Chapter 49: Rapid Trial Passage

At the end of the Warring States period, in the State of Zhao, Handan.

On a winter night in the first month, cold winds whipped fine snow against Handan’s gray stone walls.

In a spacious courtyard within the city, a well-dressed man paced anxiously, occasionally lifting his head to gaze at the closed door of the bedroom ahead.

From within the room, a woman’s intermittent moans and cries of pain echoed continuously.

Each cry pierced his heart, filling him with unbearable anguish.

Until, at a certain moment, the tense atmosphere inside and outside the courtyard was shattered by a newborn’s cry.

The finely dressed man snapped his head up, his face alight with ecstatic joy as he rushed into the room.

“Young Master, it’s a boy!”

The midwife smiled broadly as she handed over the swaddling cloth.

Before he even touched it, a strange odor mixed with blood assaulted his nostrils.

But Ying Zichu paid no heed, still joyfully taking the infant into his arms.

Zhao Ji, just delivered and weak, lifted her head faintly, offering a faint smile of delight.

“Young Master, have you chosen a name?”

“Of course. Since he was born in the first month, how about…?”

Before he finished speaking, Ying Zichu suddenly froze, staring strangely at the infant in his arms.

“Why isn’t he crying?”

At these words, everyone in the bedroom froze.

The next instant, the sky above Handan twisted violently—thick black clouds rolled in from all directions, blotting out the heavens.

“Boom!”

Thunder roared; everyone in Handan halted their actions, staring upward in terror and awe.

Within the clouds, thick blue-white lightning flickered and leapt, like serpentine dragons writhing through the sea of clouds.

…Was heaven enraged?

The people of Zhao had never seen such violent lightning; they stood stunned, unsure how to react.

At that moment, the flickering lightning in the clouds rapidly converged, as if preparing an even more terrifying force.

“Boom!”

The next instant, accompanied by deafening thunder, a deep purple bolt as thick as a house plunged from the sky, striking the courtyard reeking of blood.

For a moment, the entire city of Handan could see the deep purple column linking heaven and earth.

Yet Ying Zichu and the others in the courtyard remained oblivious, unaware that death was descending upon them.

Only when the deep purple lightning struck the eaves did the infant in Ying Zichu’s arms suddenly open his eyes.

What eyes they were!

Black as night, deep as an abyss, as if capable of swallowing all things in this world…

In truth, it was exactly that: the instant the infant opened his eyes, an unimaginably terrifying consciousness surged from him, directly meeting the descending lightning and devouring the entire deep purple column.

Simultaneously, arcs of purple lightning erupted from the infant’s body.

Ying Zichu, holding the infant, was caught off guard and struck directly by the purple lightning—his entire body instantly turned to char.

Worse still, the violent purple lightning spread further, reducing everyone in the room to ash.

The entire house shattered under the purple lightning, crumbling into countless fragments crackling with purple arcs, blasting outward in all directions.

In an instant, the entire courtyard was obliterated by the rampaging purple lightning.

Unfortunate passersby nearby were also struck, their lives extinguished in an instant.

Amid the charred ruins, the tiny infant body glowed with lightning, floating upward like a divine being.

Purple lightning danced across his skin, continuously purifying his body, making his flesh plump and his stature grow taller.

In mere seconds, the infant, whose umbilical cord had just been cut, had grown into a boy one point two meters tall.

On his once-wrinkled face, clear and vivid expressions now appeared—

“Sigh…”

The boy sighed wearily, gazing morosely at the ruins beneath his feet.

He’d only wanted to properly experience this trial—why had so many complications arisen from the very start?

Had his core consciousness flooding into this world triggered resistance from the world’s own awareness?

That didn’t make sense!

How could a mere virtual world possess a world consciousness?

Thinking this, the boy—or rather, Lin Yu—looked up in surprise at the sky above, where thunder still brewed.

Indeed, as Lin Yu had suspected, this world was not real.

From the moment he crossed over, he had realized: every person in this world—his so-called parents, the lively Zhao citizens outside—were not true life.

