Glorious God Throne

Drip. Drip. Drip.

…What… sound?

…Where… where am I?

Consciousness was hazy, as if a stick had been stirring endlessly inside his head. Intense dizziness and an almost numb pain washed over him. Countless fragmented memories swirled back and forth, gradually pulling his nearly dormant consciousness back from the brink of death.

Whoosh…

In the sealed laboratory, a pair of eyes slowly opened. Lingering confusion and fear remained in the depths of those pupils.

The blindingly bright white light pierced his eyeballs.

Along with the involuntary tears that welled up in the corners of his eyes, the confusion and fear in their depths were gradually devoured by surging despair, anger, and resentment.

“Huff… I…” Am I still alive?

The moment Leiyin realized this fact, there wasn’t a shred of joy in his heart. Instead, he was engulfed by a deep darkness, his entire being sinking slowly into an abyss.

The experiences of the past three days had taught him one thing.

Sometimes, being alive isn’t necessarily luckier than being dead.

Perhaps dying would have been a form of release?

But some inexplicable obsession that even he couldn’t understand had forcefully sustained him, allowing him to pull through from the edge of death time and time again.

“The third round of experiments begins. The test subject shows no signs of rejection for now.”

A cold, calm voice sounded faintly in his ears.

In Leiyin’s blurred sense of time, it seemed like the next moment when he heard that voice continue: “The experiment will proceed.”

Icy liquid surged through his blood vessels. Leiyin felt as if he were submerged beneath a glacier, his entire body frozen by that coldness.

Then came a searing pain like flames.

His wavering consciousness began to sink again.

“The test subject’s vital signs are about to disappear!”

[Sleep, sleep, never wake up again…]

[Find release…]

The light from the incandescent lamp grew increasingly blurry. Large patches of darkness gradually filled his vision. A voice from the depths of his heart emerged, enticing him towards the deepest darkness.

[Just die like this, end all the suffering…]

That voice whispered seductively in his ear, like invisible gentle arms wrapping around his body, trying to drag him into the abyss of death. He saw the gates of hell opening before him, black flames spreading across his vision, and ghosts reveling before his eyes.

Was it the effect of the drugs? Or hallucinations on the brink of death?

Leiyin had no energy to distinguish these things at the moment. In the depths of the mud-like darkness, he suddenly began to struggle fiercely.

[Indeed, still unwilling to give up…]

The burning black fire, the wailing ghosts, the mud-like darkness – the man climbing out of the mire tore at the bindings enveloping his entire body in a manner that seemed determined to destroy both. Like a demon crawling towards the human world even if it meant shattering the gates of hell.

But increasingly surging black sludge came from all directions, refilling the gaps he had struggled to tear open.

“Resuscitation failed. Test subject confirmed dead—”

[No…]

The sludge spread over his entire body, covering his nose and mouth.

[Not willing not willing I’m absolutely not willing aaaaah!]

[—The one who should die was never me! I absolutely won’t accept this fate! I don’t accept it—]

Hum…

Just as he was about to be completely swallowed by darkness, a gentle beam of light suddenly appeared, tearing open a gap in the darkness.

Then, large swaths of darkness began melting away around him.

Leiyin finally seized the opportunity to crawl out.

Like a gladiator who had endured countless hardships in battle, he lay on the “ground” covered in wounds and utterly exhausted. He opened his eyes and curiously looked towards the source of the light—

Flowers, large blooming flowers, flowers of every color.

Countless blossoms instantly filled his vision.

Deep in the darkness, there was actually a sea of flowers growing. A small shop seemed to be nestled within that flower sea.

By the time Leiyin came to his senses, he had already walked into the flower shop.

Inside, a young man was lying on a rattan chair reading a book. Upon Leiyin’s arrival, he simply smiled faintly.

“Welcome, guest who has arrived by fate. What can I do for you?”

“…Where is this?” Leiyin’s voice was a bit hoarse. “Could this be heaven that one can only reach after death?”

He had never been a religious person, but the scene before his eyes was so shocking that he couldn’t help but think that way.

“Of course not,” the flower shop owner smiled slightly.

He had a face that seemed ordinary yet strangely pleasing to look at, making one instinctively feel close to him. When he looked over with eyes as tolerant as an elder’s, even Leiyin, who was now full of resentment, couldn’t help but let down his guard and defenses.

“I don’t know if heaven exists, but even if it does, you certainly can’t go there now, because you’re not dead yet.”

“…I’m not dead?” Leiyin repeated blankly.

Everything happening now was beyond his common sense. He looked around at his surroundings in utter confusion. In his chaotic mind, crucial information flashed by like lightning.

He suddenly realized something.

“Flower shop, shop owner…” The mysterious existence he had once heard about on the Extraordinary Forum and stories of him saving unfortunate people flashed through his mind. Leiyin looked at him in disbelief, “You, are you the ‘Flower Speaker’, the ‘Wish Granter’?”

The other person smiled slightly, seemingly confirming it.

