54: Chapter 54 The Emperor Who Crawled Out of the Draft Box, and a New Species with a "BUG" Level
At the entrance of the Scripture Pavilion, the atmosphere solidified into a ball of eerie awkwardness.
Lei Wanjun was dressed in a crisp security uniform, the high-voltage electric baton in his hand sizzling, yet he didn't dare take a single step forward.
The "thing" directly across from him made his Divine Soul scream in alarm.
It was a pure sense of unreality that subverted his cognition.
The founding forefather of the Great Zhou Dynasty, Ji Wushuang.
More accurately, it was a collective formed from residual data entangled with resentment after being forcibly erased by Li Mo in the first volume using an [Author's Statement].
At this moment, Ji Wushuang had the face of a majestic and cold emperor on one side, while the other was a mass of writhing, error-correcting, and garbled pitch-black ink.
His dragon robe was torn, and there were even several illusory labels flickering with the words "404-Not Found" stuck to it.
"I... refuse to accept this!"
Ji Wushuang's voice was intermittent, like a mangled cassette tape playing, every word carrying a jagged edge.
"My three-million-word grand ambition! My script to unify the Southern Wilderness!"
"Why is it already 'The End'?!"
"Why didn't I even have a single line for my exit?!"
"Why is my screen time less than that of a rat?!"
Resentment.
The resentment crawling out from the grave of the text transformed into a tangible curse.
This power even distorted reality, causing pixelated mosaics to appear on the surface of the pair of guardian stone lions at the entrance.
*Cough.*
Li Mo pushed aside the frozen Lei Wanjun, holding the spring and autumn brush in his hand, his eyes calmly examining this "former villain."
"Old Ji, in literary creation, this is called a plot-mandated death."
Li Mo's tone was as if he were explaining common sense.
"Your existence hindered the protagonist's low-key development, so I had to wrong you by making you exit early and serve as a background character."
"A background character?!"
Ji Wushuang was completely triggered by those words. The ink on the right side of his face exploded, transforming into a colossal hand that blotted out the sky as it lunged toward Li Mo!
"I am destiny! I am the Nine-Five Supreme! You dare..."
"Freeze."
Li Mo raised his brush and tapped lightly against the Void Realm.
There was no fluctuation of magic power, no surge of Spiritual Qi.
A massive, blood-red [Pause] symbol appeared out of thin air above Ji Wushuang's head.
That ink giant hand, with its overwhelming Aura, froze just three inches from the tip of Li Mo's nose, motionless.
The entire world seemed to have turned into a frozen frame.
"It seems you haven't figured out your situation."
Li Mo strolled up to Ji Wushuang and used the handle of the spring and autumn brush to poke the "404" label on his dragon robe.
"Right now, you are neither human nor ghost."
"You are a BUG."
"A BUG that is rejected by the world's rules but, due to excessive obsession, got stuck in the recycle bin and couldn't be completely deleted."
Li Mo walked in a circle around the "paused" Ji Wushuang, the light in his eyes growing increasingly intense.
It was the look of a craftsman seeing a divine material, a chess player finding the center point.
"Originally, I thought about just formatting you and being done with it."
"But..."
Li Mo looked back, glancing at the Tianhe Group employees performing their duties—abyss monster security guards, Shadow Sect assassin cleaners, and Confucian literacy teachers.
"My 'Abyss Branch' just happens to lack a CEO who can fight and kill."
"Since you are so obsessed with grand ambitions and so eager to unify the world..."
Li Mo snapped his fingers.
The [Pause] symbol vanished instantly.
Ji Wushuang's body shuddered violently. Just as he was about to erupt again, something was thrown into his arms by Li Mo.
It was a skull that was still blinking its eyes.
"What is this?" Ji Wushuang caught it instinctively, his face full of shock and suspicion.
"Your new cheat."
Li Mo smiled and, with his other hand, flipped open the golden dragon vein heavenly book.
"System, load entry [Infinite Matryoshka (Incomplete)]."