They were more like projections from another world, NPCs with false consciousness.

Otherwise, Lin Yu would never have dared to directly clash with the descending lightning—he would have chosen a safer method, like relocating everyone in the courtyard elsewhere…

Of course, even knowing this was a simulated space resembling a true illusion, Lin Yu had never intended to destroy everything from the start.

The reason this happened was simply that he hadn’t expected the lightning, once consumed by his consciousness, could erupt from within his body!

This meant his current body was not true flesh and blood, but a mental substance influenced by consciousness.

This had already been confirmed when Lin Yu attempted to refine his body with lightning.

“Boom!”

Amid deafening roars, the clouds above continued brewing lightning, showing no sign of relenting.

Lin Yu frowned, pondering why this was happening.

First, this was a trial—the world’s awareness was essentially the proctor.

So the question was: what behavior would provoke such fierce retaliation from the proctor?

The answer was unmistakable—cheating.

With this thought, Lin Yu extended his consciousness, instantly covering all of Huaxia, and found every NPC in the world was ordinary, possessing no supernatural power whatsoever.

So… was it because his consciousness was too strong, strong enough to easily interfere with the entire world, thus deemed cheating by the proctor?

Lin Yu’s face darkened. He immediately landed on the ground, suppressing his consciousness, and looked up at the sky.

Indeed, the lightning brewing in the clouds weakened slightly—but did not vanish.

Lin Yu thought for a moment, realizing his use of lightning to refine his body was already irreversible.

“So there’s no negotiation then…”

Lin Yu sighed.

The next instant, a lightning bolt as thick as a house crashed down.

Lin Yu swept his consciousness over it, instantly swallowing the lightning, and glared at the sky: “You were the one who dragged my core consciousness here—and now you call it cheating? What, can’t you handle it?!”

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

The clouds remained silent, only continuing to strike with lightning.

Lin Yu, furious, laughed bitterly, standing beneath the falling lightning:

“Fine, fine. You don’t want me to play, huh?”

“Then no one plays!”

Before he finished speaking, Lin Yu’s body erupted in lightning as he shot skyward; his terrifying consciousness surged outward like a tidal wave, sweeping across the sky for a hundred li in an instant.

In that single moment, all clouds vanished, the deep purple lightning disintegrated inch by inch, and even space itself seemed unable to withstand Lin Yu’s consciousness—cracking open long, pitch-black fissures.

But this was only the beginning, for Lin Yu had no intention of stopping.

Thus, the sky shattered and tore beneath his gaze; the earth trembled and roared beneath his will.

The entire world plunged into hell, every corner a scene of apocalyptic disaster.

“Boom!”

Amid deafening thunder, the earth cracked open vast chasms like canyons.

From above, the entire Huaxia land was covered in a spiderweb of pitch-black abysses; space fissures spread rapidly from above Handan, devouring everything in their path.

Palaces shattered, houses collapsed, rivers dried up, mountains crumbled.

Every NPC living on this land had no time to comprehend what was happening before their false bodies were erased by the terrifying consciousness wave, returning to nothingness.

In just three minutes, the entire world was utterly destroyed by Lin Yu’s consciousness.

All matter vanished; only a silent, empty, pitch-black void remained.

Lin Yu floated silently in this void, sighing as he watched the vanished pop-up window in his mind.

Just as he believed this trial had failed, a new window suddenly popped up from his chat box—

“Achievement unlocked: [Defeated Zhao State] [Defeated Wei State] [Defeated Yan State]…”

“Achievement unlocked: [Unified All Under Heaven] [All Seas United]…”

“Achievement unlocked: [Uniform Chariot Tracks] [Uniform Script] [Uniform Ethics]…”

“Achievement unlocked: [Supreme Domination of the Cosmos]!”

【Detection: Trial Completion Conditions Met. Rating: SSS】

【Congratulations, member ‘Lin Yu’, promoted to Administrator!】

(End of Chapter)