He seemed to have woken up from a long sleep that had lasted billions of years. He yawned and smiled at Dream Traveler.

In Traveler Meng’s eyes, the smile was even more hideous than the faces of the ghosts in the deepest part of hell.

“Stop him! Stop him! Stop him!”

The Dream Traveler’s face was pale. His screams drilled into the ears of all the awakeners and scratched their brains brutally.

CRACK! CRACK!

The iron chair he was sitting on had automatic locks that could lock the wrists and ankles of the person sitting on it. However, he had been very cooperative just now, and there were no problems with the first three tests. The grey mist lady did not want to push him too hard, so she did not force him to lock himself.

But right now, it was too late for the spring lock to snap back.

Before the steel locks were fully locked, his wrists and ankles had expanded to twice the size of normal, and the four spring-loaded locks were pushed back. Before anybody realized what was going on, he had arrived in front of Traveler and grasped his neck.

“Shh…”

He said to Dream Traveler with a smile. Then, with a crack, he crushed Dream Traveler’s neck into pieces. His head tilted to one side weirdly.

When he threw Dream Traveler to the ground, the guide of his previous life was already dead.

“Ah!”

The abrupt change took everyone by surprise. Sparda was the most quick-minded of all. He raised the plasma gun out of reflex and pulled the trigger hard.

Without looking back, he extended his right hand and grasped the air.

An unbelievable scene took place. A ball of lightning condensed with destructive force had just whizzed out of the muzzle of Sparda’s gun when it strangely came to a halt in midair. It was as if two forces from two different directions were forcibly tearing it apart, causing it to emit crackling sounds in the solidified air. The deadlock didn’t last long. The ball of plasma unexpectedly returned the way it had come and drilled back into the barrel of the gun. “Boom!” The plasma gun directly exploded. The scattered fragments of the gun pierced deeply into Sparda’s body. Together with the raging electric arcs, the stocky man was directly turned into a broken doll.

“You are not Li Yao. Who are you exactly?”

The grey face of the grey mist lady turned even paler. The wounds all over her body spurted out blood again. She summoned her super power by force. A lot of mist spurted out of her orifices and pores and surrounded him as if it were alive.

His lips curled into a scornful and cruel smile. He clenched his right hand, which had just blown up the plasma, into a fist and punched at the center of the grey mist casually. Suddenly, he heard the sound of air being torn apart through the gaps of his fingers. The grey mist was torn into streams of air and fled in all directions. Even the grey mist lady was blown more than ten meters away and crashed into a container, leaving a human-shaped pit on the ground.

The dozens of awakened Cultivators lurking around the warehouse immediately lunged at him when they saw that he had killed or heavily wounded three core members of the organization.

“Don’t come close!”

The grey mist lady, on the other hand, sensed his horror during the brief exchange. For the first time, indescribable fear appeared in the depths of her eyes as she screamed, “Run! Run now!”

However, she was too late.

No. It should be said that, even if she raised the alarm in the first second, there was no way that she could stop everything and save the life of any Awakened.

“Da da da da da da da da da!”

Dozens of modified heavy firearms bombarded him with a barrage that was like a torrential rain, yet it was unable to cause even a ripple to appear in his swamp-like eyes. The bullets tore his blurred shadow into thousands of threads, while his true body had already turned into an electric arc and flashed behind the numerous awakened ones.

BAM!

An awakened one flew high into the sky. While he was still in the air, his internal organs could not bear the high pressure and exploded, dying a miserable death.

BOOM!

The second awakener was kicked away. At the same time, he activated the four grenades hanging on the enemy’s waist with the ability to manipulate objects remotely so that the Awakener would die without a grave surrounded by four fireworks.

Pa!

The third awakener was hit right on the head. The most solid helmet was as fragile as a matchbox under his palm. The helmet and the head were immediately chopped into pieces.

Hu!

The sacrifice of three awakened Cultivators in a row finally bought enough time for his remaining comrades. The fourth awakened Cultivator closed his hands, from which he was wreathed in burning flames. It was a certain technique that allowed him to control the temperature freely!

But neither the fireballs, the firewall, nor the raging dragons could resist his attacks.

He did not even attack the man directly. He merely snapped his fingers, and the fire inside the man’s body went out of control. The raging flames devoured his cells and his soul instead, resulting in a typical ‘self-combustion’.

It was not a battle but a massacre.

Whether it was the Novice, the Deep Perception, or the Ultimate Perception, whether it was the control over fire, frost, lightning, poison, and other abilities, they were all as vulnerable as three-year-olds in front of him.

He butchered the enemy with ease and turned the warehouse into a blood-stained palace.

His body was wreathed in steaming blood mist, his wet internal organs were stomped on, and a mysterious smile was still on his face. His eyes were like a swamp that could drown all the souls. He was the embodiment of death, the devil king who had walked slowly from the depths of hell!

Right now, other than the heavily wounded Lady Gray Mist and the half-dead Spartan, there was not a single living person in the warehouse—he was definitely not a living person, but a destroyer, a devil, and a death god!

He walked to the front of the grey mist lady and looked down at her in an inhuman way.

BAM!

