When Huang Tian arrived at the Oddity Management Association headquarters, nearly all the Association's official members had already gathered. Liu Qingqing, Zhou Dongqiang, "Fire God" Chen Yan, and the others had all been summoned back. They stood in knots of three and five, talking in low voices.
"What did the president say? Are we to fight that person to the death?"
"Fight with what? Fengyang Kingdom's official oddity containment organization, counting on a soul-annihilating oddity, decisively launched a sneak attack on Him. The Shelter Ring blocked it, and in the end almost everyone in the whole organization was killed.
"And Diyang Kingdom, just as you said, staked everything on one fight and brought out every means they had. They were destroyed all the same. The entire thing took no more than two minutes!
"He is too strong—strong enough to drive a person to despair!
"And strength would be bad enough, but He also possesses that Shelter Ring! We want to kill Him and contain Him, yet we cannot even break the Shelter Ring's defense, while He can suppress and kill every one of us in an extremely short time!"
"The way I see it, there is nothing so wrong with handing over all the oddities of our own accord. For one thing, we would no longer have to spend resources and effort carefully keeping the oddities in check. For another, we could exchange them for cultivation methods, divine abilities, and spiritual medicines, and become cultivators able to come and go in the azure void, who might even live forever. What is unacceptable about that?"
"There is no 'what if'! Better to live with some dignity than to die for nothing."
"That is surrender talking!"
"What if—"
"Surrender? Fine. Call it surrender, for now. But what have I sold out? Have I sold out the interests of the nation and the people? I have not! So what if I surrender?"
Amid the fierce quarrel, Su Qi, president of the Oddity Management Association, wore a grave face, his eyes deep. Several subordinates around him carefully studied his expression, guessing what he meant to do.
Suddenly—
"He is here!" an official member shouted, pointing at the sky.
Three simple words startled everyone present. They looked up into the heights at the figure standing with hands clasped behind his back, and their hearts grew heavy beyond measure.
Whoosh~
Huang Tian took a single step, and he was already standing on the ground.
He was only one man, yet his presence wholly overbore the several hundred, nearly a thousand people of the Association, and left every heart unsteady. Almost all of them watched him and President Su Qi with the utmost care, waiting for the two to speak. It would directly decide the life or death of everyone there—
In the heavy silence, Su Qi, refined in bearing, stepped forward and said with a smile, "Welcome, sir, to our Association headquarters."
At these words, everyone let out a breath at once. Even those who had meant to "resist to the last" did the same, for this meant President Su Qi did not intend to fight to the death. That being so, the rest of them would not have to die along with him.
It was not that they feared death so very much. Among the young members of the lower ranks especially, some did fear it, but they were only a small portion. Most were willing to give their lives for the continuation of human civilization.
Yet though they did not fear death, they did not want to die without value or meaning. At least as things stood, this "Huang Tian, the Lord on High" had shown no thought or act of hostility toward humankind. In that case, there was little point in fighting him.
There was another reason, and a crucial one, that made them unwilling to fight to the death. Ever since its founding, the Oddity Management Association had been searching for an "ultimate containment measure"!
Yet over nearly this past year, oddities had appeared again and again, while of the so-called ultimate containment measure not even a shadow could be seen.
This Huang Tian, the Lord on High, however, could "devour" other oddities and settle the matter once and for all.
Was this not the ultimate containment measure they had hoped for?
It was precisely this thought that weakened their will to fight to the death.
"President Su." Seeing that easy smile, Huang Tian inclined his head slightly.
Su Qi said mildly, "We know why you have come, and we have no wish to resist to the death. However, in our hearts—no, to speak precisely, everyone in the world harbors a doubt or two. Might we ask you to answer briefly, and set the world's heart at ease?"
"You may." Now that the greater matter was settled, Huang Tian did not mind answering a few questions.
Su Qi pressed his lips together and asked the question he cared about most. "May I ask—are you human, or an oddity?"
The moment the question left his mouth, both the Association members on the scene and the countless people watching the livestream held their breath.
If "Huang Tian, the Lord on High" was a humanoid oddity, they would be worried and afraid to the extreme. The reason was simple: oddities were absurd!
Absurdity meant they could not be fathomed, and that they acted on whim. Perhaps one second a humanoid oddity was still doing good; the next, it might begin a slaughter and destroy the world.
