The Golden King! (First Update)

"Drip..."

The crisp sound echoed through the quiet, narrow Black Room.

Water droplets fell into the tank, sending ripples across the surface.

Bai Zhou leaned in, examining the Crown of Thorns at close range.

This ancient and magnificent diadem.

It was quite thorny.

—Thorny in the physical sense, or rather, prickly.

What does it feel like to hold thorns in your hands? What is the experience of hugging a cactus?

Bai Zhou winced in pain; he really couldn't help but want to complain.

Did Empress Irene, who wore this crown, truly have no special masochistic tendencies?

What was the difference between this and balancing a cactus on one's head?

Growing spikes on one's head—that was truly being "outstanding" in a literal sense.

"Hum—"

Suddenly.

Bai Zhou's Destiny, that White Sun, stirred without reason.

The next second, As if echoing the agitation of Chen, a sudden change occurred.

The iron thorns on the crown seemed to come alive, slowly proliferating and spreading, the twenty-four sharp spikes glinting with a cold light.

"How..."

Bai Zhou held the crown cautiously, observing the anomaly with shock and uncertainty, ready to toss it back into the water at any moment.

Aside from the Chen Destiny, could the approach of someone with a different Destiny trigger such a reaction from the crown...

The next second, bright, vivid blood slowly trickled from the tips of the twenty-four spikes.

This blood of unknown origin slowly flowed along the ancient, intricate, and magnificent patterns.

The winding lines of blood bloomed, and wherever they passed, the patterns faintly glowed.

It was as if the crown were weeping blood.

The scarlet blood-tears dripped onto Bai Zhou's fingertips, a shocking sight.

In the dim Black Room, it was a hair-raising and eerie scene.

Yet, Bai Zhou inexplicably felt a sense of solemnity, a tragic, epic-like... sense of ritual.

Blood-Soaked Coronation...

He suddenly had an epiphany in his heart.

The riddle was right there on the surface.

Now, the blood was here.

All that remained was the "Coronation."

Should he put it on?

Bai Zhou hesitated.

Mostly because he was afraid of the pain.

But in the end, he gritted his teeth.

So what if it's a cactus? Wear it! If you don't want to be eaten, you have to endure the bitterness!

The Last Will stated it clearly: Blood-Soaked Coronation.

He trusted the Last Will, and he had no choice but to trust it... wasn't this the very reason he came?

Things couldn't get any worse than being trapped in a desperate situation at the base, feeling utterly helpless!

—Of course, the main reason was, he was already here!

"..."

Thinking this, Bai Zhou looked around.

After confirming that the surroundings were quiet and empty, he slowly lowered the weeping crown onto his head...

Bai Zhou's movements were very slow, exceptionally slow.

He lowered his head, his muscles tense, his gaze cast upward, watching the crown's movements at all times to prepare for any unforeseen events.

Although he was willing to believe the contents of the Last Will, he was instinctively wary of every mysterious object.

...When this ancient diadem was still a palm's width away from Bai Zhou, the anomaly occurred once more!

The twenty-four spikes on the Crown suddenly hummed and vibrated in unison, as if resisting Bai Zhou's actions.

At the twelve empty spaces cradled by the arcs atop the twenty-four spikes, a golden light faintly bloomed.

"?"

In the next instant, before Bai Zhou could react, his heart was struck as if by lightning.

The clear world before his eyes vanished; in a trance, Bai Zhou crossed beyond this cramped Black Room, crossed beyond this underground base, and saw a sky that did not belong to this place.

Twelve shining stars appeared, rotating, intertwining, and overlapping, with a slumbering Golden Giant awakening upon them, and then, its gaze descended.

Across a stretch of starry sky, across a distance of unknown magnitude.

They, or rather, She, were looking at him.

--This question is way out of the syllabus!

The alarm in Bai Zhou's heart blared frantically; where did a Golden Giant come from?

With something like this, how could the Special Management Department dare to rate it as a mere F-Class Black Box?

He now even had reason to doubt that not only the organization, but even Ya did not understand this Crown well enough!

The immense pressure made it impossible for him to breathe.

Just as Bai Zhou's spine turned cold and his heart was compressed to the point of nearly stopping...

In his ears, twelve grand and solemn declarations rang out in succession--

"This is not one who inherits the Throne--not recognized."

"This is not one who resists injustice--not recognized."

