"You! You're talking nonsense!" Someone snapped back to their senses—their condition for clearing the level was the shop manager's rating. But if Fang Zhiyi was going to nitpick like this, there was no way they could pass.
"Fang, I was wrong!" Another immediately begged for mercy. "My wife and kids are in their hands—I was forced into this!"
Others stood frozen, wide-eyed and clueless, like Ning Yi'an.
Fang Zhiyi waved his hand with a laugh. "Relax, I was just joking. Do I look like that kind of person? I guarantee you'll all pass." With that, he clapped his hands and walked into the back storeroom, leaving the eerie shop manager to grade the players.
First up was Hanks. Seeing he was already unconscious, the shop manager stepped on his chest and tore off one of his arms with a brutal yank!
The excruciating pain jolted Hanks awake with a scream. The manager grinned. "Excellent!" As he gave the rating, Hanks vanished amid his agonized shrieks.
The players and the live-stream audience shuddered in realization—they now understood what Fang Zhiyi was planning.
Losing an arm or leg still meant clearing the level. The fog-shrouded city would be saved. But for these players, it was a death sentence—no nation's higher-ups would allow a crippled player to represent them in future games, doomed to die.
"Fang Zhiyi!" Ning Yi'an struggled to her feet. The next second, the manager reappeared before her, his unnaturally long fingers brushing her cheek with an icy touch.
The livestream broadcast the bloodiest scene since the game began.
Ten players in total were dismembered, their severed limbs handed out as rewards to the veteran employees.
Fang Zhiyi didn’t reappear until all the players had vanished. Then, slowly, he stepped out of the shop and onto the street.
The distant fog hadn’t lifted yet—apparently, it needed more time.
But Xiao Hei could clearly sense one thing: It was furious. This game hadn’t satisfied its thirst for spectacle, especially since not a single person had died.
"Host, isn’t provoking it like this a bad idea?"
"What, should I keep playing its stupid games forever?" Fang Zhiyi stared at the ashen sky. "Besides, with you here, nothing can go wrong."
Xiao Hei fidgeted nervously, silently pumping himself up.
This time, after just seven days, players worldwide were gathered at a mountain villa—a large-scale multiplayer dungeon called Misty Manor.
But soon, people noticed something was off. That damned capitalist wasn’t here.
Panic set in immediately. They’d paid protection fees! What was the point if Fang Zhiyi didn’t show?
Meanwhile, Fang Zhiyi’s livestream was at an all-time high. Viewers saw him sitting in a parlor, facing a gaunt, hollow-eyed old man.
"You’re different. That’s why you can’t keep ruining my fun."
Fang Zhiyi smirked. "Didn’t expect the game master to summon me under the pretense of placing an order."
The old man’s aura surged violently. "A god cannot descend upon the mortal world, or insects like you would be crushed to dust! This is my mercy!"
Fang Zhiyi scoffed. "You? A god? More like a lunatic."
Before the old man could retort, Fang Zhiyi lunged, slamming into him and driving his claw-like fingers into the man’s throat, crushing it.
The old man’s mouth gaped soundlessly. "You... ugh... heh..."
Then, stillness.
The livestream audience couldn’t hear the audio. They only saw Fang beat up an old man and kill him.
Fang Zhiyi stood and headed for the door—but the moment he pushed it open, the stream cut to black.
Viewers assumed the worst. Had Fang Zhiyi been ambushed? Was his rule different? An instant-death trap?
Chaos erupted in the chat.
But Fang Zhiyi had stepped into a void—a space where everything was grotesquely distorted, radiating an unsettling aura.
Then, an overwhelming pressure bore down on him.
"Mortal, you murdered my avatar. Now you have my full attention."
In the distance, a twisted throne held a shapeless, writhing mass.
"Uh... you look that abstract?" Fang Zhiyi asked.
A crushing force slammed into him, nearly driving him to his knees.
After a dizzying chorus of maddening whispers, the thing spoke again. "Mortal, you slew a god’s incarnation, insulted divinity, and still refuse to repent?"
Fang Zhiyi squinted, forcing himself upright despite the blood trickling from his lips. His organs felt squeezed to bursting.
"A coward hiding in the shadows calls itself a god? Pathetic."
A bloody spit flew—not hitting the thing, but striking a nerve.
The mass convulsed, sprouting countless flailing tentacles. "Mortal, today I shall deliver divine punishment myself!" One tentacle lashed out, hoisting Fang Zhiyi into the air.
"Pfft. Too scared to show your real face." Gritting through the pain, Fang Zhiyi kept taunting. "You’re a god? The abyss could cough up a hundred like you before breakfast."
"Mortal! You dare mock me?!" The thing raged. Then, a small figure crawled up from behind the throne—a scaled, frog-like monstrosity with claws.
"No one insults me. No one insults a god!" it roared at Fang Zhiyi.
"You? A god?" Fang Zhiyi sneered.
The thing seemed to puppeteer the tentacled beast. Under another verbal assault, its form warped, morphing into Fang Zhiyi’s likeness.
Seeing Fang Zhiyi’s widened eyes, it gloated, "Now you see, insect? You’re just pawns to amuse my endless existence. And in my mercy, I grant you miracles... Hm?"
The "Fang Zhiyi" double suddenly frowned, scrutinizing the real one. "Where’s your divine blessing? Hm?"
Fang Zhiyi grinned—but not at it. When the thing whirled around, it faced a gaping maw.
The nameless horror was swallowed whole by Xiao Hei. The tentacle holding Fang Zhiyi slackened—mindless, but instinctually aware of who was stronger.
As Xiao Hei curled into a ball, Fang Zhiyi spat blood.
This bastard was cautious. If not for Xiao Hei’s confirmation, he’d have mistaken the tentacle beast for its true form.
Back in Misty Manor, players on the brink of death suddenly flickered, turning translucent.
"What’s happening?"
] [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!"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
