Baal clicked his tongue in Chen Guan’s mind and delivered his harsh verdict: “With the strength you have now, if you go up against Liu Xiao after he’s been blessed by Astaroth, your odds of winning are less than one in ten.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you still going?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to watch the show? An audience member doesn’t speak.”
Baal let out a strange laugh. “Very well. Lord Bael will remain silent. But I’ll give you one last hint.”
“Raging flames can’t burn through that defense, but emotions can.”
“What Astaroth fears most has never been power itself.”
After saying this, Baal fell silent. He believed that his clever little friend would surely understand what he meant.
And if he didn’t? Heh heh heh… then he could just hand his body over to Lord Bael to deal with everything.
Chen Guan’s grip tightened slightly around the scythe.
He raised his head. The six-winged phantom was taking shape faster now, and there wasn’t much time left.
“Move.”
An Changqing’s voice fell.
Long Ao was the first to charge. The ground beneath his feet cracked like a spiderweb as his figure tore through the invisible shackles formed by the divine might. With an indomitable roar, he charged straight at Liu Xiao, who was still kneeling.
Hong Yuan followed close behind, her massive axe scraping across the ground and throwing off a trail of sparks as she moved to flank him from another direction.
Liu Feiyu formed hand seals, water vapor gathering around his body.
Liu Chengjun bit through the blood inside his mouth. Flames spread from his fingertips and licked toward the crimson runes beneath his feet.
As for Chen Guan, gripping his scythe, he silently vanished from everyone’s sight.
High above, the gaze of the six-winged phantom descended once more.
This time, what it saw was not the submission of ants.
It was the attack of ants.
Courageous, perhaps—but nothing more.
Long Ao’s fist slammed into the invisible barrier. The shockwave shattered the ground beneath him, yet the faint purple screen did not even ripple.
Liu Xiao rose from his kneeling position, both hands in his pockets and a superior smile on his face.
“Come on, Long Ao. That punch of yours isn’t even enough to scratch an itch.”
Hong Yuan’s massive axe cleaved in from the side, its edge sharp enough to cut through steel bars. Yet three feet from Liu Xiao, it was knocked away by a forceful repulsion. The tremendous backlash left both her arms numb, and she staggered backward.
Long Ao exploded into motion once more. This time, relying solely on the strength and speed of his physical body, he unleashed a dense barrage of phantom fists beside Liu Xiao.
Every punch carried the sound of bones cracking. Every punch was infused with all of his fury.
The wind from his fists whipped at Liu Xiao’s clothes, but never managed to touch his body.
“Useless.”
A wave of purple energy shot from Liu Xiao’s fingertip and struck Long Ao squarely in the chest.
Long Ao was sent flying. He crashed through two ruined maze walls behind him, the dull sound of breaking stone echoing through the theater.
“Long Ao!”
Hong Yuan cried out anxiously, but she did not dare let herself be distracted, because Liu Xiao’s gaze had already shifted toward her.
“No need to rush. We’ll take you one at a time.”
Liu Xiao drew a circle in the air with his finger. The purple barrier expanded outward, pushing Hong Yuan even farther away as she approached.
“The angrier you get, the faster the one above us takes shape. I’ve explained this several times already. Why won’t you listen?”
“Because they don’t need to listen to you.”
Liu Feiyu’s voice came from behind. His hands remained locked in their seal, while white frost spread across the bloody formation on the ground.
The crimson runes flickered uncertainly beneath the frost’s corrosion. Above them, the six-winged phantom’s condensation visibly slowed.
At last, Liu Xiao turned around and looked at his younger brother. The smile on his face faded somewhat.
“Feiyu, you’re wasting your time.”
“Whether it’s a waste of time or not, we’ll only know after we try.”
Sweat covered Liu Feiyu’s forehead. Maintaining the technique consumed far more energy than he could bear, but he did not stop.
“Second Brother, do you remember how you taught me to fold paper airplanes when we were little?”
Liu Xiao’s movements paused for an instant.
“You said back then that the reason I was named Feiyu was because you hoped I would fly high and far.”
“Shut up.”
Liu Xiao’s voice was no longer calm and mocking. A trace of irritation seeped into it.
Liu Chengjun’s voice came from another direction. “Second—”
“You shut up too.”
Liu Xiao’s brows knitted together, and the purple light of the barrier grew even more intense.
“Father, brother, younger brother… Those words are nothing but shackles to me. Lord Astaroth has shown me the true nature of everything.”
“Blood ties are merely a biological coincidence. Affection is nothing more than an illusion created by the weak to keep each other warm.”
He raised his head and gazed at the six-winged phantom taking shape above him, murmuring, “Let all of this end.”
“The warmth, the ugliness—everything. Let it all end.”
At that very moment, the abandoned Cathay Grand Theatre, deserted for many years, suddenly underwent a transformation.
Something seeped from its walls. Something surged through the cracks in the floor. Something filled the air.
It was resentment.
Hatred.
All the unwillingness and suffering that had accumulated here over several decades.
The fanaticism on Liu Xiao’s face vanished for the first time.
He lowered his head and looked at the black mist spreading beneath his feet. His pupils contracted sharply.
The source of the black mist was the corner of the stage.
Chen Guan had appeared there at some point, holding a black scythe in one hand. Visible black currents coiled around its blade, countless distorted faces mixed within them, every one of those faces silently screaming.
The Lingering Grudge.
“What are you doing?!”
For the first time, Liu Xiao’s voice lost its composure. He could sense the nature of that power.
It was entirely different from supernatural abilities—a form of energy he could not absorb or transform.
It was raw emotion, the most fundamental negative emotion of humanity.
Chen Guan spoke. “This theater was built in the twelfth year of the Republic of China. It survived war and catastrophe. People died here. Bodies were buried here.”
“Decades of accumulated resentment should be enough to give you a taste of hell.”
Baal’s reminder was what had led Chen Guan to activate this skill, one he had never used before.
As the Lingering Grudge awakened, those negative emotions surged madly into his consciousness.
Someone wept in his ear. Someone roared behind him.
Once upon a time, people had died in fires here. Some had fallen beneath the sound of gunfire. Some had starved to death in the storage room beneath the stage.
Every one of those past sufferings tried to assimilate his mind.
His sanity was being devoured, yet he did not stop. He raised the scythe high, and the black currents condensed along its blade into a crescent-shaped slash that descended toward Liu Xiao.
Liu Xiao instinctively activated his barrier.
The indestructible purple wall let out a shrill hiss the instant the black slash touched it.
“Impossible!”
Liu Xiao took a step back, staring in disbelief at the clear crack that had appeared across the barrier.
Above them, the gaze of the six-winged phantom descended once again. This time, unmistakable disgust filled its attention.
Baal’s voice rang out once more from deep within Chen Guan’s consciousness. He had completely forgotten his promise to remain silent, and now helped drive away some of the muttering voices, his tone unusually serious.
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?!
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
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!
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.
