Chapter 173: Ian’s End Is Near!
A pattering light rain was falling.
Among the small glowing mirrors in front of Miss Death.
The Metropolis Gambler, who had always believed that the bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish, logged in again. This time the roles were reversed, and even Lucifer, who had previously been part of the radical faction, felt that Ian was too radical.
“Are you insane? Sending that old man a child? You’re trying to reward him?!” Lucifer was trying to admonish Ian to restrain his talent a bit, but Ian had always ignored such admonishments.
“As long as they give birth to eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight treasures in one pregnancy! As long as they’re busy raising children, I’ll be safe, and this couple will inevitably be unable to continue harming me!”
“Just make my eldest brother’s body tremble a bit, and the whole family regains safety. Any capitalist would bet on this! And I am a qualified capitalist!”
“Besides reasonable! Still reasonable!” Ian had also been enlightened by Lucifer. If Lucifer thought the aphrodisiac would work on the creator duo who had bound themselves to mortal bodies, then the pregnancy potion he got from Thanos big brother would definitely work too, and adding pregnancy magic could even be double insurance.
Under the sofa, Ian and Lucifer were like two sardines squeezed in a can, furtively peeking at the candlelight dinner of God and the Creation Goddess outside.
Seeing Ian’s determined face, Lucifer’s whole demonic capital went numb.
“Eight, at most eight is fine… don’t go too outrageous!” He tried to get Ian to take a step back with him, but Ian’s desire to survive was extremely strong at this moment in a place where it shouldn’t be.
He felt his plan was brilliantly perfect, a truly once-and-for-all way to resolve the crisis.
“This is called strategic defense. Your father used children to bind the marriage, and I gained peace————In most cases, lactation period and estrus period wouldn’t coexist under normal circumstances.”
Ian felt this was the best way to dispel the Creation Goddess’s overt crush on him. Lowering his voice, his eyes peered through the sofa gap at the outside—God was using Jonathan’s body to cut steak for the Creation Goddess.
The movements were elegant to the point of being slightly contrived.
“You call eighty-eight thousand children ‘lactation period’? That’s a universe-level catastrophe!” Lucifer’s eye twitched. He had finally met someone even crazier than himself.
The Lord of Hell could even see from Ian’s suspicious gaze that the other was suspecting him of fearing too many little brothers and sisters competing for the family property. Was this a direction a normal mind would focus on?
“Although I’m still short one good pen, I have a brilliant plan right now.” Ian ignored Lucifer’s protests. He pulled out 《Ian’s Magic Book》 from his pocket.
“It can’t influence my damned parents.”
Lucifer just watched Ian open that magic book that had fallen from the Source Wall. He noticed Ian blocking it so he couldn’t see, and the more he did that, the more uneasy Lucifer felt.
“Why does your expression look so confident?”
Lucifer didn’t know where Ian’s mysterious confidence came from. He was just about to pretend to kick Ian away to see what Ian was writing when he saw Ian suddenly look up at him.
“Did this guy discover it? No, he can’t read my thoughts.” Lucifer saw Ian’s eyes light up, and a guilty feeling had just begun to rise.
Something he had never anticipated in his life happened.
“Bang bang!”
Gambler-form Ian was boldly audacious, landing two punches right on Lucifer’s nose, the kind that feared one punch wouldn’t draw blood—super combo bang bang two punches.
Clean and neat, no martial virtue.
Lucifer’s bones made a teeth-gritting dull sound.
“Ow~~~”
Lucifer clutched his nose, not daring to make too loud a cry. Pain made tears stream from his eyes, and a pair of demon eyes instantly lit up with crimson light.
This was the eyes turning red from pain, slightly milder than Gil turning purple.
“Ian Kent! Do you know who you’re attacking!?” He stared at Ian in disbelief. From childhood to now, even Michael wouldn’t dare beat him with a sneak attack like this.
“I think you don’t want to see me become your stepfather either, right Ian?” Ian’s one sentence shut Lucifer’s mouth. His expression changed repeatedly as his nasal bridge grew more painful.
Blood was slowly surging out.
Flowing down his philtrum, dripping onto the worn carpet.