Not far away, Sparda somehow woke up with his broken body. He raised a pistol casually and shot the last bullet at him.

He waved his hands casually, as if he were chasing away an annoying mosquito. The bullet drew a weird arc in midair and turned 180 degrees, drilling into the center of Sparda’s eyebrow precisely. Then, it drilled a hole the size of a bowl on the back of the head of the loyal resistance, taking away most of the brain tissues.

“As it turns out, cough cough cough cough cough, it really is you. You are the best assassin sent by the Heaven’s Origin Sector to deal with the ‘target drugs’ of the Red Pole.”

The grey mist lady smiled miserably. “Is—is this the power of a ‘super perceptive’? It is indeed powerful. It’s also our fault that we were stupid enough to invite a wolf into our house and bring you to this place.

“However, you were too careless and exposed yourself in advance. So what if your combat ability is strong enough to kill all of us? The Red Pole is hiding in the mist in the depths of the ocean. You won’t be able to find him. Hehe. As long as you can’t see him in person, what can you do even if you are a walking nuclear bomb?

“You are doomed. In the war that has been repeated thousands of times, we—we will be the final winners. No force can stop our freedom and… hope!”

“Oh.”

He listened quietly, nodded, and crushed the heart of the grey mist lady.

He stood in a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood for a long time. The slight frown on his face revealed the irritation in his heart—the irritation of ‘my house is so dirty and needs to be cleaned up for a long time’.

Then, he returned to Dream Traveler’s body. He curled his finger and picked up the pocket watch that was embedded with rubies and blue gems and carved with an octopus pattern.

Fortunately, he was very careful just now and did not damage the precise mechanical structure of the pocket watch. The pointer was still clicking.

He stared at the hovering second hand for a long time. Then he sighed and sent the pocket watch to the sky, where it hovered above his eyes.

He opened his fingers again and aimed his right hand at the pocket watch, twisting his wrist anticlockwise.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The speed at which he twisted his wrist was extremely slow, but the look on his face was extremely prudent. He seemed to be struggling and even in pain, as if an invisible gear was locked in his palm and he was controlling an enormous machine by turning the gear in the opposite direction.

A normal person’s hand would only be able to twist 90 degrees counterclockwise at most. But Li Yao had managed to twist his hand 180 degrees and continued moving forward despite the cracking sounds of his bones.

As the angle of the twist grew larger and larger, the skin of his arm began to crack, and the bones of his arm were completely broken, poking out ghastly white bones. Blood sprayed like a meteor shower on the pocket watch and his face, but his expression didn’t change in the slightest. On the contrary, the look in his eyes grew deeper and darker.

As he twisted the air, the second hand of the pocket watch moved slower and slower. The air was frozen, and visible ripples were spreading out in the space around him, forming a giant counterclockwise swirl.

Finally—

When his palm rotated 360 degrees and his muscles, bones, and veins completely exploded, the second hand, minute hand, and hour hand of the pocket watch all stopped.

What also came to a halt seemed to be… time!

He smiled in satisfaction and turned his broken wrist counterclockwise by 361 degrees.

His blood-stained fingertips seemed to boast terrifying magical power. After the second hand of the pocket watch shivered for a moment, it followed his finger and walked backwards!

It was hard to describe the sound of the second hand going backwards. It was not the clicking sound of the normal rotation, but a sound that seemed to belong to glass bullets that were bouncing up and down until they were gone.

…

“In any case, although he was a greedy, lecherous, third-rate writer and tabloid reporter who was willing to write anything for money in his previous five lives, it was true that he had never been related to the Heaven’s Origin Sector at all. He was just one of the most inconspicuous nobodies. When the Earth was restarted, it was just a series of insignificant data. Even if the Heaven’s Origin Sector really wanted to find a spy, they would absolutely not find him.”

Dream Traveler said to Li Yao.

Li Yao was in a trance. He tilted his head and listened to the voice from afar or deep inside his brain.

He didn’t know whether or not it was his imagination, but he seemed to have heard a sound, how should he put it, a sound of “glass marbles falling on the floor, ‘Dada da da’ bouncing, getting denser and denser, and finally disappearing”.

However, there was only one floor in this warehouse, and the top floor was the canopy. How could there be glass marbles? It was probably the sound of wind and rain outside. He must have heard it wrong.

“Understood.”

Li Yao nodded. He took a deep breath and sat on the iron chair.

The grey mist lady and Dream Traveler were both relieved.

Li Yao suddenly asked Traveler Meng, “Do you have a watch? What time is it?”

“Yes.”

Dream Traveler took out a delicate, vintage pocket watch from his pocket. The shell of the watch was carved with eight-tentacled octopuses in the shape of a helix, giving off an oceanic vibe. “It’s 8:05 p.m.”

“A few seconds?”

Li Yao asked again.

“A few seconds?”

Dream Traveler was dazed for a moment.

“Yes, to the second. Tell me.”

Li Yao said coldly.

“Uh, it was 8:05:32.”

Dream Traveler frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Li Yao blinked his eyes. There was confusion on his face, as if he didn’t know why he asked for the time so precisely.

But he soon forgot about it and nodded at Traveler Meng. “Since it is a rule of the Ark Foundation, let’s begin!”