The murals on the dome began to undergo a strange transformation. The faceless figures in the paintings seemed to come alive, walking and moving across the surface.
A milky-white apparatus descended from the yin-yang symbol above, spiraling down toward Leon and converging in a tangled mass.
A cacophony of chanting filled the air, as if the figures in the mural were real souls, murmuring and whispering in unison.
The entire space began to flicker between light and darkness, and Ning Yu's heart was gripped by a powerful, growing unease.
At the same time, the container holding Ning Xuan's last head was suddenly transported to a corner of the hall, locked inside a glass case.
Her eyelids trembled faintly within the container, and then she opened her eyes again.
Her gaze, initially dazed, quickly focused, and she looked around with urgency, spotting Ning Yu in the distance.
"Sister!!"
She tried to shout, but her voice was muffled by the glass case.
"That's her last clone," Leon said, his back turned to Ning Yu as he grasped the white apparatus spiraling down from above. Its golden engravings matched the swirling patterns on his white robe.
The apparatus extended like a tree branch, with a hollow slot at its base.
"You have two choices now," Leon said, placing his hand into the slot. Instantly, a golden barrier beneath his feet expanded, filling the entire space.
"First, you can stop me now."
Within the concentric golden rings of the barrier, intricate characters began to materialize, as if written by an invisible brush, slowly filling the empty spaces.
The innermost circle, closest to Leon, had the shortest radius, so it was completed in the blink of an eye, vanishing into nothingness.
At this rate, the barrier would soon be fully inscribed.
"Second, you can save your poor 'sister.'"
Around Ning Xuan's container, mechanical probes suddenly rose from the ground, their tips glowing as they gathered destructive beams of energy.
Not only that, but a massive panel began to descend from above, slowly pressing down toward Ning Xuan's head.
Around these devices, mutated cyborg zombies crawled out from the ground, forming a barricade.
"Go on, make your choice. Though I already know your answer."
Leon turned his head, looking at Ning Yu with pity in his eyes.
His own eyes now swirled with the yin-yang symbol, allowing him to see the gray mist within Ning Yu's body.
That was the key he had been seeking all along—the key to the origin, the end of his long pursuit.
Everything was finally going according to his plan. Years of effort, countless sacrifices, even the betrayal and murder of his closest friend, and the creation of a cataclysm that devastated humanity—all for the sake of answering that one question, just like countless predecessors before him.
The ritual had already begun, and the key had arrived at the scene.
He should have been more cautious, should not have given Ning Yu any chance at all. But he couldn't suppress his curiosity about "humans."
That primal impulse was impossible to resist. He couldn't help but want to observe humanity.
He wanted to see what Ning Yu would do, faced with a choice between a worthless, artificial sister and the chance to end everything.
What choice would she make?
Leon turned his back to Ning Yu, fully focused on inscribing the final patterns of the ritual.
But he could barely contain the joy on his face. The thrill of gambling at the final moment was exhilarating.
It almost made him forget how desperately he had sought the origin.
Only now did he remember—his origin was [pleasure].
This pleasure could only come from his love for the abstract concept of humanity and his hatred for individual humans.
He knew what Ning Yu would choose because he understood humans too well.
"Argh!!"
"Ugh!"
The agonized cries of the mutated zombies echoed behind him, and Leon's lips curled into a smile once more. He was utterly satisfied, basking in his pleasure.
When faced with the choice between illusion and reality, humans would rather cling to false emotions to deceive themselves. That was why he found them so pitiful.
"Sister, don't worry about me! If you keep going, you'll..."
Trapped in the container, Ning Xuan watched as Ning Yu slaughtered the zombies and rushed toward her without hesitation. Her voice was filled with sorrow.
But seeing the determination on Ning Yu's face, she felt as if her nonexistent soul was trembling.
She was nothing but a cold, mechanical imitation, her emotions mere constructs, pitiful fakes.
Yet, in this moment, she felt a profound stirring, a proof of life, a trace of her existence.
She opened her mouth to say more, but her lips only quivered.
She wanted to cry like a living person, but she couldn't.
"I'm just a worthless imitation. Why does Sister still want to save me..."
She closed her eyes in pain, feeling as if she had harmed Ning Yu yet again, over and over.
The nightmares she had once experienced resurfaced—dreams of countless heads, and dreams of failing to protect her sister despite giving everything.
"Sister, you should kill Leon now!!"
She tried to stop Ning Yu, even as she continued to deny herself:
"To die for Sister is my honor. Let this worthless fake serve one last purpose."
Suddenly, Ning Yu's voice reached her from outside.
"I told you," Ning Yu said, unable to hear Ning Xuan's words but understanding them through lip-reading.
"I will save you."
With a few swift strikes, she destroyed the energy-gathering probes, causing the now-aimless beams to scatter harmlessly onto the floor.
Now, only the massive steel panel descending from above remained.
Ning Yu stood before Ning Xuan, never hesitating for even a second.
As the panel was about to crush them, she thrust Blood Kite into the ground, halting its descent. Though it still pressed down slowly, the blade held firm, bending slightly under the weight but refusing to break.
Ning Xuan shook her head, pleading with Ning Yu to abandon her in this final moment.
But Ning Yu shattered the glass container, pulling Ning Xuan out and cradling her in her arms, her hands now bloodied from the broken glass.
"Sister..."
Ning Xuan looked at Ning Yu with sorrowful eyes. Behind them, Leon was nearly finished inscribing the final runes of the ritual.
Ning Yu smiled gently at her, just as she had when they first met, just as Ning Xuan remembered from her fabricated memories.
"You are no longer a meaningless tool. You are a real person—my sister."
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.
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.”
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
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?"
