The system's appearance had irreversibly and fundamentally transformed Yang Chen's very existence.
He was no longer an ant about to be crushed beneath a wheel.
He was the nuclear bomb tied to that wheel, capable of blowing up the entire world.
If I die, all of you are coming with me. The thought struck through all the fear and despair in his mind like black lightning, bringing a sickening, shuddering thrill.
And the detonator was clenched tightly in his own hand.
Greedily, he savored every line of information on the system panel word by word, especially the note: [Deeply bound to the origin of the Primordial World].
Every word was like an unbreakable cornerstone, building an impregnable fortress around his precarious madness.
Under the crushing pressure of Heavenly Might, the corners of his mouth slowly and uncontrollably pulled upward. His muscles spasmed under the extremity of his emotions, forming a bizarre, twisted curve.
How was that merely a note?
It was clearly the most unbreakable shield the Heavenly Dao had personally handed him! The sharpest, most peerless spear that the Six Saints had forged together for him!
This was the ultimate chip that gave him the courage to overturn the entire board!
Just then, Great Dao Runes flowed across the pale-blue light screen once more, forming a brand-new interface that carried the weight of an absolute choice.
[Faced with the joint reckoning of the Heavenly Dao and the Six Saints, the host chooses:]
[Option One: Submit to fate, stretch out your neck for execution, and repay karmic cause and effect. (Reward: One completely painless death experience)]
[Option Two: Defy the heavens, refuse repayment, and fight to the bitter end! (Reward: Determined by the host's performance. No upper limit on rewards!)]
The two options hung there, as distinct as riverbanks.
One led to the release of peaceful extinction.
The other led to madness beyond all redemption.
Yang Chen's gaze swept over the first option, and a brief, hoarse snort escaped from deep in his throat.
Stretch out his neck for execution?
Repay karmic cause and effect?
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous!
In his previous life, as an office drone steeped in the culture of "blessings," reality had already beaten the lesson into him.
Take one step back, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
Endure it for a moment, and his breasts would grow lumps.
Groveling before the boss did not earn promotions or raises. It only brought ever more ruthless exploitation.
Swallowing injustice in silence did not bring open skies and vast seas. It only invited escalating bullying.
He had already lived one lifetime on his knees.
The humiliation and submission of that life had long since filled his soul like invisible poisoned thorns.
Now that he had finally reached the pinnacle of myth in this life, was he supposed to kneel again? Kneel and die?
Besides, what did this debt have to do with Yang Chen in the first place?
When the Dragon-Phoenix Qilin fought each other into a bloody mess, he had not even transmigrated yet.
When Rahula detonated the western earth veins, he was not even a cell.
And now, he had only just opened his eyes when they forcibly shoved the hat of the Primordial World's greatest "debtor" onto him. Then the Heavenly Dao, the Saints, these top-tier creditors, immediately came knocking, demanding that he repay them with his life?
Why?
Why did they get to stand above all others and decide his life and death with a single word? Why did he, an outsider, have to take the blame for their mistakes? There was no greater injustice in heaven and earth!
A violent fury, mixed with all the grievances of his previous life and the endless unwillingness of this one, erupted from the deepest depths of his True Spirit!
"What fucking karma!"
"I inherited this debt through my own ability, so why the hell should I repay it!"
This was not a thought, nor was it a calculation. It was a hysterical roar born from his soul!
"I choose option two!"
"I'll fight to the bitter end!"
He nearly exhausted all his willpower as he hammered that decision down in his mind.
Come on. So what if it meant flipping the table? My life is worthless. Do you Saints, who endure through countless tribulations, dare gamble with me?!
The instant he made his choice.
Buzz!
A faint warm current, so weak it was nearly negligible yet incomparably pure, emerged from the system panel out of nowhere and instantly coursed through his limbs and bones!
Compared with the immeasurable karmic sin within his body, enough to contaminate the entire Primordial World, this energy was as insignificant as a star beside a black hole.
Yet it possessed an utterly different, supreme attribute.
Wherever it passed, the black karmic sin that writhed like maggots through his flesh, devouring his vitality, actually let out fearful hissing sounds and instinctively recoiled.
His meridians, nearly corroded away, gained a brief reprieve.
His Innate Dao Body, on the brink of collapse, was forcibly injected with a powerful life-saving medicine.
His primordial spirit, tightly locked beneath countless shackles, also regained a faint glimmer under the nourishment of that warm current.
More importantly.
Yang Chen felt the invisible force binding his body and choking his throat loosen.
It had not vanished.
The Heavenly Dao's killing intent from beyond the nine heavens, the supreme wills of the six Saints, still weighed upon every thought of his Divine Soul like hundreds of millions of ancient divine mountains.
But a nearly imperceptible crack had appeared in that airtight cage built from absolute will.
And the pure warm current pouring in from the system was the sole lever slipping through that crack, capable of prying open the entire cage.
It did not resist the world-destroying karmic sin, nor did it clash against the boundless Heavenly Might.
