A Battle of Wits and Courage: The First Game Between an Outer God and Mortals

The world inside the Glass Window.

It felt like he was looking at a shrunken microscopic ocean from Earth's most primordial Cambrian era billions of years ago—fish everywhere, trying to evolve and crawl onto land.

Li Qing fell silent at once.

He had no idea what agonizing ordeal the Kingdom of Atabia had gone through in a single day, but fish had evolved in just one day.

That was absurd.

What exactly had Ning Guochang, that Pangu who split open heaven and earth, left behind for him?

Good thing he had brought the Purple Firmament Divine Lightning.

Yet under microscopic observation, these fish were far too crude.

They looked like rusted submarines cobbled together from broken bricks, pebbles, and lumps of cellular flesh, carrying the air of post-apocalyptic steampunk scrap heaps. They looked barely capable of moving.

Perhaps in the future, they would create exquisite scale decorations upon their crude fish. Just as people of the clay age, as they developed, would carve elaborate reliefs and patterns into earthenware, gradually beautifying their creations until they made their own beautiful blue-and-white porcelain.

If they developed fish with an aesthetic style of creation, that might actually be worth looking forward to.

Just as Li Qing stood there in surprise, the King of Atabia was already steering his enormous long-serpent royal ark, knocking laboriously on the glass across the ocean and sending back a wave of consciousness. His tone was filled with incredulous shock:

"Evil God beyond the heavens! Your civilization already had such Arks of Refuge, and you called them... fish?"

"You can understand it that way."

Li Qing thought for a moment and did not refuse to answer.

His consciousness was billions of times larger than that of bacteria, like a vast nebula.

A colossal, majestic consciousness descended with the might of heaven. "It is only that the fish in your world are exceedingly primitive, equivalent to the Early Cambrian of our civilization more than five hundred million years ago."

"Early Cambrian?"

The Emperor of Atabia pondered the information within those words.

It should refer to a certain period of time.

Just as they called the civilization before their eyes the Hongwu Era.

"Five hundred million years... how long ago was that?"

the Emperor of Atabia asked.

Li Qing looked at these vigorous Kingdom Sages, all brimming with curiosity.

He considered it.

He was in no rush to descend another Great Flood in silence as he had the first time, then unleash the so-called Chixiao Divine Lightning.

Because he knew they would likely meet again.

After this mass extinction, he would probably only be able to wipe out around seventy percent of the population before they found another way to resist ultraviolet radiation.

What was more, they had become multicellular, and their armor had grown thicker. The penetrating lethality of the UV Lamp would likely be even lower than expected.

Li Qing set down the device in his hand, moved over a chair, and sat openly outside the Crystal Wall. He looked down upon the civilized world in the ocean and met the emperor's gaze across from him.

Just as before.

Just as Li Qing had looked Ning Guochang in the eye.

"How long is five hundred million years?"

Li Qing sat before the Glass Window for the second time, but the person on the other side was no longer the same.

He briefly explained humanity's counting system. Then, pointing to another skylight in the room, he said candidly, "When light alternates between brightness and darkness, that is one day. Around thirty days make one month, and twelve months make one year."

"So five hundred million years is..." After hearing the conversions one by one, the Emperor of Atabia's mind was shaken to its very core. It was beyond belief.

By that calculation, less than ten days had passed since their civilization was born.

It had taken them a full ten days to develop from Single Cell organisms into fish!

And what about that evil god civilization of chaotic outer space?

More than five hundred million years ago, they had already created the most primitive fish genetic blueprint before his eyes. Then what had they become now, five hundred million years later?

After such an unimaginable span, how terrifying and magnificent had the Creator God civilization become?

A God-Tier Civilization capable of creation!

In that instant, he felt an indescribable suffocation, as though immense pressure had crushed the breath from his lungs. He became ever more reverent toward the enormous Chaos Outer God before him.

The level of the other party's civilization was beyond imagination.

The power they possessed was earth-shattering, and the Great Flood that had so easily nearly destroyed their world proved it.