Ian had no mind to care about Lucifer’s anger. He immediately pulled out a paper cup and precisely positioned it under Lucifer’s nose, catching a few drops of shimmering bright red nosebleed.
Lucifer’s eyes weren’t as red as this nosebleed.
“I… how could I be injured?!” Lucifer’s anger was instantly replaced by shock. He stared blankly at his nosebleed, momentarily unable to accept how his invincible body could be injured. He, the fallen angel Lucifer, Lord of Hell, bleeding from a mortal’s fist?!
This wasn’t reasonable! This wasn’t scientific! This wasn’t demonic! Lucifer looked at Ian with shock and suspicion. At this moment, an absurd thought bubbled up in his mind————Could this boy also be his fated other half? After all, there weren’t many existences that could make him bleed with a fist.
The thought had just emerged when Ian’s 【God Family Sexual Harassment Radar】 went into frenzy alarm. While unscrewing the pen’s ink sac, he hurriedly explained.
“Don’t try to have an overt crush on me, and don’t think about sleeping with me together with your mom. I just made your female police officer happen to pass by our house door while arresting a criminal.”
Ian’s 【Writer】 profession had such authority, able to master coincidences, turning wondrous phenomena that appeared by chance into echoes of reality and mind. To a certain extent, Ian could dominate every creature’s mind, making them act according to his will, and these creatures would hardly notice, thinking it was their true thoughts.
【Writer】 stories written would become reality. Of course, if the story didn’t conform to logic and was propelled by vague reasons like ‘inexplicable’ or ‘strange’, the consumption on Ian’s 【pen power】 would increase. Thus, he naturally couldn’t anchor lives much more powerful than himself.
However, Lucifer’s fated lover, the female police officer, was just a mortal. This was a classic CEO and commoner story. Lucifer appeared as “King of Hell”, using superpowers to seduce hearts, while female police officer Chloe was the first human unaffected by his “demon instinct”.
This naturally piqued Lucifer’s interest, causing him to fall for her, and he even “defined” a weakness for himself: losing his invincible body when near the female police officer. He wanted to have a vulnerable side in front of her, without her discovering his demon king identity, so this was also an opportunity for Ian to obtain some useful divine blood ink.
“What? Detective Chloe is nearby?” The love-brained great demon king was like this. Lucifer clutched his nose, but his mind was no longer on Ian’s behavior.
“Oh! I need to ask if she needs my help…” He instantly forgot the pain, stuffed a wad of toilet paper up his nose, pulled out his mobile phone, and started typing furiously.
Ian was kind-hearted Ian.
He didn’t remind that the toilet paper under the sofa came from Jordan.
It was stained with sin.
A youth with emotional intelligence this high focused on sucking Lucifer’s divine blood into the pen. The divine blood flowed in the ink sac, emanating some ancient power fluctuation.
“Perfect.”
Ian grinned, gripped the pen tightly, and prepared to start his “writer operation”. He still remembered the basic rule not to directly anchor God and the Creation Goddess. Of course he didn’t dare directly depict God and the Creation Goddess, but writing a story about 【Charlotte and Jonathan】, what did that have to do with God and the Creation Goddess?
【Charlotte Richards felt parched. The red wine from the candlelight dinner made her slightly warm. She stood up and walked to the kitchen refrigerator. She opened the freezer compartment and took out a bottle of transparent liquid labeled “Ian Special·Pregnancy Divine Water”. However, she didn’t know this was a forbidden potion specially refined for deities by Ian’s newly sworn good big brother.
Charlotte Richards treated it as an ordinary drink and gulped it down. At that moment, the aphrodisiac Lucifer had slipped into the dinner earlier took effect. Divine brilliance erupted in her body, resonating with the pregnancy potion. Instantly, she conceived eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight placentas, which turned into children upon landing.
Ginseng Fruit can turn into children, placentas certainly can too, so this was very reasonable—every child’s cry after landing awakened her maternal love.
Jonathan and the Creation Goddess looked at each other, forced to abandon dinner and begin preparing a ten-thousand-year parenting plan. Thus, Ian Kent finally gained freedom and peace. 】
World-shocking talent was at work. Ian concentrated his pen power and, under tonight’s light rain outside the house, wrote a 【Post-Rain Little Story】 on his magic book.