It simply reignited the dying spark of life within Yang Chen with ruthless precision.
A powerful dose of medicine.
A shot of adrenaline.
It could not buy him life, but it could buy him a moment of clarity.
It could not reverse death, but it could give him one chance to turn around at the edge of the cliff leading toward death.
That was enough.
Yang Chen's fingertips twitched ever so slightly against the repulsive force of the entire Primordial World.
This movement, too subtle for even mortals to notice, seemed to drain all the energy he possessed at that moment.
Then came a second twitch, and a third.
He could feel blood and qi flowing again through his meridians, riddled with holes from the erosion of endless karmic sin. It moved with excruciating slowness, yet also with unwavering stubbornness.
It did not feel like a surging river.
It was like a nearly dried-up stream forcibly thawed after ten thousand years of ice, inching laboriously over its cracked riverbed.
Every inch of progress came with the agony of torn flesh and groaning bones.
Yet Yang Chen's consciousness had never been clearer.
Within his Divine Soul, that frenzied joy had settled into something deeper and more dangerous.
A cold madness of absolute rationality, like an abyss.
Reckoning?
Suppression?
The muscles at the corners of his mouth began to twitch uncontrollably. He wanted to pull them into a mocking curve, but lacked the strength to do so.
His heart roared soundlessly.
You lofty creditors have gotten one thing wrong.
From the moment I inherited this karma, from the instant you marked me as the target of your reckoning, we stopped being creditors and debtor.
We are gamblers.
You wager the continued existence of the entire Primordial World, betting that Yang Chen will obediently accept his fate and stretch out his neck for execution.
And I wager this worthless life of mine, betting that you... dare not flip the table!
Now, it is my turn to place my bet.
"Ha..."
At last, a dry, hoarse breath squeezed with difficulty from the depths of his tightly constricted throat.
He had regained control of his body.
He could speak.
But he did not.
Any words would have seemed pale and powerless at this moment.
He wanted to do one thing.
One action.
He would use that action to answer the "kindness" of the gods and Buddhas filling the heavens, to answer the "judgment" of the Heavenly Dao and Saints!
Slowly, with unbearable difficulty yet incomparable resolve, he raised his head inch by inch.
This simple action seemed to exhaust all his strength.
His neck let out overloaded creaks. Every cervical vertebra fought against the terrifying pressure from beyond the nine heavens, pressure powerful enough to crush Mount Buzhou.
Muscle fibers tore apart inch by inch.
The joints of his bones gave off grinding sounds that made one's teeth ache.
Beneath his skin, the black aura of karmic sin grew even more violent because of his defiant action, frantically devouring the sliver of vitality he had just recovered.
Raise it!
Raise it for me!
Yang Chen's Divine Soul roared. His will became the toughest steel cable, forcibly hauling up his body on the verge of collapse.
Didn't you want to judge me?
Didn't you stand above all else and see me as an ant?
Then open your eyes wide and look!
Look carefully at the face of this ant of yours!
One inch.
Then another inch.
At last, his chin completely broke free of the restraint of his chest.
At last, his gaze could level with the land of the Primordial World.
The illusion of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, the wails of the Dragon-Phoenix Qilin, could no longer interfere with him in the slightest.
His gaze pierced through layer after layer of void, crossed the mists of karma, and finally landed precisely upon the ink-black tribulation clouds that gathered the rage of heaven and earth.
He "saw" it.
Behind those tribulation clouds, he saw the cold, emotionless will of the Heavenly Dao that regarded all things as straw dogs.
He also "saw" them.
He saw the six supreme beings stretched across heaven and earth like incarnations of cosmic laws.
The judgment of Jade Void Palace on Mount Kunlun.
The slaughter of Golden Ao Island in the East Sea.
The order of Wa Huang Palace Beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens.
The schemes of Mount Sumeru in the West.
The nonaction of Eight Sceneries Palace on Shouyang Mountain.
And the ending of the Nine Nether Underworld.
At this moment, they were no longer unreachable Saints in Yang Chen's eyes.
They were his creditors.
They were his greatest backing!
The twisted, mad smile on his face, made incomparably pale by the erosion of karmic sin, fully bloomed at that moment.
There was no fear in that smile.
No pleading.
Not even anger.
There was only pure, undisguised provocation, cold as ice that had endured for ten thousand years.
An absolute contempt that would drag every lofty existence down from its altar and crush it beneath his feet.
Come on.
Make your move.
Why has your lightning of judgment not yet fallen?
Why has your Immortal Slaying Sword Formation not yet activated?
Why has your boundless merit not yet converted me?
Do you not dare?
What are you afraid of?
Are you afraid that I will die?
Or are you afraid that I will not die thoroughly enough, and that this boundless karma will take all of you with me?
He did not say a single word.
But his eyes and his smile had already turned all of it into the loudest slap, viciously striking the face of the Heavenly Dao and the wills of the Six Saints.
From this moment onward, your rules no longer apply to me.
The game has only just begun.
Before you continue