The Twisted Demon Within

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A month was a short time, but to Ye Chen, it had felt like a century.

During that month, he had initially begged, wailed, and wept bitterly.

But gradually, he stopped begging. He stopped wailing. Even his tears disappeared.

Perhaps this world had been unbelievable from the start. His body's recovery ability was like that of an animal, far faster than before.

That fat woman was utterly deranged. She loved hearing screams and watching slaves wear expressions of despair and pleading. Thus, Ye Chen's nightmare began.

The first time, Ye Chen was whipped until he was covered in wounds. He recuperated for a week, his entire body mottled with bruises.

The second time, the fat woman hung him up and poured scalding water all over him.

That time, Ye Chen screamed and begged the fat woman to spare him. Yet his pleas only made her more excited. In the end, Ye Chen passed out.

Even so, Ye Chen did not die. The humans of this world were simply too resilient.

Moreover, the fat woman had treated Ye Chen afterward, though he had still needed a week to recover.

The searing pain felt as though he were being roasted, piercing deep into his bones. That week, Ye Chen had wished he were dead.

The third time, driven by her extreme insanity, the fat woman refused to let Ye Chen sleep. She made him stare at her constantly and praise her. The mental torment filled him with even greater fear.

At the slightest disagreement, he would be beaten until he was covered in wounds.

Ye Chen had begged as well, but it was useless.

The fourth time, Ye Chen still pleaded, but his voice was incredibly hoarse and broken.

The fifth time, Ye Chen no longer begged or cried. Even when he was tortured until blood streamed from his body, he remained expressionless, merely staring hollowly at the fat woman.

The sixth time.

The seventh time.

Ye Chen smiled. Even as all his fingernails were pulled out and a knife carved patterns into his body, he smiled throughout it all.

He had grown accustomed to pain. He had grown accustomed to torture. He had grown accustomed to despair as well.

Before he knew it, more than a month had passed. Inside and out, Ye Chen's body was too horrible to look at. Though his wounds could heal slowly, scars covered every inch of him.

Especially the word "slave" on his chest—it was unmistakably clear.

Over that month, Ye Chen had gone from pleading to becoming accustomed to it all. He had understood many things, learned many things, and changed in many ways.

He knew that there was no such thing as luck in this world.

This was a twisted world where people devoured people. There was no peace and no equality.

He was a slave, worth less than pigs and dogs.

The thoughts and beliefs he had once held were useless in this world. Only madmen could survive.

He wanted revenge. He wanted to kill the person who had captured him, the person who had auctioned him off, and the fat woman before him. Everyone had to die. They all had to die.

I'll repay them tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold. I'll make them suffer even more than I did. I'll carve them into a thousand pieces and leave them without even a place to be buried.

Darkness. Madness. Over that month, Ye Chen's personality had utterly collapsed.

What rose again from those ruins was a twisted demon.

Not far from the outer courtyard stood a crude dog kennel. It was where Ye Chen lived now, crammed together with several pets raised by the fat woman.

Like Ye Chen, those pets were covered in wounds. Perhaps the only difference was that Ye Chen still had a human body.

"Drip-drip, crash!"

Suddenly, rain began to fall from the sky. It was the first rain Ye Chen had seen since arriving in this world.

Leaning against the wall and allowing the rain to soak him, Ye Chen calmly watched the fat woman's room. He raised a hand and clenched his fist. Threads of smoke and sparks burst forth, instantly twisting his once-calm face into a savage grimace.

That past month had not been endured for nothing. Once Ye Chen realized that begging was useless, he had thought of himself—of the only thing he currently possessed that could keep him alive and allow him to take revenge.

Every night, when all was quiet, Ye Chen had thought about how to make his ability stronger.

Gradually, Ye Chen had learned the truth: all his previous assumptions had been wrong. He had thought that eating a Devil Fruit would grant him tremendous strength, but that was not the case.

Perhaps only a Logia granted especially powerful strength as soon as it was eaten, because elementalization alone was enough to make many people retreat in fear.

Next came Zoans. A Zoan's effects were physical—healing, attack power, and recovery could all strengthen the body immediately and reveal themselves at once.

Among Logias, Zoans, and Paramecias, Paramecias were the hardest to develop and the most difficult to display any ability at the beginning.

Take Ye Chen's Bomb-Bomb Fruit. At first, all it could do was produce a little smoke. How far was that from the original R5?

When watching anime, he had only seen those incredible abilities that looked overwhelmingly powerful the moment they appeared. But in reality, only the users themselves understood that those powers had been cultivated and developed bit by bit.

As the saying went, one minute onstage took ten years of work offstage. The principle was the same.

Perhaps Devil Fruits only required imagination. Yet the reality was that pies did not fall from the sky. A Devil Fruit was merely a key that opened the door to power. How to obtain that power still required one to walk the path personally and experience it for oneself.

Nothing in this world came without effort. Only by striving, working hard, and sweating could one obtain what one desired.

Clearly, Ye Chen had thoroughly understood that over the past month.

Now, as long as someone gave him a path to grow stronger, he would seize it by any means necessary.

A week later, the days of torment came again.

Recently, the fat woman had not been in a good mood, because her toy no longer begged her. No matter how she tortured him, he no longer wailed in agony as he once had. Instead, he smiled at her.

That smile made her deeply uncomfortable. So she planned to torture him to death after playing with him tonight, then buy herself a new slave.

This had happened more than once. Before Ye Chen, many slaves had been tortured to death by the fat woman in exactly this way.

The most ridiculous thing was that the fat woman did not know Ye Chen was an ability user. Indeed, throughout that month, Ye Chen had not used his ability because he knew it would have been useless.

But after silently developing it for over a month, killing one person would be easy enough.

"My darling, I really can't bear to part with you. Unfortunately, you can no longer excite me. What should I do with you?"

It was still the same room. The fat woman wore what she considered seductive sleepwear, holding a whip as she circled Ye Chen.

"Master, you're so beautiful. You're simply the most beautiful woman in the world. I have a way to excite you."

This was the first time Ye Chen had spoken in half a month, and his tone was very gentle.

Slightly surprised, the fat woman's eyes gleamed. Ye Chen's sudden change stirred ripples through her abnormal mind once more.

"Quick, quick! How can you excite me?" Unable to wait, the fat woman grabbed Ye Chen's shoulders and shook him. Her fat face was filled with derangement.

She was a mentally twisted, diseased person—a complete lunatic.

Yet Ye Chen endured it. The gentle smile on his face became even warmer.

"Master, this thing around my neck makes it difficult for me to move. I can't perform it."

Ye Chen twisted his neck, pretending to look aggrieved.

"That's easy. I'll unlock it for you."

Without a second thought, the fat woman actually took out a key and prepared to unlock Ye Chen's slave collar.

Watching her movements, a glimmer flashed through Ye Chen's eyes. He had not expected this fat woman's intelligence to be so low.

In truth, it was not that the fat woman was stupid. Ye Chen did not look dangerous at all. What could a twelve- or thirteen-year-old child do against an adult?

Besides, the fat woman was clearly a pervert with mental illness. Whatever she did could seem perfectly natural to her.