[A friendly reminder, host: when you disguise yourself as other characters for missions, remember never to expose your identity as the main villain in front of the protagonist~]
Xiao Yuan reminded him:
[Otherwise, you'll go against the main storyline and destabilize this little world. Then you really will have no way out but death~]
Ning Ke came back to his senses, the corner of his mouth twitching. This damned system sounds so gentle, but every word is a threat. Seriously, enough already.
He replied mentally: I get it. I just have to patch all the plot holes my sister left when she wrote her novel, right? For each mission, I play a different character without blowing my cover, so everything that happens has a logical explanation.
[Wow, host, your comprehension skills are first-rate~]
Ning Ke sighed speechlessly. Once I get back, I'm never letting my sister write nonsense again. She digs the holes, and her big brother fills them in. Talk about screwing over your own brother!
"Reporting to Your Lordship: aside from this boy, no one in the Flowing Cloud Sect remains alive."
At the voice behind him, Ning Ke immediately slipped into character. He covered his contorted, teeth-gritting face with his fan, then lowered it to reveal the effortlessly seductive smile always worn by the novel's main villain, who could kill without leaving a trace.
Feigning inscrutability, he turned around with a "Hmm?"
The soft, throaty sound carried a languid air.
The Demon Clan subordinate stiffened slightly. A faint flush surfaced on his otherwise expressionless face, and he hurriedly lowered his head. "This subordinate wishes to ask Your Lordship how you intend to dispose of the remaining Lou Family boy."
Ning Ke lowered his gaze to the bloody heap on the ground.
His heart lurched, and he hurriedly asked Xiao Yuan: That's the male lead??
[Yes, indeed.]
Ning Ke: ...I'm suddenly starting to understand why the male lead hates me so much.
A younger Lou Yunxiao lay sprawled on the ground, his white robes soaked in blood. Several gaping wounds across his back oozed black vapor, and the Golden Core in his abdomen had been forcibly gouged out and crushed. Not a scrap remained of the cultivation he had once taken such pride in. His handsome face, which should have brimmed with youthful confidence, was now ashen and bleak. His eyes were open but vacant, and, robbed of their sight, could no longer reflect anything in the world.
When the author created this story, she probably never imagined it would become a real world.
Nor had Ning Ke. Only now that he was actually here did he realize just how cruelly his sister had written the male lead's suffering.
He had only agreed to the system's missions to stay alive, but now he truly felt guilty and heartbroken for the male lead.
"Ning Ke, you monster..." Lou Yunxiao's bloodstained fingers clawed at the stone paving, heedless of his snapping nails. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and said with hatred,
"You'd better kill me now..."
"Otherwise, as long as I have a single breath left, I will never let you get away with this!"
Despite the boy's vicious words, two trails of bloody tears wound down his face, carrying his hatred of fate and his resentment at today's humiliation. He was still too young to hide his emotions. On the verge of madness, he pounded the paving stones, unable to stop his body from trembling even with his teeth clenched tight.
"Insolence! How dare you speak to His Lordship like that! Who do you think you are?!" Before Ning Ke could speak, a female subordinate who was clearly his rabid fan flew into a rage on his behalf. A flying kick sent Lou Yunxiao straight over the cliff.
Ning Ke: *???*
"Ah..."
The subordinate froze too, then hurriedly said, "Forgive me, Your Lordship! I didn't mean to!"
Ning Ke sputtered a couple of times before remembering that below this cliff lay the Demon Abyss into which Lou Yunxiao fell in the story-the starting stage where he began his Dual Cultivation of Dao and Demon.
With his mouth twitching, he could only reply, "Do not act without my orders again. Still, falling down there in his condition, the boy likely won't survive. Leave him be."
"Reporting to Your Lordship: the Sword Sect and the Buddhist Order will arrive shortly."
"Mm." Ning Ke waved his fan. "Go on ahead. I have some matters to attend to."
Although puzzled, the subordinate asked no further questions and swiftly led the Demon Clan away. Little did he know that once they were out of sight, his beautiful lord, who always took everything in stride, turned and jumped off the cliff in a frantic rush.
He headed straight for the Lou Family boy who had just been kicked over the edge.
He even remembered to follow the system's instructions, deftly transforming himself into a pure, ethereal-looking fairy maiden as he fell.
He also concealed his fox demon aura perfectly.
Forget a blind boy like Lou Yunxiao whose cultivation had been completely destroyed-even those mighty experts from the Buddhist Order and the Sword Sect might not recognize him as Ning Ke.
In the novel's plot, the Demon Abyss appeared at random. Just because it lay beneath this cliff now did not mean it would remain here forever.
A portal happened to have opened here today, whisking both Lou Yunxiao and Ning Ke away.
When the people from the Sword Sect and the Buddhist Order tried to descend to rescue Lou Yunxiao, all they saw was an ordinary cliff face.
Both of them were long gone.
A stern-faced middle-aged man in plain cloth robes, a longsword strapped to his back, gazed at the rugged, precipitous cliff in puzzlement. "Though the Demon Clan often clashes with our Human Clan, they rarely go so far as to slaughter entire clans indiscriminately. Ning Ke's destruction of the Flowing Cloud Sect today does seem rather unusual."
Beside him, an old monk with white hair, beard, and eyebrows gripped his ritual staff and rebuked, "That monster has always been erratic. Since becoming the Demon Venerable, he's only grown more lawless, killing entirely on a whim. What wouldn't he do?"
The middle-aged man suppressed his doubts and replied, "In any case, let's find the Lou Family child first. His life lamp hasn't gone out, so he should still be alive..."
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
Ning Ke closed his eyes and opened them again to find a blood-red moon hanging in a sky thick with dark clouds.
Towering slopes surrounded him, strewn with jagged rocks. A pitch-black stream flowed toward him from the distance and passed his feet. As it flowed by, dozens of hands formed from black mist suddenly shot out of the water, lunging straight for his face!
"Fuck! What the hell is that?!"
Perhaps acting on his body's reflexes, Ning Ke thrust out a hand, and a ball of blue-green foxfire sprang from his palm. The instant it touched the black hands, a grating hiss of corrosion rang out, accompanied by piercing screams.
Xiao Yuan dutifully explained:
[Host, this is the Demon Soul River. Whether they belong to the Demon Clan or the Human Clan, anyone tainted by a demon soul will be corroded completely from the inside out. Your Natal Foxfire naturally counters them, but Lou Yunxiao isn't as lucky as you.]
Lou Yunxiao?
Oh, right! Ning Ke snapped back to his senses and hurriedly asked Xiao Yuan: Where did Lou Yunxiao fall?
[Right at the bottom of this river.]
Ning Ke: ???!!! Why didn't you say so sooner!
Before you continue