Chapter 639: A Short Visit To Washington
The next morning, Liam woke up with a deep, genuine smile resting on his face.
For the first time in months, his mind wasn’t filled with multiple branching thoughts.
He lay in bed for a few minutes, listening to the rhythmic, mechanical ticking of the analog watch Daniel had given him. It was a simple sound and it was exactly what he needed.
He got out of bed and walked to the bathroom to prepare for the day.
He had a highly specific list of things to take care of today. The terrestrial board was set, the government pressure had been neutralized through bureaucratic attrition, and his inner circle was secure.
It was time to pivot back to the cosmic scale. He intended to accept Tiamat’s invitation immediately after tying up a few remaining loose ends on Earth.
He had originally wanted to take the time to craft a set of armor from the Jörmungandr scales. The scales were virtually indestructible, steeped in the energy of a primordial serpent, and would have provided a flawless physical defense.
But the forging process for materials of that tier required deep, uninterrupted isolation, and he simply did not have the time.
The complete, final heat-death of the universe was still billions of years away. To a mortal, a billion years was an incomprehensible eternity. But to the person who was actively responsible for fixing the broken laws of reality, billions of years felt like a rapidly closing window.
He still lacked the sheer, absolute power required to forge and replace the hundreds of millions of broken law gears holding the cosmos together.
He was two major breakthroughs away from even attempting it. He needed to step into the Third Transcendent Stage, and then push beyond it entirely. And he wished to handle the immediate cultivation hurdles quickly, so that he could return and focus on Earth without the constant, looming shadow of universal collapse hanging over his head.
After Liam was done showering and dressing in his usual, impossibly casual attire—a simple dark t-shirt and perfectly tailored trousers—he left his master suite and walked down the grand staircase to the living room.
Yanxia was already awake.
She was seated on one of the plush sofas, her legs swinging slightly, looking exactly like someone who had been waiting for him since the sun came up.
She was wearing another of her custom made golden dress.
The moment she saw him reach the bottom of the stairs, her face lit up. She didn’t stand up and walk over. She simply launched herself across the room, closing the distance instantly, and jumped on him.
Liam smiled, catching her effortlessly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, greeting him with a bright, sunny voice.
To anyone else, catching a Middle Stage Golden Immortal mid-leap would have been like trying to catch a falling meteor, but Liam simply adjusted his stance, caressed the back of her head, and greeted her back.
Still carrying her like a koala, Liam walked to the heavy front doors, opened them, and stepped out into the cool morning air of the estate.
He bent his knees slightly and launched himself into the sky.
The sonic boom that should have shattered every window in the Bellemere Mansion was perfectly suppressed by a telekinetic field that wrapped around them.
He turned his body toward the East Coast, locking onto the coordinates for JP Morgan’s headquarters, and began to fly.
As the continent blurred beneath them, oceans of green and gray passing in a matter of minutes, Yanxia rested her chin on his shoulder.
"Where are we going, Papa?" she asked, the wind entirely deflected by Liam’s aura.
"We’re on our way to see Whitlock," Liam replied, his voice calm over the rush of the suppressed atmosphere.
Yanxia nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. She said nothing else, simply snuggling her head deeper into his chest, entirely content to be carried across the globe at supersonic speeds by the person she had blood-bonded to.
A few minutes later, the towering skyline of the financial district appeared on the horizon. Liam slowed his approach, dropping his altitude as he navigated the concrete canyons.
As he hovered down toward the street level, the morning rush hour of one of the busiest cities on Earth began to grind to an absolute halt. It started with one person looking up and stopping in their tracks. Then three. Then twenty.
By the time Liam reached an altitude where he was clearly visible to the people on the sidewalks and the executives staring out from the surrounding glass buildings, a collective, stunned murmur broke out.
The man who had teleported and spoken to the entire world was currently floating down from the sky, wearing a t-shirt, with a young woman in a brilliant gold dress clinging to him like a child.
When Liam’s finally touched down the pavement in front of the JP Morgan headquarters, a crowd had already formed. But unlike normal celebrity sightings, nobody rushed him. The crowd maintained a very distinct, very respectful fifty-foot radius.