The handwriting twisted and writhed on the paper like living creatures. With each word falling, Ian’s face paled a bit more. By the eighty-eighth word, his skin began cracking; by the hundredth, his hair turned gray-white; when five hundred words were done, he was shriveled like he had tens of thousands of wives.
Only his eyes still gleamed with eerie light.
【Berserker Experience+11】
【Berserker Experience+13】
【Berserker Experience+14】
The entire short story was written in one go, and the writer’s authority began to take effect. Even so, due to some descriptions in it, when Ian finished the last period, he instantly felt his pen power and magic power drained in a moment—his skin dried up, muscles atrophied, eye sockets sunken.
The whole person became like a freshly unearthed mummy.
“Writer… Master… I did it!”
Ian collapsed under the sofa.
But his mouth grinned and made a hoarse sound of pleasure, even if the voice was breathless, as if about to kick the bucket at any moment, but this didn’t affect his sense of relief at all.
Ian, sucked into mummy form, lay under the sofa laughing like a mummy.
“How did you do it?”
Lucifer was dumbfounded too.
He understood reality modification too, but his authority was under God’s, and he knew well how difficult it was to influence God—even he had to use full strength to barely affect it.
“This is strength!” Ian tremblingly pulled out a bottle of veterinary growth hormone, the label reading “Gaga Grow Meat” slogan. He devoutly gulped down the entire bottle of animal drug.
【Savage Tyrant Experience Points+6】
【Savage Tyrant Experience Points+7】
【Savage Tyrant Experience Points+5】
……
Ian didn’t know how well this drug grew meat as he started frantically eating 【Snickers】, but from the 【Savage Tyrant】 feedback, the effect was indeed potent.
Ever since discovering disinfectant could gain experience too, Ian’s gaze was no longer limited to expensive enhancement potions. He could always find plenty of high cost-performance leveling artifacts at the vet station.
“Wait! The source of your reality anchoring power is—my divine power?!” Lucifer finished replying to the female police officer’s message and only then realized something was off.
The Kent family’s youngest son seemed to have unleashed this 【Sweet Home】 traditional skill, like Superman thinking with full effort. Now Lucifer was also helping Ian with full effort.
He discovered Ian’s bout of 【reality anchoring】 had cleverly used his power. That aphrodisiac was his, that divine blood was his—Ian’s writing was actually using his existence as “ink”.
And thus completed the alteration of reality.
This was truly too hard for Lucifer to evaluate.
Oh, this was the domain of wisdom.
Ian spoke weakly but proudly, “Did you think I punched your nose for nothing? Without letting this mortal pen absorb some divine blood to evolve, how could I write a story of this level?”
He actually made a lot of sense.
“……”
Lucifer’s expression was wonderfully complex.
He opened his mouth.
He really wanted to invite Ian to be a demon right now. But before Lucifer could figure out how to offer Ian a smoke, the story outside the sofa had already begun to unfold.
“A bit thirsty.”
Charlotte suddenly put down her dinner fork. Sure enough, Charlotte’s human body felt thirsty, and the Creation Goddess inside naturally had to follow natural laws.
This body’s instinct made her naturally stand up and walk to the refrigerator. Seeing Charlotte with her back to him, God-version Jonathan’s elegant composure instantly vanished. The omniscient, omnipotent Lord might not care about most things, but at this moment, the Lord really cared about what Ian had written.
God-version Jonathan was a bit flustered. After confirming Charlotte entered the kitchen, he quickly dipped his fingertip in red wine and wrote invisible text on the tabletop.
【Ian didn’t know that his pregnancy potion, when cold-stored, would completely lose efficacy and become ordinary drink, and his pregnancy magic was applied very poorly.
Only failure, no success. 】
No lengthy exposition, no roundabout reasonableness—just a simple definition. The handwriting appeared, then was wiped away by God-version Jonathan’s finger.
At the same time.
Under the sofa, Ian was slowly recovering flesh with various technology and nutrition when suddenly he sensed something. A bleak sorrow of utter defeat surged into his heart.