"Fusion targets: Ji Wushuang (BUG Carrier) + Abyss Skull (Undying Core)."
"Execute."
Buzz—!
A pillar of light, woven from pure black and dark gold, instantly engulfed Ji Wushuang.
From within the pillar of light came his roar of extreme pain mixed with boundless excitement.
He could feel the Abyss Skull searing into his chest, undergoing an indescribable Fusion reaction with his body made of "draft ink" and "character resentment"!
The immortality of the Abyss.
The chaotic logic of discarded drafts.
An emperor's desire to rule.
The three were melted into one furnace at this moment!
After the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the light dissipated.
Ji Wushuang, standing where he was, had undergone a complete transformation.
His tattered dragon robe had turned into pitch-black imperial armor covered in bone spikes and runes, and the churning ink behind him had condensed into a cloak of thousands of tentacles.
Of his eyes, one was a pure gold vertical pupil burning with Imperial Dragon Qi, while the other had become an abyssal vortex that devoured light.
[New Species Born: Abyssal Wasteland Tyrant.]
[Traits: BUG Body, immune to most rule-based erasures. Emperor's Soul, possesses natural hierarchy suppression over abyssal creatures.]
Ji Wushuang clenched his fist, feeling the brand-new power within him that was enough to tear the sky apart.
"I... have been resurrected?"
He looked at Li Mo, the violence and killing intent in his eyes receding, replaced by a reverence stemming from the very essence of life. He was crazy, but not stupid. This method of casually modifying his underlying code had made him understand completely.
The person before him was a... Creator whom he could never challenge nor understand.
"It's not called resurrection; it's called a career change and re-employment."
Li Mo reached out and patted a tentacle on Ji Wushuang's shoulder armor.
"Old Ji, this pond of the Southern Wilderness is too small to hold you."
"I've found a new map for you."
Li Mo raised his hand and pointed at the abyssal rift in the sky that had not yet fully closed.
"That place is called the Abyss Realm. The territory is large enough, resources are abundant enough, and there are enough unruly subjects."
"The most important point is, there are no laws."
"I hereby appoint you as the 'Director of the Tianhe Sword Sect's Abyss Realm Office' and concurrently the 'Grand Marshal of the Abyss Expeditionary Force'."
"You have only one task."
Li Mo's voice carried a hint of a smile.
"Take my 'book' and go conquer that world."
"Can you do it?"
Ji Wushuang looked in the direction he was pointing.
Through that pitch-black rift, he seemed to see a chaotic, bloody, murderous, yet vast and boundless dark new world.
At that moment, his long-dormant imperial DNA was completely set ablaze.
"No laws?"
"Unruly subjects everywhere?"
The corners of Ji Wushuang's mouth curled into a cruel and fanatical smile.
"Good! What a wonderful land of kingly way!"
"In my life, what I have been best at is civilizing unruly subjects!"
"I shall plant the dragon flags of the Great Zhou Dynasty in every corner of the Abyss!"
"I want all the monsters of the Abyss to kneel on the ground and recite the 'Great Zhou Laws' for me!"
The corners of Li Mo's mouth curled up slightly.
That's it.
It takes a villain to grind down a villain; the Abyss should be ruled by a tyrant.
"Deputy Director Lei," he called out.
"Present!" Lei Wanjun immediately stood at attention.
"Go to logistics and prepare 'expedition supplies' for our Marshal Ji."
"Take those tens of thousands of copies of 'Postpartum Care for Sows', 'five-year simulation, Three-Year College Entrance Exam', 'Annotations on Criminal Law Classics'... pack as many as you can for him."
"Tell him that these are the sparks of civilization."
"Yes, sir!"
Watching Ji Wushuang's high-spirited back as he couldn't wait to rush to the logistics warehouse, Li Mo thought silently to himself:
Folks of the Abyss, are you ready to welcome the double iron fists of "feudal autocracy" and "exam-oriented education"?