Evil

"And your usefulness... ends here."

The moment the Shopkeeper finished speaking, the gray-white runes that had illuminated the entire supermarket suddenly receded.

The overwhelming pressure of spiritual energy erupted once more, heavier and more suffocating than before. The invisible pressure filled the entire scattered area, and the air seemed to solidify, gripping Lu Heng tightly.

Under such a level of mental suppression, an ordinary person would have already collapsed to the ground, their consciousness shattered.

But Lu Heng only slightly lowered his back, without the slightest panic in his eyes.

Despite the slight depletion of his physical and mental strength, he was still full of energy. He knew that the negotiations and maneuvering were completely over. The unknown entity hidden deep within the supermarket had, from beginning to end, treated everyone, everything strange, and every battle as mere pawns.

With a thought, Lu Heng stopped being on the defensive.

He instantly activated the Geothermal Talisman already imprinted on his palm, and the scorching energy hidden within his body suddenly awakened. The scalding heat surged rapidly along his meridians and poured entirely into the Rat King Miao Dao in his hand.

At the same time, he activated Starlight Meditation at full speed, his pure and refined spiritual power enveloping the blade layer by layer.

The warm spiritual energy and the violent, scorching Geothermal energy completely merged, intertwined, and overlapped on the blade.

Buzz--!

The Miao sword trembled violently, and a visible wave of heat exploded from the blade, distorting the surrounding air slightly.

Under the immense pressure and blockade of high-level mental power, this was the ultimate strike that Lu Heng could deliver.

He twisted his wrist sharply, leaned forward, and slashed horizontally!

A highly refined blade of energy, carrying a monstrous heatwave, burst forth from the wind. Its crimson color was blinding, tearing through the stagnant air with the power to incinerate everything, and it slashed straight at the supermarket Shopkeeper in front of him!

Faced with this sudden and deadly attack, the middle-aged man standing at the intersection of light and shadow remained calm.

He merely raised his eyelids, and an invisible mental barrier appeared before him.

The scorching blade energy crashed into the invisible barrier, exploding with a deafening roar. A wave of heat swept across the surrounding area, yet it could not penetrate even an inch.

The smoke and dust slowly dissipated.

The Shopkeeper looked at the Miao knife in Lu Heng's hand, which was still warm, and a clear look of surprise flashed across his eyes, even with a hint of admiration and amusement.

"Huh?"

"I didn't expect you to have such explosive potential; you really have great potential."

He shook his head slightly, his tone shifting to regret, with a condescending scrutiny:

"What a pity, what a pity."

"The malice in you is too shallow, the ferocity in your heart too weak, and your resentment not pure enough. Otherwise, I would really like to keep you here, trap you in the formation as well, turn you into a monster, and devour and refine you together in the future."

At this point, the Shopkeeper didn't rush to kill Lu Heng. Instead, it was as if his pent-up emotions had finally found an outlet, and he began to slowly recount his long-term plan.

"You think trapping these four monsters is as simple as setting up a formation?"

"You have no idea how much effort I put in, how long I pretended, and how many plans I laid out to gather these four supreme evil beings."

His gaze was distant as he reminisced about the past, his tone carrying a hint of self-satisfied obsession.

"That Butcher is bloodthirsty and cannibalistic, inherently cruel. I specially created this fresh meat shop for him, maintaining all the appearances of a normal shop, giving him a legitimate shell to survive. I concealed all traces of bloodshed for him, creating an undisturbed environment for him, allowing him to kill and devour flesh at will, completely satisfying the most twisted desires in his bones."

"And then there's the Cashier, full of cunning and greed, who takes pleasure in fraud. I used the supermarket checkout setting to help her perfect all her scams, giving her opportunities to contact countless ordinary people, letting her drain their wealth, watching countless families be ruined because of her, and covering up all her crimes."

"The human trafficker on patrol was inhuman, making a living by breaking up families and kidnapping people. I took advantage of the crowded supermarket to provide her with everything she needed to hide, move around, and escape, letting her continue her evil deeds and helping her evade all detection."

"The last one, that hypocritical drug dealer in the wholesale market, was the most insidious. I allowed her to sell counterfeit and substandard drugs under the guise of health products and daily necessities, using the fabric of charity to amass wealth and harm lives, watching countless impoverished patients suffer delayed treatment and die tragically in their beds."

"I observed them little by little, indulged them, nurtured them, and even actively filled in the gaps in their actions, helping them hide their bad deeds and preventing outside interference."

"I've gone to great lengths to make them accumulate the deepest resentment amidst their extreme desires and evil deeds, nurturing the most ferocious and bizarre creatures!"

Lu Heng listened quietly to this horrifying truth, his mind focused, his fingers slightly clenched, and he spoke in a cold voice:

And what about you?

Those three simple words instantly made the playful look on the Shopkeeper's face slowly fade away.

The air suddenly turned cold.

