Chapter Eighty-Three: A Bold Idea

When Liu Tian crashed to the ground, the typhoon had just passed. The air still carried the scent of dampness and humidity, and rainwater was scattered everywhere.

“To think you’d use a decoy and then launch a sneak attack before fleeing—such a cowardly rat.”

He stood up, gave himself a quick shake, and sent the droplets flying from his body. In an instant, his figure shrank rapidly, returning to that of an ordinary twelve-year-old boy.

What should he do next?

It was clear that the person who’d used a decoy in his own house wouldn’t dare show himself again anytime soon. For the first time, Liu Tian felt a little lost.

In his previous world, the pursuit of collecting prisms had always given him purpose. But in this world, he had yet to find anything truly worth going after—well, except perhaps for the life of that scoundrel who attacked when he couldn’t win and ran away afterward.

Although Odin’s spear could absorb source points, as the recent encounter showed, it could only yield around ten points at most. While that was far more than any typical relic from the Lost Empire, to Liu Tian, it was a mere bonus—nice to have, but nothing crucial.

With his current strength, ten or so points could only serve as reserves for healing; there was little other use for them. And as for his path of growth, Liu Tian had long since mapped it out. He’d already spent the source points he needed, and with a fair reserve still left, he felt little desire for a mere handful more.

As he pondered his next step, someone entered his line of sight—a figure drenched in blackened blood, sitting with arms wrapped around her knees and clutching a blade, weeping silently in pain.

That was... Chu Zihang, wasn’t it?

“Where’s your father?” Liu Tian walked up behind her, crouched, and patted her shoulder. “Didn’t he take you and run?”

……

Chu Zihang raised her head; scalding tears washed away the black blood on her face. The look of desolation, of someone who had lost the most precious thing in her life, was enough to move anyone who saw it.

Ah, so he’s gone. That meant there was no chance of learning from him how to enter the world they’d just left.

Liu Tian sighed and, almost unconsciously, ruffled Chu Zihang’s hair. The feel of her soft, long hair brought Alice to his mind.

Speaking of which, how was she now? How was her training in the martial art Liu Tian had given her?

A fleeting thought passed through his heart. Though he’d been about to walk away, Liu Tian paused to offer a word of comfort: “Don’t cry. Cry today, cry tomorrow, cry from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn—do you really think you can cry that Odin impersonator to death?”

“If you’ve already taken up the blade, then let your strength speak for you. If you had the power, you could just charge into that world and hack that mongrel down yourself—much more satisfying than weeping here.” Liu Tian added, “Of course, if you know how to get in, tell me. I’ll go in now and kill Odin—maybe I could even save your father.”

“I—I don’t know how to get in,” Chu Zihang’s once clear, bell-like voice was now hoarse, her throat ravaged by grief. “I’m useless... If not for me, father wouldn’t have... wouldn’t have...”

That final moment replayed in her mind, and she could say no more.

Once again, it was a tragedy born of insufficient strength.

He was all too familiar with this scene, having run through similar scenarios countless times in his mind.

After all, if Liu Tian hadn’t advanced fast enough—so fast it defied reason—given Bai Cinnan’s temperament and the nature of the Martial Path of Heaven’s Slaughter, in the end, one of them would surely have died. And when the Heavenly Way realized his junior disciple had killed his senior disciple, she would probably look just like this.

Liu Tian scratched his head. Though his young body affected him in many ways, he had no desire to linger in sentimentality. Standing up, he said, “Then keep crying, vent it out if you must. When I kill Odin one day, I’ll let you know.”

With that, he turned to go—but suddenly felt his pant leg tugged.

Huh?

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Father... Father told me to follow you. To stay close to you,” Chu Zihang said, her tears gone, but a sorrow without tears could be even more moving.

Unfortunately, Liu Tian was a cold and unyielding soul, unmoved by the sufferings of others. Facing the pitiful girl, he offered no further comfort. “Damn, I barely knew the guy; I’m more familiar with you than with him. I’m tired, I’m going to sleep. If you want to follow, suit yourself.”

He easily pried her hand from his pant leg and ambled off toward his home in the slums—deciding to sleep before considering his next move.

Saying nothing more, Chu Zihang bit her lip and, watching Liu Tian move at a pace more suited to a world-class sprinter than a stroll, she pulled a phone from beneath her dress, quickly typed out a message, and then, holding the relic her father left her, hurried to follow him.

Thanks to her newly awakened bloodline, it was a struggle, but she managed to keep up, following him all the way into the slums.

…

She really did follow me?

Liu Tian casually shut the door, leaving the drenched, shapely, and delicate-faced girl outside, indifferent to whatever dangers might befall her in a slum teeming with violence and darkness.

He made his way with ease to his favorite wooden cot.

The room was plain—the walls scorched black, the kitchen still relying on coal for cooking. There was no refrigerator for fear of thieves, so all food had to be bought and eaten the same day.

But in the slums, a room without trash piled at the door and without ceaseless moans from nearby was already a rare and valuable haven.

With a careless tug, Liu Tian stripped off what remained of his pants and tossed them in the trash. He lay down, summoned the [Effort] panel in his mind, and reviewed his current state.

Source points: 97

Metamorphic Demon Self-Mastery, Level 12
Special effect: Personality Infusion (Serpent) – Personality Infusion, cannot be upgraded, cannot be fused

Martial Path of Heaven, Level 11
Special effects: Full body enhancement (Level 11), Self-mastery (Level 11), Electric Surge: 700,000 Volts (recovering)
Cannot be upgraded, cannot be fused

Swordsmanship, Level 6
Special effect: Unity of Sword and Self (Level 6)
Upgradable, can be fused

Staff Technique, Level 6
Special effect: Unity of Staff and Self (Level 6)
Upgradable, can be fused

…

His original two thousand source points had been thoroughly depleted, leaving barely a hundred. Even after recovering a point from touching Gungnir post-battle, he was still deeply in deficit.

It hadn’t needed to cost so much. After Liu Tian left the Secret Martial World, once separated from the main body, the summoning effect of the white light no longer required him to spend source points to resist.

But to preserve the faint remnants of the white light that had split off to create the new body, Liu Tian had poured in a full fourteen hundred source points, raising the Metamorphic Demon Self-Mastery to a level that could affect it—higher, even, than his main Martial Path of Heaven.

Had he saved those points, he might have broken through the next stage of the Martial Path of Heaven.

Yet for Liu Tian, the trade was more than worthwhile—a great gain, in fact.

It wasn’t that Metamorphic Demon Self-Mastery was superior to the Martial Path of Heaven, which he had labored to perfect for himself.

Ultimately, the ability to endlessly split his personality, to view the world from countless perspectives, and to accelerate spiritual growth through the mutual devouring of personalities sounded mysterious, but was, in truth, just controlled multiple personality disorder.

The personalities split by this technique may differ in temperament and memory, but in the end, all were rooted in the practitioner. Any abilities they wielded stemmed from the practitioner himself.

In theory, anything those personalities could do, he could do himself—though sometimes he might miss things due to mental blind spots. There were no miracles of new powers emerging from nowhere through mutual devouring.

But Metamorphic Demon Self-Mastery possessed one effect no other secret martial art had.

Perhaps because it was a rare technique of pure spirit, affecting only the mind, when Liu Tian, for reasons unknown, managed to stay fully conscious while traversing worlds, he discovered that this secret art could actually influence the mysterious white light from the Lost Empire.

Once he realized this, a bold idea began to take shape in Liu Tian’s mind.