Chapter 149 The Sun

Celebrating Liu Tian on winning first place in the entire provincial college entrance examination!

As if experiencing a sudden flash of enlightenment, Liu Tian's academic performance skyrocketed overnight, effortlessly securing the top spot in the province—or nationwide, had the exams not been administered in separate regional volumes.

For any ordinary student, this should have been the ultimate honor, yet Liu Tian felt no joy whatsoever.

Liu Tian lowered his gaze, looking at the sea of dark, densely packed faces surrounding him. A massive red banner was unfurled behind him. He had been invited here to give a speech, but a profound sense of tedium gnawed at his heart.

Down in the audience, he spotted his parents beaming with excitement, his teachers wearing expressions of reflected glory, and the school principal flushed with radiant pride. It was effortless for Liu Tian to read their thoughts—prestige and profit, reaping both fame and wealth in one stroke.

Liu Tian had originally wished to decline the invitation, but human relations formed a web too intricate for him to escape simply by whim.

How he longed to break free from all of this.

Could he?

Could he not?

After a prolonged hesitation, Liu Tian finally began reading the speech that others had scripted for him.

……

At the library of the nation's premier institution of higher learning.

"Pardon me, may I sit here?" A melodious voice drifted to his ear. Liu Tian turned his head to find a breathtakingly beautiful young woman standing before him. A refreshing, subtle fragrance emanated from her, and her almond-shaped eyes rippled like autumn water. "It's our first meeting. I'm Xia Mi from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature."

"Oh." Liu Tian stood up, closed the book titled *Silent Slaughter* in his hands, and replied, "Of course you may. Goodbye."

……

Inside the biology laboratory, Liu Tian worked in silence. The incident at the library, where he had rebuffed the advances of Xia Mi—the university's most famous and stunning beauty—had already spread throughout the entire campus. Now, everyone cast involuntary glances in his direction, eager to figure out how this utterly average-looking, notoriously reclusive homebody possessed the sheer audacity to reject Xia Mi, a girl whose beauty defied human standards and whose wealth was astronomical.

Such intense scrutiny was palpable even to Liu Tian, making him profoundly grateful for his prior decision. It was truly fortunate that he had run away swiftly; if things were already like this when he simply turned her down, what would have happened had he lingered for two more sentences?

Naturally, Liu Tian appreciated beautiful women, but he despised trouble even more. It was abundantly clear that beauties in this world were mostly synonymous with trouble. Lacking the confidence and leisure to resolve the cascading issues that would inevitably follow, he preferred to cleanly sever the ties before trouble could even arrive.

What Liu Tian was currently working on left him with even less spare focus—namely, the cancer cells under his microscope that seemed determined never to stop dividing.

He was devising an experiment, one concerning how to gain mastery over cancer cells.

Lying flat and letting things rot was one thing, but since he had inexplicably achieved enlightenment and acquired extraordinary abilities, Liu Tian would naturally press forward in the direction of eternal life.

Women? What a nuisance.

"By the way, Senior Sister Zihang, I think we could add some hormones right about here."

……

The Umbrella Corporation went public, and the youngest billionaire in history was born.

As Xia Mi discarded the newspaper she held in her arms and Chu Zihang handed him a cup of coffee from behind, Liu Tian scratched his head, realizing that he had ultimately chosen to rely on women for financial support—and feasting on two bowls of soft rice at that. There was no alternative; experiments were exorbitantly expensive, and without funds, one could not take a single step.

Yet, thanks to financial backing and the resources of the world, Liu Tian finally completed the experiment: utilizing fixed hormones to control the division and differentiation of cancer cells, thereby prolonging life.

Regrettably, although he had mastered the targeted differentiation of cancer cells, due to the unique nature of the human brain—even though rejuvenated organs would feed back into it—Liu Tian could at best maintain a youthful physique and live up to two hundred years.

This span of time fell far short of his ultimate goal. Yet a voice in the depths of his mind seemed to whisper that he should press his research no further; excessive desires would only breed destruction.

Was this truly so bad? A lifespan of two centuries, inexhaustible wealth, and the blessings of multiple exceptional partners—he had exhausted every earthly pleasure known to mankind. Did he genuinely crave anything more?

Yes! I do.

I desire it desperately.

Upon discovering that this world could not grant him true immortality, Liu Tian "woke up," as if a basin of cold water had been dumped over his head.

In such a tedious world, he might as well practice martial arts.

