Chapter 92
"You know, The Silent One," he said, his voice still lazy, still flat, still sounding like someone complaining about the price of tofu at the market.
Yet behind that laziness, something stirred—something unseen by the naked eye, something that made every strand of reality around them tremble like harp strings plucked by tireless hands.
"I'm actually too lazy to do this. Very lazy. But you've gone too far. You've hurt too many people. You've made The Singer cry far too often. And you—"
He paused, letting out a long breath that sounded like wind whispering through dry leaves before a storm, then continued in a voice that suddenly grew heavier, deeper, more absolute—like a law that could not be denied because it was the law itself.
"… You almost made Ling Xu cry. And that, to me, is your greatest mistake."
And without further words, without warning, without any movement that could be anticipated by any enemy—because there was no movement, only presence, only existence, only the fact that Huan Zheng, The Lazy One, the king of sleep, the prince of a nation called drowsiness, had decided to stop hiding who he truly was—his aura, his cultivation foundation that reached the Head Humanity, began to pour out from every pore of his skin.
From the tips of his messy hair to the soles of his feet that still stood upon dust, ash, and the remnants of shattered bone walls.
The Silent One did not retreat.
Nor did he seem afraid, even as Huan Zheng's Head of Humanity foundation flooded that artificial hell like an unstoppable deluge.
Instead, he chuckled softly—a strangely light, almost cheerful chuckle, like someone hearing an old joke whose punchline they already knew, yet still smiling at its perfect irony.
"The Lazy One, The Lazy One," he said, taking a stance like a martial artist who had trained for thousands of years.
His left foot stepped back half a step, his right foot pressed against the ground with enough force to widen the cracks in the stone floor like gaping mouths, both hands raised before his chest, palms open, fingers aligned—ready to attack or defend.
No one could predict it, because The Silent One was the most terrifying specter among the Three Cultivation Wheels, and he could never be predicted.
"Don't forget, even if you are acknowledged as number two, the reason I can never be defeated by anyone—not even by you, not even by The Singer if she were to unleash all her power, not even by the two of you combined—is because I, The Silent One, do not merely possess limitless power. I have also learned from every defeat, every weakness, every mistake I have ever made in my thousands of years of life. And you—"
He smiled, a smile no longer bitter nor resentful, but confident—a confidence born of experience, knowledge, and certainty that he had seen everything, endured everything, that nothing could surprise him anymore.
"… You, The Lazy One, are still lazy. And your laziness, no matter how great your foundation may be, will always be your greatest weakness."
Huan Zheng did not respond.
He merely let out a sigh—a sigh like someone who had just been told that his favorite noodles were sold out and no one could buy them anymore.
A sigh followed by a movement he had never shown before Ling Xu, the Singer, or anyone else.
The movement of a man about to drop his body to the ground, letting his head crash into dust, ash, and the remnants of shattered bone walls without feeling anything.
As though he were bowing—not to a god, not to a deity, not to a higher being, but to his own laziness, to a habit he could not abandon even with his life on the line.
Yet in the midst of his falling body, between his head nearing the ground and his half-lidded eyes, the first attack emerged.
Not with a violent explosion of Qi, not with deafening waves of energy, but with a terrifying silence—silence born of formulas never recorded in any scripture.
Formulas older than mathematics, more absolute than logic, more lethal than anything ever created by any living being in the boundless universe.
"This is for the Berkeley cardinal," Huan Zheng whispered as his body continued to fall, his voice nearly inaudible amidst the roar of formulas flooding the space around the Silent One.
Formulas that shattered the foundation of the Berkeley cardinal—the cardinal once regarded as the pinnacle of all pinnacles by the mathematicians of the universe, whose very name once caused humanity to faint because their minds were never designed to grasp the infinite, let alone the unimaginable—into dust, into atoms, into nothingness that could never return to its original form.
Like water spilled onto sand.
Like time passing without leaving a trace.
Like a dream forgotten upon waking.
"This is for Reinhardt. This is for Rank into Rank. This is for every cardinal they glorified, every cardinal they believed would grant eternity, every cardinal they thought would make you invincible."
Huan Zheng's attack birthed a barrage of formulas unseen by the naked eye, unfelt by the skin, unheard by the ears—formulas that could only be perceived by a cultivation foundation deep enough to understand that something was moving between the cracks of reality, within frozen moments of time, in spaces no one had ever thought to search because no one had ever imagined such spaces existed.
Those formulas struck The Silent One from every direction—front, back, sides, above, below, even from the hidden gaps between space and time—destroying every layer of defense he had built over thousands of years.
They tore his tattered robe into fragments that fluttered in the air like butterflies stripped of their wings.
They ripped his flesh in several places—his left arm, his right cheek, his forehead now creased with a pain he had not felt in thousands of years—until blood began to drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Like rain falling from a leaking roof.
Like tears from eyes that had never cried.
"Ah…" the Silent One hissed, his voice no longer breaking as when he saw the Aleph symbols in Huan Zheng's eyes, no longer flat as when he admitted his corruption, but restrained—restrained in a strange way.
Like someone savoring pain.
Like someone measuring the strength of their opponent.
Like someone who knew this was only the beginning, that something greater, stronger, more absolute was yet to come—and he had to be ready, had to stand, had to prove that he would never be defeated by anyone.
"Good, The Lazy One. Good. I had almost forgotten what it feels like to be wounded. I had almost forgotten what it feels like to bleed. I had almost forgotten that I can still feel something beyond boredom and emptiness."
To be continued…