chest, abdomen, and thighs—all shattering. Not even a scratch broke the skin.

But the blow to the back of the head caused real damage. A buzzing vibration came from inside the skull, and vision blurred briefly.

"There's something there." Qin Meng touched the back of his head, a little bit of blood on his fingers.

He couldn't remember the last time he bled.