“Failed to steal the chicken… Damn it, no, my blood and flesh that would still be peerlessly brilliant even taken alone!” Ian experienced what it meant to fail at the last step.
Charlotte had already drunk the entire bottle of super pregnancy potion.
She contentedly licked her lips.
“Tastes like strawberry soda.”
The Creation Goddess’s abdomen showed no change; instead, she let out a long burp.
Ian watched her walk back, the goddess still showing no abnormality. His last hope that the other had a 【female prime minister】 belly that could flatly fit eighty-eight thousand kids was completely shattered.
【Young Writer Needs Tempering】
God smiled toward the sofa direction. On the floor in front of Ian, an extra line of text appeared—a showdown between two writers, with the old writer victorious.
“……”
Ian looked at the text and became a little mute.
The only thing he could celebrate was that although he hadn’t succeeded, he earned a cup of divine blood ink. It could still forcibly count as not shameful—nothing more than nine thousand nine hundred eighty consecutive wins regressing to nine thousand nine hundred seventy-nine. Thinking this way, the Metropolis Gambler was still in a winning state.
Outside the sofa, candlelight flickered.
God Jonathan pretended nothing had happened, occasionally telling a few outdated cold jokes. He looked very relaxed, even though the Creation Goddess chewed her food expressionless throughout.
The Creation Goddess chewed her food expressionless throughout.
“You know, humans are wonderful because…”
God Jonathan wanted to do some “science popularization” knowledge behavior, but the Creation Goddess suddenly interrupted him, her suspicious eyes staring straight over.
“Why do you talk so much? Do you want to sleep with me too?” The Creation Goddess spoke startling words without dying. She seemed to have learned human reproduction and courtship after one trip to the human world.
“……”
The dinner knife in God Jonathan’s hand clanged onto the plate.
“Hmm, I see.” The Creation Goddess tilted her head, suddenly pulled open her neckline, looked down at the “two big steamed buns” inside, then nodded as if realizing something.
“I get it. You humans like this kind of body. I can understand.” She put down her fork and stood up. “However, child, if you want to sleep with me, you have to queue behind Ian.”
What explosive words.
Ian under the sofa wanted to cut off his own ears.
“????”
God Jonathan was also a bit dumbfounded.
He watched Charlotte Richards walk toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
God Jonathan stood up too.
“Now I need to find my new friend, see if she got eaten by wild humans on the way to buy wine—I remember you humans like cannibalism.”
The Creation Goddess patted non-existent dust off her skirt, opened the door and left. God opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something, but the Creation Goddess’s figure had already vanished into the night.
In place.
In front of the dining table.
Only half an uneaten steak and a sullen creator left behind.
“Damn, looks like my drug didn’t work either.” Lucifer gritted his teeth and crawled out, patting the actual dust and Ian’s footprints off his suit.
“Hey, Samael.”
God Jonathan sat in the chair, somewhat depressed, tossing away the napkin.
“Don’t call me by that name!”
Lucifer instantly flew into rage.
The restaurant chandelier began shaking violently—this was a not-too-large-scale wide-area earthquake.
“Oh, right, you changed your own name now.” God leisurely forked a piece of broccoli. He didn’t eat it, just observed the fully cooked broccoli growing and blooming on his fork.
“You didn’t stop your mother’s absurd behavior.”
He seemed to be holding accountable, but was actually sighing.
“I already had a plan. It was all you, your appearance ruined everything. You’ve always been like this, never admitting it, just knowing how to shift blame to others.”
“Just like sin, Hell, all originating from your creation, but who realizes this? No one! Everyone just blames the bad things on me!”
Lucifer’s skin began reddening, horns and fangs instantly appearing, the demon’s true form faintly visible.
“Don’t make that expression like you don’t care about anything! I’ll give you a chance—apologize to me! And make up for all the sins you’ve committed!”
His finger nearly poked God’s nose tip.
God put down his fork.
Metal clinked crisply against the porcelain plate.
“I thought after so long, you’d matured a bit.” He raised his head, eyes swirling with galaxy-like light. “But now it seems you’re still as disappointing as ever.”