"This is not one who once saved the world--not recognized."

"..."

These grand declarations seemed to come from the distant, ancient past, falling from the unknown Beyond the Heavens, echoing in Bai Zhou's ears in different tones for twelve full times.

Bai Zhou was already struck as if by a hammer and dazed just from hearing the specific content of the first three sentences; his head was buzzing.

He could no longer hear the content that followed at all, and despite his best efforts, he only heard the trailing sounds of nine "not recognized" echoes.

In the next instant, Bai Zhou felt those heavy gazes that had fallen upon him, nearly suffocating him, depart.

The starry sky he had seen in his trance also dimmed.

The Twelve Stars fell back into slumber.

They, or rather, She, seemed to have remained in that night sky forever since an era from who knows how long ago.

Solemn and silent.

Waiting, as always.

--What was that?!

Bai Zhou pulled the Crown away in a hurry, as if electrocuted.

Only after confirming that no more sounds were coming to his ears did he finally let out a long breath.

Recognize what? One must be recognized by "Them" to wear the Crown?

Does wearing it make one a god or something? Do you have to undergo Twelve Trials just to put it on?

Golden King...

Perhaps, it is far more mysterious than Bai Zhou had imagined.

"This Crown..."

Bai Zhou cautiously stared at the quiet and unfamiliar Crown before him.

The ancient, blurred Last Will hung in the air, quiet and still, as if existing for eternity.

But looking at it now, he had a completely different experience.

A feeling of surviving a disaster surged into Bai Zhou's heart.

Never before had Bai Zhou felt the insignificance and powerlessness of his own life as he did just now.

He even had a feeling that even if Ya, who once could Slash stars and moons, were standing here, he would be no better off than him.

--Because that was already a category that transcended human understanding, a transcendent existence that could neither be understood nor defined.

It was as if even that suffocating pressure was merely a wisp of a gaze from Them, cast across an infinitely distant space without any subjective malice.

Resisting injustice? Once saved the world?

What kind of requirements are these?

When Irina wore the Crown, did she also receive "Their" recognition?

It's not that Bai Zhou looks down on that big sister who pedals the spinning wheel... but he reserves his opinion on that.

"Plop..."

"Gulu Lu..."

Something rolled from the Crown onto the floor.

Bai Zhou looked down, surprised to find that it was the blood dripping from the top of the Crown of Thorns hitting the ground.

The blood deformed upon impact, solidifying into several round, small Gold Beads that scattered and rolled across the floor.

Bai Zhou carefully placed the Crown into the distilled water tank, then bent down to pick up the Gold Beads one by one.

The cold Gold Beads felt heavy.

No matter how Bai Zhou examined them, the Gold Beads seemed like nothing more than ordinary golden beans; aside from being perfectly round, there was nothing unusual about them at all.

9999 pure gold—they were the real deal!

No one would ever guess that they had condensed from the blood of the Crown.

"This is...?"

Crouched on the ground studying the Gold Beads, Bai Zhou suddenly blinked.

His fingertips felt an unusual texture on the beads; the sensation was infinitesimal, yet undeniably present.

With a stir in his heart, Bai Zhou tilted his head back and held the Gold Bead up to his eyes, bringing it so close it almost brushed his eyelashes.

He activated a spark of Spirituality located near his brow, stimulating his vision to surge.

Even in the lightless Black Room, everything before him was revealed in minute detail.

Even if a mosquito were to fly past him at this moment, Bai Zhou could distinguish its gender.

--This, of course, was also a result of the special training from Ya.

Mobilizing Spirituality to stimulate and significantly enhance the attributes of a specific part of the body was the most common application of Spirituality.

Even just this much was something ordinary people could not imagine...

With the help of his enhanced, extreme vision, Bai Zhou finally managed to vaguely see the pattern on the Gold Bead, which pushed the limits of the human eye.

It was an exquisite micro-carving, the incisions incredibly, impossibly small--

A well-defined shield occupied the center, and in front of the shield, two Longswords and a War Blade of different shapes were crossed against each other.

This was a pattern filled with power and warning.

This was a mark.

"It's--"

Bai Zhou's heart skipped a beat, his pulse slowing for a fraction of a second, and his fingers tightened instinctively around the Gold Bead.

He recognized this mark, and he was familiar with it.

--It signified the "Adventurer" pathway!