Long Ao could tell he was being singled out, but he reluctantly agreed.
The countdown began over the arena speakers.
“Ten.”
“Nine.”
Complex teleportation arrays surfaced across the arena floor, their ghostly blue light shining up from beneath their feet.
When the countdown ended, blinding white light swallowed the entire arena. The intense dizziness made Chen Guan nauseous as the world around him twisted and stretched.
The salty scent of sea wind was replaced by a rancid, sour stench. When the white light faded, his feet were planted in soft earth.
Chen Guan opened his eyes. Towering trees reached into the sky all around him, their dense canopies blocking out the sunlight. Only a few rays managed to pierce through, casting dappled spots of light across the rotting leaves.
He tried operating the terminal on his wrist, but the screen showed nothing but glaring static.
“As expected. Signal jamming.”
He shut off the terminal and glanced up at the sky hidden beneath the canopy. An unknown bird let out an ugly cry as it swept through the forest. Aside from that, there was nothing remarkable, and he had no way to determine his direction.
At that moment, a faint rustling came from the bushes ahead.
Chen Guan drove his foot into the ground and spun around, raising his scythe across his chest.
A huge black shadow dove down from the treetops on a gust of foul wind.
It was a massive spider monster, jet-black from head to tail, with eight jointed limbs. A scorpion-like bony tail dragged behind its abdomen, its stinger gleaming with a sinister green poison.
Fetid mucus dripped from its opening mandibles, corroding the fallen leaves and sending up wisps of white smoke.
Baobao arched its back and let out a threatening growl, every strand of its purple fur standing on end.
Chen Guan tightened his grip on the scythe, remaining perfectly still as his calm gaze swept over the spider monster.
There was no spiritual-energy fluctuation from a demon core. This thing wasn’t a demon beast.
The spider monster’s eight crimson eyes locked onto Chen Guan. Its hind legs suddenly pushed off, and its enormous body pounced with astonishing agility.
Chen Guan advanced instead of retreating. The instant he sidestepped the attack, the scythe in his hand swept upward, its blade ripping through the monster’s carapace and leaving a deep, bone-white gash.
Green, corrosive blood gushed out, splattering across a tree trunk and instantly eating holes into the bark.
“Awooo!”
Baobao transformed into a streak of purple lightning and appeared behind the spider monster, biting down on one of its vulnerable joints.
The spider monster shrieked in pain. Its scorpion tail whipped around with a sharp whoosh, stabbing straight toward Baobao’s head.
Chen Guan shot forward, using the shaft of his scythe to block the poisoned stinger. A tremendous force traveled through the weapon, leaving his arm numb and aching.
“Baobao, fall back.”
He barked the order, and Baobao immediately released its bite and flashed away to a safe distance.
Using the force of the block, Chen Guan spun around. The scythe carved a deadly crescent through the air.
“Echo: Storm.”
Invisible wind blades instantly coiled around the scythe. As he completed his turn and slashed, a pale vacuum crescent tore through the air with a piercing shriek.
All eight of the spider monster’s limbs were severed at the base. Its enormous body crashed to the ground, smashing a deep crater into the earth.
It struggled feebly in its death throes, its mandibles opening and closing repeatedly. Then it finally fell silent.
“Hungry, hungry.”
Baobao approached and sniffed the foul green blood. It immediately closed its mouth and backed away in disgust.
“Don’t eat it. It’s poisonous.”
Chen Guan gave the warning as he withdrew his scythe. He walked over to the spider monster’s corpse and pried open its skull with the tip of the blade.
A chip emitting a faint red glow was embedded in the brain tissue, still functioning.
As expected, it was an engineered creature.
The No. 0 Academy had clearly gone all out with the horrors it had placed on this island for the tournament. It was probably another product of Nine Dragons Technology.
Just as he was about to destroy the chip, a faint footstep sounded from within the forest.
Without turning his head, Chen Guan held his scythe across his body.
“Who’s there?”
“Long time no see, Chen.”
A blond, blue-eyed white man stepped out awkwardly. Chen Guan was not unfamiliar with him. He was the No. 0 Academy’s second-year top student—the one who had eliminated Chen Guan last year.
The wheel of fortune had turned. This time, it was his turn.
Seeing Chen Guan about to attack, Ross hurriedly backed away.
“Please, Chen. Can we not be so hostile?”
Ross knew when to yield. He understood that Chen Guan was no longer the weak freshman he had been last year. The man had become terrifyingly strong.
To show his respect, Ross had even switched to speaking Chinese.
Chen Guan’s scythe did not move an inch. Its icy blade clearly reflected Ross’s terrified face.
“We’re not close enough for me to show mercy.”
Ross raised his hands a little higher, palms facing outward, and forced a stiff smile.
“No, Chen. You’ve misunderstood.”
He explained at top speed, afraid that the blade gleaming with cold light would slice across his throat the next second.
“I mean no harm. I was teleported somewhere nearby and came over after hearing the fight.”
Baobao paced back from the spider monster’s corpse, circled around Ross’s feet, and looked up to sniff him. A threatening growl rumbled in its throat.
Ross’s body instantly went rigid. A bead of cold sweat slid down from his temple.
“Please keep it away from me. I’m allergic to felines.”
“It’s not a cat.”
Chen Guan corrected him blandly, but made no attempt to call Baobao back.
“Hungry, hungry.”
Baobao immediately put on a completely different expression. It rubbed its head against Chen Guan’s trouser leg, staring up at him with its purple eyes like a starving pet.
Chen Guan glanced at Ross.
Ross understood at once.
“My friend, I have something!”
He frantically pulled a demon core glowing with a blue radiance from his pocket and tossed it onto the ground, as far away from himself as possible, like he was throwing away a hot coal.
“A high-quality water-element demon core. Completely natural. It’ll definitely like it.”
Baobao did not even spare it a glance. It only looked up at Chen Guan, waiting for its master’s permission.
Chen Guan tilted his chin toward the core. Baobao was pretty smart after all—it even knew not to eat something handed over by a stranger.
Only then did Baobao cheerfully pounce on the demon core and swallow it in one bite. After letting out a satisfied belch, it trotted back and sat down at Chen Guan’s feet.
“See? We can get along.”
Ross’s taut nerves finally relaxed, and he tentatively lowered his hands.
Chen Guan finally put away his scythe, but he and Ross still kept enough distance between them for Chen Guan to launch a sudden, lethal attack at any moment.
“Tell me what you want.”
Chen Guan sized Ross up. In the year since they had last met, the man had actually risen to the fifth rank.
Terrifying. One really couldn’t underestimate the heroes of the world.
“Cooperation.”
Ross’s expression instantly turned serious. He pointed toward the treetops in the distance.
“The engineered creatures on this island are only the warm-up. The people from the other academies are the ones who truly want us dead.”
Chen Guan neither agreed nor disagreed. That was the very nature of a survival battle.
“I saw people from Kamitani Academy just now.”
Ross lowered his voice, fear lingering unmistakably across his face.
“Hiiragi Qingbai is leading them. There are two others with him.”
The image of the gentle young man in a white ceremonial robe, holding a folding fan, surfaced in Chen Guan’s mind.
“He’s strong.”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
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?"
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
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.
