The Crimson Black Calamity Flame slowly faded away.
As the flames went out, the Unreal Wheat Field vanished completely, revealing what it had truly been hiding.
A scorched, barren plain, crisscrossed with countless cracks.
Guo Shuai stood among the ashes, staring blankly at the ground.
The man who had once fought back-to-back with him...
Yang Wei, who had been turning into a scarecrow.
Now, along with the wheat field, he had turned into an unrecognizable pile of dust.
Trembling, Guo Shuai bent down, reaching into the warm ashes.
He picked up a compass.
It had been Yang Wei's most treasured possession in life.
"Old Yang..."
Guo Shuai gripped the compass tightly and instinctively looked in the direction its needle pointed.
The needle wavered through a few turns, then finally settled, pointing firmly ahead.
Toward the man standing in the middle of the wasteland, his back to Guo Shuai.
Jiangnan.
At that moment, Jiangnan was walking toward him across the scorched earth.
Watching that figure, cast in the glow of the flames and seeming almost like a demon god, Guo Shuai felt his heart clench.
"The Weiren... is coming to kill me?"
Guo Shuai gave a bitter laugh.
He didn't fight back, nor did he run.
Before this terrifying being, who could instantly kill a boss, any struggle would be futile.
"Come on... make it quick."
Guo Shuai closed his one remaining eye and waited quietly for death to arrive—or for him to be assimilated.
However...
The agony he expected never came.
Instead, he heard the roar of an engine, followed by an extremely excited, brassy voice.
"Big Boss!! You're awesome!!!"
Guo Shuai's eye flew open.
A black RV was racing toward them, kicking up clouds of dust.
Wang Meng was leaning out of the driver's seat, waving frantically at them.
But...
After shouting "You're awesome!" just then...
Wang Meng was like a duck with its neck squeezed shut. His mouth was open, but not a single sound came out.
The engine noise vanished in an instant, too. All they could see were the tires spinning.
Absolute Silence Domain.
Jiangnan walked up to Guo Shuai and glanced at the despairing survivor. His face remained expressionless.
He pulled a Memo Pad from his pocket, scribbled a line, and showed it to Wang Meng, who was still yelling at the air.
[Didn't I tell you not to come in?]
In the driver's seat, Wang Meng froze, then sheepishly scratched his head.
There was no need to guess: this silence was definitely the work of their Big Boss.
He hurriedly took an exercise book from beside him and scrawled a reply:
[We saw black flames shooting up inside and thought something had happened to you, Big Boss!]
[I know I'm not strong, but I figured I could at least take a bullet for you or something... so I drove in.]
At the sight of those words, something stirred faintly in Jiangnan's heart.
They were a little dumb, but these Tools did have some conscience.
He replied on the Memo Pad.
[I'm fine. That was one of my abilities.]
[Don't worry next time. As long as I don't die, you won't die.]
With that, he pinched his fingers together and switched off the silencing effect.
Word Spirits that lasted this long could be turned off.
Just then, the car doors opened.
Chen Tong, Liu Yuqing, and Yu Shishi jumped out as well.
Seeing that Jiangnan was safe and sound, Chen Tong's eyes instantly reddened, and she rushed over without a second thought.
She threw her arms around him in a suffocating, face-smothering hug.
"You scared me to death! There was so much fire... I thought I'd never see you again!"
Smothered in all that softness, Jiangnan rolled his eyes but didn't push her away.
Liu Yuqing, standing nearby, pushed up her glasses and began surveying the surroundings, her eyes filled with shock.
Yu Shishi was the most eager to please. Seeing Jiangnan covered in ash, she hurried over.
Then she activated her Clean ability and brushed the dust from his clothes.
"Big Boss, you've worked hard! Have some water!"
Watching this scene, so full of ordinary warmth...
Guo Shuai was completely dumbfounded.
"W-what is going on?"
"A face-smothering hug? Brushing off his clothes? And that chubby guy driving the car..."
Guo Shuai rubbed his eyes hard as he watched them interact so naturally, sharing the kind of feelings only living people could have.
"Could it be... Jiangnan isn't a Weiren?!"
