The council members under Ye Xiao's command were also being targeted—witnesses claimed the assassins wore uniforms of the upper city's military forces.
Wealthy merchants, mid-level officials, and even quartermasters of the upper city fell victim to a series of assassinations one after another. No matter how heavily guarded their high-rise hideouts were, the killers slipped through with ease, employing poison gas, hand-to-hand combat, and brute force that even reinforced vault doors couldn’t withstand. The evidence left at the scenes pointed unmistakably to their origins—the lower city.
These relentless assassinations indirectly pushed the war to its boiling point. Both sides deployed every last card in their hands, but this time, without Fang Zhiyi and his allies, Ye Xiao was clearly at a disadvantage.
Marilyn remained carefree, indifferent to the chaos outside. As long as her steak and wine kept coming, nothing else mattered.
Watching the tall, unwavering figure before her, she knew—he would protect her well.
Yet, the protagonist remained the protagonist. Even when cornered, he made a decisive move: leveraging exorbitant bounties to rally the lower city’s drifters, thugs, arms dealers, and human traffickers, molding them into a makeshift army to reinforce his front lines.
Faced with Ye Xiao’s offer—one hand holding cash, the other a blade—they had no choice.
In the end, even the workers were handed guns. This battle, Ye Xiao was determined to win. He would be that girl’s knight, no matter the cost.
Through near-suicidal tactics, cracks began to form in the upper city’s defenses. Ye Xiao had prepared for this day, albeit hastily. But he was confident—those upper city parasites, rotted through by greed and power, were no match for him. Besides, he had been laying groundwork there for a long time.
"Today marks the thirtieth day." Mia approached Fang Zhiyi with a glass of water, concern in her eyes. He had been standing there for days, gazing at the distant battlefield.
"You’re a strange one," Mia remarked after taking a sip, then handed the glass to him.
Fang Zhiyi accepted it and drank. "Why do you say that?"
"I thought you were just a runaway kid. Didn’t expect you to have such... grand ambitions." She gestured widely with her hands.
"But I’m not sure—will this really make the world better?" In these days, Mia had followed Fang Zhiyi, witnessing every shade of human depravity. The guilty lived without care, while the good suffered endlessly.
Fang Zhiyi paused, a phrase flashing through his mind: "A single spark can start a prairie fire."
Mia’s eyes flickered with surprise. "That... doesn’t sound like something you’d say."
Fang Zhiyi shrugged. "It’s not mine. I heard it somewhere."
The roar of artillery gradually faded, replaced by faint cheers from the battlefield.
Fang Zhiyi picked up a communicator. "Begin."
The upper city had lost—inexplicably. Some of their officials suddenly defected, those who had taken Ye Xiao’s bribes long prepared to switch sides. But what they hadn’t anticipated was the sudden withdrawal of the upper city’s Second Corps. No one knew where they had gone; communications were dead. Panic spread like wildfire—rumors claimed the Second Corps had walked into an ambush and been annihilated.
Ye Xiao emerged victorious, though at great cost. But he didn’t care. With Marilyn in his arms, he stood atop a vehicle like a king surveying his newly conquered territory as they entered the upper city’s streets. The fear in the eyes of the onlookers pleased him—this was the respect he deserved, the status he had earned!
From this day forward, he would be the undisputed ruler of the entire ruined city!
All would bow to him—and to his beloved Marilyn! He would hold a grand wedding, a celebration of his triumph!
But then, an ambush shattered his fantasies. A force emerged from the supposedly pacified upper city, striking without warning.
Ye Xiao shielded Marilyn, shouting for his armed units—only for explosions to erupt behind him.
A remaining loyalist rushed to his side. "Boss, it’s bad! The lower city scum have turned on us!"
"What?" Ye Xiao couldn’t process it.
"They’ve rebelled! They’re attacking our rear!"
Ye Xiao whirled around, though he couldn’t see the chaos. The sounds of explosions and shouts grew louder, spreading disorder even among his own troops. But he had no time to dwell on it.
"A trap?" The possibility struck him. Of course—this had to be the upper city’s vile rulers’ doing!
Meanwhile, the advancing force was recognized by the defected officials—it was the missing Second Corps.
"This scent... so sweet..." A hyena soldier wearing goggles collapsed, legs giving out.
"Hey! You—"
A girl stood holding a spray device. "Take their weapons!"
Her followers surged forward, discarding clubs and pickaxes to seize guns.
"Requesting backup! Third line under attack!"
"Damn it! You can’t even handle a bunch of peasants?"
"Not peasants—their leader’s a monster! He doesn’t even—" A blade swung, embedding itself into Wang Meng’s shoulder, drawing blood but nothing more.
Wang Meng grinned, his expression unhinged. "My turn now?" Born with a manic disorder, he had always been restrained under Fang Zhiyi’s command—until now. This was the first time Fang Zhiyi had permitted them to kill on the battlefield.
"The battlefield is different from peacetime," Fang Zhiyi had said.
Meanwhile, the system voiced its disbelief. "You... you actually sent these people to lead a civilian uprising?"
Fang Zhiyi barely lifted his eyelids. "Uprising? More like reclaiming what’s theirs."
The system pressed on. "You’re oversimplifying this. These civilians won’t obey you!"
Fang Zhiyi smiled. "I never expected them to. Remember the survivors who lost everything?"
The system paused. It had been so focused on persuading Fang Zhiyi to cooperate that it had ignored the others.
"You mean those helpless ones? Children, women, frail men?" It recalled the struggling underclass, certain its host had lost his mind.
"Let me teach you something. Power isn’t always the ultimate advantage—ideas are. Even in a lawless place, thought takes root." Fang Zhiyi tapped his temple. "People die. Ideas don’t."
The system didn’t understand. "So what? The upper city won’t recognize them."
"Won’t they?" Fang Zhiyi laughed, genuinely amused.
At that moment, the upper city’s fleeing elites heard the distant sounds of battle—from Ye Xiao’s direction. Seeing a glimmer of hope, they halted their retreat.
This displeased one man.
"Hey. Who gave you permission to look away?"
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?!
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!
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
] [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!"
