Heart Force, Touching Heart Light Pulse

Drip.

Like a drop of water falling into a deep well, like a stone falling into an abyss.

The instant that sound appeared, silver ripples spread outward in circles, and every cell in Bai Cangshu’s body seemed to be baptized by an invisible force.

His eyes, which had long ceased to blink from dryness, blinked once at that moment.

With just that single blink, everything in the world vanished.

The ruined New Tokyo City, Reverse Uchiha Izayoi standing atop the rubble, the giant outside the sky nearly as large as the planet itself—all of it disappeared.

The world before Bai Cangshu was completely empty. Beneath dim, eerie light, seawater that had lost its original color shallowly submerged the world. Everything had disappeared.

Buildings, mountains and rivers, land, plants, animals… humans…

Everything had disappeared.

Even the sounds that rang out at every moment, sounds your body had grown so accustomed to that you no longer consciously noticed them, had vanished.

Only Bai Cangshu remained, standing atop the water.

Bai Cangshu tilted his head and looked around. He discovered that visibility here was astonishingly good. Though the light was very dim, with his current physique and eyesight, he could easily see extremely far.

There were no obstructions in this world. He even felt as if he could see the curve at the edge of the world.

Standing alone on the surface of such an enormous planet, Bai Cangshu was instantly engulfed by an unprecedented sense of emptiness.

"You should have realized it long ago, shouldn’t you, Bai Cangshu?"

"You are very lonely."

"You have no kindred spirits."

A voice sounded beside Bai Cangshu’s ear. It was almost a murmur, making its tone exceptionally gentle, yet in the absolute silence, it was incomparably loud.

Bai Cangshu cocked his head, as though trying to avoid the voice.

He saw silver ripples echoing through the void before fading away.

Bai Cangshu raised a hand, and golden Qi instantly gathered.

Dodon Ray!

The Dodon Ray tore through the air, then vanished into the dark red, gloomy sky like a golden beam.

There was no explosion, nor any tangible sensation of it striking something.

Even the sound of the Dodon Ray piercing the air seemed lonely in this world.

Humans were social animals. That social nature did not merely refer to humanity’s heavy dependence on division of labor and cooperation. Humans also needed other humans to anchor their own existence.

Human personalities, language, and capacity for interaction all required another person to anchor and confirm one another.

A deaf person who went too long without receiving feedback would gradually lose the ability to speak as well.

"Bai Cangshu, you are merely a beast that wandered into the human world by mistake. Here, there is nothing that interacts with you."

"You speak, yet you cannot say who you are."

"You listen, yet you cannot hear your true voice."

"Even that heart of yours is nothing but a replacement you have continuously exchanged and discarded…"

Bai Cangshu had stopped walking at some point. Moving in this world had no effect, because without any landmarks for reference, he could not tell whether he was actually moving.

There was no telling whether this strange sight was even a real space.

The voice continued chattering beside Bai Cangshu’s ear. Because it was so gentle, it did not seem noisy. Its understanding of him clearly exceeded all limits.

It even knew that Bai Cangshu had replaced his heart numerous times.

In truth, Bai Cangshu did not particularly cherish his own heart.

First, for the Heart of Sin required by Scarlet Great Sin, he had personally cut out his own heart and offered it as a sacrifice.

Then, for power, he had replaced it with Enel’s Heart of the Thunder Emperor.

Finally, he had even placed the Mad King’s heart into his otherwise empty chest.

"See? You keep talking about how desperately you desire a heart, yet what you desire is ultimately only power, only external things…"

The voice completely read Bai Cangshu’s thoughts and continued communicating along the flow of his mind.

The world’s Silence became even more pronounced at that moment. Bai Cangshu suddenly felt the top of his feet grow icy cold, followed by his calves, his knees…

The seawater beneath his feet, under the gloomy, dim light, began to rise.

His Sky Dancing Technique, which allowed him to stand effortlessly in the air, was unexpectedly unable to support him atop this water.

There was something in that water that belonged entirely outside the material world. Here, the laws of physics had already failed.

Bai Cangshu stood where he was, lowering his head and allowing the voice to ring endlessly beside his ear, allowing the seawater to continuously swallow him.