There was no other explanation.
These people didn't seem like monsters at all. They seemed more alive than the students fleeing for their lives.
If there were police here right now, by comparison, he—with half his face burned and only one eye—
would look more like the monster that had infiltrated the crowd!
"Heh... hahaha..."
Guo Shuai clutched his head and suddenly burst into self-mocking laughter, tears spilling from his eyes.
"Old Yang, you idiot..."
"Next life, try not to make wild guesses... Even I believed you and mistook the real Big Boss for the boss..."
"We've got golden bowls in our hands, and we're out begging for food!"
Just then, Wang Meng noticed the survivor who looked more like a monster than a person.
He walked over with his exercise book and wrote:
[Are you Guo Shuai? What happened to Yang Wei and the others?]
Guo Shuai hadn't even noticed that Jiangnan had lifted the silence.
He took the pen without thinking and wrote a line on the paper.
[They're all dead. Every one of them. I'm the only one who survived. Jiangnan saved me.]
After reading it, Wang Meng sighed, regret flashing in his eyes.
They had been classmates, after all. And although Yang Wei could be reckless at times, he wasn't a bad person.
[What are you going to do now?] Wang Meng continued writing.
Guo Shuai fell silent.
He touched the half of his face that had gone numb, then looked down at Yang Wei's keepsake in his hand.
He'd lost his left eye, his face was ruined, and his best friend was dead.
To him, the world had become nothing but darkness.
[I don't know.]
He wrote those three words, his gaze hollow.
Seeing him like that, Wang Meng felt awful, too.
Guo Shuai had always been a good-natured guy in class.
Yang Wei's prickly personality had managed to coexist peacefully with the Student Union for so long only because Guo Shuai had smoothed things over between them.
While the two of them communicated silently with paper and pen...
Jiangnan finally broke free from Chen Tong's embrace.
He straightened his collar but didn't get into the car right away.
Instead, he walked straight toward a Metal Cover in the middle of the wasteland.
That was the center of the wheat field—and the boss's lair.
He kicked the cover open.
Beneath it lay the entrance to a gloomy, pitch-dark cellar.
Without the slightest hesitation, Jiangnan jumped down.
The three girls exchanged glances. They were scared, but they had no choice but to follow him down.
The cellar was pitch-black, and the air reeked of rot and blood.
Liu Yuqing switched on her flashlight and swept the beam across the room.
The next second...
"Ugh!"
All three girls clapped their hands over their mouths almost at once, their faces deathly pale.
This wasn't a cellar at all. It was a Torture Chamber!
All kinds of rust-covered torture devices hung on the walls.
Saws, boning knives, even a rack designed to stretch people's limbs.
And in a large vat in the corner lay a heap of dark red, foul-smelling chunks of flesh.
Jiangnan calmly walked over to the vat.
For him, someone who had often visited crime scenes in his previous life...
And had even seen more depraved serial murder cases, this was child's play.
He reached into the vat and lifted out a strip of flesh.
He examined it closely.
"Human muscle tissue, stripped from the body?"
"Probably an adult male in his twenties. The skin and bones are gone, the cuts are smooth, and the work is professional."
Jiangnan casually dropped the strip of flesh and walked over to the Operating Table nearby.
A complete sheet of human skin had been laid out there.
Though time had worn it down, it was still clear that it had once belonged to a man.
"Ugh!"
At the sight of the skin, Liu Yuqing could finally hold it in no longer. She turned and vomited violently against the wall.
Yu Shishi and Chen Tong squeezed their eyes shut, not daring to look again.
Seeing them like that, Jiangnan shook his head.
He took out his Memo Pad, wrote a line, and held it up in front of them.
[You have to go through this.]
[In this world, the dead are the most common thing you'll see. If you have to throw up, then throw up—but don't close your eyes!]
[Go get Wang Meng and the other survivor, too.]
Cold. Heartless.
But the three of them knew he was doing it for their own good.
If they didn't get used to this, they'd be scared to death sooner or later.
Yu Shishi fought back her nausea and ran upstairs to fetch the others.
Before long, Wang Meng and Guo Shuai came down, too.