The moment he realized this fact, sudden wild joy swept through his heart. Leiyin’s entire body trembled with excitement. Without hesitation, he fell to his knees, pleading as if grasping at the last straw of hope. “Please save me! Only you! Only you can save me now! I’m willing to give everything I have to repay you!”

The person on the rattan chair put down his book and stood up.

“Repayment, you say?”

Leiyin heard a soft sigh.

The footsteps slowly approached and stopped in front of him. Leiyin heard the owner of those footsteps speak softly—

“In fact, this place isn’t heaven. It’s closer to hell—because this is the deepest part of despair.”

“However, in the most unfortunate soil, there’s a chance to nurture the flowers of hope.” The young shop owner’s voice was unhurried, yet it was like a breeze dispersing the negative emotions in his heart. “When you came before me, crossing this desolate plain of despair with a body covered in the mud of misfortune, you had already brought the best repayment—” At this point, the shop owner reached out his hand.

“So, do you want to make a trade, possessor of misfortune?” In his open palm lay an unremarkable flower seed. “Use all of your despair and misfortune as payment, in exchange for a seed of hope and luck.”

****

The moment the flower seed fell into his hand, the black sludge entwining his body rushed eagerly towards his palm. Leiyin watched as the unremarkable seed quickly germinated, sprouted, and bloomed in the sludge.

A snow-white flower blossomed in the darkness, seemingly flickering with the radiance of flawless hope. This light gradually filled Leiyin’s entire vision, making his soul tremble.

Thump, thump, thump.

He seemed to hear his own heartbeat.

“Resuscitation failed, test subject confirmed dead—”

“Wait, there’s still hope! The heartbeat has returned!”

“Third round of experiments passed, begin recording data changes…”

The light of the incandescent lamp spread before his eyes again, and blurry white figures swayed back and forth on his retina.

“I… I’m alive?”

As this thought appeared, Leiyin recalled the dreamlike experience on the brink of death. His heart, which had been filled with despair and numbness, trembled with incredulity.

“It wasn’t a dream…”

“…Great deity!”

That ‘Wish Granter’ who helped him survive must be a great deity! If it’s a great deity, surely he can…

“I can definitely leave this place!”

Leiyin closed his eyes, hiding the overly fervent light within them.

Hope…

After three days in this white hell, this word appeared in his heart for the first time. So devout, so certain.

Along with this elevated emotion, Leiyin felt as if the blood in his body was boiling. Beneath his muscles, an invisible force seemed to be transforming from a stream into a river, about to burst forth. His heart began to beat heavily.

He heard the familiar voice of wild joy—

“The experiment succeeded! The test subject’s physical data is continuously climbing, already surpassing the limits of ordinary people… Wait, the data changes are exceeding expectations, it might…”

Just then, the laboratory’s fluorescent tubes made a hissing sound.

Subsequently, the entire laboratory was enveloped in darkness.

A commotion arose in the darkness.

“What’s going on? How did the lab suddenly lose power…”

“Where’s the backup power? Why hasn’t it activated…”

“Damn it, my experiment was all for nothing!”

The consequences of the power outage threw the laboratory into chaos. Some people were searching for the cause, some were trying to salvage the collapsed experiment, others were checking the equipment. Shadows moved back and forth everywhere.

“Crack—”

Amidst the clamor, a strange sound was mixed in.

In the darkness, it seemed as if a fierce beast had broken free from its chains.

The surging blood burned like flames in his veins, a certain power spreading throughout his body with each heartbeat. Accompanied by several brutal snapping sounds, the special metal rings restraining Leiyin’s wrists and ankles were directly torn apart by a terrifying force. He forcefully pulled with both hands, similarly ripping apart the restraining bands around his body.

Leiyin leapt up from the operating table!

His eyes, burning with anger, seemed to glow in the darkness.

Whoosh!

Torrential rain poured down, like a flood cascading from the sky to the earth. Amidst the sound of the downpour, rumbling thunder resounded. Silver-white lightning, like a blade of light slashing across the sky, suddenly pierced through the curtain of rain.

The light of the lightning illuminated the wide-open gates of the research facility.

It also illuminated a figure sprinting out wildly.

And close behind him, nearly a hundred fully armed soldiers.

A sudden thunderstorm struck the imperial capital of the Chenxing Empire, unexpectedly causing a power outage at the suburban research facility.

This kind of accident should have been impossible at a top-secret national research facility.

Yet this once-in-a-decade mishap had occurred.

At that very moment, in the laboratory, the test subject who should have died from a failed experiment miraculously survived. It seemed he had stumbled upon the 0.01% chance of success.

Coincidentally, it was just 5 PM, the time when the soldiers responsible for the facility’s security were changing shifts – the moment when the entire research center’s security was at its weakest.

The two and a half minutes from the power outage to its restoration were enough for this test subject, who appeared to have undergone an astonishing transformation from the experiment, to push open the laboratory doors and escape the facility amidst the chaos.

A series of “coincidences” had forged his luck.

The dark laboratory grew increasingly distant behind him.

Leiyin ran towards the light, heedless of all else.

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