“You can’t see me, you can’t see me…”
Zhou Qiaoling clung stealthily to the edge of the wall, inching along bit by bit.
There were far too many soldiers stationed atop the castle gate tower, making them especially troublesome to deal with.
Aside from the particularly annoying whistleblowers, this place also had a type of soldier wielding a massive hammer.
A single blow dealt even more damage than that of a General Ashina, and Zhou Qiaoling had suffered plenty at their hands.
“Heh heh, you think I’m going to let myself get surrounded and beaten to death by fodder? No way!”
Following Zhong Yi’s advice to the letter, Zhou Qiaoling quietly made her way through the area by stealth, eventually reaching the highest point of the castle tower.
She had reached the edge of the castle wall. Below was a wide-open stretch of ground.
Beyond that open ground stood another manor, one even closer to the heart of the castle.
“There’s nowhere else to go… Am I supposed to climb down?”
Zhou Qiaoling frowned.
Weapons of all shapes and sizes stood planted across the broad expanse. Corpses of men and horses were scattered everywhere, while the stench of death mingled with thick smoke and quietly spread across the land alongside the flames.
Calling it an open field would be inaccurate. It was more like a battlefield.
“No, no, no… This place obviously reeks of danger! For all I know, Old Demon Lu has hidden some evil ghost among the sea of corpses, waiting for me to walk right into his trap!”
Zhou Qiaoling shook her head firmly. No matter how much the barrage tried to provoke her, she refused to budge.
Just as she was preparing to retrace her steps and search for another route, one of the comments caught her eye.
[True Disciple Zhou, look! There’s treasure in the middle of the battlefield!]
“Treasure!?”
The moment Zhou Qiaoling saw the word “treasure,” something deep in her soul stirred. She immediately looked up.
Sure enough, just as the comment had said, a dazzling golden glimmer was shining in the middle of the battlefield.
“That golden light looks extraordinary… Could it be some incredible treasure?”
Zhou Qiaoling instantly perked up, completely casting aside her earlier concerns. She vaulted straight down from the castle wall, executing the move so cleanly that even Zhou Yue would have praised her.
“Treasure, treasure, here I come~~~”
Zhou Qiaoling charged joyfully toward the center of the battlefield. The mountain of corpses, the sea of blood, the gruesome atmosphere—none of it mattered to her anymore.
“Let’s see what it is… Huh?? A clump of ash???”
Zhou Qiaoling stared blankly at the lump of ash in her hand.
Wasn’t this just an ordinary item that could be found all over Ashina Castle…?
Why was it glowing so brightly?
A colorful barrage comment drifted across the sky:
[Realm Master Lu Ze: That’s what you get for being greedy.]
“???”
Zhou Qiaoling was completely dumbfounded.
When had Old Demon Lu infiltrated her livestream?
Wait!
Could that last comment have been sent by him with its special effects deliberately hidden…?
“This is bad!!”
Zhou Qiaoling suddenly had a terrible feeling. She stood up and immediately tried to grapple back to the wall.
But it was already too late.
From the gates of the manor in the distance came the heavy thunder of approaching hooves.
A burly man riding a tall warhorse and clad in red armor came charging out of the manor. Wielding a nearly two-meter-long glaive, he roared at Zhou Qiaoling:
“I am Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa! Prepare to die!”
“God damn it…”
Zhou Qiaoling stared despairingly at the imposing general, then angrily glared up at the sky.
“Old Demon Lu, I hate you!!!”
…
…
Zhou Yue’s illusionary world.
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
The glaive descended with the weight of a thousand jun, clashing against the blade of the Kusabimaru and sending countless sparks flying.
“Heh. Is that all?”
Zhou Yue casually waved the Kusabimaru in his hand, conveniently dispersing the faint numbness in his wrist.
Having perfectly deflected the attacks, he did not immediately counterattack. Instead, he wore a confident smile as he displayed his strength.
It was as though no matter how Gyoubu attacked, he was certain he could withstand it.
“This general of yours is nothing special… He feels weaker than the Chained Ogre.”
Zhou Yue shook his head with a smile. At that moment, Gyoubu urged his horse into motion once more, circling Zhou Yue at tremendous speed.
Zhou Yue remained calm, his eyes effortlessly tracking Gyoubu’s movements.