The two men reacted no better than the girls when they saw the scene. They threw up on the spot.
Once everyone had more or less finished vomiting...
Jiangnan pointed to the skin on the Operating Table and looked at Liu Yuqing, writing:
[Appraise it.]
"Huh?" Liu Yuqing's face had gone pale. "Appraise... human skin?"
But under Jiangnan's unyielding gaze, she could only approach it in a trembling daze and activate her skill.
However...
The next second, her eyes lit up!
"T-this is a treasure?!"
[Item]: Demon Skin of the Watcher [Rank]: S-class [Type]: Material [Information]: This is the final sheet of human skin peeled from the S-class anomaly, the Watcher Scarecrow, while he was alive! Although it no longer holds his original power, it still retains that suffocating pressure and Fear Aura.
Liu Yuqing wrote down the information and showed it to Jiangnan.
Jiangnan nodded in satisfaction.
He'd been fretting that he'd burned that enormous thing to ashes, leaving nothing to skin and turn into a car cover.
Well, problem solved. He had an S-class material right here.
He could hand it over to Wang Meng later. Slap on a protective film, and it should do the trick.
Then Jiangnan walked to a rickety table at the back of the cellar.
On it lay a dust-covered leather journal and a jar draped in black cloth.
Jiangnan picked up the journal and opened it.
It was all written in ancient English. The handwriting started out neat, then grew increasingly scrawled and frenzied.
As a top student in his previous life, Jiangnan had no trouble reading it.
[1156 AD, The Diary of Fite Albert]
First Day: My name is Fite, and I'm an Apprentice Wizard.
Just now, our village—and all the land around it—suddenly arrived in this damned place.
A voice in the sky told us to survive.
That night, the crows came...
Oh, my God! The Church's Knights were like paper dolls in front of them!
Half of our village of five hundred was dead.
Second Day: That voice gave us fruit.
I awakened A-Class [Elemental Resonance]!
I'm the chosen one!
I used magic to save the villagers and Knights who were about to be eaten.
Third Day: The voice in the sky came again.
It said that anyone who killed monsters every day would receive rewards based on the Rankings!
I came in fifth. Heh heh!
They even chose me as their new leader, the guardian of the village.
I was overjoyed. It was the first time in my life I'd ever led everyone, so I threw myself into studying magic.
Tenth Day: The village has been rebuilt, and the wheat has been planted.
That voice recognized our village as a sanctuary!
So we receive a certain amount of supplies every day. This is amazing!
Everyone likes me. They call me God Fite!
Everything is getting better, and I've started to think of myself as a god.
Twentieth Day: The village is thriving.
Cecilia, my childhood friend who used to look down on me, started making advances, but I turned her down.
That gold-digger used to think I was poor. Now that I have power, she comes crawling back? Disgusting.
Twenty-seventh Day: Just as I expected, after I rejected her, Cecilia immediately hooked up with my subordinate, Tug.
They even got married right under my nose!
Twenty-eighth Day: I was furious. I didn't sleep a wink!
Not because I still liked that woman, but because Tug knew perfectly well that she was my humiliation!
What's worse, at the wedding, they told everyone the embarrassing story of how I wet myself as a child, just to entertain the guests!
Unforgivable!
Thirty-eighth Day: I've held it in for ten days. I've made up my mind.
I'm going to kill them.
Even if they've been my friends since childhood!
But the price for humiliating a god is death.
Fifty-first Day: I did it.
While those two were on night watch, fooling around in the Wheat Field, I strangled them with magic.
To keep anyone from finding out, I hid their bodies in the cellar.
Fifty-second Day: The villagers panicked, thinking a monster had infiltrated the village.
I stepped forward and lied, saying the two had eloped.
No one suspected me, because I was the strongest person here.
Murder... turns out all it takes is a nod.
Sixtieth Day: The trial has begun!
That voice said we could return to Blue Star if we passed the trial!
I was tempted, but I failed... I was just one move short!
Damn it! Why does failing come with a punishment?!
Hordes of monsters attacked the village, and many people died.
The villagers started blaming me!
