This World Is Too Terrifying!

Xu Chunliang, whose name meant pure and good but who was anything but, had gone completely mad.

He could no longer remember how many times he had killed the eerie steward named Guo Si.

Nor could he remember how many times he had swung his blade.

Perhaps on his thirty-six-thousandth slash,

or perhaps on his thirty-six-thousand-and-first,

he had already died eighteen thousand times!

As Xu Chunliang charged laughing madly toward death once more, the layers upon layers of darkness enveloping the hooked steelyard were torn apart by brute force. Above it, red light swirled and planets shattered. At the farthest reaches of the endless sky, a rift opened in the pitch-black void, where no matter existed.

With Xu Chunliang at the center, all the corpses hanging from the steelyard's counterweight hook, who should have been dead, opened their eyes at once. Then they lifted their dead heads.

Xu Chunliang lifted his head too, gazing up at the heavens.

His five senses twisted together, forming a strange sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced.

He [saw] a figure. It was an enormous mass of tumors beyond anything words could describe.

Countless pustules swelled and burst, oozing dark golden pus...

Xu Chunliang's head began to ache, the pain far surpassing what he had suffered through tens of thousands of deaths.

Countless pieces of information flooded into his head.

"Death."

Xu Chunliang learned its name. It was Death itself.

Every death in the world was connected to it.

And this rusty hooked steelyard, which was all but impossible to overcome, existed to please him through death.

Around Xu Chunliang, every corpse hanging from a hook tilted its head back and opened its mouth at once. Their mouths split downward, all the way below their necks.

They exposed eerie blue-white vocal cords.

"Hiss!!!"

A scream like the cry of a crane issued from their mouths, seemingly praising Death itself.

The sound reached the farthest heights of the sky, and it "opened" its eyes.

Through the endless darkness, it glanced at Xu Chunliang.

The hook in Xu Chunliang's chest snapped of its own accord, and he returned from death to life.

His pupils turned pitch-black in an instant, leaving not a trace of white in his eyes.

Like blocks of ink! Like the dark of night! Like death!

At that moment, Xu Chunliang, whose more than ten thousand deaths had pleased the being high in the heavens, became Death itself.

Xu Chunliang tasted indescribable sensations: sweetness, a bloody tang, pain, piercing noise, and tearing.

Things that should have belonged to his other senses poured into his mouth and onto his tongue.

He reached out, and a patch of blackness appeared in his loosely closed hand. Like a blade, a sword, an axe, a claw, like everything, it swept out in a slash!

A sheet of blackness spread forward.

Pure, immense, ominous, and magnificent!

It was the gaze of the god of death.

That gaze struck the rusty counterweight.

The counterweight laughed, wept, screamed...

Then it vanished, reduced to nothing.

His eyes pitch-black, Xu Chunliang looked up at the sky and met [Death]'s gaze. A strange smile then appeared on his face.

"No one can control me."

"Not even you!"

He slashed toward the heavens.

A look appeared in that gaze, whether of disdain or speechlessness, he could not tell. Then it withdrew.

The darkness in Xu Chunliang's eyes began to fade rapidly, and with it faded all his memories of what lay high in the heavens.

The layers upon layers of tumors, [Death] itself, the sight of the heavens.

Everything began to disappear.

A smile on his lips, Xu Chunliang murmured to himself, Erasing my memories again. Is this an ability that comes with Death, or a privilege of the gods who exist high in the heavens?

So what? Even gods can't make my choices for me!

He slashed his own neck...

After defeating the hooked steelyard, Xu Chunliang chose to kill himself and reload.

Because he had not killed it with his own hands; he had merely been a blade that killed him.

In many people's eyes, all of this might have been very, very good, but he simply did not like it.

"Since you two lords have seen the village, you should head back..." Steward Guo Si said to Xu Chunliang and Shi Qin with a smile.

Xu Chunliang nodded and smiled. "Guo Family Village is peaceful and quiet. There really is nothing wrong. Since Squire Guo is ill, we won't disturb him."

His gaze was warm and gentle, showing no sign of a death wish or any other intention, as though he remembered nothing at all.

Then Xu Chunliang and Shi Qin walked out of the village together.

They walked on and on without looking back.

"Xiao Liang, why do I keep feeling like I've forgotten something?" Shi Qin asked, scratching his head as they walked along the country path.

"You're getting older. That's normal. It was probably something unimportant."

Xu Chunliang answered with a smile and reached out to touch the Life Silver at his waist.

