My Ultimate Gacha System-Chapter 280: Mistake - it’s for my other book (please do not read)
for air as the wolf’s corpse finished dissolving into golden light.
He tried to stand but his legs refused to cooperate. His body was too damaged, too exhausted. But more pressingly, the sealed blood essence inside him was becoming a problem.
A serious problem.
The essence wasn’t staying sealed properly. The nodes he’d compressed it into were holding, barely, but the sheer volume of energy was too much for his current cultivation level to contain. The crystalline structures were swelling, expanding against their spiritual bindings like water turning to ice and cracking the stone that held it.
Long Chen felt pressure building inside his torso. His chest felt tight. His breathing grew labored and shallow.
He looked down at his body and his eyes widened in alarm.
They were swelling.
Visibly swelling.
His muscles were distending, skin stretching taut, veins bulging grotesquely as the blood essence sought any outlet for expansion. His right arm was already noticeably larger than normal, the flesh puffing up like it was being inflated from within.
Panic flared hot and sharp in his chest.
’No. No, this isn’t working. The seal isn’t strong enough. There’s too much energy—my body can’t contain it—’
Long Chen immediately tried to refine the essence directly. He forced his cultivation technique to cycle faster, pulling threads of the sealed essence through his meridians to convert it into usable spiritual energy.
The Heavenly Demon Cultivation Technique activated at maximum speed. Spiritual energy flowed through his pathways, grabbing portions of the blood essence and attempting to break it down into absorbable qi.
But it wasn’t nearly fast enough.
For every tiny portion he managed to refine—maybe one percent of the total—the rest continued swelling uncontrollably. His body was losing the battle against the internal pressure.
His right arm bulged further, the skin stretching so tight it started to turn an angry red color. His chest expanded unnaturally, ribs creaking as they were pushed outward from the inside. He could feel his internal organs being compressed by the swelling, making it even harder to breathe.
Long Chen’s hands shook as he desperately tried to refine faster, to process more of the essence before his body ruptured completely.
It wasn’t working.
The swelling spread to his left arm now. Then his legs. His entire body was inflating like a grotesque balloon, spiritual energy and blood essence mixing chaotically beneath his skin with nowhere to go.
Tiny cracks appeared along his arms—the skin literally splitting under the pressure. Blood mixed with glowing spiritual energy leaked from the fractures, steam rising from the wounds.
"Azazel!" Long Chen gasped through gritted teeth. "It’s too much, my body can’t handle it."
*Redirect the energy to your heart,* Azazel said immediately, his tone sharp and urgent.
Long Chen’s eyes snapped wide. "What!?"
*Send all the blood essence to your heart. Right now. All of it.*
"Are you insane!?" Long Chen snarled, his voice breaking with panic and pain. "You want me to dump this much unstable energy directly into my heart!? That’ll kill me instantly! My heart will rupture!"
*No, it won’t.*
"Yes, it will! My heart can’t possibly handle—"
Azazel’s voice cut through his panic like a blade, deadly serious with no trace of his usual amusement or sarcasm. *Trust me. Your heart can handle this. In fact, it’s the only thing in your body that can handle this amount of power.*
"Azazel, listen to me—if you’re tired of living, find a way to die alone! Don’t take me with you!"
*Listen to me carefully—your heart isn’t normal. You should have known this by now.*
Long Chen’s swelling body continued to worsen with each passing second. His skin was stretched so impossibly tight now that more cracks were appearing, spreading like spiderwebs across his arms and chest. Blood and spiritual energy leaked steadily from the fractures, forming small puddles on the stone floor beneath him.
He didn’t have time to argue or debate. He didn’t have time for anything except action.
"Fine!" Long Chen spat through clenched teeth, his jaw so tight it hurt. "But if I die from this—"
*You won’t. I promise you won’t.*
Long Chen took a shuddering breath that rattled in his compressed lungs and turned his focus inward.
The framework channels glowed throughout his body like a network of burning veins, each sealing node bursting with compressed blood essence. His chest node was the brightest, nearly white with contained power. His spine node pulsed like a second heartbeat. His shoulder nodes throbbed in rhythm with each other.
All of them were overloaded. All of them were failing.
Long Chen started redirecting the energy toward his heart.
Slowly at first—terrified of what would happen if he sent too much power too quickly and his heart simply exploded. He guided a thin stream of blood essence from his chest node, carefully channeling it down through his central meridian toward the organ.
The essence flowed into his heart.
Long Chen braced himself for the end. For rupture. For the catastrophic failure of his most vital organ. For death.
Nothing happened.
His heart absorbed the blood essence like dry sand drinking water after a drought. The energy simply... disappeared into the organ. Vanished. No resistance, no strain, no violent reaction.
Just absorption.
Long Chen’s eyes snapped open in shock, staring at nothing.
"What..."
*I told you,* Azazel said, and there was satisfaction in his voice now. *Your heart isn’t normal. It’s not even close to normal. Now stop being cautious and send more. Send all of it.* 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
Long Chen sent more.
Faster this time, less cautious. The blood essence from his chest node rushed toward his heart in a steady stream, no longer a trickle but a river.
His heart drank it down without any sign of strain or complaint.
The swelling in his chest began to reduce immediately. The pressure eased. His ribs settled back into their proper position. His breathing became less labored, easier.
Long Chen watched in amazement as his chest returned to normal size, the skin tightening back down, the cracks beginning to seal.
He made a decision.
He stopped holding back completely.
Long Chen released all the, every single drop absorbed into his body. Every crystalline structure released its compressed essence simultaneously, and all of it rushed toward his heart in a massive catastrophic flood.
