By the lakeside, on a lavish pleasure boat.
"Come play, my lord~"
"Young master, your drinking prowess is impressive."
The sounds of solicitation and indecent banter rose and fell in waves. A heavily made-up madam sat at a table, greedily counting her pile of gold and silver.
"With such profits from your floating brothel, have you forgotten your true identity?"
Suddenly, a woman's voice spoke from behind. The madam hastily stood up.
Turning, she saw a bewitchingly beautiful figure now lounging on the bed.
"Saintess."
"You're... injured?"
"Hmm?"
Yin Mianmian narrowed her eyes.
In an instant, the treasures on the table vanished without a trace.
The madam's pupils contracted. At her Inner Realm cultivation, she couldn't even perceive how the wealth had been taken.
Whoever could steal her money without a sound could just as easily take her life.
"Have those damned executioners arrived?"
"The Straw-Cloaked Stranger, Twin Lotus, and Blood Gourd have come, my lady."
The madam answered obediently.
After a moment's silence, Yin Mianmian said, "Tell them to see me tomorrow."
"Yes."
Once the madam left, Yin Mianmian slowly rose and swept her hand across the table.
The silver reappeared abruptly.
She grabbed a handful of golden pearls, then let them clatter back down.
"Divine arts... is it?"
As the Saintess of the Drizzle Pavilion and ranked sixth on the Hidden Dragon Ranking, even those above her couldn't claim certain victory against her at the same cultivation level.
She had never suffered defeat against a peer—until today.
What if Ying Bing had reached the Three Apertures of Observation?
Remembering that bone-chilling divine will and the heaven-striking sword intent, she knew she'd have to recall the fragment of will she'd left in Hengyun Sword City. This mission was thoroughly ruined.
And then there was that youth.
"Northwest Hammer King... Who would have thought we'd meet like this."
The candlelight flickered in Yin Mianmian's pupils as she smiled cryptically:
"Betraying the Drizzle Pavilion warrants divine retribution..."
......
Under the night sky, the bustling Yunzhou City.
After the recent battle, the Meihua Pavilion lay in ruins.
"What happened just now?"
"Seems there were Drizzle Pavilion assassins hiding in Meihua Pavilion."
"I saw Young Master Li make his move. With just one sword, he cut down eight Drizzle Pavilion killers."
"Eight? Eighty! I was right there!"
......
The entire street had been cordoned off by Hengyun Sword City's enforcers. Onlookers crowded in layers, unable to enter but buzzing with speculation.
By the time Elder Zeng arrived, the tales about "Little Li" had escalated from slaying eight assassins to eight hundred.
"Eight hundred?"
Elder Zeng paused mid-step.
Eighty Observational Realm Drizzle Pavilion assassins could massacre Inner Realm experts effortlessly, let alone eight hundred.
Wu Chushu remarked dryly, "It's eight hundred now. In a few days, it'll be eighty thousand."
"Perhaps we won't need to exaggerate so much when promoting our disciples in the future."
"I wasn't exaggerating. Back then, the sect claimed I killed six bandits."
"......"
The master-disciple pair walked through the debris until they saw the scene inside Meihua Pavilion.
Zhong Zhenyue sat there, seemingly questioning his life choices.
"Glad the young marquis is unharmed."
Elder Zeng sighed in relief before asking, "What exactly happened here?"
Zhong Zhenyue snapped out of his daze and recounted the events with a bitter smile.
Elder Zeng's frown deepened.
The Drizzle Pavilion Saintess had infiltrated Yunzhou City and gotten close to Zhong Zhenyue?
"That demoness excels at manipulating minds. Resisting her control already proves your exceptional willpower. Few talents escape her clutches alive."
"It wasn't my willpower."
"Oh?" Elder Zeng looked puzzled.
Zhong Zhenyue's expression turned complicated as he remembered:
"It was Li Mo's hammer—"
Before he could finish—
"Ahem!"
A cough interrupted him. Li Mo stepped out, wearing a benign smile:
"Hammer what?"
"Ah... Brother Li's swordsmanship is peerless! His decisive strike severed my distractions!"
Zhong Zhenyue's eyes instantly cleared.
Elder Zeng found this odd.
Rumors painted Young Marquis Zhong as a fearless warrior, inheriting his father the Southern Suppressing King's valor. On the tournament grounds today, his spear had moved like a dragon, undefeated.
Why did he look so... deferential toward this Li kid?
Moreover—
The Drizzle Pavilion Saintess, titled "Heavenly Demon," ranked sixth on the Hidden Dragon Ranking.
And Li Mo had delivered a "decisive strike"?
Noticing Elder Zeng's skepticism, Li Mo explained:
"Actually, it wasn't me who repelled the Saintess. It was Ying Bing."
"Her..."
Elder Zeng's eyes narrowed as he observed lingering traces of divine will in the vicinity. To an Outer Realm expert like him, these remnants revealed everything.
His heart stirred with surprise.
That girl's true strength far surpassed what she'd shown in the tournament.
Who knew what world-shaking martial arts she'd comprehend from studying the sword marks?
Collecting himself, he pressed for details about the incident.
......
Night deepened.
In the courtyard.
The early autumn moon cast a cool glow.
Beneath it, a lone figure practiced swordplay, her blade light merging with the moonlight as if dueling an invisible opponent.
She was reviewing the earlier battle.
After a while, the girl sheathed her sword and stood solitary, letting the breeze toy with her hair.
Contemplating the moon failed to calm her restless mind.
"Had my Sword Heart been enlightened, Yin Mianmian wouldn't have escaped with just light injuries."
"Had my Sword Heart been enlightened, I could've used Hengyun's sword marks to complete the Divine Firmament Heart Sword. Then I'd stand a chance in the next system ranking..."
"But why do the first three stances always feel slightly incomplete?"
Ying Bing's delicate brows furrowed in rare confusion.
The sword art itself was flawless.
The flaw must lie within her.
Her forms contained no openings.
"Is it... my state of mind?"
The Divine Firmament Heart Sword demanded replacing one's heart with the heavens' will.
The Way of Heaven is impartial; it treats all as straw dogs.
She had once stood so close to the true Great Dao. No one in this world should've been more suited to this sword art than her.
Why couldn't her heart achieve true detachment, that utter silence beyond all things?
Thud—
A nearby window slid open.
A certain young man who'd been training poked his head out, blinking at the moonlit swordswoman:
"Ice block, not sleeping again?"
"Even whetstones need breaks. Come on, try my soul-stirring skewers?"
His teasing words drifted on the breeze.
"......"
Ying Bing froze.
She'd found the flaw in her heart.
Yet now... she was even more at a loss.
......
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.”
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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.
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