Whenever Gyoubu attacked, Zhou Yue was confident he could deflect it.
When he had first encountered Gyoubu, Zhou Yue had been uneasy.
After all, judging by the man’s appearance, he looked like some final-boss-level demon. His attack patterns were unusual as well. It was essentially an infantryman fighting against cavalry, leaving Zhou Yue at an absolute disadvantage.
But after dying a few times, Zhou Yue discovered that Gyoubu was nowhere near as formidable as he had imagined.
His moves looked intimidating, but in reality, they were nothing more than a very straightforward lesson in deflection. The more Zhou Yue progressed, the more refined his deflection skills became. Against a boss who primarily tested deflection and had few variations in his attacks, he found himself completely at ease.
His initial overestimation of Gyoubu had caused him to fight too cautiously.
Once he let go of those misgivings, Gyoubu seemed to Zhou Yue like nothing more than an upgraded General Ashina—just with a mount.
After seeing through all of Gyoubu’s moves, Zhou Yue began to handle the fight with ease.
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
After deflecting another series of Gyoubu’s attacks, Zhou Yue had nearly filled his posture gauge through sheer force.
That meant victory was already all but guaranteed.
“So, like I was saying…”
Zhou Yue smiled radiantly and slowly raised the Kusabimaru in his hand.
“This kind of illusion that doesn’t require any luck is the best—ow!”
“What the hell? What soldier eats a banana on the battlefield, then throws the peel wherever he pleases?!”
“Damn it!! You old bastard, don’t sneak-attack me at a time like this!!!”
[Death]!
…
…
Zhou Qiaoling’s illusionary world.
In Lu Ze’s previous life, Gyoubu’s difficulty as a boss had been viewed in two radically different ways by new players.
For players who had honed their deflection skills and built a solid foundation, a few deaths were enough to learn the mechanics, after which they could kill him with ease.
Players who had already cleared the three-year-ago side story before encountering Gyoubu might even feel that he was weaker than an ordinary soldier.
For players addicted to cheesing their way through fights, however, he was a complete nightmare.
Zhou Qiaoling was one such player.
The easier Zhou Yue found the fight, the more miserable it was for Zhou Qiaoling.
“Watch the raised blade. Watch the raised blade. Watch—deflect!”
Just as Zhou Qiaoling raised the Kusabimaru, the tip of Gyoubu’s glaive suddenly shot forward.
[Danger]!
“Ahhh! That move again!! You’re cheating!!!”
Zhou Qiaoling could only watch helplessly as the spearhead pierced through her. A heavy downward slash followed, instantly emptying her health bar.
[Death]!
“Ptui, ptui, ptui! I’m not resurrecting again! What’s the point of even playing this stupid game…”
Giving up on resurrection, Zhou Qiaoling returned to the Sculptor’s Idol at the abandoned temple.
She drooped her head, looking as listless as an eggplant battered by frost.
She had searched for another route, but found nothing.
If she wanted to continue forward, she had to defeat Gyoubu.
Gyoubu had killed her thirty times already, and she still had not found a way to beat him.
All the shortcuts she had taken before had come back to haunt her.
“I entered this illusion to enjoy myself, so why am I suffering like this…?”
Zhou Qiaoling muttered gloomily.
Back then, she had entered the illusionary world to avoid her master’s punishment and hone her swordsmanship.
She had originally thought that no matter how difficult—or twisted—the illusion realm was, it couldn’t possibly be more torturous than being locked in a dark room by her master.
As it turned out, she was wrong.
And spectacularly wrong.
“No wonder Old Demon Lu volunteered to take this on with Master… You really are up to no good!!!”
Zhou Qiaoling clenched her fists indignantly.
“Hmph! You want to torment me? Not a chance!”
With that, she seemed to make up her mind. She rose to her feet, a smug smile spreading across her face.
“Master dotes on me the most. I’ll go apologize to her right now, then swing my sword in front of Sword-Seeking Manor for three days and three nights. Master will definitely forgive me! What kind of bullshit illusion realm is this? Bye-bye~~~”
Grinning cheerfully, Zhou Qiaoling tossed aside the Kusabimaru in her hand and summoned the system interface.
The next moment, the smile froze on her face.
“What the hell??”
“Where’s my [Exit] button????”
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
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.
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."
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.