Beyond the World Crystal Wall, within the hazy chaos, that colossal being looked down from above the clouds and spoke slowly. "Then, young emperor of this kingdom, have you been waiting here specifically for me?"

"Yes."

Atabia fell silent for a moment, then swiftly regained his composure. "You will surely continue destroying our civilization, so I have been waiting for you to appear outside the world once more."

"You know I kill your people, yet you still dared to appear before me." Li Qing's consciousness waves were boundless, and a sliver of intent enveloped him.

Li Qing might have feared and dreaded the microscopic kingdom civilization in this laboratory, but that did not mean he did not even dare meet them or speak to them.

When all was said and done, why should he cower?

They would only fear him more!

Yet their civilization still dared to look fear in the face, to confront him, this "Three-Body Civilization" from beyond the universe, and bravely raise the voice of resistance. Why should he not dare look them in the eye?

Separated by the laboratory glass, if he did not even dare act as a Keyboard Warrior, if he was frightened even of bacteria that had not yet fully developed—

What difference was there between him and trash?

More than that.

They possessed astonishing intelligence, talent, and perceptiveness. If he acted timid, they would certainly detect the flaw and suspect him all the more. The stronger he appeared, the more afraid they would be instead.

Outside the laboratory, he was an ordinary member of society.

Here, he was an unfathomable evil god from beyond the heavens.

This was an information gap. Everything in the giants' world was mysterious and unknown to them. The civilization outside was powerful, and it was the Creator God who had created them.

The moon is rounder in foreign lands!

As a psychologist, he understood emotional psychological warfare quite well. He even decided on a whim that, before the Chixiao Divine Lightning ended the world, he would add another mass extinction of life:

Battle Will Mass Extinction.

"Since he dared speak to me, I will use words to tear apart their civilization and bring them fear."

Sometimes words were sharper than blades.

When a civilization gave birth to fear and despair, losing its own backbone and pride, it lost its spine.

Once it no longer resisted, that was more effective than violent extermination.

At this moment.

The Emperor of Atabia gazed upon the face of that vast, gigantic Evil God, shrouded in clouds and mist. "How will you destroy us? It will not be another Great Flood, will it?"

"You will know soon enough."

Li Qing answered calmly, "I have come to this world to judge the Atabians upon the earth before delivering calamity, to give the humans upon this earth one final chance."

"The people upon the earth all bear original sin."

The voice was majestic, descending from the clouds.

Li Qing took out his phone and played a solemn, weighty church hymn. He turned the volume all the way up and pressed it against the Glass Window.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~~

Above the skies of the Crystal Wall World, the divine hymn spread throughout the world, shaking everything for a hundred li.

Like thunder exploding across the world, countless Atabians in the sea near the Glass Window were shaken until they staggered and tumbled.

Crack!

Light blazed.

The phone pressed against the Glass Window activated its flashlight function.

As the hymn echoed, an immense Holy Light pierced through layers of cloud and mist, spilling from the sky and falling upon the ocean.

"God shall judge the original sins of all living beings in this world."

A magnificent, sacred pillar of light shone down through the clouds.

"God loves all people. God created all things, yet the All Living Beings of this world have blasphemed the God of Creation." He was listing their sins.

God revealed himself. The sacred hymn resounded through the heavens, and the pillar of light shone upon the earth.

That enormous deity, whose sky-covering form stood beyond the World Crystal Wall, hazy and boundless, enveloped in Holy Light, looked down upon the living beings within the world and slowly spoke:

"The gods have decided to send down all manner of calamities and punish this world."

"The power of the gods is beyond your comprehension. If you repent, build temples to the gods, become believers of the gods, drown the sinners upon crosses, and offer tributes, the gods shall forgive you."

Before the Emperor of Atabia, Li Qing began preaching superstition.

His intentions were sinister. Who were the sinners he wanted dead? Naturally, their king.

This was the river god approach—deceive the pitiful common folk into offering up boys and girls, along with all manner of sacrifices.

And the first tribute they offered would be you, the king.

Whether it succeeded or not, a rift would surely form between the people and their king.