Zhong Yi’s illusionary world.
Ashina Castle Town, Stairway.
Zhong Yi crouched beside the stone steps like a maggot, not even daring to breathe too loudly.
Thud. Thud. Thud…
The Chained Ogre’s massive feet stomped across the snow-covered stone steps. Every step made the stairs tremble faintly.
The moment the Chained Ogre passed the steps where Zhong Yi was hiding and showed him its back—
“Now!”
Zhong Yi took a deep breath and stood up.
When an enemy is ambushed from outside its field of vision, a red dot will appear over a lethal point.
“Shinobi Deathblow!”
Without the slightest hesitation, Zhong Yi thrust at the red dot. The Kusabimaru pierced cleanly through the Chained Ogre’s chest.
“ROOOAR!”
The Chained Ogre let out a horrific cry. One of its two health bars vanished instantly, and it turned toward Zhong Yi with blood-red eyes.
“As long as you assassinate an enemy while it’s off guard, you can trigger a Shinobi Deathblow. First, lure the Chained Ogre out, retreat until you’re outside its aggro range, then hide somewhere it can’t see and wait for the right moment to perform a Deathblow. That way, you can take away one of its health bars without taking any damage… How about it, fellow daoists? Have you learned the trick?”
Zhong Yi calmly backed away several steps, pretending to be composed as he explained to the viewers in his livestream.
The comments erupted in cheers.
【Amazing, amazing! I learned it!】
【What about the second health bar? How do you deal with that?】
【What comes after that? You’ll have to figure out the rest yourselves, brothers, because Zhong doesn’t know either.】
【I’ve been watching Zhong fight the Chained Ogre for half an hour now. The streamer only knows how to deal with the first health bar!】
【Poor Sculptor, he’s about to cough his lungs out.】
…
“Ahem. Regarding the method for dealing with the second health bar, I’ve made some progress.”
Zhong Yi’s aged face flushed red as he hurriedly gestured with the Kusabimaru in his hand.
At that moment, the Chained Ogre entered a frenzy and raised its foot to kick him.
“Junior Brother Mu told me earlier that if you deflect the instant the Chained Ogre’s foot leaves the ground, you can perform a perfect deflection… So!”
Zhong Yi stared fixedly at the Chained Ogre’s feet.
Clang!
Bang!
The Chained Ogre kicked Zhong Yi squarely in the face.
“Deflect again!”
Bang!
Another kick.
“And again!”
Smack!
Zhong Yi was sent flying by the three-hit combo, his health bar swaying like a candle in the wind.
He stood up without changing expression, calmly pulled the Healing Gourd from his waist, and poured its contents into his mouth.
“Clearly, Junior Brother Mu’s timing for the deflection wasn’t quite accurate. But everyone, don’t panic. This little combo isn’t enough to kill us.”
Zhong Yi patted the dust off his clothes as the Chained Ogre launched its second round of attacks.
“So we’ll just do things the usual way and dodge backward… Huh?”
Before he could finish speaking, the danger kanji suddenly appeared.
The Chained Ogre leaped forward and seized Zhong Yi in a crushing bear hug.
“Alright, fellow daoists, this is the grab attack I’ve mentioned before—the one you absolutely must not dodge backward against.”
“The streamer deliberately demonstrated the wrong response just now to show everyone how serious the consequences are.”
“We’ve been caught by the Chained Ogre’s three-hit combo and grab. Hey, don’t panic. We can take a little break, tidy ourselves up, and choose a nice resurrection point.”
Held in the air as the Chained Ogre spun him around three hundred and sixty degrees before slamming his head into the ground, Zhong Yi continued speaking cheerfully. He then resurrected at the Sculptor’s temple.
“Something’s not right… How exactly are you supposed to fight this Chained Ogre?”
After reviving, Zhong Yi fell into deep thought once again.
“Could it be that there’s no other way besides honing my swordsmanship?”
He muttered to himself, yet he refused to believe that was the answer.
If this were merely a challenge that required pure swordsmanship, Lu Ze could have simply created an illusionary world like Star-Cleaving, one where players challenged mighty experts.
Zhong Yi felt that since Lu Ze had designed such a complete world, with its characters and storyline, there had to be ways to exploit the system.
