My Turn

Chen Guan gritted his teeth, forcing himself to endure the churning agony in his mind as he forced his eyes open in this devastated spiritual wasteland.

The world before him was filled with bizarre, endlessly twisted fragments of afterimages.

Chen Guan continued recklessly compressing the spiritual energy he had just gathered back.

"I’ll condense all the spiritual energy into a single point, bore a path straight through this ocean of despair, and find that core that only knows how to emit instinct."

"As the strongest Demon Lord, I’ll leave my spiritual world to you."

"Who said I’d help?"

Baal gritted its teeth, helpless yet resigned.

By now, it understood that Chen Guan had planned to drag it into this from the very beginning—because it existed within Chen Guan’s spiritual space.

The enemy had already reached their doorstep. There was no choice: this help, it had to give.

Chen Guan ignored it. He compressed every last ounce of highly concentrated spiritual energy into an invisible, sharp needle.

Just as those blood-colored negative emotional phantasms lunged at him again with bared claws and teeth, he drove the spiritual needle straight into the densest cluster.

The surrounding phantasms of destruction began to twist violently, and the sound of countless ethereal wails magnified tenfold in his ears.

Invisible resistance pressed in from all directions, trying to crush this reckless intruder into dust. Chen Guan endured the pain that felt like his brain was being stirred into pulp, step by step pushing forward.

"Keep going. As long as I follow the direction of the strongest reactive resistance, I’ll find the central hub of this massive will."

He repeated that clear goal over and over in his mind.

Clenching his jaw, Chen Guan trudged stubbornly through the boundless sea of malice.

He pierced through the false illusions of a blazing inferno with his spiritual energy, then mercilessly cleaved through the hills of bone blocking his path.

Each step forward drained enormous mental effort, but he never paused for a single moment.

"Almost there."

Chen Guan keenly sensed that the resistance ahead had begun to undergo a fundamental change.

The noisy wailing around him gradually faded. He passed through the last barrier of black mist, and before him appeared an empty expanse.

"I found it."

Chen Guan’s voice carried excitement in his consciousness as he guided his battered spiritual body to hover at the edge of that void.

In the center of this dead silent space, a massive sphere floated quietly.

Its surface was covered in intricate black and red patterns, like a beating human heart.

Each time it pulsed and contracted, it released a visible ring of black ripples into the surroundings.

The dull heartbeat they had heard from the tower top must have come from this strange object.

"So this is the true origin of that mutilated carcass."

Baal’s voice carried a rare note of undisguised surprise.

"You actually stormed through the tempest and found its vital point."

Chen Guan’s gaze locked onto the slowly beating giant heart.

"Now, it’s my turn."

The moment his spiritual energy barely brushed the core’s outer membrane, the heart, which had been beating in steady rhythm, suddenly stopped completely.

The smooth surface of the sphere began to cave inward across a wide area.

A long, eerie crack slowly split open down the center of the core.

A torrent of malice poured out from within that crack.

"Kid," Baal hissed through a sharp intake of breath in Chen Guan’s mind.

"You’ve pissed it off completely."

"That piddling amount of your spiritual energy isn’t even enough to fill its teeth. Get out now while you can still save yourself."

Baal felt it had made the most conservative decision of its entire life today.

Each surge of black sludge eroded Chen Guan’s spiritual body, spiderwebbing it with cracks, so fragile that even a faint breeze could shatter it into nothingness.

But instead of heeding Baal’s advice, Chen Guan forced himself upright amid the mire.

"I’ve come all the way to its vital door, and you expect me to tuck tail and run?"

He replied in his mind, fighting against the maddening pressure.

"Did you think I came down here for a sightseeing tour?"

Baal was so furious it practically leaped in agitation.

"I say you’ve got a death wish!"

Chen Guan smiled at the turbulent darkness before him. He had always adapted quickly.

"High risk, high reward. With a chance this big right in front of me, passing it up would be a waste of all this trouble."

He focused all his attention on the colossal entity before him.

Whatever lay deep inside the crack gave him no further room for debate. A massive will surged along the black sludge straight into the depths of his mind.

It was a terrifyingly pleasurable sensation.

Forced to see from a new perspective, Chen Guan looked down at the blue planet beneath his feet, watching skyscrapers crumble under giant claws.

He saw how this vessel had once effortlessly crushed a thriving city, saw countless humans running and begging amid a sea of blood-red flames.

Desperate souls slid down the throat with a sweetness that made him sigh, an ultimate experience beyond all worldly desires, trying to dismantle his self-awareness piece by piece.

Baal began bouncing frantically within Chen Guan’s spiritual space.

"Kid, wake up! Don’t let that feeding instinct assimilate you!"

"This is our primal ecstasy—if you get lost in it, you’ll forget you’re human!"

"You think you’re controlling it, but it’s actually consuming you!"

An unnatural red tinge crept into Chen Guan’s eyes. He looked down at his own mutating spiritual body, where tiny black tendrils had begun to sprout on its edges.

"This feeling really isn’t bad," he laughed in his mind.

"No wonder you Demon Lords are always out to wreak terror."

"The thrill of seizing everything from others without any rules—it’s addictive."

Baal’s voice carried obvious urgency, the abnormality in Chen Guan starkly clear to it.

"Stop with the sarcasm. Your self-awareness is already being eroded."

"The way I see it, seal your mental link with that black dot before you’re fully assimilated."

It emphasized, "I’m mobilizing my remaining power to protect your spiritual foundation. This is your last chance. Take my advice."

Chen Guan shook his head, ignoring the voice in his ear.

"I don’t want to give up."

"Besides, I think this carcass isn’t as terrifying as you say. It’s just a fool acting on pure instinct."

As he spoke, he pushed his cracked spiritual body forward another inch.

Baal was practically driven mad with rage.