Lord of Prayer

“Neurotic, loves telling terrible jokes, and is just generally bizarre.”

“He seems pretty reliable.”

“Despicable, shameless, sinister, cunning, dishonorable, ruthless, and unbelievably audacious.”

“He has a strong sense of justice.”

“To put it nicely, he’s upright and incorruptible. To put it bluntly, he’s a eunuch, impotent.”

“…I think he’s a pretty good person.” Mizuhara Eriko’s voice faltered a little as she listened to the two of them complain.

Zhou Chen was completely dumbfounded. “What do you mean, ‘eunuch, impotent’?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. You were always going on about saving the world, so you stayed away from women. You rejected women who threw themselves at you multiple times. If that’s not being a eunuch and impotent, what is?” Qin Yan said, a bit displeased. That was the first time in her life she had ever doubted her own looks.

Hearing this, Zhou Chen knew she must have wanted to have a “friendly match” with him in the past, only to be rejected, and now she held a grudge. And it seemed he had rejected more than just one.

‘How strange. I don’t remember having such high moral standards, do I? Besides, I’ve already stepped into the Extraordinary Realm where you live on the edge. I could drop dead on the street any day. Seizing the day should be the way to go… Could it be like Qin Yan said? Was I too busy saving the world to bother with the young ladies who wanted a “friendly match”?’

Zhou Chen fell into deep thought.

“Ahem, watch your language. That’s called maintaining his integrity, like a lotus rising from the mud, unstained,” Ma Youcai said.

“Maintaining his integrity? Him?” Qin Yan scoffed. “If you look at the news, you’ll know he has four girlfriends now, and every single one is top-tier. You call that maintaining his integrity?”

“Uh, in that case, I suggest you look for the reason on your end.”

Qin Yan’s face instantly darkened. She gritted her teeth. Wasn’t he just saying she wasn’t high-quality, that she wasn’t beautiful enough?

“Did I ever reveal any other information related to saving the world?” Zhou Chen asked.

“…Is there some deeper meaning to it? It wasn’t just you having a chunibyo phase?” Qin Yan asked, puzzled. “A lot of Transcendents have chunibyo. In America, there’s even a group of civilian Transcendents who formed a superhero association. I’ve actually seen your kind of ‘sickness’ many times.”

“Anyway, all I ever heard you say was that you wanted to save the world. I just took it as your catchphrase,” Ma Youcai chimed in.

“+1,” Mizuhara Eriko added in agreement.

“…” Zhou Chen was speechless. ‘Was I really that deep into my chunibyo phase back then, thinking I was The Chosen One meant to save the world?’

“Yo, everyone’s here.”

Just then, Zhang Tao, dressed in a suit, walked over carrying a tray with food and a coffee. He was clearly there for breakfast. He sat down nearby and asked, “What are you all talking about?”

Zhou Chen filled him in.

“Oh, that. I do remember you saying something about it. Oh, this part of my memory was just unsealed. I wouldn’t have remembered if you hadn’t asked.”

Zhang Tao took a sip of his coffee and began to reminisce. “It was back when we first worked together. I asked you why you joined the Star Association, and you said you wanted to get stronger and save the world. I was curious, so I asked why you thought you could be the one to save the world. You said you never thought you were The Chosen One meant to save the world; you had simply set ‘saving the world’ as your grand goal and were working toward it. You didn’t want to just sit around and wait for the apocalypse.

I asked you what you meant by ‘the apocalypse,’ and you said you had seen the world be destroyed in a dream. The feeling was so real that it convinced you the end was coming, and in the near future, at that.”

“At the time, I thought you were being a bit of an alarmist, but looking at it now, that dream might have been a premonition.”

‘A premonition…’ Zhou Chen nodded slightly, lost in thought.

“Honestly, researching the past right now is a total waste of time. Why not just wait until history is fully unsealed? You’ll know everything then,” Zhang Tao said.

“I’m just very curious. After all, when it comes to my past self… you could say I know nothing at all.”

“Hmm… you were quite different from how you are now.” Zhang Tao recalled, “Your past self always gave off a very weary impression. You weren’t as energetic as you are now. It was probably because the premonition put too much pressure on you, plus you were running all over the world. The mental and physical torment was so bad it felt like you could drop dead from exhaustion at any moment.”

He said, pointing to a few scholars who had come over to eat, “There, just like that group of corporate drones.”

