Chapter 44: The Ascending Stairway of Gods
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The divine throne could not be reached by flight.
This was divine authority forged from power, forcing everyone to climb upward step by step beneath an ultimate pressure.
No matter how far one had originally stood from the long staircase before the divine throne, nor how fast or slow one moved, everyone would reach it after spending the same amount of time. Even Mo Wen could not ascend faster than anyone else beneath the absolute suppression of energy levels.
The instant he set foot upon the staircase, Mo Wen felt an inconceivable weight, along with a question that burst abruptly into his mind.
“Why do you advance?”
Mo Wen’s body sank to one knee. Both his psionic precognition and his instincts told him that unless he could answer the question, he would be unable to escape the pressure and climb another step.
“To kill those I despise and destroy their plans,” Mo Wen replied.
It was only partially correct, but the staircase to godhood did not accept his answer. It asked again:
“Why do you advance?”
Mo Wen ran through every answer he could think of that might be correct.
“For revenge. Because I feel responsible for the lives of others. For honor. Because I might become a hero after victory. For happiness. Because I want to remain in this world…”
The pressure vanished, and Mo Wen immediately stepped onto the second stair.
“Why do you fear?”
As the question appeared and the suppression bore down upon him, Mo Wen saw Canglan smiling.
The Corporation agent whom he had already killed once had crossed the boundary of death and appeared before him again.
A mental transmission reached him, cheerful in appearance but brimming with fury:
“Seeing that I’m not truly dead, and that I’ve returned here in an even stronger form—are you happy?”
“Though this is still far from a complete resurrection, and the technology is nowhere near mature, I’m absolutely delighted to be able to take such a vicious revenge right now.”
“Don’t think about answering. Don’t think about escaping. And don’t think about surviving so you can continue interfering with our great undertaking.”
“You will definitely die here!”
Golden waves coiled around Canglan. Mo Wen could see countless human figures moving within them, traces of an ancient age branded into their depths and pushing his power into an inconceivably new realm. The acceleration even caught up to Mo Wen’s thousandfold acceleration at Energy Level Four.
And now, all of that power was being used solely to kill him.
A torrent of psionic force crashed down, its violent impact disrupting Mo Wen’s thoughts and preventing him from answering the question at once.
Mo Wen was preparing to enter Energy Level Five and fight to the death after activating super-acceleration, but before he could do so, the Madman had already appeared before him.
The Madman should be able to win. There was no need to waste the time of Energy Level Five.
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Laughing wildly, he raised the 40 mm plasma cannon beneath him, lightning flashing across its surface.
“Canglan, this is all you’ve got?”
“I just got up here and found you ambushing someone. Luckily, your grandpa has absolutely nothing to fear!”
In truth, the Madman did have fears. He feared that his strength was still insufficient. He feared that incompetence in any area might cause him to fail. That was why his psionic power had enabled him to grow stronger in every respect.
This fear was so clear that he had spent day and night becoming stronger in order to overcome it. The moment he recognized the problem, he had already produced his answer.
Whether he was answering the staircase to godhood or answering Canglan, it was the same.
Under the enhancement of Energy Level Five, plasma resembling a miniature star erupted from beneath the Madman. Its power was enough to evaporate lakes, burn through rivers, and vaporize seas. It collided head-on with the torrent of psionic force.
The former strongest member of the Dreammaking Faction, and one of the candidates for the planet’s most powerful psionicist, had defeated Canglan.
Canglan’s humanoid dialogue interface raised its middle finger before being devoured along with his true body.
Afterward, the Madman simply collapsed beside Mo Wen. Strange-colored liquid flowed from all seven orifices.
“Hiss. That bastard’s still pretty tough. I used too much power. Let me rest for a while…”
“There might be more scoundrels up there waiting to strike while we answer the questions. I’m not sure I can answer the next one instantly, so we should wait for the others.”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot.”
The Madman tugged at the base of his left palm and pulled out an iron rod, handing it to Mo Wen.
“Here. The Strongest Rod. This thing is completely useless by itself, and the fight was a little rushed just now, so I forgot to give it to you.”
“I may need to rest a little longer. People as powerful as us have to conserve some strength for when we face the strongest enemy at the end…”
“Taking a nap.”
The Madman closed his eyes. Since he had not dissolved, he was probably not dead yet.
And what he had said did make some sense.
Mo Wen answered the questions posed by the staircase to godhood again and again, racking his mind and offering up answers such as “fear of death,” “fear of prolonged torment,” “fear of being unable to accomplish anything,” and “fear of falling one step behind and failing to give everything I have.”
Only then did the suppression finally cease.
He waited for a while, until the main force had assembled, before continuing onward.
They advanced relentlessly, breaking through several steps in succession.
On the third step, two Energy Level Five Corporation agents launched a joint ambush. Dozens of allied psionicists died.
On the fourth step, the fully equipped dual-core Ren Sisi fought the resurrected Libra. She won at the cost of destroying a vast number of computational units.
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On the fifth step, two thousand Corporation psionicists who had freshly committed suicide launched a coordinated ambush. One of Mo Wen’s allies, positioned at the front, transferred the damage away from him and died.
On the sixth step, the Corporation used special technology to recreate the most horrific scene from the height of the Company Wars. The Madman and several other powerful psionicists fought with everything they had—and died.
On the seventh step, monsters extracted by the Corporation from the human collective unconscious appeared. An allied psionic amalgam drew their fire and perished, while reinforcements from the Abyssal Company arrived and killed the monsters.
On the eighth step, another Corporation war fortress and its surviving psionicists engaged Mo Wen’s side in a great battle. The steel giant was destroyed, and hundreds of allied psionicists died.
On the ninth step…
Mo Wen gripped a familiar doorknob and pushed open the door.
Inside was his home.
The footprints left on the floor when he had come home through the torrential rain two days earlier had not yet been wiped away. A cat that had somehow gotten into his house held a mouse in its mouth. After glancing at him twice, it quickly ran into the bedroom, apparently preparing to slip out through the window.
Mo Wen did not chase it.
Exhausted beyond measure, he went to the refrigerator and took out the small cake he had snatched up at a discount the previous night. He placed it on the table and lit the birthday candles.
The flames trembled.
What should he eat tomorrow? The salt and soy sauce were almost gone; he needed to buy more. He had heard on the news that the food-delivery industry was thriving. Should he try changing careers? Would the cake taste good?
They were all such ordinary things, yet Mo Wen did not know why his vision had grown blurred.
Gazing at the candle flames, he did not blow them out. Instead, he pinched them out directly between two fingers.
There was no fear and no pain. Only the lucid killing intent that had been temporarily suppressed resurfaced within his heart.
His memories were still blurred, but the instinct engraved in his bones brought Mo Wen back to the door once more.
He pushed it open.
Bang.
On the ninth step, the agent known as Formless attacked Mo Wen alone. At the cost of his life, he successfully held Mo Wen back for several breaths before being killed by the backlash of psionic force.
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