Chapter 689 - 29: The Caller, Full Firepower

"Oh, my God, John... You, you really did it! Unbelievable..."

The young man’s friend also witnessed the miraculous scene. He rubbed his eyes, staring in disbelief, even a little fearfully, at the creature cupped in the young man’s hands. He stammered, "That’s terrifying. How is that possible... I mean, this is truly incredible!"

The young man lost himself in a wonderful fantasy of the future. "I’m going to be rich, man! It wasn’t an Auditory Hallucination, and it wasn’t a Hallucination! I can really see things others can’t... The moon, yes, the moon! They’re all on the moon! I have to go to the moon someday and see their home! Deer, we’ll go together, and we’ll get filthy rich!"

"The whole world will have their eyes on me. They’ll all go crazy for me! I’ll make every last person who laughed at and mocked me see just how stupid they were!"

Just then, the silvery gel in the young man’s palm squirmed slightly. But this tiny movement was enough to make his friend instinctively recoil and even scream, "Don’t let that thing near me!"

His friend’s extreme reaction instantly soured the ecstatic young man’s mood.

"You never believed me, did you? You never actually believed I could see them, never believed I could succeed!"

He roared, smashing the liquor bottle in his hand. "Bullshit! All these years, you were just pitying me!"

Reeking of alcohol, he stared at his best friend... ’Yeah, he’s off to a prestigious university. He was always going to leave this small town. And me? I’m a nobody with terrible grades... Right, Deer is already seen as special by everyone. He doesn’t need me to get rich. How stupid of me to think I could bring him along to make money with me. How pathetic.’

The irritation of his only friend leaving him; the fury of being mocked as a freak for so long; the humiliation of being ignored, of never being taken seriously, of being treated as a joke despite being able to truly see and hear things others couldn’t—fueled by liquid courage, it all came pouring out.

In the throes of extreme emotion, his mind began to twist. ’Why did this "friend" of mine always humor me? Why was he willing to pretend to believe me for so long? Because the more he acted like my friend, the more everyone else thought he was a good guy... That’s it. Deer has plenty of other friends besides me, and a lot of girls like him. That’s all because I’m standing next to him, making him look better by comparison...’

’Why should he get everything? I’m the one with real power! I’m the chosen one! So why is everyone looking at him? Why are they all watching *that* guy?!’

’Everyone should only be looking at me! Their eyes should only be on me!’

The young man was a genius, an unprecedented genius.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to achieve the feat of ’summoning an extraterrestrial being’ in this era.

If even one condition had been different—if he hadn’t been drinking, if the summoning had happened a year earlier or later, if his friend hadn’t been accepted to a university so far away, if his own mindset had been a little better, not so extreme, his ego not so inflated... things might not have led to such a terrible end.

Then again, he might not have succeeded at all.

But this was, after all, just a story from a long, long time ago, and stories have no what-ifs, no if-onlys.

And so, the small ’Xiu Ge Autonomous Combat Unit’ from a distant star, at its new master’s command, devoured its first trophy on Earth.

Then, the second, the third, the fourth... the one thousand seven hundred and forty-ninth.

One by one, humanoid figures formed from a strange, silvery gel, each maintaining a human appearance, trailed behind the young man, who hummed a little tune with a crazed smile on his face. A mailman from the next town over, scared witless by the sight, immediately swerved his car away.

But the young man paid it no mind—because fear was also a form of attention.

Crazy?

’No, I’m not crazy—this is how the world is supposed to be. Everyone should be watching me, acknowledging me, praising me, and proclaiming my name!’

’—I am the Celestial Kingdom! I am Heaven! I am also Hell, and I am the Netherworld!’

’Since the Earth People are unwilling to look at me, then let beings from other planets come! And if the beings from other planets are unwilling to come, then, one day, it will journey to the far side of the Starry Sky and make all life proclaim its name!’

Similar... They were just too similar.

But different? Indeed, there were also vast differences.

The Deep Space Caller, John Harrison.

On Su Zhou, he smelled the scent of a ’kindred spirit’.

He was indeed a being similar to himself. They were both prodigious talents, both watched over by some entity—they both had a close friend in their youth and a childhood that, while not necessarily happy, was certainly full and action-packed.

They were so similar—in experience, circumstance, Talent, and even in the Source of their power which stemmed from their very nature.

And yet, their fates were so different.

And so, the Monster felt a pang of jealousy. ’I wanted so badly to be noticed, to be acknowledged by others, so why was I constantly thwarted? And yet this Monster before me, who is just like me—even more dangerous, in fact—can so effortlessly Gather everyone’s gaze, basking in the spotlight, acknowledged and celebrated by all...’