In another world, Reverse Uchiha Izayoi was likewise standing still. But unlike Bai Cangshu, everything around him was in ruins.

He looked at the gloomy Red Sun outside the school, which seemed very close, while the school itself had already been submerged by a colorless liquid.

Everyone fell one after another before him, then disappeared into the water, leaving behind only their clothes as proof that they had existed.

"Hadn’t you long grown tired of such a boring world and life?"

"Whatever becomes of this world, you should not care anymore…"

"After all, you have a new world now. You bear Destiny and are the chosen child of fate. Only that kind of world can allow your talents to take root and flourish."

"Leave, Izayoi. This is not your world…"

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi stood in place as that liquid gradually submerged the tops of his feet.

But he suddenly smiled.

"Is this the so-called trial of [Love]?"

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi suddenly raised one leg high, then stomped down fiercely!

BOOM!

Terrifying power became golden lightning, piercing straight through the crust in a single strike.

Amid dreadful roars of creaking and cracking, the teaching building beneath his feet was instantly torn apart by a fissure. Then came the field below the building, the foundations, and deeper still. He saw even the thick tectonic plates being ripped apart.

Then came the magma layer, and after that, the crust itself completely fractured. Massive amounts of magma began to erupt.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi fell from the sky and casually swung a hand, directly tearing apart everything around him with terrifying force.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi plunged downward, falling toward the center of the earth.

"To reform me through [Love], and kill him through [Loneliness]—is that your plan… Ouroboros?!"

BOOM!

As Reverse Uchiha Izayoi fell toward the earth’s core, he threw a fierce punch. Terrifying power erupted, shredding everything before him.

"Ha ha ha ha… Ha ha ha ha!"

Terrifying laughter echoed beside his ears. The scene before Reverse Uchiha Izayoi changed, and he found himself back in the Lost World he had just entered.

Everything around him had been submerged by an orange ocean, with only the uppermost portions of buildings still exposed.

Everything in this world seemed to have disappeared. Only beyond the sky, that enormous white figure watched the two of them with crimson eyes.

The wild laughter stirred the air as Blazing White currents danced madly around them.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi felt power and aura far surpassing what the other party had displayed when challenging him earlier.

Golden Qi mixed with blood mist soared into the sky. An intense sense of presence became increasingly obvious alongside the beating of those three hearts.

Bai Cangshu looked at the figure in the sky as intensely powerful illusory ripples spread and extended behind him.

Within those illusory ripples, the Mad King’s silvery-white waves were especially distinct, mixed with a dim gray wave.

The ripples wound around Bai Cangshu’s body, outlining his figure into something incomparably slender.

Lines of ripples stretched out in every direction, forcibly imprinting Bai Cangshu’s existence upon this world.

Because humans existed, they naturally interacted with other things. Even mindless, inorganic objects would still be destroyed and changed.

Amid his wild laughter, Bai Cangshu’s expression gradually twisted from ecstatic joy.

He felt it…

That power he had experienced only once before.

The true self that he could only see after being torn apart and shattered.

After Bai Cangshu allowed himself to be completely submerged by that liquid in the empty world, his existence was on the verge of dispersing.

Just as the Wall of Heart began to collapse.

Bai Cangshu saw his true self once more in that place where he was about to vanish.

Illusory, silver-white, green, gray, purple…

Colors began spreading from within Bai Cangshu’s body. He had not even activated Kaio-ken, nor had he used the terrifying Qi gained through Eightfold Kaio-ken to negate abilities.

He had merely touched his true self.

Bai Cangshu did not care in the slightest about what the voice had been murmuring beside his ear.

He had never considered whether he belonged to [humanity], or whether he needed acceptance from other [humans].

Bai Cangshu had never acknowledged any moral question. Just as he had killed many people and saved quite a few in the worlds he had passed through.

Yet he considered himself neither a demon nor a hero.

He was simply himself.

Now, as Bai Cangshu’s understanding touched his truth, intense ripples materialized and spread outward in circles.

[You have touched Heart Light Pulse]

[Heart Light Pulse has begun to manifest]

[While Heart Light Pulse is manifested, the strength, effects, and abilities of your Heart Light Pulse will vary according to the degree of your contact and your state of self]

Crack, crack—

Chunks of silvery-white crystalline surfaces shattered throughout the void. They were like invisible barriers enveloping Bai Cangshu and Reverse Uchiha Izayoi.