For example, at the entrance to the Stairway, the two soldiers guarding the Chained Ogre had mentioned during their idle chatter that it was afraid of fire.
There was even a candle beside the wooden frame where the Chained Ogre had initially been bound.
Zhong Yi had tried everything he could think of, but he still couldn’t set the Kusabimaru on fire.
“Perhaps the snowstorm is too strong and the flame is too small, so it won’t catch? Then where am I supposed to find a larger flame?”
Zhong Yi paced back and forth, sinking into thought once again.
Just then, a lazy, drawling voice suddenly came from the weeds behind him.
“Well, well, you look familiar, little brother~”
Zhong Yi turned around and saw a bald man with a red headscarf wrapped around his head and a shrewd glint in his eyes.
The moment he saw Zhong Yi’s face, the Bald Man immediately acted even more familiar.
“It really is you, Ninja Lord!”
“Who are you?”
Zhong Yi studied the newcomer curiously.
“You’ve forgotten? We met one night, remember!”
The Bald Man flashed a sly grin.
“One night?”
Those three words immediately piqued Zhong Yi’s interest.
When he had met Kuro, the boy had also mentioned “that night.”
Clearly, some major event had taken place on a certain night three years ago.
That event had caused Zhong Yi to fall into a deep sleep and lose his memories.
Compared with honing his swordsmanship, uncovering the secrets of the illusionary world and discovering the truth behind the story gave Zhong Yi far greater pleasure. His curiosity instantly began to itch.
“My lord… you really don’t remember?”
The Bald Man was initially a little stunned. Then his eyes narrowed.
That gaze and smile looked exactly like the one Zhou Qiaoling had worn when she encountered a wild loot box at the Ascension Base.
“Yeah.”
Zhong Yi nodded.
“My lord, to be honest, we really have met before.”
The Bald Man wiped the smile from his face and adopted a serious expression.
“Three years ago… I was still a thief back then. Later, I washed my hands of that life and started a business. But I had no money. Without money, I couldn’t buy any goods, and without goods, I couldn’t get the business off the ground… My lord, would you consider lending me a little startup capital?”
The Bald Man rubbed his fingers together, and Zhong Yi immediately furrowed his brows.
“With some startup capital, I can buy merchandise… and I can also tell you what happened that night.”
【Pay 50 sen?】
Zhong Yi hesitated for a moment before selecting “Yes.”
【Insufficient funds. Purchase failed.】
“…”
Only then did Zhong Yi remember that in the Sekiro illusionary world, every death caused him to lose half his money.
He had died hundreds of times. He was already completely penniless.
“Damn it, I have to go earn money first!”
Zhong Yi helplessly shrugged, then confidently raised the Kusabimaru.
“Fortunately, making money here isn’t difficult. I just have to kill the low-level soldiers. I can’t beat the elite enemies or bosses, but surely I can slaughter the regular soldiers, right? Hahahaha!”
“What do you mean the regular soldiers can deflect my attacks too?!”
“Whoa! Why is the Bald Bro coughing too?!”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
y came from. The chests contained supplies, currency, class-change scrolls, skills, talents… and even godhood! The laws of the world were completely rewritten. This became a world where everyone gambled with their fate! Some people, despite having nothing, opened a divine artifact and rose to the top, eventually ruling the world. Others went bankrupt, opened nothing but worthless junk, and leaped from skyscrapers in despair. Lin Ye arrived in this world from another reality, utterly bewildered. “What is going on? Why is everyone a gambling addict?!” “Opening chests? No way. I refuse to gamble. I’ll start with myself!” Until— On his first chest, he obtained a Mythic Talent: Void Incarnation! He could become completely intangible, pass through all things, and reduce everything to nothingness! … On his fiftieth chest, he obtained a Mythic Weapon: Blade of Karma! With a single slash, karma shattered, twisting the universe and overturning the myriad phenomena of creation! … On his ninety-ninth chest, he obtained a Mythic Divine Treasure: Primordial Purple Energy! It could split open the heavens and earth, create all things, and evolve countless worlds with a single thought! Lin Ye: “Now that I think about it… shouldn’t someone have told me that every chest is guaranteed to contain something Mythic?!”
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.
