You're Not Worshipping a God, But Your Inner Demon!

Master Huian's roar echoed through the stifling living room.

His well-maintained face twisted with rage and panic, making him look especially ridiculous.

"Guards! Are all the guards dead?!"

"Take down this demon priest!"

Following his shrill scream, a burst of hurried, heavy footsteps came from outside the villa.

More than a dozen burly men in black suits, their temples bulging high, charged in through the door like a pack of enraged beasts.

These men were the top-tier bodyguards Li Yuan had hired at great expense.

Every one of them had been an elite on the battlefield, with blood on their hands.

The moment they rushed into the living room, a murderous aura bore down on everyone, making the already oppressive air even heavier.

The old butler's face went pale. He instinctively took two steps back, his eyes full of concern for Lin Xuan.

When Master Huian saw his guard squad arrive, some confidence and viciousness instantly returned to his face.

Pointing at Lin Xuan, he howled like a mad dog.

"Hit him! Cripple him! I'll take responsibility if anything happens! Let this ignorant wild priest learn exactly who he can't afford to offend!"

The lead bodyguard's eyes flashed with ferocity, and he did not hesitate in the slightest.

He waved his hand and let out a low roar.

"Get him!"

Without another word, the dozen burly men closed in on Lin Xuan in the center of the living room from every direction, like tigers descending the mountain.

Their movements were swift and their coordination seamless. They were clearly a team tempered through countless real battles.

Their fists howled through the air, carrying the sharp force of tearing through it.

In a single exchange, they were about to tear that lean priest to pieces.

A cruel sneer had already curled across Master Huian's lips.

In his eyes, this farce should have been over.

On the sofa, Li Yuan, whose mind had been thrown into chaos by a single sentence, also snapped awake beneath that murderous pressure.

Seeing the guards charge at Lin Xuan, he opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, no sound came out.

His heart was now a battlefield of utter chaos.

At the center of that battlefield, Lin Xuan faced the assault, powerful enough to shatter steles and split stone, without even raising an eyelid.

His expression had not changed from beginning to end.

Calm.

Indifferent.

The men charging at him were not a pack of murderous brutes, but merely a breeze brushing against his face.

Just as the lead guard's fist was about to smash into his face—

Lin Xuan finally moved.

He neither dodged nor blocked.

He merely slowly lifted his eyelids, his eyes as still as an ancient well sweeping lightly over everyone present.

Then he used the Immobilization Spell he had recently comprehended. It could currently only immobilize ordinary people, but it was perfect for this moment.

Softly, he uttered a single word.

"Freeze."

His voice was light, like a feather falling to the ground.

Yet the instant that word fell, it was as though someone had pressed pause on the bodyguards.

The dozen guards, charging with the force of mad tigers, abruptly froze at the exact same moment.

Every movement stopped halfway through their charge.

The lead bodyguard's fist was less than three inches from Lin Xuan's nose.

The muscles on his face were taut from exertion, his savage expression frozen in place, his eyes still carrying the ferocity of his forward rush.

But he could not move.

He could not even move a finger.

Another guard, who had launched a flying kick from the side, was suspended in midair in a pose that defied the laws of physics, his leg still hanging in the air.

It was as though they had all been instantly cast into transparent cement, transformed into lifelike yet incomparably bizarre statues.

Their brains were still functioning.

Their thoughts could still think.

Boundless shock and terror wildly grew within their consciousness, like floodwaters bursting through a breached dam and instantly crushing the pride they had held as elites.

What kind of power was this?

Demonic sorcery?

Magic?

An eerie silence fell over the living room.

Master Huian's wild grin froze completely on his face.

The smugness and cruelty in his eyes were swiftly replaced by an utter terror born from the depths of his soul.

His legs began shaking uncontrollably, his teeth chattering with a clacking sound.

"Y-you... you..."

He pointed at Lin Xuan, wanting to say something, only to find that his throat seemed to be gripped tightly by an invisible hand. He could not force out a single complete word.

The old butler stood there with his mouth agape, staring blankly at the unimaginable scene before him, as though his soul had been sucked out.

He had guessed that this Daoist priest was an extraordinary man, but he had never imagined he was so unfathomably powerful!

Lin Xuan did not spare another glance for the guards and charlatan, who had now become mere background figures.

Lin Xuan took a step forward and slowly walked toward Li Yuan, as though he had seen through every thought in the man's heart.

"Your entire life, you have pursued success."

Lin Xuan's voice rang out again, calm and distant, as if he were stating a fact that had nothing to do with him.

"You started with nothing and built your own business empire. You told yourself that it was all to give your family the best life possible."

Li Yuan's body trembled violently.

"When your daughter attended her first parent-teacher meeting, she called you more than a dozen times. You were at an important drinking banquet and impatiently hung up on her."

All color drained from Li Yuan's face.

"On her birthday, she happily held up a painting she had made herself, wanting to give it to you as a gift. But because a business deal had fallen through, you lashed out at her and said she was neglecting her proper work."

Li Yuan's breathing grew rapid, his eyes filled with pain.

"When she entered middle school, she gathered the courage to enter a speech contest for the first time and hoped you would come watch. But that day, you flew to another country for an overseas project and did not even reply to a single message from her."

With every sentence Lin Xuan spoke, the pain on Li Yuan's face deepened.

Those fragments he had deliberately buried in the corners of his memory were now dragged out, bloody and raw, by an irresistible force, lashing his already battered heart again and again.

"You thought you could make up for it with money, fill the void with material things."

"You gave her the best schools, the most expensive clothes, the most luxurious life."

"You thought that was love."

Lin Xuan stopped in front of Li Yuan and looked down at him.

"So, when she collapsed, your world fell apart."

"You frantically searched for doctors and spared no expense, not because you wanted to cure her illness."

"You were merely using this method to prove to Heaven and to your own conscience: Look, I did my best. I am a father who loves his daughter."

"You knelt here and smashed your head bloody before this absurd thing, not because you were praying for a miracle."

"You were using this self-harming method to atone for the guilt in your heart, to buy yourself that pathetic peace of mind!"

Lin Xuan's voice suddenly rose, exploding in the depths of Li Yuan's soul like a great bell!

"Li Yuan!"

"What you have worshipped was never any god!"

He thrust out a hand and pointed at the golden idol with its eerie smile, his voice cold as a blade.

"What you worship is the inner demon in your heart called 'guilt'!"

"And these things pretending to be gods," his gaze shifted to Master Huian, who was so terrified he was nearly fainting, "they are nothing but maggots bred by your inner demon, malignant tumors you have fed with your own hands!"

"Boom—"

Li Yuan's final psychological defense completely collapsed beneath those soul-piercing words.

The last trace of light in his eyes instantly dimmed.

As if every bone had been pulled from his body, he slid helplessly down the soft sofa and onto the floor.

He lay sprawled across the cold floor, gasping harshly, his face ashen and his eyes vacant, like an empty shell that had lost its soul.

The scam had been completely exposed.

Master Huian's expression had turned utterly ghastly.

He knew he was finished.

Lin Xuan lowered his head and calmly watched Li Yuan collapsed on the floor before asking lightly, "Now, will you continue feeding your inner demon, or will you choose to truly save your daughter?"