The Paranoiac

Zhang Yuanqing had just ridden the wind out of the building when the sword light closed in on the intersection. He immediately realized flying wouldn't catch him up in time, so he instantly cast Star Escape, barely catching the tail of the sword light. The next second, the sword light arrived at the intersection. *Hum!* Rippling folds spread across the air, accompanied by the thrumming shockwave of an air blast, like an oversized firecracker exploding underwater. To the naked eye, a six-meter-long gash tore through the void above the intersection. From the pitch-black Mustard Seed Sumeru seeped a majestic surge of yin qi and a dread that chilled people to the bone. It was like throwing open the gates of hell. The surrounding pedestrians finally reacted. Because everything had happened so fast before, most people hadn't noticed the sword light closing in. However, when the sword light tore through the Mustard Seed Sumeru, the burst of blinding light and the abrupt plummet in temperature alerted these mortals that something was wrong. They all turned their eyes toward the intersection. At the critical moment, Zhang Yuanqing, having cast Star Escape in rapid succession, finally arrived. Raising his hand, he snapped his fingers with a crisp snap. A wisp of starlight blended with soul force rippled outward, instantly blanketing a hundred-meter radius. The drivers in cars, riders on electric scooters, and pedestrians on foot went slightly glassy-eyed before recovering. No longer paying any mind to the intersection, they went back to their driving and walking as if nothing had happened. Zhang Yuanqing breathed a sigh of relief, thinking to himself that it was fortunate he had controlled the situation. Otherwise, tomorrow's headline news online would have been: #SHOCKING! Mysterious 2D White-Haired Anime Girl Shatters the Void in Downtown City# And the comments below would be otaku arguing over which anime heroine this white-haired girl was. The pitch-black gash slowly began to contract. The white-haired Grand Marshal stepped lightly and drifted into the spatial rift. The Red Dancing Shoes tapped clack-clack right in after her, determined to finish off Fu Qingyang. "Grand Marshal, wait for me..." Zhang Yuanqing dashed to the closing gap and plunged straight inside. The scenery changed abruptly. The sun-drenched city streets vanished, replaced by an ancient city shrouded in yin qi. A stone-paved main thoroughfare stretched into the dark, secluded depths of the ancient city. In front of them stood a tall archway bearing a horizontal plaque with the words "Ghost City." The antique buildings on either side of the thoroughfare displayed signs that drew even more attention. It felt like stepping into a supernatural-themed horror amusement park. "Hiss, the yin qi here is dense enough to freeze a Night Walker stiff..." Zhang Yuanqing followed his heart's desire and sidled closer to his tall, shapely cousin. "Grand Marshal, you have to protect me." Fu Qingxuan gave a majestic yet indifferent "Mm," like an empress granting protection to her subject. Bright white light bloomed in her pupils. Sweeping her gaze across Ghost City, she quickly reached a conclusion and said calmly, "A demigod-level item composed of multiple supernatural powers and props. It has no item spirit, and its core is a rule-based item... It actually shares a subtle similarity with Elder Dog's Zoo." *Clack-clack, clack-clack...* Abandoning the two, the Red Dancing Shoes sprinted straight toward the end of the long street. The two followed immediately. The female Grand Marshal advanced with calm composure, while Zhang Yuanqing remained vigilant, looking left and right. Every shop here held lingering, terrifying yin qi. Any one of these shops could kill him with ease. At this moment, however, the streets were in utter disarray. A sign reading "Escape Room" hung crookedly. The doors of "Eerie Foot Reflexology" had been smashed in. In the ghost wedding shop, the ghost bride's head had been severed, rolling together with her red bridal veil, a pair of eyes filled with malice staring dead ahead at the street. The "Zombie Infestation" shop had also been wrecked. Beyond the askew doorway lay charred zombies, apparently freshly baptized by the divine power of the sun. Evidently, all these shops had been smashed up by Fu Qingyang and his team. Yet the deeper they went, the more intact the shops became. This shift indicated that Fu Qingyang and his group had lost the ability to wreck shops and ransack places, barely able to pull back at best. Up ahead appeared a shop with a half-collapsed doorway, bearing a plaque that read "Scream." This shop seemed to have been attacked, but not thoroughly wrecked. Looking through the open doorway, Zhang Yuanqing happened to catch sight