Chaos Era, Year 1814.
"Hum hum hum~" Liyana hummed a cheerful tune, swaggering down the street.
Xia Lun and Aina walked behind her, one on each side, maintaining some distance between them—like her personal guardians.
Not long ago, they had successfully hunted down a powerful wyvern, earning them great fame and a hefty sum from the spoils.
Now that their pockets were full, it was only natural to indulge a little.
"No time."
"Handle it yourself."
"Don’t rely on me."
"Useless fools."
Aina’s expression was grim. Despite all this time, she still hadn’t managed to gauge the true strength of that so-called "hero."
She had to keep wasting her time here, while matters concerning the Blood Clan… well, she had no time for that now.
Not that Aina wanted to deal with it anyway.
If not for the fact that those family members still held some value to her, she would’ve cut ties with them long ago.
"Aina, what are you muttering about?" Liyana suddenly turned her head to ask.
"Nothing." Aina tugged at the brim of her hood, hiding her face beneath its shadow.
"She’s always so mysterious," Liyana grumbled before dropping the subject.
Aina had been part of their group for nearly half a year now.
Her strength had long since won Liyana’s admiration.
Almost as if to spite Xia Lun, Aina dispatched every monster with a single strike… even now, Liyana still had no idea what her limits were.
"Hey, Xia Lun, if you and Aina fought, who do you think would win?"
Liyana nudged Xia Lun’s arm with her elbow.
"Aina is our comrade. I would never fight her," Xia Lun replied.
"It’s just a hypothetical! If you two did fight, do you think you could take her?" Liyana pressed.
"That scenario doesn’t exist," Xia Lun shook his head. "Aina is our ally. Fighting her would only disrupt our team’s harmony—it’s meaningless."
"Ugh, you’re so stiff…" Liyana smacked Xia Lun’s shoulder in frustration.
Xia Lun lowered his brows slightly but didn’t explain further.
Sometimes, Liyana just lacked common sense.
Aina, however, seemed intrigued by their conversation.
"I’d also like to hear the answer to that question, Mr. Xia Lun," Aina said, surprisingly siding with Liyana for once. "Do you think I stand a chance against you?"
"You’re too modest, Miss Aina," Xia Lun replied.
"Oh? So my odds are high?" Aina pressed further.
"If it were a sparring match, I likely wouldn’t be your opponent." Though reluctant to answer, Xia Lun considered it carefully before responding honestly.
"And if it wasn’t a spar?" Aina’s eyes glinted with a hint of challenge. "What if I were the Demon King—your mortal enemy? What then?"
"If my opponent were the Demon King, I’d drag them down to hell with me."
Xia Lun’s gaze was deep and calm, as if stating an undeniable fact. Aina’s heart involuntarily skipped a beat.
"You sound awfully confident," Aina sneered, though her voice carried a trace of unease she hadn’t noticed herself. "You’re that certain you could take me down with you?"
Xia Lun shook his head. "That’s how I’d face the Demon King."
Aina frowned. "What do you mean?"
"If the Demon King were you… I don’t know how things would turn out."
Xia Lun’s expression twisted slightly, as if genuinely tormented by the thought. "I can’t say for sure whether I could truly raise my sword against you."
Beneath her hood, Aina’s face flickered with surprise before she lightly pressed her lips together. "…My apologies. I shouldn’t have asked such a question."
The atmosphere grew heavy.
Liyana let out a loud whistle. "Damn, Xia Lun! Dropping bombshells like it’s nothing—what a smooth direct hit! Even our ice-cold mage lady is apologizing to you now…"
"Liyana…" Xia Lun sighed.
"I think I really need to learn from you, Xia Lun. I mean it." Liyana slung an arm over his shoulder. "Teach me your ways. If I had your level of smooth-talking, I could sweet-talk any naive girl into bed by noon…"
"I only speak the truth. Aina is our comrade—I shouldn’t deceive her."
"Oh? Starting the lesson already, Professor Xia Lun?" Liyana grinned. "Leading by example, huh? Not that it’s working yet… but trust me, if I were Aina, I’d be throwing myself at you by now."
A vein pulsed on Xia Lun’s forehead.
Liyana, sensing the mood had lightened enough, wisely decided to stop—especially since Aina’s dagger-like glare was boring into her back. Pushing further might be dangerous.
Never provoke the party’s mage. That was an ironclad rule Liyana had heard from many seasoned adventurers.
Otherwise, you’d never know when an ice spike—or something worse—might suddenly sprout from the ground and impale your backside.
The lively elf archer switched to business. "Xia Lun, didn’t you say before that our team might need a new member?"
Xia Lun nodded. "The traps in the labyrinth are troublesome. They’re not living creatures, so you can’t sense any killing intent… If possible, I’d like to recruit an experienced rogue for our team."
Liyana glanced at Aina.
"Whatever." Aina scoffed. "I can react instantly anyway."
Liyana blinked. Aina seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood.
"Well… a rogue, huh? With our reputation and skill level, we’re bound to attract some top-tier talent, right?" Liyana said confidently.
…
"Rejected."
"Sorry, you don’t meet our standards."
"You’re a good rogue, but we might not be the right fit."
…
"Tch—" A shifty-eyed, balding man with a scarred scalp spat on the ground before shoving his hands into his pockets and walking away.
Xia Lun rested his forehead on his interlaced fingers, elbows on the table, his expression stern.
"Why are all the rogues like this?!" Liyana wailed. "Where’s the cute, trap-savvy, agile, scantily-clad rogue girl of my dreams?"
"Your standards might be a little too high," Xia Lun said, rubbing his temples.
Still, after a whole afternoon of interviews, they hadn’t found a single suitable candidate.
Truly skilled rogues were in high demand—ironically, many of them dismissed Xia Lun’s team for being too young.
"So, you’re the ones recruiting a rogue?"
A low voice sounded from behind Xia Lun.
"How about me?"
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
