The church had very few nuns. Apart from the elderly nun who opened the door, the spacious church only housed three others. They were young girls—the eldest appearing around sixteen or seventeen, while the other two looked about seven or eight years old. Dressed in the same nun habits as the elder, they huddled around an oil lamp placed on a table, flipping through a religious text together.
Xia Lun felt a surge of emotions. In the past, even in such a remote village, the faith of the Goddess wouldn’t have dwindled to such a pitiful state.
"Do we have guests?" The oldest of the girls stood up timidly and approached.
"Ah, Lessa, these are travelers—adventurers passing through. They’d like to stay the night in the church," the elderly nun, Landa, said softly. "Could you help prepare some rooms for them…?"
"No need to trouble yourselves too much. Two rooms will suffice," Liyana added.
Lessa nodded earnestly before scurrying off. The remaining two girls peered curiously at Xia Lun and the others.
"Milu, it’s an elf!"
"Mina, an elf!"
The two girls, likely twins given their striking resemblance, seemed fascinated by Liyana.
"The elf is coming~!" Liyana playfully pounced on them, arms flailing, and soon the three were laughing and tussling together. The church echoed with their cheerful giggles.
"Um… excuse me…" Mo Lini suddenly spoke up, addressing the elderly nun.
"Oh, I nearly forgot to introduce myself. My name is Landa."
"Miss Landa… aren’t you afraid we might be… bad people?" Mo Lini asked hesitantly.
Coming from her, the question lacked any intimidation—the contrast was almost endearing.
In Mo Lini’s eyes, the church was practically defenseless—populated only by the elderly, women, and children. A single malicious adult could easily overpower them.
"This is a church," Landa replied with a light chuckle, gesturing toward the high dome above. Rain pattered noisily against the roof tiles. "The Goddess watches over this place. If even we don’t believe in Her, who will?"
"But… I heard the Goddess has gone missing, hasn’t She? They say She hasn’t delivered any divine messages in a long time." Mo Lini caught herself too late and quickly covered her mouth. "Ah, sorry…"
"The Goddess has simply stepped back from worldly affairs," Landa replied without reproach, shaking her head gently. "She wishes for humanity to grow freely, to find its own path… But as a devout believer, I can still feel Her gaze upon us."
Aina watched Landa silently, her expression unreadable.
Xia Lun wrapped an arm around Aina’s shoulders, subtly tightening his grip.
The world remained oblivious to the truth—that the Goddess had long been slain by the Demon King.
The Twilight Cultists, with their cryptic ramblings, seemed to know more, but no one took their words seriously.
"It’s been two hundred years since the Goddess last delivered a divine message," Landa mused wistfully. "With no miracles to witness, faith has weakened over time…"
"Two hundred years?" Xia Lun frowned, casting a puzzled glance at Aina beside him.
According to Aina, she had killed the Goddess a thousand years ago.
Aina trembled slightly, then stuck out her tongue sheepishly.
"Miss Landa, could you tell me what the Goddess’s last divine message was?" Xia Lun took a deep breath before asking.
"Ah… this is common knowledge. The Goddess requested help in gathering relics of the legendary Hero—anything he had touched would suffice," Landa answered.
"Collecting Xia Lun’s—ahem, the Hero’s belongings? This Goddess sounds kinda creepy…" Liyana couldn’t resist muttering.
Whack!
Whack!
The two little nuns each delivered a firm slap to Liyana’s backside, the sharp sounds ringing out.
"Eeek—!" Liyana yelped in mortification.
"No badmouthing the Goddess, Liyana!" Milu huffed angrily.
"Yeah! Apologize to Her right now!" Mina chimed in, hands on her hips.
"Ugh… fine, sorry. I was wrong." Liyana shot Xia Lun a resentful glare, as if blaming him entirely.
Lessa soon returned. "The rooms… are ready now."
"Th-thank you," Mo Lini replied.
BOOM—
Another thunderclap roared outside. Mo Lini and Lessa both flinched, covering their ears and shrinking in fear.
Once the thunder faded, they cautiously opened their eyes—only to find each other mirroring the same timid expression.
Two adorable creatures, recognizing a kindred spirit.
"Agh, I’m dead…" Liyana clutched her chest, overwhelmed by the double dose of cuteness.
"Excuse us for a moment." Xia Lun suddenly took Aina’s hand and led her toward the freshly prepared room.
Liyana blinked. Was Xia Lun in that much of a hurry?
"My, so impatient, Xia Lun?"
Once inside, Xia Lun locked the door behind them.
Aina sat on the bed, posture inviting.
"Aina… what’s going on?" Xia Lun couldn’t hold back. "The Goddess…"
"I killed Her a thousand years ago," Aina murmured, beckoning him closer. "Come here, my Hero."
Xia Lun obeyed, but the moment he reached her, Aina looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the bed.
Staring at her face mere inches away, he pressed, "Then what Landa mentioned—two hundred years ago…?"
"Mmm… that was me," Aina admitted freely. "If people knew the Goddess was slain by the Demon King, panic would spread. Chaos would follow. So I took on Her role for a while."
She brushed her lips against his.
"Honestly, the Goddess had it rough. Beyond this world, powerful evil deities lurk, eyeing our realm greedily… The weaker ones are handled by Is’s forces, but sometimes I have to step in personally."
"Has it been hard?" Xia Lun cupped her cheek, guilt flickering in his eyes.
Aina had been silently protecting this world all along.
"Very hard… You’d better reward me properly." She nipped at his ear. "But don’t worry. I am the Demon King. This much is manageable."
"Then… what about the divine message two hundred years ago? Why collect those things…?"
"Isn’t it obvious?" Aina’s bat-like wings unfurled behind her, flames licking at the air.
She leaned in, her whisper hot against his ear:
"Because I’m a hopelessly obsessed pervert… for my Hero."
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
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...
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.”
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
