The Mist Sea.
Deep within the ruins.
A dark underground square.
Click.
A lighter ignited a cigarette.
Lu Feiming took a deep drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Corpses lay piled into a small mountain behind him.
Blood ran like a river.
He stood beside the crimson stream, quietly puffing away.
—He had just met someone who loved smoking.
That man's daily dream was to keep puffing away forever.
Lu Feiming had been curious what pleasure smoking held.
The man was nearly dead anyway, so he told him:
"When you smoke, you're really telling yourself, 'I'm taking a break.'"
"You may be lying to yourself, but nicotine helps make the lie about 'taking a break' convincing—"
"It makes you feel alert."
"In truth, you spend every day rushing and striving without ever getting real rest. But smoking lets you fool yourself. You can tell yourself—"
"I've rested, and that rest has left me full of energy. I can keep fighting."
"Smoking is an act of self-deception born of helplessness."
"And you swallow that lie as gladly as honey."
The man had made an interesting point.
Whatever kind of monster he was in the Void of Truth, Lu Feiming felt he had already become a real human being.
So Lu Feiming spared him.
He only made the man hand over his cigarettes and lighter.
As for the others—
He killed them all.
Lines of prompts appeared in the Void:
"Would you like to distribute the spoils, or leave them to the team leader?"
"Let Xu Yuan divide them," Lu Feiming decided.
Darkness surrounded him. Not another soul was in sight.
He sat down in the dark and slowly savored the taste of his cigarette.
Elsewhere.
The Imperial Palace.
Xu Yuan sacrificed all the spoils to the Universe without hesitation.
Only