Those foolish mortals. The heavens are deliberately trying to drive us apart!
Sixty-first Day: At dawn, I smelled something foul and remembered there were still bodies hidden in the cellar.
I went down to deal with them, only to find that the two of them had become "Wandering Corpses"!
I burned them to death, but that brought the villagers running.
They discovered my secret and started using Moral Kidnapping against me.
I was completely enraged! Why should a god have to answer to mortals?!
I killed everyone who opposed me!
Every last one! Only fifty obedient old, weak, sick, and disabled villagers remained.
Seventieth Day: That voice appeared again! It announced that the second trial was about to begin!
This time, it gave us ten days to prepare.
I was tempted—no, I was ecstatic!
The only reason I failed last time was that I wasn't prepared. Those damned rules caught me off guard.
This time, I'll make every possible preparation!
What happened to those two after they became Wandering Corpses gave me a great idea.
Bodies mutate under certain conditions.
So... what if I interfered with the process myself?
To return to Blue Star!
I have to find a way out.
So I began stopping at nothing.
Under cover of darkness, I dug up the bodies buried outside the village.
All the villagers I'd killed—I dug them all up.
The experiments began.
Seventy-third Day: Just as I thought.
When exposed to the special Magic Array and the air, those bodies did indeed turn into Wandering Corpses in no time.
But... the Fusion experiment failed.
I tried embedding iron swords in their arms. I tried fusing stones into their skin.
They just rotted into piles of mush. They couldn't even become Wandering Corpses.
Why? Was it because the bodies had lost their life force and couldn't bear the rejection of foreign objects?
Could it be... that the only way to succeed was to implant them while the person was still alive?
No... that's too cruel.
I've killed people, but I'm no demon. I can't do it.
Seventy-fifth Day: The trial is getting closer.
I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Last night, I had a nightmare. The opponent in the trial was unbelievably powerful.
My Elemental Magic alone can't even scratch it.
I'll lose... I'll die here... No!
I can't lose!
For the greater good, for the chance to return with this glory...
What does it matter if a few people have to be sacrificed?
As long as I win, it'll all be worth it.
I need new power... the power of the living.
Seventy-sixth Day: I've made up my mind.
For the greater good, sacrifice is necessary.
Under cover of night, I kidnapped an old man. When I was a child, he used to scare me by threatening to turn me into a Scarecrow.
Fine. I'll make his wish come true!
As he screamed, I turned him into a Scarecrow!
I succeeded!
In just three hours, he became a powerful monster!
It had no sight, only hearing!
It nearly killed me, too!
My inspiration is overflowing now!
I'm wondering if fusing individual body parts with objects could turn them into weapons.
So I've begun a new experiment...
Seventy-ninth Day: The experiment succeeded!
Living people can be turned into even more powerful weapons!
I started turning the remaining villagers into materials one by one... legs, sickles, lanterns...
Eightieth Day (Morning): One hour until the trial.
I did it!
Using the last few dozen lives in the entire village, I created a prosthetic eye comparable to an A-Class Supernatural Ability: the [Eye of Calamity]!
It can see through an enemy's weaknesses and Health Bar!
The price was my left eye.
But I don't care! I'm going to win!
Eightieth Day (Afternoon): Liars! Liars! Fuck!
Why?!
Why did they only tell me after I passed the trial that I could only stay on Blue Star for one day?!
What good is one day to me?!
I killed everyone!
I even turned myself into a half-human, half-ghost monster!
All just to take one look?!
I hate this world! I hate that voice!
If I can't go back, then everyone who comes here will become part of my collection!
I'll turn myself into the most terrifying monster of all!
The diary ended abruptly there. The next few pages were covered in frenzied scribbles and bloody handprints.
Jiangnan closed the diary and let out a quiet sigh.
So that was how the BOSS known as "Scarecrow" came to be.
A poor wretch driven mad by power and obsession.
"The Eye of Calamity, huh..."
Jiangnan hadn't seen the prosthetic eye the diary mentioned anywhere beside it.
His gaze fell on the jar covered with black cloth on the table.
He reached out and yanked off the cloth...
Before you continue