Gazing at the logo of the Umbrella Corporation, Liu Tian thought to himself.

……

Fast! Fast! Fast!

The exact moment Liu Tian slipped into the dream, Vidar erupted violently. Although, theoretically speaking, anyone immersed in a fleeting, dream-like illusion should never awaken—becoming gradually lost within endless paradises until their very sense of self dissolved into absolute nothingness—Liu Tian was different. The sheer number of hidden cards possessed by this abruptly emerged figure remained unknown even to them.

Furthermore, the moment the group forged their alliance, Odin had mirrored the overwhelming, world-crushing posture Liu Tian had previously displayed. They could not possibly gamble their entire plan on the remote possibility that the leader of the Heavenly Kingdom would simply linger in endless slumber.

The Kraken opened its massive maw, spitting forth a human-shaped Dead Servant amidst a torrent of water. A chanting Dead Servant, its entire body sheathed in glistening scales, rode the current toward Liu Tian at a velocity of ten meters per second. As it advanced, the elemental forces that had been roaring in the surrounding space converged frantically, transforming into a terrifying elemental turbulence. This intense turbulence directly disrupted the terrestrial magnetic field.

Earth, fire, water, and wind elements clashed fiercely across the heavens and earth, condensing into high-energy particle streams that stirred the physical world, unbalancing the magnetic poles and plunging reality into chaos.

History had proven that not only could physical matter indirectly influence the elements when gathered, but once elemental concentration reached a certain threshold, it would naturally and inevitably impact the material realm even without the utterance of a Dragon Word.

At this very instant, every other Dragon Word was rendered entirely unusable due to the chaotic elemental maelstrom. Even the authority of the Dragon Kings and the supreme privileges of Odin were powerless to halt the progression of this specific Dragon Word. Unlike other spells that required the orderly circulation of elemental particles, this self-destructive incantation demanded elemental chaos—the more chaotic, the better.

Even if one attempted to abort its progression, the already tumultuous elements would not stall; instead, they would add fuel to the fire, accelerating the spell's execution.

This Dragon Word was named *Leohhn*. It was the force that had instantaneously obliterated the ancient Indian city of Mohenjo-daro, manifested in legend as the heavenly fire sent by God to consume Sodom, and served in the *Mahabharata* epic as the divine celestial weapon the gods hurled to annihilate one another.

Its most recent invocation had occurred in 1990, when the caster heavily battered a monstrous entity that had long grown impervious to binding, plunging it into toxic mercury and pinning it to a cross with a god-slaying spear.

Every deployment of *Leohhn* had left an indelible, heavy stroke upon myth and history, repeatedly altering the course of epochs. And this time, it was the most crucial invocation of all.

Protected continuously within the Kraken's colossal physique, this particular Dead Servant had sustained not a single scratch, even from the most violent electrical surges.

A Dead Servant capable of wielding this precise Dragon Word was the product of countless years of accumulation and targeted breeding. Vidar possessed barely a handful of them; they were his ultimate, all-consuming trump cards.

Their existence constituted Vidar's foundation of confidence when dancing with tigers, and served as the very reason he dared to shepherd Odin toward perfection—for upon Liu Tian's death, he would require a flawless Odin to keep the horde of rabid, magnetic-field-powered martial artists in check.

Preparations had entered their final phase.

Caesar accelerated his bodily recovery. The instant the Dead Servant reached the closest threshold, he exchanged a glance with Vidar. Vidar dragged Odin, whose golden eyes wept continuous streams of blood, while Caesar hauled the gargantuan Kraken. The two men retreated at the absolute zenith of their speed.

Just as Odin's gaze detached from Liu Tian, the latter—whose eyes had been firmly closed—abruptly flung them wide open. His entire aura shifted instantly, radiating an edge that was sharper, more tyrannical, chillingly cold, and utterly merciless.

Slit-like reptilian pupils replaced his pitch-black eyes, and his features transformed into something transcendently handsome—yet a handsomeness too lofty, akin to a divine statue enshrined within a grand temple, instilling an overwhelming sense of supreme detachment that lorded over all creation.

"Breaking from the cocoon, dancing as a butterfly." The earth ruptured violently as boundless magma erupted into towering pillars of flame, instantly morphing into countless fluttering butterflies. Liu Tian—no, the Great Serpent—floated naturally in mid-air. "The world has grown filthy once more."

Boom!

A sun was smashed directly into the surface of the earth!