The demonic mask slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground with a sharp metallic ring.
Not particularly loud.
The sickly fervor that had sustained Yu Hui’s will crumbled the moment the mask fell away.
His body swayed, then toppled backward like a felled tree, kicking up a cloud of dust.
As the dust settled, his face—now utterly exposed—lay bare to the air.
Pale, haggard, and damnably familiar.
Jiang Xia’s breath hitched for an instant.
That face… it truly belonged to the old classmate he remembered, the one who had once stood beneath the academy’s great locust tree with him, brimming with ambition as they debated the future.
Something tightened in his chest, a dull ache spreading outward.
For a moment, Jiang Xia didn’t know how to judge this "old friend" before him.
Call him evil?
His grand theory about "preserving the last embers of human civilization" had been delivered with such righteous conviction, as if he were a martyr bearing the weight of salvation.
And true, he hadn’t outright revealed the truth of the "Abyss" to the public, sparing society from collapse.
But then—why attack the Martial Exam?
Jiang Xia knew Old Shen’s nature too well. The man was steeped in a stubborn arrogance, a self-assured superiority.
His logic was probably this:
"If even we ‘elites’—battle-hardened and seasoned—are at a loss against this crisis, how can we pin our hopes on a bunch of fledglings who’ve yet to step into the real world?"
"What a joke. Since your higher-ups plan to throw them into the ‘Abyss’ as cannon fodder sooner or later, I might as well cull these ‘so-called hopes’ now. Maybe then you’ll finally abandon this farce and consider my proposal."
But to call him good?
Then look at what he’d done over the years. Not a single act could be remotely described as "good."
Slaughtering innocent Martial Exam candidates?
Every one of them was a pillar of Great Xia’s future!
Or how about those twisted ritual attacks on government institutions?
Squandering already-strained strategic resources just to fight him—resources that should’ve been spent on the front lines against the Abyss!
And let’s not forget his poisonous rhetoric, his cult-like following, his seduction of others toward ruin.
Every single deed!
Any one of them was enough to land him in prison for life, with no chance of redemption.
No matter how noble his words sounded, they couldn’t mask the blood on his hands or the atrocities he’d committed.
One term summed it up perfectly:
"Traitor."
How bitterly ironic.
Once, they’d burned with the same fire, willing to sacrifice everything to protect humanity’s future.
Now? One had become a guardian, defending a city.
The other had fallen so far as to become a remnant of the "Heralds," an enemy of civilization itself, despised by all.
Fate had a cruel sense of humor.
Jiang Xia bent down slowly and picked up the cold metal mask.
Its design was grotesque, the mouth stretched into an impossibly wide grin, as if mocking the world itself.
His fingers traced the rough, icy surface.
So, this sneering demon’s face—
Was it the mask…
Or Old Shen’s true visage now?
Jiang Xia’s voice was low. "I’ll admit, I’ve never been as quick-witted or silver-tongued as you."
"Back at the academy, whenever we argued over those bullshit theories, I never won a single damn debate!"
"But this time…"
"I have to ask."
"Once you put this mask on… could you really take it off as easily as you claim?"
"Isn’t it just another mask over your heart?"
"You’re drowning in pessimism."
"So why snuff out the hope others carry?"
"Why force everyone to embrace your despair?"
"Do you still see yourself as some tragic, misunderstood hero, martyred by the world’s ignorance?"
His voice suddenly sharpened.
"Real heroes are the ones who march straight into hell—knowing it’s suicide, knowing they’ll die—and still stand tall, teeth gritted, leaving bloody footprints as they go, laughing in death’s face!"
"You want to talk about sacrifice?"
"Fuck your sacrifice! Every year, how many soldiers, researchers, nameless souls burn to ash on the Abyss’s front lines, defending hundreds of millions behind them?"
"Every last one of them is worth ten of you! Your so-called ‘sacrifice’ is nothing!"
"You had the guts to lay this life-or-death trap for me…"
"So why not have the guts to stand with me at the Abyss’s edge and die properly?"
With that, Jiang Xia hurled the mask to the ground with a violent heave!
Before it could bounce back up—
His foot came down, crushing it into fragments with a decisive crack.
Breathing hard, he ground the shards under his heel, twisting viciously.
Men like Old Shen disgusted him more than outright villains.
Against pure evil, Jiang Xia could strike without hesitation, without a flicker of remorse.
Kill them? Good riddance. Justice served.
But this kind of hypocrite—hiding behind a "noble" cause while committing atrocities, draping their sins in righteousness?
He didn’t understand their philosophical gymnastics, nor did he care to.
He lived by one simple truth.
Hope wasn’t something handed out like charity. It wasn’t earned by extinguishing others’ hope to prove your own "enlightenment"!
Hope was seized. Fought for. Earned.
Jiang Xia spat on the wrecked mask. "Tch. Thought you were something back then. Turns out you’re just a fool who fell for his own act."
Only after venting his fury did he turn to the guardians of Shan Cheng and Cloud City.
He clasped his fists. "My thanks for the assist. I’ll skip the pleasantries—I owe you both. Next round’s on me."
"He lured me out for a reason. There’s a bigger play here. I need to get back."
"Need reinforcements?" Shan Cheng asked. "Though I can’t stay long. My district’s been restless lately—those scum are stirring again."
Cloud City’s guardian remained silent as ever. With a flick of her wrist, droplets of blood arced through the air before she sheathed her dagger, hesitating briefly.
Jiang Xia waved them off. "No need."
"I’ve already called in others."
His voice still hung in the air as he vanished, a streak of lightning racing toward the Martial Exam’s origin site.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
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.
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
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?!