The blood essence poured into the organ like a dam breaking, like a waterfall crashing down from impossible heights.
Long Chen’s heart beat once.
The chamber seemed to pulse with it, the air vibrating.
Twice.
Stronger this time. Long Chen felt power radiating from his chest, spreading through his body in waves.
Three times.
Heat bloomed in his torso, intense but not painful. It felt like standing too close to a forge, warmth radiating from his core.
Then his heart stirred.
A notification appeared in Long Chen’s vision—not from Azazel, not from the Tower’s interface, but from the system itself. The text was different, the format unfamiliar.
[****** Is Awakening]
The name was censored, completely blocked out by asterisks like the system either couldn’t or wouldn’t display whatever entity was waking up inside his heart.
[Awakening Progress: 10%]
Long Chen felt his heart pulse with raw power. Heat radiated from it more intensely now, spreading through his chest like liquid fire being injected into his veins. But it didn’t hurt. It felt... right. Natural.
[18%]
Another pulse, stronger than before. The heat intensified, becoming almost uncomfortable but still bearable. Long Chen could feel his blood moving faster, his entire circulatory system responding to whatever was awakening.
[25%]
The progress bar stopped there.
Completely. Abruptly.
The flood of blood essence cut off like a tap being shut. Long Chen’s heart had absorbed everything—every single drop of the Moon devouring Heavenly Wolf’s sage-rank blood essence, all that concentrated power from a beast with one of the highest bloodline classifications in existence.
And it still wanted more.
Long Chen could feel the hunger radiating from his heart. Whatever was sealed inside hadn’t had nearly enough. It was still sleeping, still waiting, demanding more energy to continue its awakening.
But there was no more to give.
Long Chen stared at the notification in complete disbelief, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.
Twenty-five percent.
That terrifying amount of blood essence—enough to nearly rupture his entire body, enough to kill most cultivators just from attempting to absorb it—had only raised whatever was sealed in his heart to twenty-five percent awakening.
Only twenty-five percent.
’What the hell is inside me that requires so much energy just to wake up? What kind of entity needs that much power?’
*He blinked and refocused on his surroundings, on the chamber, on the situation he was still in.
The swelling in his body had completely subsided. His arms looked normal again—no distension, no grotesque bulging. His chest had returned to its proper size and shape. The cracks in his skin were sealing themselves rapidly, spiritual energy knitting flesh back together.
The pressure was entirely gone, replaced by a strange pleasant warmth emanating from his heart. It pulsed through his body in gentle waves, and with each wave, Long Chen felt stronger.
His injuries were healing faster now too.
The deep gashes across his chest from the wolf’s claws were already scabbing over, new flesh forming beneath the dried blood. His shoulder wounds where fangs had punctured were closing visibly, the puncture holes shrinking. Even his mangled left arm was knitting back together—bones realigning, torn muscles reattaching, damaged nerves reconnecting.
It would still take time to fully recover, but the accelerated healing was unmistakable. Whatever had partially awakened in his heart was enhancing his body’s natural regeneration.
Long Chen took a deep breath—full and easy, no pain or restriction—and slowly pushed himself to his feet.
His body protested. Everything still hurts. Exhaustion weighed on him like a physical burden. But he could stand. He could move. And if necessary, he could still fight.
He raised his head and looked across the chamber.
The man was staring right behind him.
The man’s emotionless facade had cracked completely, shattered like glass. His eyes were wide, wider than Long Chen had seen during the entire trial. His mouth was slightly open in undisguised shock. The expression on his face was pure disbelief mixed with something that looked almost like recognition.
He’d watched everything.
The blood essence absorption. The catastrophic swelling. The desperate redirection of energy to Long Chen’s heart. All of it.
But what he was focused on was Tian Long’s presence was still there, the Celestial Dragon coiled majestically in the air above Long Chen, radiating dragon pressure that filled every corner of the chamber with ancient, undeniable authority.
Yan Shou’s eyes moved slowly from Long Chen to the dragon spirit hovering above him. Then his gaze traveled back down, lingering specifically on Long Chen’s chest—on the area directly over his heart.
His expression shifted through several emotions in rapid succession. Shock. Curiosity. Suspicion. And finally, intense focus.
"Boy," Yan Shou said slowly, his previously calm and measured tone replaced by something sharper, more urgent. "Who are you to the Dragon Clan?"
Long Chen blinked, surprised by the directness of the question. "I’m not—"
"Don’t lie to me," Yan Shou cut him off sharply, his voice cracking like a whip through the air. His spiritual pressure flared briefly, pressing down on the chamber.
He took a step forward, his dark eyes boring into Long Chen.
"That spirit behind you is a celestial dragon, only members of the dragon clan awakens that."
Yan Shou’s gaze intensified further.
He pointed his black blade at Long Chen’s chest.
"You have dragon blood flowing through you. Real dragon blood. Not some distant inherited trace that got diluted over generations. Not some fragment of power borrowed from an artifact. Genuine, pure, active dragon bloodline."
Yan Shou’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
"So I’ll ask again, and this time I want the truth—who are you to the Dragon Clan? Are you a bastard child? A hidden descendant? What connection do you have to them?"
Long Chen opened his mouth to respond, to try to explain that he wasn’t connected to any Dragon Clan, that he didn’t even know there was such a thing—
But Yan Shou raised his hand, cutting him off before he could speak.
"Wait, I don’t care anymore" the man said, his expression shifting.
His demeanor changed, becoming more formal.
"Welcome to the turning point of your life."