of a wrinkled old face poking out from the entrance. Pitch-black bloody water leaked from its eye sockets as it peered faintly at the two of them. It was an elderly woman, deathly pale, with pitch-black bloody water trickling from her eyes. The moment her gaze met Zhang Yuanqing's, her mouth split open silently all the way to her earlobes, thick and viscous black blood oozing out like paste. *Wuuu—* A spine-chilling yin wind gusted from inside the shop. Dressed in Republic-era cloth clothes, the old woman shrieked and lunged toward Zhang Yuanqing. This was supposed to be a Dominator-level wraith, but it seemed to have just been heavily battered by the divine power of the sun; its aura had plummeted, falling somewhere between Saint and Dominator. A weak Level 7! Fu Qingxuan cast a sidelong glance, looking nonchalantly at the bared fangs and brandished claws of the wraith from the corner of her eye. Without even pausing her stride, she formed a sword finger, about to dispatch this moth flying into the flame. Zhang Yuanqing suddenly moved, proactively charging straight at the weak Level 7 wraith. Seeing this, the Grand Marshal frowned slightly. Rich, dark energy surged in Zhang Yuanqing's left eye socket, while his right eye turned into a pupil of molten gold. His left arm was coated in pitch-black yin qi, while his right arm shone with pure, domineering golden light. The powers of Taiyin and Taiyang filled his body simultaneously. Zhang Yuanqing grabbed the old woman's neck with his left hand, suppressing her with Spirit Devouring, while his right hand lightly slapped her forehead. With continuous sizzling sounds, puffs of black smoke billowed from the old woman's forehead as she let out a piercing shriek audible only to Night Walkers. Her aura rapidly plummeted. Zhang Yuanqing opened his mouth and inhaled, and the old woman turned into black smoke that was swallowed into his belly. In less than three seconds, a weak Level 7 wraith was subdued. Fu Qingxuan lowered her sword finger, her brows already relaxing. Looking Zhang Yuanqing up and down with keen interest, she said, "The divine power of the sun... To accommodate the divine power of the sun within the body of a Saint—you truly are a genius with a promising future." If the official elders heard this, they would place even greater importance on Yuanshi Tianzun. A Grand Marshal who had reached the pinnacle before thirty possessed talent rarely seen in the world; even Demon Lord was a cut below her. Such a figure was inevitably proud and arrogant. Fu Qingyang thought all geniuses in the world were trash, whereas she thought all demigods in the world were trash. She just didn't say it out loud. Among the younger generation of this era, no one had earned her approval except Demon Lord. Even her own younger brother, Fu Qingyang, was in her eyes merely a clumsy bird making up for lack of skill with diligence. Zhang Yuanqing retreated to his original spot and said loudly, "It is precisely because the Grand Marshal is here that I dared to take such a risk. It was you who gave me courage." Fu Qingxuan's brows lifted in surprise. She had not expected this newly risen official genius to speak with such tact. "Are you short on spirit servants?" "Desperately short!" Fu Qingxuan pondered briefly. "I will sweep through the area with you. There are quite a few high-quality spirit servants and yin corpses here. However, I will only gather those at the Saint stage for you. If you want Dominator-level yin corpses and wraiths, you must earn them through your own efforts. I will not encourage growth by pulling up seedlings." Zhang Yuanqing's heart pounded wildly. Hesitating, he asked, "Will this... delay saving people? Elder Fu isn't out of danger yet." Compared to high-grade spirit servants and yin corpses, he was more worried about Fu Qingyang's safety. Fu Qingxuan's frost-cold, pretty face finally broke into a faint smile, which she promptly suppressed. Looking into the distance, she said, "They won't die anytime soon. Trash ought to stay properly hidden under the covers." Zhang Yuanqing didn't catch the meaning of the second sentence, but that didn't stop him from bowing deeply: "Thank you, Grand Marshal!" *** The Northwest Gobi. The Gobi Desert was one of the largest barren regions in the world, stretching across the continent's northwest and spanning the grasslands and China's northwestern regions. As far as the eye could see, bare rock sprawled across the rolling land, and grit seemed to mix into the howling gale. Scorching by day and frigid by night, the soil couldn't be tilled and the mountains offered no game. Sparse traces of human life dotted the vast expanse. Geographers believed the Gobi formed because of elevated terrain, with sandstone constantly weathered and eroded into massive