Fang Ze’s figure appeared as well. Wrapped in lightning, he was no longer brimming with confidence. All that remained was the crushing dejection of someone defeated in a single strike.
Last came Shizuko Kaga.
Her body, transformed into a bloody shadow, had been forcibly kicked back into physical form. Her curse-killing technique had been shattered by a single kick. The glory and dignity she possessed as a ninja and as the Kaga family’s ultimate trump card had completely collapsed, leaving behind an extreme hatred that made her entire body radiate an ominous black aura.
And it wasn’t just them.
There were more—many more contestants who had been eliminated and defeated on this stage, their dreams shattered and their martial hearts broken.
Their figures, along with the moments when they had been most unwilling to accept defeat and most desperate, were forcibly summoned from the river of time by Chen Guan’s resentment.
These were not illusions.
They were the purest collection of negative emotions left behind by every loser since this arena had been built—a phenomenon known as the echoes of the defeated.
Now, all of them had been awakened by Chen Guan, becoming his most terrifying army.
Every vengeful spirit fixed its eyes, brimming with negative emotion, on the only figure in the arena that still radiated light.
Su Yuehe.
“What… what is this?” Ren Ping rose from his seat on the reviewing platform, his eyes filled with unprecedented shock.
As the president of Huaqing University, he recognized every one of those figures. They were all top-tier prodigies who had been eliminated from this tournament.
And now, they had all been turned into vengeful spirits straight out of a nightmare.
This… this couldn’t be right!
“Heh heh heh!”
Inside the box, Santai let out a shriek of excitement. The aura around her had begun to turn dangerous.
“Summoning the dead and controlling resentment! This boy—this boy really is one of us!”
On the arena floor, Su Yuehe looked at the figures surrounding her on all sides, each one radiating boundless malice. She could sense that the power contained within them was not particularly strong.
But the resentment of the defeated that they carried was like an immovable mountain, pressing heavily against her heart.
Her Wordcraft could rewrite rules and distort reality.
But could she rewrite the very concept of failure?
Could she order despair itself to vanish?
The sword of today could not cut down the officials of yesterday.
The vengeful spirits moved. Charles’s charred figure was the first to charge forward. What coiled around his body was not merely lightning, but a curse of pain that turned back upon its wielder. He wanted to inflict that pain upon the only source of light in the arena.
Shizuko Kaga’s bloody shadow followed close behind. Her resentment was the deepest of all, and her target was Su Yuehe’s unshakable faith.
Faced with this overwhelming tide of despair, Su Yuehe closed her eyes.
She did not try to counter it with Wordcraft such as purification.
Because Su Yuehe knew that the essence of these vengeful spirits was their refusal to accept defeat. Forcibly dispersing them would only provoke an even fiercer resistance.
Within Chen Guan’s mental perception, the entire world underwent a seismic transformation.
Centered on Su Yuehe, a ring of gentle moonlight rippled outward in silence.
Wherever the ripples passed, the snarling, ferocious vengeful spirits all froze.
The venom in their eyes did not fade, but their momentum seemed to sink into an invisible mire.
Jing Qingbai’s resentful folding fan stopped in midair, the hatred condensed upon its surface slowly melting beneath the moonlight.
The arcs of electricity around Charles were no longer violent. His anguished roar became a low whimper.
The movements of every vengeful spirit slowed thousands of times, as though an old film had been switched to slow motion.
“This is…”
In Huaqing’s rest area, An Changqing stood up. His face was filled with shock as he watched the unbelievable scene unfolding in the arena.
He could sense that Su Yuehe was not attacking. Instead, relying on her powerful mental strength, she had forcibly bound herself to that group of vengeful spirits.
As a result, their attacks had become a form of confession.
Through that connection, they transmitted the moments of their defeats—their unwillingness and despair—to Su Yuehe again and again.
Chen Guan looked at the swaying figure in the arena and understood what she intended to do.
She was using her own will to bear the wails of every loser since the arena had been built.
She wanted to use this method to soothe the vengeful spirits, allowing them to dissipate on their own after being heard and understood.
Naive—and terrifyingly kind.
“Boy, she’s almost at her limit.” Baal’s voice rang out in Chen Guan’s mind, urging him on. “Give her one more push. Make her sink completely, and you’ll win.”
Chen Guan did not respond.
He looked at Su Yuehe. He watched her body convulse in agony, yet her spine remained straight. Her star-filled eyes held no retreat, only boundless compassion.
She was using a single person’s body to embrace the tears of an entire era.
He could not bear it. On the stage, they were not mortal enemies; below it, they were friends.
Their brief conversation from the previous night surfaced in his mind.
“Will you give it your all in tomorrow’s match?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll be at ease.”
“Not enough.”
Chen Guan suddenly spoke and took a step forward.
Boom!
As his foot came down, the vengeful spirits that had filled the arena suddenly dispersed, surging into his body instead.
“Illusion: Myriad Phenomena.”
As his words fell, the scene before Su Yuehe’s eyes began to twist. The roar of the audience, the lights of the reviewing platform—everything rapidly peeled away.
This was not Su Yuehe’s first time entering Chen Guan’s illusionary space. She did not panic. Instead, she calmly began examining the new illusion before her.
This time, nothing was distorted.
There was only pitch-black darkness. Nothing else.
Su Yuehe’s brows drew together slightly. If there was nothing, then there were no rules—and without rules, there was nothing for her to rewrite.
What was he planning?
A one-on-one brawl in a mental space?
On the other side, Chen Guan let out a soft sigh.
This time, it was not because he had no way to deal with Su Yuehe. It was because he felt he was being somewhat shameless.
“Baal, are we really going to do this?” Chen Guan asked inwardly.
“Heh heh heh. I seem to recall that you humans have an old saying: ‘Since you’re already here, you might as well go through with it.’” Baal’s voice was sinister.
The phrase left Chen Guan speechless. This was the strategy he and Baal had come up with.
Relying solely on Chen Guan’s own mental strength, he could not contend with Su Yuehe. Even with the enhancement from the Resentment, Chen Guan was not a hundred percent certain of victory.
Adding points on the spot was certainly possible, but Chen Guan had no idea how many he would need to overpower Su Yuehe. Clearly, it would be an expensive investment.
Fortunately, within Chen Guan’s mental space, his tenant Baal was a specialty of the place.
Cost-effective, affordable, and easy to use.
“Yuehe, I’m sorry.”
Chen Guan silently murmured the words in his heart. Then, he released the restraints he had placed on Baal.
“Then let’s begin.”
nce】【Lighthearted Comedy】【Ultimate Gentleman's Novel】【Viewer Discretion Advised for Under 16】 The mightiest human hero, Sharen Morian, is resurrected after a thousand years by his wife—the Demon King. This is not your typical hero-vs-demon-king tale.
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!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
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.
