I was really enjoying this novel initially but this mofo has gone from true neutral to chaotic evil too damn fast. I'd probably be more fine with it if he was like this from the start, at this point I feel like I'm reading about a different person

The guy went completely psychopathic. He could have just killed Chen Tan and be done with it. Those three guys at the beginning had enough connections and family power to keep his family safe unless he got into some huge mess. Of course he could have continued his exploits in the dreams and kept experimenting with the spells and whatnot.

At the end of it it was him trying to convince himself that he wants to protect his family while he got drunk on power.