amounts of debris. Yet compared to true zones forbidden to life like sandy deserts, the Gobi featured undulating terrain and solitary rock peaks, making it visually varied and striking. At the foot of a mountain called "Tengri," single-story houses built from yellow mud and stone had stood under the baking sun for ten long years. "Tengri" meant "God" in Mongolian. The Bewitching Demons of the Soldier Master sect had followed local customs and named this originally nameless mountain Tengri. This was because, slumbering in the heart of the mountain, was the spiritual leader of the Bewitching Demons—Asura. Asura hadn't put much thought into choosing this rocky mountain for his slumber. He simply did not want to be disturbed while sleeping, and the sparsely populated northwest became his choice. Looking back another twenty years, Asura's sleeping place hadn't been the sacred Mount Tengri, but another nameless peak. Back then, the Five Elements Alliance had just been established. The Ten Elders of the headquarters had newly taken power and were eager to showcase their authority and political achievements to all sides. After consulting with higher-ups, they decided to nuke Asura into oblivion. In the end, the mountain was nuked, but Asura was not. So, having lost his home, Asura planned to find a livelier place to sleep... He chose the Capital City. This incident caused a massive uproar back then, drawing close scrutiny even from overseas spirit walker organizations. Ultimately, the Taiyi Sect Master and Chief Jiang joined forces to fight Asura. Asura withdrew from Capital City territory and returned to the Northwest Gobi. The orthodox faction never attempted to nuke Asura again. In a single-story house adjacent to the mountainside, dark red flesh-and-blood matter coated the entire room like sludge. In the center of the room, the flesh-and-blood matter piled high into a mound, and a three-meter-long flesh capsule was half-embedded within it. Between the flesh capsule and the mound of flesh ran bluish-purple blood vessels. The entire mound of flesh rose and fell slowly, like a beating heart. This was the Chu clan's rule-based item—Mother Goddess's Womb! Although it bore the word "Goddess," it was neither holy nor radiant. On the contrary, it exuded a Lovecraftian horror. Suddenly, the membrane on the surface of the flesh capsule bulged, outlining a hand. In the next second, the hand tore through the membrane, and the man inside rolled out of the capsule like an infant ripping through an amniotic sac. He was a burly man standing one point nine meters tall with a shiny bald head and rugged, resolute features. Piercings remained in his earlobes, nostrils, and lips, but the silver rings were gone. He had revived! Ear studs and silver rings did not fall under the revival scope of Mother Goddess's Womb, and clothes naturally didn't either. Heavenly King Silver Moon shakily scrambled up, sat with his back against the flesh capsule, raised his head, and stared at the ceiling in prolonged silence. "I thought Demonic Eye would be the first to revive from Mother Goddess's Womb. I never expected it to be you. Having just ascended to Heavenly King only to be forced to use this item to revive—looks like you took a heavy blow." An elegant, languid laugh came from beside him. Heavenly King Silver Moon turned his head. The speaker was a young man in a sharp suit, with casual short hair and a silver ear stud, so refined and elegant he seemed like a butler from an aristocratic family. Heavenly King Silver Moon looked away, threw his head back, and continued to zone out. Fear Heavenly King tirelessly offered comfort: "I know you feel frustrated. Back in the Saint stage, there wasn't much difference between you and him. After advancing to Dominator, an Ancient God of War's combat strength should have been far superior to a Puppeteer's. "Yet he beat you like a sixth-grader beating up a kindergartener." Heavenly King Silver Moon said coldly, "If you're done talking, get the hell out. I want some quiet." "Apologies, let me rephrase. Perhaps changing 'kindergartener' to 'first-grader' will make you feel much better," Fear said. The corner of Heavenly King Silver Moon's mouth twitched. Fear Heavenly King seemed completely oblivious to how annoying he was being. Sitting down on the flesh capsule, he smiled. "Why compare yourself to a monster? Across the entire globe, aside from Fu Qingyang, how many can comprehend rules during the Saint stage? I've known him for many years, and I've heard about him. The man is a prisoner." Mentioning this formidable rival Fu Qingyang, Heavenly King Silver Moon finally responded, "A prisoner?" "That's right, a prisoner! He drew a circle in his heart and imprisoned himself within it, never stepping outside that circle for over