But if "Huang Tian, the Lord on High" was human, then judging only by his words and deeds, he did not seem a man who killed without restraint. For such a person to hold every oddity in the world might not be a bad thing.
Huang Tian was brief. "I am human, of course."
As he spoke, he drew in the hazy radiance about his body and revealed his true face. When they saw his features, Liu Qingqing and Zhou Dongqiang in the crowd were struck dumb.
"Huang Tian!"
"Old Huang?!"
Su Qi and the others followed the voices and looked at the two staring people. Chen Yan seized Zhou Dongqiang's arm and said, utterly astonished, "You know Him?"
Zhou Dongqiang was so shocked his mouth would not close. Tongue-tied, he said, "K-know Him? How could I not know Him!"
They had been roommates for years, chatting and boasting together. How could he fail to recognize him?
"B-but—but—" He kept saying "but" for a long while and still never got to the point. Zhou Dongqiang slapped his own face. "But Old Huang... isn't he an ordinary person?"
Liu Qingqing was likewise shocked and uncertain. "Huang Tian... Huang Tian, the Lord on High—I should have thought of it long ago. Truly, cleverness turned against me. I always took Huang Tian, the Lord on High for a divine title. I never imagined it was actually tied to a person's name—"
Seeing their astonishment and hearing what they said, Su Qi reacted at once. "Sir, you are from another world, and this is an act of possession?"
Because oddities existed, people in the containment organizations were no strangers to so-called other worlds and other dimensions. He immediately supposed that Huang Tian had come from another world. Otherwise it was hard to explain how an ordinary young man could possess such strength, and devour oddities besides.
Huang Tian smiled and shook his head. "It is not possession. I am Huang Tian, and Huang Tian is me. Original self, true self, personal self, other-self, higher self, divine self—every one of them is me."
The words were not entirely clear, but Su Qi and the others more or less grasped the meaning. He had indeed come from beyond this world, yet the "Huang Tian" on Canxing and the "Huang Tian" from beyond the world were the same person and not the same person. All in all, however, they were still one person.
So it could hardly be called possession. Su Qi nodded thoughtfully, then asked the next question, which was also the last. "Can you truly devour oddities and contain them completely?"
"I can," Huang Tian said frankly.
"Then I have no more doubts." A relaxed smile rose on Su Qi's face. He turned aside, extended a hand, and said, "Please come in. We will assist you in containing all the oddities. One oddity, however, is extremely special and must be treated with care."
Huang Tian stepped forward and entered the headquarters base together with Su Qi. A dozen or so vice presidents and senior members followed close behind, while the official members gathered and talked in curiosity.
One of them asked, "Little Zhou—ah, no, Brother Zhou, do you really know that Huang Tian, the Lord on High?"
Zhou Dongqiang scratched his head, his expression tangled. "All that talk of original self, other-self, and higher self has me a bit muddled. But I suppose it counts as knowing him? We've shared a dorm for two years. Except on holidays, we get together every day to chat, boast, and play games—"
"Ooh, ooh, tell us more!" Everyone was endlessly curious.
"Ah? Tell? Then I'll tell?"
"Tell!"
So Zhou Dongqiang began to tell them of Huang Tian's deeds from the past. During that same time, with the cooperation of Su Qi and the others, Huang Tian absorbed nearly every oddity.
It was "nearly," because one rather special oddity still remained.
"This oddity is a humanoid oddity. We call it the Sun God."
Su Qi and a few others accompanied Huang Tian into a heavily guarded room. Pointing at an enormous water lily there, and at a youth sunk in sleep within it, he said, "The Sun God descended upon Canxing about five months ago. He styled himself God of the Great Sun and looked on humans as ants. The moment he showed himself, he unleashed his power and roasted several hundred thousand people to death on an island.
"At the time we meant to kill Him, but someone guessed that He and the sun were symbiotic. If He died, the sun would explode, and humanity would surely perish. So we could only use the Lotus of Slumber, and have kept Him asleep until now."
Huang Tian walked up to the water lily and looked. The youth's hair was fiery red, a flame mark lay between his brows, and he slept with his arms about his knees, his expression peaceful.
Su Qi sighed. "Oddities simply do not follow reason. By rights, if you devour Him, his bond with the sun ought to come undone. But we fear that even if He is devoured, it may still cause a violent reaction in the sun. Explosion, or going dark? Whichever it is, humanity could not survive."