Now, they were completely shattered by the ripples naturally escaping from Bai Cangshu’s body.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi raised a hand slightly before his eyes. That Martial Artist had undergone some kind of change. At that moment, all kinds of colored radiance shone from his body.

There was power there that even he found incredibly novel.

As Reverse Uchiha Izayoi wished, he had seen the unique power possessed by these people who could freely travel through different worlds. Then he looked toward the enormous creation above the world.

He suddenly bent both knees, then stomped down hard.

Crack, BOOM!

As the ocean and ground beneath his feet shattered, terrifying air pressure erupted. That Blazing White pressure spread like an enormous fan, directly destroying everything below.

Yet the place where Bai Cangshu stood was completely unaffected.

The wind pressure was naturally calmed by countless brilliant, multicolored ripples as soon as it reached him.

Bai Cangshu’s eyes naturally radiated dazzling colors. He looked at Reverse Uchiha Izayoi, then likewise bent his knees and stomped down hard.

Crack, BOOM!

Terrifying explosive force appeared once more, directly destroying the orange sea below.

In midair, Bai Cangshu clenched his left fist, and a phantom appeared behind him.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi also felt the terrifying force erupting below, but he did not turn back.

The two became twin rays of light, shooting tens of thousands of meters into the sky in an instant before punching toward that illusory giant figure.

When Bai Cangshu threw his punch, a golden authority appeared over his left fist.

In order to gain power like that of Reverse Uchiha Izayoi as he saw it, without any deliberate urging, he naturally began drawing upon every bit of power in his body.

Thus, the authority residing within him, [Qi and Force], was likewise mobilized like a muscle that had always belonged to Bai Cangshu.

The golden authority of Force instantly flowed from Bai Cangshu’s body to his fist.

At that moment, it was as if an uncontrollable power had appeared from nowhere in Bai Cangshu’s hand. Rather, the laws of [Force] had already been grasped by him.

He could freely alter the force in his hand.

The golden authority shone. Terrifying strength was not only born from his body, but also emerged from the void itself.

[The End and The Beginning · EX051, your authority · Qi and Force has increased. Current level: Tier 3 (Adaptation 100%)]

BOOM!

Bai Cangshu threw a punch, and [Force] erupted from before his arm.

Azure Vacuum Waves, golden Qi, and Blazing White Shockwaves surged skyward together.

On the other side, Reverse Uchiha Izayoi threw a punch as well, and golden radiance exploded directly outward.

—

Crack, BOOM!

Terrifying radiance burst through the parchment and flew into the sky before violently exploding.

Blazing White Shockwaves became an enormous ring of clouds, spreading above Underwood and forming a colossal circular cloud over ten thousand meters across that lingered for a long time.

The mindless Shōnen in the white pilot suit shattered at the same time, while two figures fell from the sky.

Reverse Uchiha Izayoi raised his hand. A fifth star had appeared on his wrist.

Meanwhile, a larger fragment of parchment appeared in Bai Cangshu’s hand. Faint illusory crystalline surfaces continuously flickered over it.

[You have obtained the Gift · Heart Force (AT Field)]

He had won this Gift Game, and it had actually granted him power like the AT Field?

Bai Cangshu became even more curious about the person behind this Gift Game.

Just what level of strength did someone need to possess to accomplish something like this?

No, theoretically speaking, this had already somewhat surpassed what a reincarnator at the level of a Supreme Expert could accomplish.

For a mere Supreme Expert, it was already difficult enough to temporarily trap him through their abilities. Aside from the woman in the West District whom he had yet to fight, Bai Cangshu did not believe any other Supreme Expert could carry out all sorts of Gift Games while trapping him.

It was unreasonable.

Unless… the other party had already surpassed the level of a Supreme Expert.

Or perhaps… this Gift Game was not powered by that person alone.

"Look, someone entered that six-star Gift Game again!"

"Alert the others! A six-star Gift Game has appeared here, and it contains terrifying Gifts!"

Bai Cangshu and Reverse Uchiha Izayoi turned around and discovered that both sides had already gathered before that so-called six-star Gift Game.