Deviant: No Longer Human

Wang Xiao pressed on with his experiment to see which would succumb first—the vast sea or the endless wheat fields.

He intended to either drain the entire sea or obliterate all the wheat fields!

To add a twist, he ignited the fields, letting the flames spread wildly, and observed to see if the oncoming tsunami could quench the roaring inferno in this epic contest.

"Haha..."

The sight of the fire burning everything down had become one of his most entertaining diversions; however, his eyes suddenly jolted in shock.

Splash!

Turning back, Wang Xiao frowned as a horde of sharks burst forth from the depths of the sea.

These were no ordinary sharks but colossal beasts that effortlessly tore through the water.

The smallest were hundreds of meters in length, led by a monstrous shark that stretched over tens of kilometers.

It was a leviathan.

Before such a creature, Wang Xiao felt no more significant than a grain of sand.

"T... Tiam... Tiamat?"

His eyes widened, uttering perhaps the first word he had spoken in millennia, for there had never been a need before.

But the shock was overwhelming!

The entity before him was Tiamat, vastly larger than usual, yet the optical illusion made it challenging to discern, as Wang Xiao had grown accustomed to such gigantic sights!

While initially filled with relief, happiness, and a surge of emotion that nearly brought him to tears, Wang Xiao thought he had found something familiar to connect with, yet—

Roaaaaarr!

A tremendous roar erupted from the water, and the beasts were indeed coming to shred him to pieces, stunning Wang Xiao.

Splurt!

Splurt!

His body was viciously torn apart, the sharks exhibiting some kind of telekinetic prowess as well.

His form disintegrated in mid-air, accompanied by a warm spray of blood.

However, every droplet halted in its trajectory, and the blood reversed direction.

Whoosh!

Everything reformed, coalescing back into human form, as Wang Xiao regained his composure, his eyes now blazing with a fierce glare.

He noticed thousands of predatory gazes fixed upon him.

His eyes, too, flickered with rage, the earlier feelings of relief vanishing as a new massacre commenced.

The endless wave of beasts seemed infinite and was set to finally overwhelm Wang Xiao.

Not because he was defeated!

In fact, he had nearly vanquished Tiamat\'s army!

He died because a massive asteroid, altered from its path by the gravitational anomalies caused by his attempts to empty the sea, plummeted from the heavens, obliterating everything in its path!

And before long, as the asteroids rained down, he met his end.

In the enveloping darkness...

Wang Xiao found himself adrift once more...

Anticipating the familiar surge of rebirth...

Yet this time, it never arrived...

A tinge of panic fluttered in his chest as he snapped his eyes open.

Snap!

"!!!"

He attempted to stand, but the world seemed to twist under him, as if he were caught in a vast optical illusion, standing on something ostensibly solid.

Still, he could discern nothing.

It was pitch black...

Profoundly dark...

Whoosh!

"Huh?"

Out of the gloom, he spotted several small blinking lights.

Like stars spontaneously igniting across the cosmos.

These celestial mimics were minuscule—some the size of a fist, others as tiny as grains of sand—all seemingly adrift in this void.

Yet Wang Xiao felt an inexplicable tie to these luminous specks...

As if...

As if...

They were fragments of his own essence...

He glanced downward and noticed his abdomen glowing intensely, a beacon in the abyss.

Among these astral imitations, one star stood out, pulsating differently...

It seemed to harbor something within!

"!!!"

Seized by a sudden impulse, Wang Xiao leaped towards it, but in that moment, he realized he was soaring effortlessly, as if the shackles of gravity had dissolved!

But this newfound freedom was the least of his concerns!

Whoosh!

As Wang Xiao approached the star, the size of his head, the star inexplicably vanished.

"Huh?"

As if magnetically drawn by the glowing orb within his abdomen, the star was swiftly absorbed, yet not without relinquishing something tangible.

Thud!

It tumbled into Wang Xiao\'s outstretched hands, which closed around it instinctively.

"..."

Wang Xiao\'s lips parted, an attempt to speak that yielded no sound.

It was an odd artifact...

His memory was murky, but as he thumbed through its pages, the item revealed its ancient character, with pages that were brittle and dust-laden...

The object was a book, compact enough to fit in his palm, resembling a diary...

Emblazoned on the cover was a symbol consisting of poppies interlaced with wings...

A grand circle with wings sprawling outward, its interior a complex maze of patterns.

Ignoring its mystique, Wang Xiao opened the tome and fixated on it for what seemed like ages...

It was filled with indecipherable script...

Yet as he continued to stare, lost in the endless loop of flipping pages, a flicker of comprehension began to emerge.

Slowly, he started to piece together a few words...

This process continued gradually, allowing him to connect more words and symbols that resonated with vague echoes from his past.

With a dim recollection, he recognized some of the symbols...

Echoes of how these things once appeared...

From a realm buried deep in his forgotten past.

Without hesitation, Wang Xiao settled down to pore over the ancient text.

His eyes, wide and open, radiated a near-manic intensity.

Indeed, after what felt like eons, Wang Xiao had stumbled upon something that piqued his profound interest.

Had anyone else witnessed him, absorbed with such obsessive concentration, their eyes bulging as they devoured each word, they might have deemed him mad.

"Όνειρο..." (Dream...)

"Αυταπάτη του Εγκεφάλου..." (Soul... Illusion...)

"Είναι ητα των σκέψεών σου..." (It is the reality of thoughts...)

Deciphering the book took ages, and even then, Wang Xiao grasped only fragments of its meaning.

Yet he was compelled to read it over and over, driven by an insatiable curiosity...

In this quest, he unearthed another startling discovery:

This realm contained no Aether.

Absolutely none.

His psychokinesis still functioned, albeit strangely, not as it once had.

Something was unmistakably amiss.

For the first time, he found himself in a domain utterly devoid of Aether.

He probed the inner workings of his own body, finding nothing inside yet discovered he could manipulate his form with mere thought—as if he merely needed to desire a change and it would materialize.

As if he were the master of this reality...

After countless revisits to the mysterious text, a realization dawned upon Wang Xiao—it was authored by an entity known as.

"Μορφέας."