The scholars’ fists immediately tightened.

Zhou Chen slapped his palm. “No wonder I love to slack off so much now. Case closed.”

Zhang Tao didn’t continue on that topic and changed the subject:

“Three hours ago, we deployed the Artificial Death God to the Abyss Battlefield. It directly destroyed twenty-nine Hell Planes, wounded the Master of Ten Thousand Steels, killed two Abyssal Demigods and five Monarchs, as well as countless Hell Tribes, effectively easing the pressure on the battlefield. I had my people declare it was all your doing. Your Prayer value should have gone up by quite a bit, right?”

‘Ah, right. I completely forgot to check the system…’ Zhou Chen had spent a wonderful, tangled night with Tang Ling and had thrown everything else to the back of his mind. He hadn’t even replied to messages from Li Xiye, Erin, or Jiang Che. Only now did he remember to check the Prayer System.

Yesterday, using a Great Miracle to create the Artificial Death God had consumed his Prayer value down to just over a hundred thousand. But in less than eight hours, his Prayer value had rapidly recovered, now reaching 890,000 points. He wasn’t far from another Great Miracle.

“In another hour or two, I’ll be able to perform another Great Miracle,” Zhou Chen said.

“How’s your progress on the Ascension Ladder?”

Zhou Chen checked. This recent wave had pushed him another forty-something steps up, but the top was still nowhere in sight. “As steady as ever. I still can’t even see the gate.”

“That’s normal. You hold multiple Authorities, and all of them are among the most powerful. It wouldn’t make sense if it were easy.”

Achieving Ascension to Divinity with a single Authority is already incredibly difficult, let alone with multiple.

***

Zhou Chen ate a token breakfast, then went to the Eighth District and requested the research files on the owner of the “Eye of God.”

The man’s name was Xia Bing. He had a vocational school education and was a classic punk who was useless at everything. In the end, the only thing he could do was work as a gate guard. He became a residential complex security guard at twenty, taking a forty-year shortcut on the path of failure. But he also had a dream of being a rapper, which, you could say, fit his educational background.

One rainy night, he was writing a song in the security booth when a sudden scream from outside made him jump. He ran out to see the entire residential complex enveloped in a layer of fog. He tried to run back to the security booth but got lost. After wandering for a while, he discovered several mangled corpses, which nearly made him piss his pants in fear.

Just then, a figure appeared in the fog. This guy was surprisingly bold; he grabbed his baton and charged, swinging wildly. He didn’t expect to actually kill the person. As soon as the person died, the fog dissipated, and only then did he realize with horror that he was surrounded by mangled corpses.

When he looked again at the person he had struck down, he saw a pair of crystalline eyes that sparkled like jewels. The eyeballs instantly captivated Xia Bing, as if they possessed a fatal magic. Then, his hands covered in blood, he brutally gouged the two gem-like eyeballs out of the corpse’s sockets.

As if he had lost his mind, he pressed the two jeweled eyeballs to his own eyes. In an instant, the eyeballs in his hands vanished, and his vision became strange. He had also gained some special abilities. It was then that he realized the fog had actually been a mental illusion created by the previous person.

It turned out the previous owner had no real combat power, which was why they used this method to confuse ordinary people and kill them one by one. But they hadn’t expected Xia Bing to be a pure brute who, without a second thought, just clubbed them with his baton. An expert undone by a complete amateur.

The reason the previous owner had gone on a killing spree was that they had accidentally obtained an Extraordinary Artifact that could only be used once after sacrificing thirty human lives.

And so, Xia Bing obtained the Eye of God and that Extraordinary Artifact, officially stepping into the Extraordinary Realm. He gradually started down a bloody and sinful path of no return, eventually becoming an Evil God who committed every imaginable evil.

After finishing the document, Zhou Chen clicked his tongue. The guy had gotten the Eye of God by pure chance and knew nothing about its origins.

“Zhou Chen, level-one alert! Gaia’s Divine War Ruins have appeared.”

Just then, Jiang Che’s voice, incredibly grave, came over the communication channel.

“What?”

Zhou Chen was stunned. The Sword of Ten Thousand Kings hadn’t sensed a thing!

He quickly asked, “How are you? Did you manage to evacuate?”

“Don’t worry, I’m safe. All of Gaia’s personnel have been evacuated. Fallen Paradise is behind this.”