Chapter Seventy: The Celestial Bull

Persona Mask:
Divine Beast · Heavenly Bull.
Yan Luo’s previous two masks had been a Nightmare Beast and a Ghost Soldier · Bull-Head. This time, it was a divine beast!
The Heavenly Bull should be the creature from Sumerian mythology, dispatched by the Canaan goddess in vengeance after Gilgamesh refused her love. Rage and excitement—these two intense emotions likely formed the foundation of the mask, with reverence bestowing divinity upon it.
Moreover, Zeus in myth was said to have transformed into a bull.
Who could say whether the presence of the Zeus temple here had influenced the mask’s manifestation?
Heavenly Bull:
Skills: Thunderous Charge, Earth Stomp, Fury Rush
Judging by its abilities, the Heavenly Bull mask possessed energy-based attacks rivaling those of the Nightmare, and in terms of strength, it surely matched the Bull-Head. Though all were level-one persona masks fused from one hundred emotional points, this mask was undoubtedly stronger than the other two!
Divine Beast · Heavenly Bull;
Wine Sword Immortal · Li Bai.
The trump cards were sufficient, and there remained 70% of mask shards. Thanks to this inner world, where emotional values were easily gained through athletic competition, Yan Luo had amassed far more than would have been possible in any other—supernatural or otherwise.
The closing ceremony featured grand festivities, but for Yan Luo, the Heartless Puppet could no longer absorb emotions after storing two masks, and Wang Dongwei and Zhu Xiaoyong were eager to return and tally their gains from the inner world—so the three departed Olympia that very night.
They vanished quietly from this world.
Upon leaving this inner world, Yan Luo was directly transported to the Dreamspace, but the impact he left behind was profound.
For example, a discus pierced the Spartan king!
After the death of Archidamus II, Sparta plunged into internal strife, and the Peloponnesian League, under Athens’ maneuvering, collapsed. The “Greek World War” that would have embroiled all the Greek city-states—and even the Mediterranean—hundreds of polities, from 431 BC to 404 BC, never occurred.
Athens remained at the zenith of civilization, its democratic institutions and devotion to culture and art ushering in an era of unprecedented prosperity. One after another, philosophers, artists, scientists—Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes—shone, elevating Greek culture to its highest peak.
And every one of them harbored a deep admiration for the distant Eastern land of Cathay.

In 430 BC, soon after Yan Luo and his companions departed, Athens suffered a sudden plague. General Pericles perished, and Hippocrates, though he strove to combat the disease, never journeyed east; until his death, his longing for distant Cathay remained unfulfilled.
On his deathbed, clutching his son’s hand, he left behind a poem:
“Gone, I know all things fade to emptiness… yet I grieve that I never voyaged to Cathay. If a hero succeeds in returning from the east, during the rites, do not forget to tell your fathers.”
The “Worship of Laozi,” founded by Socrates, Democritus’ qigong studies, Herodotus and others’ compilation of cultivation practices, and even Euripides and Sophocles’ “Tales of Mortal Cultivation,” influenced countless successors and altered subtle threads of history.
Two hundred years later.
The sculptor Alexandros stood in the square of the Parthenon, eyes filled with awe as he gazed at a statue beside Athena’s figure.
A priest at his side narrated its story to the renowned artist.
“Yan Luo—an outsider from Cathay, arrived in Athens two centuries ago. Here, he debated and defeated many opponents, gifting us the vast civilization of Cathay. His adversaries included Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles… Afterwards, he journeyed to Olympia, entered the Olympic Games, and claimed victory in six of the seven events he entered! In boxing, wrestling, and mixed combat, he alone bested twenty Spartan warriors; not a single athlete dared challenge him!”
“This statue is the work of Socrates’ father, Phloniscus, the great philosopher and cultivator of ancient times.”
With reverence, the priest praised, “This is the only demigod hero to descend in our age of iron and leave tangible deeds behind!”
Alexandros stroked the statue’s arm. “Its features and musculature differ completely from other Greek sculptures—combining masculine valor and feminine beauty. It is the most perfect subject.”
“Originally, I intended to model the sculpture after Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, to create a divine image. Now, I have decided to base it on this demigod hero: Yan Luo.”
Seeing the sculptor’s eyes brimming with excitement and genuine joy, the priest suggested, “If you wish, you may visit Olympia, where not only does Yan Luo’s champion’s bronze statue stand, but also a masterpiece: The Long Jumper.”
“I shall go!” Alexandros nodded vigorously.
Sixteen years later, a pristine marble statue stood tall in the Temple of Zeus in Olympia.
The wheel of history rolled onward…
In 212 BC.
Archimedes, now seventy-five, defended Syracuse against Rome’s invasion. Though he invented stone-throwers and used mirrors to focus sunlight and ignite Roman ships, the city ultimately fell to overwhelming force.
Archimedes, unwilling to leave his homeland, sat at home, drawing geometric figures on the floor with a twig. At that moment, a Roman soldier burst in.

“Wait, let me finish this diagram.”
No sooner had he spoken than the soldier thrust his blade at him. In the original history, the old man would have perished immediately, but now, with agility defying his years, he dodged the blow. Then, incensed at the soldier for ruining his drawing, Archimedes’ face flushed red.
“You court death, do you know that?”
“Above and below, no one can save you!”
Fueled by rage, Archimedes took a deep breath, his belly swelling as if pregnant, then struck the Roman soldier with a palm.
Democritus’ qigong, developed over two centuries, had given birth to a sect: the Vital Energy Sect, which cultivated internal energy for health, and even developed martial arts for combat! Archimedes was an elder of this sect.
“Vital Energy Palm, die!”
The Roman soldier, struck on the chest, spewed a jet of blood, his ribcage caved in. His body soared like a cloud, crashed six meters away against a wall, and slid slowly to the ground.
Having slain the soldier, Archimedes, still furious, summoned his hard qigong and fought his way outside! Withstood over twenty sword blows, dispatched fifty-eight Roman soldiers with iron palms, and finally died of exhaustion.
Marcellus, the Roman commander, shocked by the display, held a grand funeral for the old man, erecting a tomb on Sicily. The tombstone bore the imprint of a palm, commemorating the qigong master’s formidable prowess.
On the tombstone remained Archimedes’ famous boast about his qigong:
“Give me a fulcrum and with qigong, I can move the world!” Yet later, the words “with qigong” were worn away and lost to time.
History’s self-correcting force proved overwhelming. The Greek history Yan Luo had altered ultimately ended as it always had—overrun by Roman conquest. As centuries passed, the Worship of Laozi, Vital Energy Sect, cultivation, Daoist classics—all faded into oblivion, the wheels of European history rolling along their original path, leaving only scattered tales to be passed down.
But the Parthenon in Athens, the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, the statue left by Socrates’ father, and the marble sculpture by Alexandros still stood silently…
Until the arrival of this day!