The strict father’s image was very evident at this moment.
But Lucifer didn’t like this at all.
“You stripped my glory! You cast me into the Abyss! You made me restless for eternity! Apologize!!!” Lucifer roared, the sound wave as if to shatter the entire dimension.
Hellfire swirled around him.
But God raised his hand and steadied it all. He stood up and calmly walked in front of Lucifer. The two supreme existences stood face to face, space distorting from Lucifer’s wrath.
This should have been an epic confrontation moment—if the background sound wasn’t the “crunch crunch” digging noise.
Thud, thud, thud…
A dull digging sound came from under the sofa.
“…” God frowned.
“…” Lucifer’s mouth twitched.
The sound continued relentlessly, like some drilling machine madly boring through.
“Hey!”
God sighed, turned, and lifted the sofa.
Under the sofa was empty, only a bottomless big hole, edges with obvious claw marks. From the hole depths faintly came Ian humming a tune.
“I’m a little pangolin~ dig dig dig~”
The voice grew fainter.
Evidently, “Pangolin Ian” had earth-escaped.
“.”
God was the oldest life, creator of writing and language, but at this moment, he felt he finally found something he couldn’t do.
That was how to use language to describe his mood and Ian’s behavior.
At this moment.
Lucifer suddenly snickered.
“See? He doesn’t fear me, but he fears you—fears you using his skin to sleep with mom. You’re the truly cunning, sly, evil, vicious one.”
He pointed at his punched-and-bleeding nose, as if it had become some honor to strike at God.
“Oh?”
God silently looked at the hole, suddenly snapped his fingers.
“Holy crap! Why can’t I dig suddenly?! My world? Did I hit the hardest bedrock?” From deep underground, near the earth’s core, Ian’s exclamation immediately came.
“Speaking of cunning and sly—you putting drugs in the food earlier, we haven’t settled that yet.” God Jonathan straightened his clothes at this point and turned back to Lucifer.
The demon king’s expression instantly froze.
He stared at his petty old dad and swallowed.
The air was slightly stagnant.
In the living room, only the faint sound of candle flames flickering remained.
Lucifer, due to self-perception reasons, maintained his demonic ferocious form: horns menacing, fangs bared, nose still bleeding after the tissue was pulled out.
Blood slid down his mouth corner, dripping onto the expensive wool carpet like dark red flowers—outside, there was police car noise, perhaps the female police officer hadn’t left yet.
No one knew what little story Ian had written in the magic book.
“My appointed time with this child is almost up.” God Jonathan broke the silence first, his gaze falling on Lucifer, voice calm yet carrying irrefutable power.
At this moment.
Lucifer’s 【Persecuted by Father Delusion】 triggered again.
The other’s gaze and words made Lucifer’s brain spin. Like being thrown into a tumbling washing machine, absurd thoughts surged madly.
Moments later.
“No… this skin of mine is mass-produced, you can’t use it! Your light is too much…” He couldn’t help retreating a few steps, face full of inexplicable terror.
“Don’t look at me like that! We’re father and son! Father and son! You can’t use my body to sleep with mom!” The shocked Lucifer, due to his demon-filled brain holes, finally admitted he was God’s child. Being able to play with Ian, he certainly wasn’t talentless.
“?????”
God Jonathan rolled his eyes, the look as if seeing an incorrigible retard: “If you don’t need your brain, store it in Hell.”
He took a deep breath, as if enduring some impulse.
“I’m telling you, my agreement with this child’s body usage is almost up. I won’t break my word. So, I also hope you remember what you promised me.”
“Send your mother back, whether to Heaven or Hell.” God Jonathan’s voice lowered, but because Jonathan’s throat wasn’t good, it wasn’t as deep as Batman’s. As soon as he finished, Jonathan’s body suddenly glowed dazzling white, then slumped on the sofa like a powered-off puppet.
God was probably so pissed by Lucifer’s demon brain holes that he logged off directly.
“Dead old man! Perverted old man!”
Lucifer stood in place, staring at the unconscious Jonathan for a moment, then suddenly whipped his head around, gaze piercing layers of dimensions to lock onto a certain peeping lens.