Phones were instantly raised. A hundred cameras flashed, capturing the surreal image of the nineteen-year-old billionaire and the unknown woman hugging him tightly.
Liam didn’t pay any attention to the crowd or the cameras. He simply adjusted his grip on Yanxia and walked toward the main entrance.
The heavy glass doors slid open before he even reached them. Whitlock was already standing in the expansive, marble-floored lobby, flanked by a few highly stressed security personnel and two of his senior vice presidents.
Whitlock smiled, the expression genuine despite the absolute chaos unfolding on the street outside his building.
"I have to admit, Liam," Whitlock greeted him, stepping forward. "After the party last night, I didn’t expect you to show up at the office today."
Liam smiled and greeted him back. "I have a bit of business to take care of quickly, before I leave."
Whitlock noted the phrasing—*before I leave*—and the specific, calm weight behind it. He nodded, gesturing toward the private elevator banks. "Of course. Right this way."
Liam followed, walking side by side with the CEO of the world’s most powerful bank, while Yanxia remained stubbornly and happily attached to his torso.
When they reached Whitlock’s private elevator, the polished metal doors slid shut, cutting off the noise of the lobby. The car began its rapid, silent ascent to the executive floors.
Whitlock looked at Yanxia, offering a polite, diplomatic smile. "Lady Yanxia. It is a pleasure to see you again. Aren’t you going to come down?"
Yanxia let out a muffled sound of refusal and shook her head, burying her face even deeper into Liam’s chest.
Liam simply smiled and said nothing, letting the Golden Immortal have her way.
The elevator chimed a few seconds later, and they stepped out, walking down the hushed, heavily carpeted hallway until they reached Whitlock’s expansive corner office.
Liam took a seat on the premium leather couch. Yanxia finally detached herself from his neck, but instead of sitting next to him, she casually lay down on her stomach right across Liam’s lap.
She propped her chin on her hands, started kicking her feet idly in the air, and immediately diving into a private chat with Lucy, through her Lucid.
Liam and Whitlock exchanged a brief look, unanimously choosing not to address the absolute absurdity of the situation, and settled into their conversation.
"So," Whitlock said, taking the armchair opposite them and leaning forward. "What business brings you here today?"
"I’m sure you heard me mention the Global Restoration Project during my previous livestream," Liam said, his tone shifting from casual to operational. "I’ve come because of that."
Whitlock nodded, his eyes sharpening. He remembered the mention. The world had largely focused on the medical nanites and the quantum computing, but the financial and energy sectors had noted the Restoration Project with deep, quiet anxiety.
***
Meanwhile, sixty floors below, the commotion outside JP Morgan’s headquarters had escalated from a spontaneous gathering into a full-blown media circus.
News vans were violently hopping the curbs, deploying satellite dishes as reporters from reputable media houses sprinted toward the building, elbowing tourists and finance bros out of the way in a desperate bid to catch a shot, or a single quote, if they were extremely lucky.
They were not lucky. The glass doors remained sealed, guarded by a wall of JP Morgan security.
But the images had already hit LucidNet.
Within ten minutes of Liam landing on the pavement, the photographs of him casually carrying the beautiful woman in the gold dress had gone completely viral. The comment sections were moving so fast the platform’s algorithms had to dynamically scale to handle the load.
*He just dropped out of the sky. I was holding a bagel and he just floated past the third-floor window.*
*Who is the girl?? She’s literally clinging to him like a koala and he’s just walking into the most powerful bank on Earth like it’s a Tuesday.*
*Look at how he’s holding her. That’s not a bodyguard. That’s not an assistant.*
*Remember the livestream? When he said the flying was a ’family trait’?* *SHE’S THE FAMILY. THE GOLD DRESS GIRL FROM THE PARTY PICTURES IS THE FAMILY.*
*If she’s the family, does that mean she can compress cameras and fly too?*
*I need a documentary on this man’s life immediately.*
The world was once again obsessing over a single, out-of-context moment, trying to piece together the mythology of Liam Scott.
The journalists outside the building were frantically preparing their monologues, ready to question the nature of the unknown woman, the implications of his visit to JP Morgan.
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