“We can only risk it. We went through all that trouble to get here—we can’t run now.”
Little Hei looked toward the ghostly aura spreading in from the distance. “Besides, there’s nowhere left to run. A big shot has arrived. We’d better get ready to have Yue Anyao pull us out.”
Black Impermanence approached step by step, his expression savage. The ghost officers surrounding Fang Zhiyi hurriedly moved aside, opening a path.
“We’re done for. I told you we should’ve left right away, but you insisted on trying. Look where that got us.” Little Hei was utterly miserable.
Black Impermanence said nothing. He simply attacked. The chain in his hand seemed to come alive as it shot toward Fang Zhiyi. Fang Zhiyi twisted aside to dodge, but the chain turned in midair and wrapped itself around his arm anyway.
“Trying to run?” Black Impermanence’s gaze suddenly shifted to Little Hei.
Little Hei cursed and immediately prepared to open a passage and drag Fang Zhiyi away.
But a sudden “Stop!” made Black Impermanence turn back in confusion.
“Ma Mian, what are you doing?”
Ma Mian’s head finally stopped shaking. He stared cautiously at Fang Zhiyi and Little Hei.
“I’m saying these two can’t be touched.” Ma Mian’s face was full of mystery.
Black Impermanence snorted. “They’re nothing but a pair of worms. They trespassed into the underworld. By law, their souls should be annihilated...” As he spoke, the chain in his hand suddenly erupted with a frigid aura. Half of Fang Zhiyi’s body instantly went numb.
Is Black Impermanence really this powerful? That can’t be right.
Fang Zhiyi immediately grew serious as well. In that previous world, he had been no match for the Golden-Winged Roc, and the matter had depressed him for quite some time. Since he had come here again, he naturally intended to test his strength properly!
Black Impermanence watched coldly as Fang Zhiyi’s body gradually solidified. His opponent seemed to have given up struggling, and the strange black thing beside him also remained motionless.
The next moment, Fang Zhiyi abruptly opened his eyes. His pupils radiated a gentle golden light.
The golden light spread throughout his body. Vitality returned to his frozen form, and the light even forced Black Impermanence’s chain back.
“Buddhist light?” Black Impermanence frowned. “Could you be a disciple of Buddhism?”
Atop Spirit Mountain, Buddha slowly opened his eyes.
“Amitabha... This is truly a rare sight.”
Fang Zhiyi advanced toward the assembled ghosts step by step. The ordinary ghost officers retreated one after another. As ghostly beings, they instinctively feared Buddhist light. Only Black Impermanence continued to stand his ground.
“Even if you are a Buddhist disciple, you still may not violate the rules of the underworld!” With that, the token in his hand suddenly expanded and came crashing down toward Fang Zhiyi.
Ma Mian tried to stop him, but he was far too late.
Yet the Soul-Seizing Command, which could easily shatter a soul, was blocked by Fang Zhiyi. What shocked the ghosts was that the Buddhist light covering his body had vanished, replaced by an extremely violent red demonic aura!
“You...” Black Impermanence was somewhat bewildered.
But in the next instant, Fang Zhiyi vanished from where he stood. When he reappeared, he was already floating before Black Impermanence. All Black Impermanence could see was a pair of scarlet eyes.
“You...”
He did not get to finish. A blow struck him in the chest, sending Black Impermanence flying backward. He shot a dozen or so meters through the air before barely managing to steady himself.
“Demonic aura... You really are a...” Before he could finish, he was astonished to discover that the demonic aura surrounding Fang Zhiyi had vanished completely as well.
Deep in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, a Demon King looked around in confusion.
“My lord, what is it?” one of his subordinates asked.
“I thought I sensed something just now. None of you felt it?”
“No.”
“Hmm...”
Black Impermanence began fighting in earnest too. His body swelled several times in size, while the ghostly aura around him became almost tangible. The sight was extraordinarily intimidating.
What he had not expected was that the strange fellow now had ghostly aura surging from him as well—and it was even more ferocious than Black Impermanence’s!
Fang Zhiyi raised his head. Both his eyes had turned completely black. Baring his teeth in a grin, he lunged at Black Impermanence once again.
Black Impermanence pulled a mourning staff from his sleeve. The runes on it glimmered with a faint purple light. When it collided with Fang Zhiyi, a tremendous shockwave erupted from the clash of their ghostly auras, blasting all the other ghosts far away.
“Emperor, are you truly going to do nothing?” Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva asked in his calm voice.
Emperor Fengdu shook his head. “No. Someone else will take care of this.”
Ksitigarbha smiled at that and looked up at the ceiling.
“Alas... If the day ever comes when all the hells are empty, I would truly like to go outside and take a walk.”
Amid the ruins, Black Impermanence pushed himself to his feet. He looked at the opponent across from him, who was barely managing to stagger upright, and suddenly burst into laughter.
The sight astonished the other ghosts. After all, Black Impermanence had never laughed before!
“Interesting. You’re an interesting kid! But haven’t you learned a little too much?” He steadied himself, then slowly drifted toward Fang Zhiyi. “If you can make it back from the Eighteenth Level, I, Fan Wujiu, would like to be your friend.”
Fang Zhiyi raised his head as well, panting heavily.
“The eighteenth level? That’s too far down. I’m not going.”
“Kid, that’s not up to you.” Fan Wujiu looked down condescendingly at him—and at the black thing beside him.
Unexpectedly, Fang Zhiyi lifted his head and said, “You know I’ve learned a little bit of everything. How dare you come closer?”
“Hmm?”
In the next moment, a trace of fear flashed through Fan Wujiu’s eyes.
“Heavenly Thunder Edict! Five Thunders, hasten forth! By command!”
This kid knew Taoist arts too? Who on earth had taught him all this?
Lightning, an object of pure yang, was extremely effective against ghosts. Remembering the power Fang Zhiyi had unleashed earlier, Fan Wujiu immediately raised his hands to cover his head and circulated his ghostly aura throughout his body to prepare for the attack.
Yet several seconds passed, and nothing happened.
When he looked toward Fang Zhiyi again, Fang Zhiyi had already collapsed onto the ground.
“I can’t do this anymore. They’re cheating... I can’t use thunder techniques here.”
“Kid, take it up with my mourning staff.” Fan Wujiu’s expression darkened. He raised the mourning staff, and heavy ghostly aura gathered around the powerful artifact. With a swing of his arm, he brought it crashing down.
A crisp clang rang out.
Fan Wujiu stared in confusion at the staff blocking his mourning staff. Why did it look so familiar?
He followed the length of the staff upward—and saw Sun Wukong’s face in front of him.
“What the hell! So it wasn’t a thunder technique—it was spirit summoning?” Fan Wujiu cried out in shock.
Sun Wukong rolled his eyes at him. “Old Black, you’re still the same.”
“I... Great Sage, you... I...” Fan Wujiu was at a loss for words. The memories of being chased and beaten by this monkey all those years ago were still vivid in his mind.
Sun Wukong looked at the fellow lying unconscious on the ground, then glanced at Little Hei.
“They’re old acquaintances of mine. How about giving me some face?”
] [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!"
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!
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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?!