I'll be back for revenge.

You worthless scale, just wait until I come back and break you...

I'm not running away. I'm going around the world to launch a sneak attack on you from the opposite direction...

As for the Life Silver, the curse would not take effect as long as he did not spend it. Now that Xu Chunliang had calmed down, he paid it no mind.

This works too. When I'm strong enough to kill you, I'll spend the Life Silver, and you'll come looking for me to get yourself killed...

Without looking back at Guo Family Village,

Xu Chunliang and Shi Qin returned to the Demon-Slaying Bureau. They reported that they had seen nothing wrong in Guo Family Village, completing their assignment. After warning Shi Qin not to spend the Life Silver under any circumstances, Xu Chunliang took his Life Silver home.

As for the dead Liu Yong, it seemed as though everyone had forgotten him. The traces of his existence had truly disappeared with his death.

This gave Xu Chunliang a deeper understanding of Death high in the heavens and the nearly invincible hooked steelyard. It made him see this world for what it truly was.

This world was too terrifying!

The eerie beings were too frightening!

And high in the heavens, things were even more frightening!

So of course he had to kill them all!

Lying in the courtyard and gazing at the pitch-black, moonless sky, Xu Chunliang's lips curved into a cruel smile.

[Death], who are you? An immortal or a Buddha? Or a law?

No matter what you are, what all of you are, since you won't deal with these eerie things, you deserve to die!

*All of you... every last one... **deserves! To! Die!!!***

Xu Chunliang brought up his panel and, without hesitation, tapped the plus sign after his level.

The aura circulating within him gave off specks of starlight, and a brilliant great star appeared in his dantian in an instant.

Feeling the utterly different power within him, Xu Chunliang left the courtyard and headed for Fireworks Lane.

Today he had business: listening to songs at a pleasure house.

In this age without electric lights, ordinary people worked from sunrise to sunset and made babies on their kang beds as soon as darkness fell, so there were usually few people in the city streets.

To find a target at night, when eerie beings frequently appeared, Xu Chunliang chose Fireworks Lane, where the most people gathered.

The bundle of Life Silver buried beneath his stove at home was a constant reminder that Xu Chunliang needed to improve himself, so he, who could gain attribute points by slaying eerie beings, could not afford to sit idle.

Arriving at the crowded pleasure house with its motley clientele, Xu Chunliang casually tossed a few copper coins to the attendant and sat down at a small table in the main hall of Spring Rain House.

With a dish of fried peanuts and a pot of apricot blossom wine, Xu Chunliang quietly observed the players around him.

Five burly men armed with sabers and swords were diagonally across from him, eating great mouthfuls of meat and drinking heartily. They did not forget to point and shout at the dancing girls onstage. At a glance, they were jianghu heroes who would fight at the slightest disagreement.

A young master dressed in white, carefree and unrestrained, had a table to himself. No fewer than eight exquisite dishes sat before him, and a treasured sword inlaid with jade and gold rested at one corner of the table. At a glance, he was a young master from a wealthy family out making his way in the jianghu, who did not yet know to conceal his abilities and had laid all his wealth and splendor bare.

A scholar in plain robes was just like him, with a dish of fried peanuts and a pot of apricot blossom wine, drinking alone amid the clamor, perfectly at ease.

There were also several men who were clearly merchants from the city, enjoying the life of the wealthy in this money-draining establishment after saving up some money.

Xu Chunliang betrayed nothing as he quietly observed everyone, hoping to find his target for the night.

On the second floor of Spring Rain House,

a young woman was also searching for her target.

She first looked at Xu Chunliang, then at the scholar, before turning her gaze to the five jianghu heroes drinking and shooting the breeze.

For a moment, she found it hard to choose.

In a single little Spring Rain House, seven Star Transformation Grade martial artists had appeared at the same time.

This left her in a bit of a quandary.

Who should I eat?

That young man drinking alone? He's handsome and his aura is steady, but he's too thin.

There isn't much meat on him. He wouldn't fill me up.

The scholar in plain robes? He looks sour.

After considering her options, she looked at the five jianghu heroes and silently weighed her chances.

With her strength at Moon Glow Level Great Perfection and her eerie methods, catching the five jianghu heroes off guard might make killing them easy enough.

But the problem was...

Her method of seducing them before striking might not be enough to handle five jianghu heroes at once...

Even if she were willing,

those jianghu men might not be.

She turned to look at Xu Chunliang.