Chen Guan stared at the towering ice sculpture before him in the wind and snow. The statue’s outline loomed under the gray sky, exuding an oppressive weight.
It was a giant bear standing on its hind legs, roaring, clad in thick ice armor, every muscle line clearly defined.
Guan Jinyue stopped a few hundred meters from the statue.
“This is the entrance to the saint’s altar,” she said, pointing at the pitch-black cave at the statue’s base.
Chen Guan looked around. On the empty snowfield, apart from their footprints, there were no guards in sight.
“The power center of the demon clan—usually so unguarded?” he asked, hands in his pockets, his tone casual.
Guan Jinyue shook her head.
“This is highly unusual. Normally, at least three imperial guard units are stationed here—not even a snowbird could get through.”
“Looks like your arrival made them switch up their welcome,” Chen Guan said with a light laugh.
As soon as he spoke, the black mark on his palm burned hot.
The heat surged, a hundred times more intense than before, making his hand jerk back.
Baal’s voice echoed in Chen Guan’s mind.
“Kid, a big problem’s heading your way fast.”
“How big?” Chen Guan asked telepathically.
“Bigger than everything you’ve seen combined. The one behind this power has already touched the threshold of the laws,” Baal said, yawning, clearly interested in the upcoming spectacle. “You’d better stay sharp. An existence at this level won’t be fooled by your little emotional tricks.”
Guan Jinyue’s expression shifted too—she had obviously received Baal’s warning as well.
By then, the surrounding environment had changed drastically.
The howling wind stopped.
The falling snowflakes froze midair, hanging motionless.
Another force, one not of this world, forcefully seized control of the space.
The temperature dropped by tens of degrees in seconds.
The white mist from Chen Guan’s breath froze into ice crystals and fell to the ground as soon as it left his lips.
A huge rift tore open in the thick gray clouds above, stretching for miles.
The wind and snow reversed direction—all the suspended snowflakes defied gravity, streaming upward against the sky.
The swirling snow converged at the rift, reforming into a colossal phantom that bridged heaven and earth.
It was an ice giant bear over a hundred meters tall.
Its pressure shook the entire snowfield; distant glaciers cracked with a loud roar.
The Ice Soul Bear King had arrived in person.
Even the mere phantom was enough to shatter ordinary people’s minds.
The giant bear phantom’s eyes, formed from icy blue energy, looked down.
It ignored the human beside him, fixing its gaze directly on Guan Jinyue.
“Baal’s chosen one, you have broken your oath to us,” the Bear King spoke, his voice rolling across the sky, kicking up snow from the ground.
Guan Jinyue looked up at the enormous phantom overhead.
“You know full well my purpose when I agreed to fight back then,” she said.
“I opened the passage, but I just didn’t maintain it afterward. Now, I must take her away.”
The Bear King snorted coldly, his voice summoning a fierce storm across the snowy plain.
“Rules are rules. The Northern Territory is not a place where you can come and go as you please.”
“Do you think you can run wild on my land just because of Baal’s reputation?”
The phantom raised a giant claw, blue energy gathering in its palm.
He intended to use brute force to detain this promise-breaking chosen one.
“Heh heh heh, is someone trying to bully the little guy?”
A black phantom drifted out from behind Guan Jinyue, grinning slyly.
The Bear King froze. I was just making threats—why did his patron show up directly?
Are you serious? If you’d said the old man was watching, I would never have mouthed off. I was joking, Lord Demon God.
The Bear King coughed awkwardly and backed down instantly: “I’ll give Baal his due respect.”
The giant bear phantom in the sky shrank, its vast energy compressing violently.
“Fine. If you want to take your sister’s body, that can be arranged.”
The bear phantom contracted into the outline of a normal adult male and descended from midair.
This entirely ice-and-snow-formed avatar landed less than twenty meters in front of Chen Guan.
The Bear King’s avatar, made of compacted snow and ice, stood on the soft snow. He towered a full head above Chen Guan.
His icy blue eyes first glanced with reverence at the floating Baal phantom.
“Since it is the Demon God’s wish,” the Bear King said, bowing slightly to Baal in salute, “I’ll give this face.”
He turned to Guan Jinyue.
“You may take this vessel.”
“But from today onward, your partnership with our Ice Soul Bear clan is null and void.”
“Our demon clan harbors no room for oath-breakers.”
Guan Jinyue met the Bear King’s intimidating gaze and nodded in agreement.
“Fair enough. I care only about my sister’s safety. Nothing else matters to me.”
By now, Guan Jinyue wouldn’t dare to cooperate with the demon clan again anyway.
Baal let out a string of triumphant, strange laughs.
“See? It’s so much better when everyone talks calmly. This icy wasteland is no place for swords and guns,” he said, his black phantom circling the Bear King, pleased with this sensible junior.
The Bear King’s gaze passed over Baal and Guan Jinyue, landing on Chen Guan.
His deep blue eyes fixed intently on Chen Guan, and he raised a hand.
“But this human injured over a dozen of my elite soldiers earlier. How do we settle that account?”
A black phantom slowly drifted out from behind Chen Guan, identical to the one behind Guan Jinyue.
The Bear King’s pupils shrank. Not you too, buddy...
True to his dread, the phantom behind Chen Guan quickly grinned and said, “He’s just a kid—don’t bother with him. Punish him by banning him from Crazy Thursday if anything.”
The Bear King fell silent.
Seriously? Your chosen ones even team up?
The Bear King looked left, then right. There were plenty of his bear offspring and subjects around. How was he supposed to save face now?
Should he just admit he was scared? That the enemy hada Demon God, and they couldn’t win?
The Bear King stared at the two identical black phantoms before him, sinking into a long silence.
This was an unbearable situation.
If word got out that he, the Bear King, didn’t even dare to fight, how could he ever command his unruly demon clan again?
Baal enjoyed the Bear King’s predicament for a while, then decided not to push him further. Honestly, if he were a cathe’d be clawing at him by now—extra lucky the bear was so good-tempered.
“Why aren’t you talking?” Baal floated in front of the Bear King, waving.
“Are you trying to find a graceful way out?” Baal drawled.
The Bear King’s face twitched involuntarily.
Damn Demon God.
Finally, the Bear King took a deep breath, forcing his anger down.
“For Lord Baal’s sake, I’ll let today slide,” the Bear King said, his voice calm. Gone was his earlier arrogance—all he wanted now was to have these nuisances sent away.
Face? Please. Try demanding respect from a Demon God all by yourself.
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!
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?!
] [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!"
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