His previous calm and composed demeanor vanished completely, replaced by an extreme anger and twisted rage that had been building up for decades.

"I?"

He repeated the sentence in a low voice, then suddenly chuckled, the laughter rolling out from deep within his chest, growing colder and more manic.

Do you know why I became like this?

Lu Heng did not answer.

It's not that I don't want to, but that there's no need—the more the other party says, the more flaws they'll expose.

He lowered his eyes, seemingly powerless to resist the suppression of his spiritual power, but his right hand, using the blade as cover, silently reached into his robes, his fingertips touching a cold Soul Crystal.

Gently pinch with your thumb and forefinger.

The Soul Crystal shattered.

A surge of pure Mental Energy flowed from his fingertips into his body, silently merging into his Sea of Consciousness. Lu Heng's expression remained unchanged, and even his breathing remained steady.

The Shopkeeper was unaware.

He was lost in his memories, his voice low and deep, as if he were speaking to Lu Heng, or perhaps to himself.

"My father wanted to kill me before I was even born."

"The day the prenatal checkup results came back, he stood in the hospital corridor for a long time with the report in his hand. Then he told my mom—'Abort it.'"

"My mom didn't agree."

She said it was her child, a life.

"She used the greatest courage of her life to keep me here."

As the Shopkeeper said this, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, but it wasn't exactly a smile.

"But what about my father? From the moment I cried my first cry after I was born, the way he looked at me was wrong. Not disgust, but something deeper—fear. He was afraid of me."

"When I was little, if I broke a cup, he would say, 'Just as I thought.' If I got into a fight with a classmate, he would say, 'Old habits die hard.' If I got the highest score in the class, he wouldn't even glance at me."

"Later, a rumor started circulating from somewhere—something about a supermale gene, claiming that people carrying this gene are born violent, inherently antisocial, and inherently evil."

"I don't know if it's true or not, but everyone believes it."

"The neighbors believed it. The teachers believed it. The relatives believed it."

"Even my mom started looking at me like that."

Lu Heng's fingers paused slightly.

He had absorbed most of the Soul Crystal's energy, and his spiritual power in his Sea of Consciousness was slowly recovering. He remained with his head down, motionless, like a defeated man crushed by adversity.

The Shopkeeper continued speaking, his pace quickening like a burst dam.

"I've endured it my whole life. When I get good grades, they say even bad people can be clever. When I help a classmate fight, they say the violent gene is indeed hereditary. I haven't done anything wrong, but everyone is waiting—waiting for me to make a mistake, waiting for me to be exposed, waiting for them to say, 'See, I told you so.'"

"After the world's cataclysm, I sensed that the rules had completely changed. Obsessions could take form, resentment could dissipate into evil, and the deepest malice in people's hearts finally had a physical manifestation."

"At that moment, I knew—my time had come."

His eyes changed completely.

It wasn't madness; it was something that had been pent up for decades finally finding an outlet, like a flood bursting its banks, carrying mud, sand, and gravel, and pouring out with a roar.

"Since everyone believes I'm born evil, then I'll show everyone what evil is."

"Since the world wants me to be an evil person, then I will commit the greatest and most extreme evil in this world."

"I spent countless efforts to find this Sealing Formation, and with the wealth and resources I've accumulated, I personally built this cage."

He looked directly at Lu Heng and frankly confessed everything.

"You're curious, how did I manage to suppress these four ferocious and bizarre creatures?"

I'll tell you.

"I've done all the evil deeds those four people committed: fraud, human trafficking, cannibalism, and hypocritical murder."

"And I did it more, more ruthlessly, and more thoroughly than they did."

"Their evil is a distortion of humanity."

"My evil is the ultimate obsession that I personally chose, deliberately honed, and carried through throughout my life."

Lu Heng slowly raised his head.

The energy of the Soul Crystal had been completely absorbed, and his mental strength had returned to its peak. There was no panic or fear in his eyes, only an extremely cold calm.

He gazed at the man before him, whose disguise had completely crumbled, and spoke each word in a cold, clear voice:

"You're no longer human."

These words did not anger him; instead, they made him completely relieved.

The Shopkeeper tilted his head back and chuckled softly, his eyes filled with a deep, obsessive darkness.

"Yes."

"I'm no longer human."

"From the moment I resolved to become the epitome of evil, to transcend all kindness and rules, I abandoned humanity and human nature."

"I lay in wait, disguised myself, laid the groundwork, and concealed the truth, paving the way for four villains while patching up their flaws, covering up their crimes, and nurturing four malevolent and monstrous forces."

"I've endured so many years, waited so many years, and this is the day I've been waiting for."

Boom--!

The moment the words fell, all the gray and white runes in the entire supermarket went berserk, and endless resentment energy surged out from the depths of the formation, frantically flowing into the Shopkeeper body.

His power, suppressed for years, was completely unleashed.

The real battle to the death had begun from that moment on.