Dead Broke

Seeing them successfully break through, enter the boundless sea, and hide once more among the cities and common folk, Li Qing finally let out a breath of relief.

Thank goodness—the dignity of a god had been preserved. After all, if a lofty, unfathomable Outer God could not even protect his own believers, there would be no point in playing this game.

He continued observing the entire world.

What exactly was that Tower of Babel?

That weapon made to slaughter gods—did it want to break through the World Crystal Wall?

Li Qing began considering the possible threat.

He made guesses based on creatures in nature.

Would it shoot venomous water bombs to corrode the glass?

Or would it be like some chameleon's tongue, striking at seven times the speed of sound in an attempt to pierce the Crystal Wall?

Give him a break!

Their civilization had only just developed multicellular life. It was still a chaotic mess of crude cells stuck together. Even if they had developed shell-launchers, how powerful could they possibly be?

They looked at the transparent glass and thought it fragile, but in reality, they had no way of understanding the strength of Tempered Glass.

Even ordinary glass might be beyond them.

"They took so long just to deal with Ultraviolet Radiation. How could they possibly use flesh and blood to smash through this glass?"

"The gap between civilizations is far too vast."

Li Qing did not believe they could accomplish it.

Though he had considered some wild stunt like "opening a small gap and using an air gun to blast apart the Tower of Babel," he decided against it after thinking it over.

In truth, the best solution was to kill the emperor.

Kill the emperor, then let the Church of Light, which was close to the gods, rise to power and steal the foundation of their civilization. Controlling this microscopic civilization from behind the scenes was better than wiping it out completely.

Besides, it was genuinely inconvenient for him to exterminate them all.

"Without entering the room, there are very few ways to completely wipe them out! Only Scorching Hell—gasoline—or perhaps Icebound Century—Liquid Nitrogen?" Li Qing showed a trace of hesitation. "Or Dust Explosion?"

But if those methods had been easy to use, he would have used them long ago.

First was Liquid Nitrogen.

Even the steel plates in the laboratory could withstand it, but what if the tempered bulletproof glass could not?

Glass was still vulnerable to sudden cold and heat.

Anyone who had watched those so-called "foreigners courting death" videos knew how terrifying Liquid Nitrogen was. Even thin steel plates could be frozen rigid and snapped in two with a light bend, let alone glass.

With such a huge pane of glass, uneven cooling and cracking would be perfectly normal.

The bulletproof glass before him was as large as a floor-to-ceiling window. How much would a high-quality one cost?

Li Qing doubted Ning Guochang's financial means. Though his parents had left him an inheritance, it was not much. It was entirely possible that he had bought an inferior product.

After all, such large sheets of Tempered Glass on Pinduoduo were not expensive either, and they also claimed to be bulletproof—but would you dare trust the results?

If you subjected this glass to the highest military-grade abuse, would that not be courting death?

Then there was gasoline.

Not only could uneven heating cause the glass to shatter, gasoline might not even be enough to wipe them out.

There was not enough oxygen inside to keep a fire burning for long. The flames would soon die out.

As for pumping oxygen in through a small opening?

That would very likely create air convection and send them out. That would be suicidal.

And finally, the dust explosion?

Leaving aside the possibility of the glass shattering first.

A dust explosion required the dust to be stirred up and evenly dispersed through the air, which could also very likely cause air convection.

None of these three methods would work very well. The more complicated the operation, the easier it was for something to go wrong.

Not to mention other ideas, like vacuuming the space out and causing the glass to collapse and burst. In the end, it all came down to having no money.

Still, Li Qing had long prepared the next method of world destruction. It was more perfect than these, with fewer side effects. Compared to the previous two great extinctions, this one would be truly vicious.

But for now, he would first see whether the guards inside could break through this civilization from within.

Destroying the world might also get his guards killed, turning all his painstaking efforts into ashes.

Wouldn't attacking from within and without be far better than physically destroying the world?

He decided to help the Church of Light once more and win over the hearts of the people.

From beyond the World Barrier, above the heavens, he sent a soul-piercing wave of Consciousness Waves throughout the kingdoms below:

"Because there are believers, the world shall not be destroyed this time."

"If the people of the earth remain stubbornly blind, all living beings upon the earth shall be destroyed once again."

Li Qing picked up his clothes, threw down those harsh words, and turned to leave. That final, icy voice seemed to hang high beneath the eternal blue heavens, without joy or sorrow:

"Atabians, your days of choice are few."

"The final Judgment Day is approaching."

When he left the room, it was already dark.

The night sky glittered with stars.

Some elderly women were taking walks in the residential compound. No one knew that in the room next door, a civilization was gestating within an ocean.

After thinking it over, Li Qing decided to go out and buy cameras.

He looked around and found that the highest-definition models were damned expensive. He spent a small fortune on two of them, nearly draining his savings.

Li Qing's heart immediately ached.

He was renting a place, casually furnishing it, going to the gym, and frantically dealing with this laboratory civilization. Yet all his expenses over the past few days had not cost as much as two cameras.

After all, the ultraviolet equipment had been borrowed.

Still, Li Qing was very satisfied with the results. The image quality was truly high-definition; it could even capture ants on leaves. It deserved to be called comparable to a high-definition camera. One should never underestimate human technology—at a certain distance, some lenses had such high resolution that even a mosquito's antennae on a leaf could be seen clearly.

When the time came, he would press the cameras against the other side of the glass and keep filming them. (Don't ask. If you ask, it's a Parallel Universe. An ultra-high-definition camera can capture the details of ants.)

"The main thing is to observe that Tower of Babel."

At nine that night, Li Qing returned to the house after buying them and worked overtime, immediately installing the cameras.

"The Evil God is casting a spell!"

"Is this such an enormous casting windup?"

"Damn it, is this a Judgment Day weapon of world destruction?"

They watched the cameras pointed straight at them in terror, feeling that evil energy could erupt from within at any moment and destroy their civilization.

This was a Judgment Day weapon!

Some researchers suspected of being Church spies even studied it for a while, then wildly exaggerated as they proclaimed, "This is the Doomsday Death-Ray Cannon!"

And all sorts of rumors were deliberately released.

The entire world became panic-stricken.

Even more people secretly joined the Church, believed in the Lord, and prayed for salvation and forgiveness.

"You people really make a fuss over everything." Li Qing muttered, paying them no attention. Once the cameras were installed, he turned on his phone, found the connection working normally, saw that the mite-sized creatures inside were still captured clearly enough, and left.

The next morning.

After getting up, brushing his teeth, and eating breakfast, Li Qing remembered his account balance.

After splurging for so many days, he was about to run out of money.

Li Qing finally began pondering ways to make money.

"The best way is to treat wealthy cancer patients. For Cancer Cells, as long as most cancers haven't metastasized, I can send an army in to kill them. I could make a fortune with barely any effort."

"But the army of my Church of Light is busy assassinating the emperor in there. They have no time to carry out the God of Light's external mission of exterminating Magic Beasts."

Once he truly got things settled, the first person he would help would be Susannie's girlfriend with stomach cancer. After all, she was a little rich lady.

Of course, he would have to conceal his identity during treatment and put on an act as some mystical charlatan.

But now was clearly not the time to think about that. Cancer treatment technology was still far away, while starvation was right around the corner.