Set beside certain oddities that could destroy star systems, rivers of stars, or even the universe, the Sun God's threat was not especially great. What made him exceedingly special was his symbiosis with the sun. One misstep, and the sun might explode!
For humanity, an exploding sun was no different from the destruction of the universe. Either way, they died—
Huang Tian understood. He smiled and said, "I know what worries you. But what does it matter if the sun explodes? I'll simply pinch a new one."
"Ah?" Su Qi and the others stood frozen where they were.
Pinch a new sun?
Coming from Huang Tian's mouth, why did it sound as easy as pinching a clay figurine?
Su Qi swallowed and said uneasily, "D-do you have confidence in this? A star, after all—how vast its bulk, and the energy it holds is an astronomical figure—"
"Set your minds at ease. I have pinched more suns than all the stars you have ever observed," Huang Tian said with a smile.
Su Qi and the others started. They at once remembered that this man was a mighty expert from beyond the world, and that his abilities were beyond anything they could imagine. Though they were still uneasy, and thought the words an exaggeration, they nodded. "We believe you. Besides, even if the Sun God is devoured, it may not necessarily cause any change in the sun—"
Huang Tian nodded. Then he reached out with both hands. One touched the Lotus of Slumber; the other rested against the Sun God's shoulder.
Time passed. One, two, three—twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine—and just as the count was about to reach thirty seconds, the Sun God, asleep all the while, awakened in the final instant. By then he had no time at all to resist. He could only glare and shout, "If I die, the Great Sun perishes!"
The words ended, and the thirty seconds passed. He and the Lotus of Slumber turned to motes of light together and flew into Huang Tian's body.
Whether Su Qi and the others, or the people of every nation watching the "livestream," all were seized with dread at the Sun God's prophecy.
Huang Tian's expression stirred. He looked out beyond the sky. "The sun really did explode."
As the words fell, he vanished where he stood. When he appeared again, he was already in the vastness of space.
Standing in the boundless expanse and looking out, one could see it: in the deep void, that Great Sun which had existed since time immemorial suddenly trembled, then swiftly swelled!
It was like a giant egg blown to its limit. Its rim shuddered. Fierce flames danced madly, flinging out flowing fire by the hundreds of millions. The flowing fire dragged tails of flame tens of thousands of kilometers long, like a flock of scarlet birds, and lit the darkness of space!
The whole sun became a boundless sea of fire. Flame vortices of immense size rolled across its surface, and huge torrents of blazing light tore free, stretching arcs of light for millions of kilometers above, below, and in every direction!
"So this is what an exploding star looks like? How terrible, and how beautiful—" Countless people, afraid and entranced, almost moaned.
"The sun has existed for several billion years, and it has truly exploded under the influence of an oddity. How frightening."
"No wonder so many containment organizations have kept searching for an ultimate containment measure. Before oddities, humans are weaker and more helpless than ants. Enough ants can still bite a person to death, but even humanity's strongest means could not make the sun explode.
"If no ultimate containment measure can be found, some oddity will destroy human civilization sooner or later—"
While the world was shaken, lost, and afraid, Huang Tian's expression remained composed. He took one step, and an incomparably vast humanoid phantom manifested before him.
And what a phantom—none could say how tall. A jade crown rested on its head, and it wore robes of five-colored rose clouds. Its sleeves spread wide, and across them flowed scenes of sun, moon, and stars, and images of mountains, rivers, and the land. The immortal robes veiled the sky and held all things!
The phantom lifted a hand lustrous as jade, and the supreme divine ability, Good Fortune from the Great Void, unfolded at once!
In a flash, boundless divine light burst from the palm like a great net, covering the swelling Great Sun and all the flowing fire that shot across ten million li. Those wildly flying flames abruptly stalled, then, as if answering a summons, swiftly returned!
Every thread of flowing fire, every sheet of flame, went back along the way it had come, joyful and urgent as a wanderer heading home.
The vast torrent began to reverse!
As if time flowed backward, innumerable pillars of flame, thousands and millions of kilometers long, returned to the Great Sun. Like the weaving of a robe, divine light wove the flames. Where the sun had broken apart, it mended. Its swollen outline began to draw inward, and the great waves of flame rolling over its surface gradually subsided—
In only a moment, the sun that had just exploded returned to what it had been, and even became more complete and constant!
The Great Sun lived again!
Chapter 250