Su Ji stared at this unexpected ally, saying nothing.
He simply held Su Jiu in his arms, silently shifting half a step backward, putting a bit more distance between himself and Zhang Kui.
Zhang Kui sensed the movement behind him. The smile on his face froze for a moment, but quickly returned to normal—though now it carried a tinge of self-mockery and helplessness.
“Alright.
Looks like I’m being underestimated.”
He scratched his disheveled hair, his broad back still facing Su Ji, as his gaze swept over the slave miners around him—men he had cowed with a single move, none daring to advance again.
“By reason,” Zhang Kui’s voice dropped. “You’ve turned the mining zone upside down. Those Zhao bastards are probably all dead. That means we miners are free. They might not know, but I do. Now that you’re in trouble, if I took the chance to rob you, I’d be no better than an animal.”
“By feeling,” he paused and grinned. “Over this past month, you’ve called me ‘Brother Zhang’ plenty of times. What kind of brother watches another brother get ganged up on without lifting a hand?”
With that, he twisted his head and cast a sidelong glance at Su Ji.
“You alone… can you handle it?”
Su Ji was silent for a moment. Looking up at this man who had placed himself between him and danger, he asked in a hoarse voice,
“Can you do it?”
“A man never says he can’t,” Zhang Kui snorted, flexing his joints, which cracked like popping beans.
“Besides, they heard things they shouldn’t have. Call it silencing them.”
“They’re just toothless tigers—scary to look at, but nothing but paper in reality.”
“I beat them plenty in the mines!”
Zhang Kui kicked the Fallen Dragon Spear off the ground. The shaft arced through the air before landing steadily back in Su Ji’s grasp.
“Go!” Zhang Kui growled, stepping forward, shielding Su Ji and Su Jiu completely. The fierce, domineering aura of a former overseer surged out without restraint.
“I’ll hold them here.”
Su Ji stared at the broad back before him, his throat tight.
But this was no time to dwell. His condition was too wrecked.
“Take care, Brother Kui.”
“Ha! I won’t die!” Zhang Kui waved a hand without looking back, his voice bold.
“Now scram! Stop blubbering here—you’re in my way, you bastard!”
Su Ji hesitated no longer. Holding the unconscious Su Jiu tighter, he turned and fled.
Behind him, the roar of battle clashed with the ring of metal.
He didn’t know how long Zhang Kui could hold out.
He didn’t know how far he himself could go.
The night grew deeper.
The wind grew colder.
…
Before all this happened.
Shortly after Su Ji had left.
At the battlefield ruins, now empty, the air suddenly twisted.
A white-clad figure reappeared.
It was Liu Kuanglan—the one who had supposedly “run off.”
He hadn’t gone far.
Now, he clutched the wound on his forehead, hissing between sharp breaths.
“Tch… that old geezer packs a punch…”
Muttering curses, he looked down at the small figure struggling across the distant wasteland.
“Su Ji…”
“Don’t die on me.”
“If you do, this beating I took will have been for nothing.”
Liu Kuanglan sighed.
He raised a hand and pressed it lightly toward the ruins.
“Rumble—”
The ground groaned.
The rock walls on both sides caved in, massive boulders tumbling down, burying the mining site, the abyss, the scorched earth, and the bodies.
“I really got myself into a mess…”
“Now I have to cover your tracks.”
“And shield the causal traces too…”
“When the funeral feast comes, I’d better be half a day late, or I won’t have gotten my money’s worth.”
The celestial winds still howled high above.
“Huum—”
A faint, yet defiantly vicious hum rose from deep within the ruins.
Liu Kuanglan raised his right hand, fingers clearly defined, and curled his index finger slightly.
The next moment—
“Boom!”
A great crash split the air. The rubble-covered ruins exploded, stones flying everywhere.
A bloody streak of light shot up from the depths like an enraged viper, accompanied by a shrill whistle.
It was the self-willed demon blade—Xianyue.
It seemed unwilling, writhing violently mid-air, the crescent moon on its blade glowing with sinister red light as it struggled against the unseen force.
But Liu Kuanglan only crooked his finger casually. No matter how fiercely the malicious blade screeched, it could not move forward an inch.
Finally, it let out a reluctant wail—as if yielding—and drifted slowly to hover quietly before Liu Kuanglan.
