Chapter 572: The Mad King
"What 'crazy growth'..." Doctor Zhao asked with a frown. "Didn't you say these things are hair?"
"Can't 'hair' undergo 'crazy growth'?" Chu Tianqiu asked. "When a person's 'hair' is imbued with 'hardening' and 'tracking', all it takes is a single 'crazy growth' to turn it into an excellent killing tool."
Chu Tianqiu blew on the powder in his hand a few times, then walked to the window, gazing at the earthy-yellow sun in the sky.
Behind that sun stretched countless tiny black threads, now shrouding the entire sky. These eerie strands of hair possessed not only extreme toughness but also increased thickness. If one hadn't touched them personally, they could never be mistaken for hair—they would only be seen as black threads.
Chu Tianqiu squinted at the sun that held no brilliance, murmuring to himself: "The sun growing hair... so you are the 'Mother God' that Aunt Tong spoke of?"
The 'Mother God' resembled a massive sphere covered in black threads, now floating in midair, waving the countless strands of hair atop her head, slaughtering all her subjects.
Chu Tianqiu's low mutterings reached Han Yimo's ears. He slowly raised his head, also looking at the sun in the sky.
"Is there something strange about the sun?" Han Yimo asked.
"Is she beautiful?"
Chu Tianqiu's brief question made Han Yimo pause.
"I... I've long thought the sun here was beautiful..." Han Yimo seemed entranced, also muttering softly. "It's like... it's like..."
"An eye," Doctor Zhao said. "It's like a giant eye."
The three of them nodded in unison. The earthy-yellow sun, with black threads creeping from its periphery inward, truly resembled a giant eyeball. Those black threads were like layers of enormous blood vessels spreading across the eye.
What should have been a pure white eyeball appeared eerily earthy yellow under the dark red sky of the 'Land of the End'.
But when had it started? From when exactly had the sky here ceased to be azure, and that grotesque, enormous earthy-yellow eyeball risen into the air?
"So, every move we make is watched by a giant eyeball," Han Yimo murmured to himself. "It's the 'Eye of God'... What lies behind the eye?"
"But what about the 'pupil'...?" Doctor Zhao murmured questioningly. "Such a huge eyeball, yet it has no pupil."
It wasn't strange, really. If this massive eyeball had a pupil, perhaps the 'participants' would have realized long ago that it wasn't the sun. Precisely because it was an earthy-yellow sclera hanging in the sky, it looked just like the sun.
The two felt that Chu Tianqiu had indeed opened up a maddening line of thought. As long as one accepted that everything here could be explained by 'Echo', then nothing was truly 'impossible'.
"An enormous, pupil-less eyeball..." Chu Tianqiu narrowed his eyes, as if deep in thought. "The 'Eye of God'... Could this be my 'path'...?"
"Your path...?"
Both of them turned to look at Chu Tianqiu.
"What a magnificent path of destruction..." Chu Tianqiu let out a hollow laugh. "This is the path to 'godhood'..."
"Godhood..."
"Both of you, I intend to 'become a god'," Chu Tianqiu said. "I will gather all the 'Echoes' here and then tread the supreme path."
Chu Tianqiu's words made their expressions sour. The reason they had joined 'Heaven's Gate' was ultimately to escape, yet the leader of this organization had no desire to escape at all.
"No need to be tense," Chu Tianqiu continued. "As long as I become the supreme being here, I can freely decide your fates. But before I 'become a god', I still need the help of the two of you."
Doctor Zhao frowned and thought for a moment, then asked, "Why us? 'Heaven's Gate' is full of talented and eccentric individuals. Why specifically us?"
"Because I have too much emotional attachment to those others," Chu Tianqiu laughed. "I couldn't bear to harm any of them. So I can only harm the two of you."
"What—"
"How could the 'path to godhood' be smooth sailing... I need extremely capable helpers." Chu Tianqiu's gaze shifted from Doctor Zhao to Han Yimo. "And the two of you are the helpers I've chosen. I will tread over your shattered bones to walk this path to the summit."
"Have you gone mad..." Doctor Zhao said, somewhat dazed. "Do you know what you're saying? Is this your attitude toward 'seeking cooperation'? You want to become a 'god', but you'll step on our shattered bones? How insane would we have to be to agree to this request?"
"Don't fear death," Chu Tianqiu said. "Here, you can fear anything, but you must never fear death."
Seeing that the two remained silent, Chu Tianqiu extended both hands and placed them on their shoulders:
"When normal people choose their 'tools', they like to pick a spear and a shield. But I'm different. I like cannons and explosives. The two of you are my cannons and explosives. Whatever can be shattered, we shatter. And if we encounter something that cannot be shattered, we'll drag each other down in mutual destruction."
Han Yimo gave a bitter laugh upon hearing this and said, "Chu Tianqiu, I originally thought you would be the 'savior', but I never expected you to be the 'destroyer'."
"Excellent way of thinking," Chu Tianqiu smiled. "Only by maintaining this mindset will I be able to stand against Qi Xia at the most critical moment. I told you, you don't need to fear death, but you need to fear me."
With that, he reached into his shirt pocket and slowly pulled out a bloody string of something.
Han Yimo and Zhao Haibo both gasped sharply, instinctively stepping back half a pace.
In their eyes, Chu Tianqiu's madness seemed to have risen another level.
In Chu Tianqiu's hand was a string of eyeballs, reeking of rot, festering and oozing pus.
These eyeballs seemed to come from different people—varying slightly in size and appearance—but all were bleeding and decaying. They were strung together with a cord into a necklace-like shape, about a dozen in total.
He reached up and stroked the eyeball necklace, smearing his palm with sticky black blood. Then he slicked back his hair, revealing his bloodstained forehead, and used his index finger to draw a blood streak down the center of his brow.
Once his disheveled hair was set in place with the help of the blood, Chu Tianqiu took off his glasses and casually tossed them aside.
His aura had shifted.
At first, he only seemed mentally unbalanced, but now even his appearance had become grotesque.
Before Han Yimo and Doctor Zhao could speak, Chu Tianqiu hung the eyeball necklace around his neck. His pristine shirt was now stained with filthy blood. At this moment, his image was strikingly fitting of the 'destroyer' Han Yimo had spoken of.