The Might of the Throne (Part 2)

Li Ming wasn't scolding them when he said those words. He was teasing them.

He was like an old mother watching the child she had raised with her own hands finally begin to look like an adult.

He was gratified, but also furious.

That was why no one would doubt the gravity and seriousness in his voice.

Was Suzhou University important?

It occupied over 4,500 mu, with more than 1.6 million square meters of floor space, 36 schools, over 130 undergraduate majors, more than 6,000 faculty and staff, and a vast student body of nearly 30,000.

Of course Suzhou University was important.

Trading a few lives for thousands, tens of thousands, or even a hundred or two hundred thousand lives was a great and worthy thing.

But heroic deeds like that had always been for adults to do. Adults were the ones who should be going to their deaths.

The adults weren't all dead yet, so why should this mission be handed to a bunch of kids?

If Gu Jiuge had been the one to fall here today, Li Ming would have given him a big thumbs-up and said, "You son of a bitch, you're a real man!"

But the ones who had fallen here today were three kids who had barely seen the world. The youngest, Qingxue, was only sixteen, and the oldest, Su Bai, was only eighteen.

Li Ming couldn't accept it.

So he came.

Filled to the brim with rage.

The Redback Spider sensed that rage. At the same time, it felt as though invisible, intangible chains had bound it tightly, inside and out. Its boiling bloodline slowly went cold, and the great power of the Transcendent slowly ebbed away.

Its Oracle had actually been forbidden!

This lowly human actually possessed the "emperor" attribute!

The fourth Transcendent Law: every Oracle came with a unique attribute.

The Throne's unique attribute: emperor.

Emperor effect: within X range, Transcendent creatures of any rank were unable to invoke their Oracles.

Li Ming picked up Chu Ning's elegant longsword, its blade already notched, and gently weighed it in his hand. He frowned and muttered to himself, "Why do young girls these days all like using equipment that looks good but isn't practical?"

Using this thing against a high-rank Transcendent creature? Was she kidding?

The Redback Spider let out a roar and suddenly leaped dozens of meters into the air. It came down from above, its eight legs like eight thick death scythes, all slashing at Li Ming.

The instant the Redback Spider's eight legs came slashing down, Li Ming reached out with one hand while still complaining about Chu Ning's taste, precisely grasping a barb on one of the legs. He stepped back two paces to avoid the cold gleam of the others and, as he retreated, swung the sword down hard like a saber with a reverse grip.

Squelch!

The spider leg snapped in two, blood gushing out like a fountain.

The Redback Spider let out a piercing, agonized shriek and retreated again and again.

Expressionless, Li Ming dropped Chu Ning's longsword and used the spider leg, which was even taller than he was, as a weapon. He walked forward, wiping the sticky green fluid from his face as he went.

Suddenly, he shot forward like a cheetah, his gaze icy cold. The spider leg in his hand came down at an exceedingly bizarre angle, like a long saber he swung again and again. Blow after blow fell like a furious storm, smashing wildly against the Redback Spider's enormous body.

Bang! Bang!

Spider leg clashed against spider leg with the ring of metal striking metal, sending out waves of piercing hums. As they collided and scraped at breakneck speed, sonic booms sounded through the air and countless sparks flew.

A human as small as an ant had not only overwhelmed the Transcendent creature, which was even bigger than a truck, in presence, but had also crushed it in strength.

Like crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood, like splitting bamboo.

Boom!

Li Ming brought the leg down again, severing the Redback Spider's last leg, then delivered a savage kick that burst one of its lantern-sized primary eyes.

The Redback Spider completely lost its ability to resist.

Li Ming grew even more excited, red light flashing in his eyes. He simply threw away his weapon, his fighting spirit at its peak, and straddled the Redback Spider's back. He raised his fists and smashed them down on its eight compound eyes, each blow like a colossal boulder.

"Lowly human!" the Redback Spider shrieked again and again in pain. Having lost all eight legs, it writhed desperately.

Li Ming grinned, picked up Su Bai's bone knife, and brought it down toward the Redback Spider's mouth. He suddenly put his strength into the cut along its fangs, slicing off half its face, while delivering a fierce kick to its hard chest and abdomen.

Bang!

The Redback Spider smashed through the wall and railing, its enormous body about to fall from the building.

Li Ming leaped off the building, grabbing the broken wall with one hand and gripping the Redback Spider's steadily bleeding carapace tightly with the other. He forcibly hurled the Transcendent creature, which weighed dozens of tons, back onto the rooftop. It landed beside Su Bai with a boom; half a meter closer, and Su Bai might have been crushed into meat paste.

