Boom!
At the brink of life and death, golden blood suddenly trickled from Chen Mo’s right eye.
The True Sight Pupil breached its critical point, and the flow of time slowed to a crawl in his vision.
He saw the shadowy threads coiled around Ye Qingmei’s neck, the pulsating energy veins around the monk’s wrist, the swirling qi vortex in the Taoist nun’s dantian... and the barely perceptible fissure where all the beams of light converged.
He saw it!
He SAW it!!
"Now!"
With his last ounce of strength, he hurled his tactical knife.
Crack!!
The blade pierced the fissure with pinpoint precision, and the entire cage of light trembled violently.
For the first time, Ling Yu’s face twisted with shock and fury.
"Attack!"
The Taoist nun reacted fastest, her lifebound flying sword streaking toward the fissure like a comet.
The others unleashed their deadliest techniques—Buddhist radiance, venomous gu, thunder spells—colliding at the fissure in a dazzling aurora.
Amid the storm of energy, Ling Yu’s body began to disintegrate.
Yet his splitting lips curled into an eerie smile. "Congratulations. You’ve earned the highest honor."
Whoosh!
After uttering those cryptic words, Ling Yu’s form dissipated into the air.
The oppressive pressure vanished.
Thud! Thud!
The dozen or so survivors slumped against walls or collapsed to the ground.
Even the aloof female sword cultivator wore an expression of hard-won relief.
Only those who’d lived through it knew how brutal this battle had been.
The monk cast a Calming Heart Mantra, then eyed Chen Mo—who was checking Ye Qingmei’s injuries—with newfound interest. "Fellow Daoist, you can see through illusions?"
"Care to join our Great Radiance Temple?"
"Uh..."
Chen Mo’s eyelid twitched as he forced a smile. "N-no thanks."
"Heh, that’s the spirit!"
"Not bad, pretty boy."
The Miaojiang girl sauntered over and clapped his back. "Come to our tribe instead!"
"Ahem... What about White Eyebrow Mountain?"
The Taoist nun jerked a thumb at herself. "The whole mountain’s full of nuns!"
The cool-faced sword cultivator watched the scene from her perch, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
For some reason, she felt an unexpected warmth in this moment.
Chen Mo declined each offer, then suddenly frowned. "Wait—why are you all here?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
The Miaojiang girl clasped her hands behind her head. "The Alliance sent a distress signal for this location."
"I came to evacuate people."
"Then I found you fighting that monster."
Thud.
Chen Mo’s heart skipped a beat.
The monk nodded. "Amitabha. Yet the Alliance’s enforcers are conspicuously absent."
The Taoist nun shrugged. "Typical Alliance inefficiency. Could’ve at least sent someone."
No... This is wrong...
While the others complained, Chen Mo stood frozen, his face draining of color.
They didn’t understand what an Alliance distress signal meant.
But he knew.
This... this was the monster’s trap all along!
Now that he thought about it—why had the monster held back against him?
It wasn’t playing with its prey.
It was...
Chen Mo’s hollow gaze swept over the dozen survivors.
Waiting for them to arrive.
And the survivors weren’t random—each was a top genius from their factions.
Why? How?
Then he remembered Ling Yu’s final words:
[Congratulations. You’ve earned the highest honor.]
That phrase...
"Run..."
His voice was a whisper.
Ye Qingmei leaned closer. "Chen Mo? What’s wrong?"
"RUN! NOW!"
Grabbing her wrist, Chen Mo screamed at the group, panic shredding his voice: "IT’S A TRAP! GET OUT!!"
The night-cloaked arena froze mid-breath.
Before his echoes faded, the ground spiderwebbed with cracks—oozing shadowy tar that coiled around ankles.
The Miaojiang girl’s gu insects turned to ash on contact. The Taoist nun’s hovering sword shrieked. The monk’s golden bell shield shattered. Everyone stood paralyzed.
BOOM!
Twenty-four obsidian pillars erupted, their dragon carvings weeping blood from crimson eyes.
The Blood Asura’s colossal blade cleaved through the void, its gore-drenched edge dripping a sealing array.
Hui Ming’s black Buddhist radiance vomited a tide of shadows, imprinting each victim’s terrified face onto the pillars.
Ling Yu’s fragmented mirror-body reassembled, each shard reflecting Qin Luo’s weeping demon mask.
...
...
When the Abyssal Dragon’s roar crushed down from the clouds—its bone-wings hurling survivors like ragdolls—the Shadow Faction’s collective aura had condensed the air into lead.
Every survivor stared, minds blank.
What...
What IS this?
But this wasn’t the most terrifying part.
The most terrifying thing was...
These ferocious, masked humanoid monsters, each wearing differently shaped masks, suddenly...
dropped to one knee in unison, kneeling atop the dark golden pillars.
Their heads bowed low as they knelt in perfect unison, facing one direction as if welcoming a supreme being.
Who... could it be?
The next second.
Boom!
Under the despairing gazes of everyone present.
The void split open with a crimson rift.
Qin Luo stepped forth, treading upon the wailing souls of the dead.
His suit, reshaped by flowing shadowfire, became a long-tailed coat.
His weeping ghost mask bore molten lava-like patterns, cracks running through it—his left eye a light-devouring black hole, his right eye flickering with eerie glacial flames.
Thud!
With every step he took, skeletal hands of tormented souls reached up from beneath to lift him, while the ground beneath him formed screaming faces in relief.
Until he finally took his seat upon the shadow throne that Ling Yu had long prepared for him...
"The farce ends now."
"I... grow weary."
His voice echoed like the whispers of a billion lost souls, dark torrents surging with his words, instantly sealing the movements of all the Chosen Ones.
Absolute rule descended upon this place.
"All hail the Shadow King!"
Amid the unified cries of the shadow faction,
everyone’s consciousness plunged into eternal darkness.
And yet, at the docks, the morning sun rose as scheduled.
Joggers hummed tunes as they stepped over puddles.
As if nothing at all had happened that night.
[Congratulations, Master, for completing the hidden quest]
[Performing the "dog-walking" act on more than 15 Chosen Ones in one go]
[Critical hit reward obtained: Attribute Points—200]
[Title acquired—"Rule-Breaker": When equipped, the wearer can ignore special rules!]
[Item obtained—"Oblivion Scythe": All currently held tools and weapons have been fused into one (details can be [expanded])]
[Reward obtained—"Maybe You’d Like to Try This" (Special Item)]
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
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.
