The Lian Yun Mountains loomed under a twilight-streaked sky, their rugged peaks casting shadows over a secluded valley. Hidden from prying eyes, the valley's existence was a whispered secret—a stage for Qin Ting's dark designs.
By the time he descended into its depths, flanked by Mu Qingyi and the disciplined Qianyuan Sect retinue, the scene was set. Elders from various holy lands stood sentinel along the perimeter, their weathered faces etched with stern duty, unaware they were pawns in his intricate game.
Disciples from the Xuantian Sect, Ancient Sanctum, Chaosheng Sect, and a dozen other revered factions formed tight formations, their blind allegiance a weapon Qin Ting wielded with chilling precision. Among them moved rogue cultivators, their tattered cloaks snapping in the wind, their grim resolve carved into features hardened by years of wandering. Lured by Qin Ting's carefully planted rumors of a demon's lair, their vendettas burned, controlled by his will.
'Fools,' he thought, his mind a cold abyss of calculation, 'dancing to my silent tune, every step a note in the requiem I've composed.' The air pulsed with taut tension as he approached, his purple robes billowing like a storm cloud across a doomed horizon.
Nie You and the others moved as one, fists clasped and heads bowed in synchronized submission. Their voices rose in unison, heavy with loyalty forged through years of calculated favors and subtle threats. "Greetings, Young Master!"
"Senior Brother Qin!" came the fervent cries of his sect's disciples, their eyes alight with zeal bordering on worship, a fire kindled by every victory and display of ruthless dominance.
Even rival sect disciples offered stiff salutes, their movements mechanical, pride still raw from past defeats. They remembered the underground palace—a labyrinth of stone and shadow where Qin Ting had dismantled them with absolute power, leaving their egos bleeding in his wake.
Three holy lands' champions, along with hundreds of disciples, had fallen that day—their broken bodies a stark testament to his supremacy, a wound etched deep into their collective memory.
'How pliable they are,' he mused, a glacial smirk flickering in his mind. 'Like clay in my hands, shaped by fear and awe.'
Days prior, he'd orchestrated the fall of Jiang Zhongbai, the Divine Platform Realm prodigy whose name once shone across the cultivation world. Under a crimson moon, Qin Ting, wielding only the Divine Spirit Realm's power, had crushed him—a spectacle of blood and charred bone that painted his legend in terror and reverence.
Strength was this world's currency, and Qin Ting hoarded it with a predator's greed. His gaze, sharp as a falcon's, swept the crowd, assessing his puppets with precision. "How was the demon's trail uncovered?" he demanded, his voice a velvet blade cutting through the murmurs.
Nie You stepped forward, broad shoulders squared, grizzled beard catching the faint light. A loyal cog in Qin Ting's machine, he was blissfully unaware of the strings binding him. "One of our Xuantian Sect scouts tracked it down, Young Master. He was patrolling the outer ridges when he saw the demon abduct a woman in the wilds—dragged her screaming into the mist. He followed its trail here, through the crags, and reported back at once."
"Who was it?" Qin Ting asked, his tone deceptively mild, a flicker of disinterest masking keen intent.
"An Outer Disciple without prestige, my lord," Nie You replied, bowing slightly. "A nobody named Li Jun."
Qin Ting nodded curtly, lips curving into a faint, calculated smile. "He has served well. Reward him—lavishly. Fifty thousand spirit stones and a place in the Inner Sect."
'Let them glimpse a benevolent mask,' he thought, savoring the deception's bitter sweetness. 'A crumb of kindness to tighten their leash.'
Nie You's bow deepened, beard brushing his chest. "I'll see to it, Young Master. He'll sing your praises to the heavens." He retreated to carry out the order like a faithful hound.
Beside him, Mu Qingyi stood tall, golden eyes steady, no longer shadowed by unease. Where once she might have trembled for Ye Qiu, that sentiment had frayed and snapped.
Now, she saw Qin Ting not just as her shield but as a sovereign destined to rule the heavens—a man who stirred emotions she had never known, a loyalty and awe eclipsing all else.
'A woman… Could it be Junior Sister Lan Xiu?' her thoughts spiraled, fragile and ripe for Qin Ting's exploitation.
She edged closer, her voice a tremulous whisper. "Senior Brother Qin, do you think… could it be someone we know?"
He turned just enough to catch her gaze, her vulnerability a feast for his cruel amusement. 'How exquisitely she quivers,' he thought, the noose of his design tightening. 'She's mine now,' he thought, pleased by her transformation.
Raising his voice, he let it cut through the air like a guillotine, cold and commanding. "This fiend has defiled our realm, spilled the blood of the weak and innocent. It fancies itself a shadow in our midst, but today, we crush its wretched existence—and erase its stain from our sight!"
