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)]
ose... to cooperate with the protagonist! Shen Yuan: I have a system! Protagonist: What? System: Holy crap, you're just spilling it out like that? Shen Yuan: Let's team up, we'll split the system rewards! Protagonist: Fifty-fifty split? Shen Yuan: No way! Protagonist: What!? I'm the one getting beaten up, and I don't get half? Shen Yuan: Forty-sixty split, I get forty, you get sixty! Protagonist: Deal! Big brother, come on, hit me! As long as it doesn't kill me, beat me like you mean it! Shen Yuan: Don't worry... I will definitely protect all of you! No one but me can lay a finger on you! Guard our Heaven's Chosen Ones! I'm the only one allowed to bully them!
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
iemie, male, Race: Moon. Hobby: Collecting anomalies. At first, he thought he possessed two systems: the Crimson Rainbow Moon and the Clear Cold Frost Moon. One day, he discovered that he himself could also become a system for others, holding the chessboard of fate. The Eighth Epoch, also known as the Eternal Moon Epoch. Humans, witches, elves, bloodline descendants, specters, demons, and spirits together compose a new history. Walking the path on behalf of the moon, before he knew it, Chen Miemie's footsteps were followed by all manner of strange and wondrous anomalies. As time passed, many titles circulated about him—The King in Yellow, Lord of Anomalies, Heart of the Eternal Moon, and more. "Me? I'm just a traveler who enjoys collecting interesting creatures," Chen Miemie said.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