“Don’t let me catch you screen-recording earlier.”
He raised his hand in a twisting knob motion.
Next moment.
Dimensional Rift · Death Workshop, a mirror in front of Miss Death suddenly turned to snowscreen, Lucifer’s threatening expression vanishing instantly.
“Who cares to watch him? In narcissism, Ian is first, Lucifer is his eternal second.” Miss Death pursed her lips, turning attention to another mirror showing Ian.
In the image, the boy was deep underground frantically gnawing some rock as hard as 《Minecraft》 bedrock, mumbling things like “worthy opponent”—her gaze still stuck on the mirror, watching Ian like a marmot persistently digging the modified earth and stone.
Just as Miss Death watched with relish, the white-skirted woman, the lord calling herself “Paradox”, suddenly spoke.
“Spying on him like this will confirm you have a crush on him.” Paradox Lady’s voice was clear and cold like wind chimes, as if reminding Miss Death.
Miss Death was stunned, then laughed.
“Oh? Seems you know my little follower well.” Miss Death’s voice was like silk sliding over a blade. She slowly floated away from the mirror, black skirt hem moving without wind.
This concept’s incarnation finally looked at the other, sizing up Paradox Lady, a few starlights sliding from her hair tips, turning into patches of souls upon touching the ground.
“You seem a bit special… Time Lord, what do you want from me?” She suddenly drew close, cold breath condensing frost flowers on the veil.
Miss Death’s black-veiled gloved fingertip lifted the umbrella brim, revealing the white-skirted woman’s delicately treasured jawline—there was an almost invisible golden crack.
It looked eerie no matter how you saw it.
The umbrella face tilted slightly.
Paradox Lady raised her head, veil revealing a pair of brilliant golden pupils. They reflected countless shattered timelines, each seeming to reassemble and annihilate with her blinks.
Seeing this.
Miss Death’s eyes narrowed slightly, lips curving in playful arc.
“As expected, my eyesight is still sharp.” Her voice like silk over blade, with lazy danger. “You’re different from other Time Lords.”
She floated closer, black veil skirt hem windless, surrounded by countless sleeping souls. Miss Death reached out, fingertip wanting to gently lift the white-skirted woman’s chin.
Her icy nail nearly piercing the thin veil. However, the other holding an umbrella indoors clearly wasn’t without reason—not everyone sincerely hoped not to grow taller.
See, when Miss Death’s pale finger was about to touch, some barrier appeared, preventing true contact with the indoor umbrella-holding seemingly showy lady.
This was evidently the umbrella’s effect.
“Quite a few trinkets, boring.”
Miss Death withdrew her finger.
Her voice suddenly lowered like a whisper, “Tell me, at the end of time… did I send you off, or did you witness my withering?”
Miss Death saw some of the other’s situation, but the other didn’t answer. The white-skirted woman was silent for a moment, expression unchanged under the veil.
“If you want to know your ending, ask your brother.” Paradox Lady didn’t answer Miss Death’s question, just slightly turned her head, avoiding Miss Death’s gaze.
“I’m here for Ian Kent.” She raised her hand, slender fingertip pointing to the floating small mirror nearby. In the mirror, Ian had resumed digging.
Because he had used his wits to take another path. All roads lead to Gotham. Master Ian was going to find his most beloved big nephew to make invincible iron underwear. It had to be the kind that could prevent Creation Goddess sneak attacks. Such a treasure only Bat Intelligence could create.
“Oh? For my little follower?” Miss Death chuckled lightly, gaze falling on the umbrella. Her eyes thoughtful, as if reading something from the light flowing between the umbrella ribs.
From start to finish, the white-skirted woman’s umbrella was steadily over her head, obscure runes flowing on the umbrella face, as if containing some technological crystallization at its most brilliant power at the end times.
“Yes.”
Next moment.
The white-skirted woman raised her head again, delicate face vaguely visible under the veil.
Her gaze pierced like a sword toward Miss Death.
“I’m here to make you revoke your protection on him—Ian Kent needs to meet his fated death.” This Time Lord’s tone clearly wasn’t negotiating.
It felt like a forceful demand.