The tremendous momentum punched straight through the ten-centimeter-thick wall, and half the rooftop collapsed with a tremendous crash.

Qingxue, unconscious; Chu Ning, gravely injured; and Su Bai, pinned to the ground and unable to move by the Throne Domain-all three fell through the gap toward the seventh floor of the dormitory.

Was such terrifying power really something a human could wield?

Covered in blood, Chu Ning struggled to her feet and staggered as she steadied herself. Dragging Qingxue with one hand and Su Bai with the other, she moved away from the center of the fight.

"Is he a Super Saiyan?"

Listening to the tremendous sonic booms beside his ears, Su Bai quietly asked.

"No," Chu Ning said after a moment's silence. "He's a freak."

As she spoke, Chu Ning raised her head slightly. Looking past the brim of her hat, she happened to see the first ray of sunlight descending from the horizon and murmured, "It's... dawn."

The J-15 strategic bomber, soaring and circling among the magnificent clouds, slowly flew beyond the bounds of Suzhou University at its pilot's command, heading toward the rising sun.

Dawn arrived, and the cold night gradually receded. The sun would surely dispel the darkness and bring hope and the first light of day.

And that was the meaning of Li Ming's name: dawn.

The next day, noon.

Su Bai looked at the man in front of him, whose hands were shaking as though he had Parkinson's, and fell silent for a moment.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he really couldn't believe that their captain, who usually did nothing but play games and brag, possessed such terrifying destructive power.

In yesterday's battle, half the dormitory building had been destroyed, and steel bars and chunks of concrete flying everywhere had even smashed up the cafeteria and teaching area dozens of meters away.

Through Section Seven's efforts, the scene had been sealed off and the news suppressed, but the incident had still caused considerable damage.

The Section Seven colleague responsible for liaising with Suzhou's Grave Keepers, Sister Yan, had stormed into the office that morning and spent a long time berating Li Ming to his face. In her words: "Is this just about one teaching building? It's Section Seven's reputation! And you even wanted to use an intercontinental missile? Are you people crazy? Which bastard came up with that idea?!"

Then Sister Yan learned that the thing they had wiped out was a third-rank Calamity, and she immediately danced with excitement, laughing so hard her whole body shook.

What did the elimination of a third-rank Transcendent creature mean for Section Seven? Performance, performance, and more fucking performance!

With such a dazzling achievement on her record, Sister Yan would surely get promoted and receive a raise soon, reaching the pinnacle of her life. So she no longer cared at all about the public facilities Li Ming had destroyed.

In her exact words: "Isn't it just one measly dormitory building? How much could it possibly cost? Leave rebuilding it to Section Seven. You Grave Keepers work so hard on the front lines; we certainly can't hold you back. What? Reputation? Could reputation possibly matter more than Great Xia's safety?!"

She had said all the good and the bad herself.

Finally, as she was leaving, she pinched Su Bai's cheek and took the opportunity to feel him up. Throwing him a flirtatious look, she said, "Little brother, you're that new recruit with the S-rank evaluation, right? Keep up the good work. Big sis has high hopes for you! I'll bring your individual evaluations for this mission tomorrow. Oh, right, here's the key to my bedroom. If you're free at night, come over to my place for tea."

A key? To her bedroom??

Was she really going to be that daring?

"Bedroom key, my ass. That's the key to our equipment storage. Lin Luo's been on leave these past two days and asked her to watch it, but I didn't expect her to give it back again. Forget it, don't worry about it. Here... have some tea."

Li Ming's hands were shaking so badly that he poured out a whole pot of tea without even filling one cup.

Su Bai put the key away and took the teapot. "I just went to the hospital to check on them. Chu Ning still can't get out of bed for now, and Qingxue's keeping her company. It'll probably be a few more days before she recovers."

Li Ming rubbed the space between his brows. "The Hunter Guild's bounty on you officially took effect yesterday. A lot of illegal Transcendent guilds across Great Xia are stirring, asking around for your whereabouts. I can't watch over you all the time, and we're short-handed, so there's no one to protect you. What are we supposed to do?"

Su Bai took a sip of tea and said thoughtfully, "Actually, it's not absolutely necessary to have someone protect me. When I go out to take care of things, I could use makeup or disguise myself, or even dress as a woman. It's not like I haven't worn a skirt before. It felt pretty breezy..."