He pinched the blade between two fingers, utterly unperturbed. That deadly miasma, enough to slay a Nascent Soul cultivator on the spot, dissolved and retreated like it had met its bane.
He raised Xianyue, examining it closely against the crescent moon’s glow.
Liu Kuanglan shook his head with a hint of pity.
“A fine Sovereign’s artifact, corroded by resentment and filth for tens of thousands of years. Its spiritual essence is near gone. Can’t even call it a celestial weapon anymore.”
“At best… a rather formidable cursed blade.”
Done, he unhurriedly pulled a warm, smooth jade talisman from his robe.
A faint light glowed at its tip.
Liu Kuanglan cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice shifted—trembling, feeble, on the verge of death.
“Cough… cough cough…”
He wheezed dramatically before gasping into the talisman with desperate breath,
“Save me.”
The tone wasn’t loud, but it carried just the right note of urgency.
As soon as he spoke, he crisply crushed the talisman into dust that scattered on the wind.
Liu Kuanglan looked up at the sky, now fully shrouded by black clouds, and began muttering to himself, as if calculating.
“From the Hearwind Pavilion headquarters to here, full-speed… should take about…”
He turned around, clasping his hands behind his back, and gazed upward as if admiring the gray, unique sky of the Great Wasteland.
After some time had passed, Liu Kuanglan judged it was about right.
He looked at the Xianyue blade hovering beside him.
“Shhk—!”
A wet sound of metal piercing flesh.
The ferocious blade transformed into a crimson streak of lightning, stabbing clean through Liu Kuanglan’s chest.
The tip emerged from his back, trailing a spray of hot blood.
The tremendous impact carried his body backward, slamming him violently into a huge stone wall not far behind.
“Boom!”
A deafening crash.
Xianyue’s sharp body pinned him firmly to the icy rock face, the handle still humming softly.
Blood flowed down the blade, staining his snowy white robes a deep red.
After finishing all of this,
only a faint, almost imperceptible whisper lingered in the wind, drifting through the air.
“Don’t let me down…”
“A youth emerges from the Great Wilderness, destined to crush and slay every enemy in the world!”
] This is a dark fantasy-themed dating simulation game. The main gameplay involves containing various monster girls and investigating the truth of a world shrouded in mist alongside your companions. However, due to his love for the dark and bizarre atmosphere, Luo Wei ended up turning a dating game into a detective mystery game. Women? Women only slow down his quickdraw! To Luo Wei, the female leads in the game are more like tools to perfectly clear levels and squeeze out rewards. For Luo Wei, flirting with every girl he meets and then discarding them is standard procedure. Worried about characters losing affection points? No need. With his maxed-out charm stat, Luo Wei is practically a "human incubus." A little psychological manipulation and those points come right back. It's a bit scummy, but the paper cutout heroines in the game won't actually come at him with real cleavers. However... Luo Wei has transmigrated. He's accidentally entered the second playthrough of this game. His past actions have caused all the girls to transform into terrifying yanderes. Due to the game's setting, most of the heroines he once contained are "troubled girls." Obsessive, twisted, mentally unstable, all aggressive yanderes... The type who will kill you if they can't have you... Luo Wei wants to cry but has no tears left. "I really just want to survive..." In short, this is a story of battling wits and engaging in a love-hate relationship with yanderes.
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!
+ Slow Paced + Main Character Thrives Together with His Disciples】 Transmigrated into a cultivation world, Chu Xingchen awakens a discipleship system that reveals the tags of his disciples! Starting from scratch, he builds the strongest sect. Disciple One: Li Yingling 【Gold Tag: Genius Cultivator】【Purple Tag: Extremely Lucky】【Blue Tag: Bewitchingly Beautiful】 Disciple Two: Li Hangtian 【Gold Tag: Reincarnated】【Purple Tag: Ruthless and Decisive】【Blue Tag: Loyal and Noble】 Disciple Three: ??? 【Orange Tag: Alluring Demoness】【???】【???】 Thus, in the cultivation world, an unremarkable little sect appears out of nowhere, but little do others know that each member of this sect is a powerhouse in their own right. The book is also known as: Cultivation? It's Exactly Like This!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