twenty years. I knew Fu Qingyang many years ago, and I have always despised people who abandon their freedom," Fear Heavenly King said. "Back then, he was still an Extraordinaire. His combat power was mediocre, his talent unremarkable. As you know, at the same level with the same skills, some people are simply stronger while others are weaker. "It depends on class affinity and skill comprehension. Fu Qingyang possessed neither of those talents. When it came to conquering dungeons, while not bad, he fell far short of true geniuses. "Yet he stood constantly inside that circle. Rain or shine, he swung his blade every single day. He gave up entertainment, gave up romance, gave up everything. Only the sword and power existed in his world—because those two things allowed him to forget the insecure, timid self he once was." "Timid? Insecure?" Heavenly King Silver Moon found it incomprehensible. No one would believe such words. How could the esteemed Money Prince—a supreme figure whose martial skill bordered on the Dao—ever be timid and insecure? "That's why killing Fu Qingyang is very simple: challenge him at the same realm. He will not back down," Fear Heavenly King curled his lips. "He won't back down even if it kills him." Heavenly King Silver Moon's heart stirred. "On your chessboard, does Fu Qingyang already have a burial ground reserved for him?" Fear Heavenly King didn't pursue that topic, smiling instead. "So how could you possibly beat him? How could you beat a paranoiac who has imprisoned himself for over twenty years?" Heavenly King Silver Moon was left speechless. He said coldly, "Get lost. Stop being an eyesore here." "Tsk, tsk. I'm curious if you can still be this insolent and disrespectful in front of Asura." Fear Heavenly King crossed his legs, showing no sign of leaving. Heavenly King Silver Moon did not hesitate. "I respect him and fear him, but I would still act like this." As he spoke those words, past memories flashed through Heavenly King Silver Moon's mind. He was born in the Freedom Federation across the ocean. His parents were slaves on a farm in the federation's central region. That nation, claiming to be the most civilized and powerful in human history, had slavery and human trafficking intertwined with its history from its very founding. A highly developed welfare system and exorbitant labor costs left that powerful nation perpetually starved for cheap labor. Even to this day, they were still engaged in the human trafficking trade. It was just that compared to the brutality and aggression of their ancestors, these people had learned to cloak their greed and ugliness in the veneer of civilization and freedom, while their unspeakable deeds moved from broad daylight into dark sewers. Heavenly King Silver Moon's parents had harbored longing for the Freedom Federation and smuggled themselves into their sacred land alongside a group of fellow villagers. Yet what awaited them was neither civilization nor freedom, much less generous wages or a better life. What awaited them was enslavement and beatings. They were taken to a farm far from the cities, shackled with handcuffs and leg irons, and turned into livestock-like labor. The farm owner didn't have to pay wages and could exploit and abuse them to his heart's content, alongside his security guards. Heavenly King Silver Moon was a child born to slaves. From the moment he was born, he lived in the shadow of Order. His childhood and youth were an intolerable past locked away in the deepest recesses of his memory, brought out only occasionally like an alcoholic savoring a long-aged vintage. From an early age, his parents had told him: If you don't know who your master is, just think about who you aren't allowed to curse. Whoever you cannot curse is your master! Heavenly King Silver Moon loathed his birth and despised those agonizing years. Thus, after fleeing the farm and becoming a spirit walker, he swore to himself that there was no one in this world he wasn't allowed to curse. Including Asura. Members of the Soldier Master sect thought Divine General Silver Moon should have been Wrath because he was always spitting foul language. In truth, he simply refused to be a slave ever again. The memories could end here; fine wine couldn't be gulped down, but had to be savored slowly. Heavenly King Silver Moon pulled back his thoughts and frowned. "Are you waiting for someone to revive?" Fear Heavenly King patted the flesh capsule beneath him and nodded with a smile. Heavenly King Silver Moon asked no further. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly spoke: "Is Fu Qingyang truly obsessive enough that, facing danger, he wouldn't retreat even if it killed him?" "We cannot step outside even if it kills us!" In a dark corner, Fu Qingyang spoke with a grim expression.