"Slay the beast!" the crowd roared, their rage a symphony he'd composed note by note, every shout a thread in his web of control. Fists punched the sky, swords clashed against shields, and every cultivator's eyes blazed with vengeance ignited by his whispers and lies.
They surged into the valley's shadowed maw, boots crunching over brittle stone, breaching a threshold steeped in death's reek—a stench Qin Ting had orchestrated days earlier, brewed from bodies he'd planted like seeds in a garden of despair.
The air thickened with decay and slaughter, a hellscape sculpted by his hand. Corpses littered the ground, flesh torn and awash in crimson, limbs twisted at grotesque angles as if caught mid-scream.
The earth drank deeply, its surface a visceral red gleaming wetly in the dim light filtering through jagged peaks. Flies buzzed in a relentless chorus, their drone a hymn to the carnage.
Several female disciples faltered, collapsing as bile stained their silken robes. 'Weaklings,' Qin Ting sneered inwardly.
Amid the gore, one figure stood apart—a young woman, lifeless yet pristine, her white robes unmarred, her face serene as if lost in a gentle dream. Mu Qingyi's gaze locked onto her, and a guttural cry tore from her throat. "Lan Xiu!"
Tears streamed down her face as she stumbled forward, collapsing beside the body. Her trembling hands brushed dark hair from the girl's cold brow, her voice fracturing with every word. "No… no, not her… She was so gentle, so kind…"
Her fingers lingered on Lan Xiu's cheek, as if willing warmth back into lifeless flesh. Qin Ting watched, his expression a flawless mask of solemnity, though his thoughts churned with dark delight. 'Her grief is a masterpiece,' he mused, each tear a brushstroke in his portrait of chaos.
Then, a rustle broke the silence—a hunched figure emerged from the shadows, its maw dripping crimson as it slurped blood from a corpse's neck. It turned, ghostly red eyes flashing with malice, revealing Ye Qiu, now a grotesque demonic creature. His warped visage and twisted, sinewy form were a horrific creation born of Qin Ting's dark influence through the Dreamwraith Amulet, corrupting his body and mind into this clawed, horned abomination.
The crowd gasped, recognition striking like lightning. "Ye Qiu?!"
Mu Qingyi lurched to her feet, her voice shattering as she clutched her sword. "Ye Qiu! How could it be you?!"
Qin Ting drank in her unraveling, the betrayal's bite a nectar to his senses. Ye Qiu—once her trusted ally, her cherished junior brother, and potential love interest—now a horrific monster forged by his hand, his twisted, horned form and crimson-dripping maw a testament to Qin Ting's dark craft, a pawn sacrificed to fuel his ascent.
The others erupted, their fury a crescendo he'd orchestrated with every rumor, every planted clue. "Ye Qiu! You loathsome cur!" roared a Qianyuan Sect disciple, his spear trembling in his grip.
"You stole the Mystic Sun Dragon Fruit and let its power corrupt you!" spat a woman from the Chaosheng Sect, her voice raw with grief. "You butchered our own to fuel your demonic cultivation!"
"Give me back my Junior Sister's life, you monstrosity!" cried a rogue cultivator, his blade unsheathed, tears carving tracks through the dust on his face.
"Demons like you will writhe under heaven's scorn!" thundered an elder, his white beard quivering with righteous wrath.
Ye Qiu's face twitched as Mu Qingyi's voice pierced the fog of his fractured mind. A spark of clarity flared in his bloodshot eyes, laced with bewilderment and terror. "I… What's happened to me?" he croaked, his guttural voice quaking as he wiped his mouth, staring at the red staining his hands.
Memories surged—insanity, carnage, a rampage unleashed in his mind through unknown means. Ye Qiu had been transformed beyond repair into a monster, his once-human form now a twisted, grotesque shell.
He saw Qin Ting's frigid smirk, Mu Qingyi's shattered stare, the mob closing in with bared steel. "No! I didn't do this!" he roared, his voice a guttural, horrifying rasp that clawed at the air, desperation shredding what remained of his humanity. "It wasn't me! Something took control of me! I was possessed!"
He spun to Mu Qingyi, collapsing to his knees with a sickening crunch, his monstrous hands—gnarled and trembling—outstretched in a plea. "Qingyi, believe me—it wasn't me!" The words gurgled from his throat, a nightmarish echo of the man he once was. "You know me—I'd never harm Lan Xiu!"
Her frame stiffened, her eyes twin shards of ice as she stepped back, sword raised. "Don't you dare call me Qingyi!" she snapped, her voice a frozen lash that cut deeper than any blade. "You've no right. Ye Qiu, you're a fiend. You murdered sweet Lan Xiu—a sin beyond forgiveness. Everyone here will see you pay in blood!"
Her words flayed him, and he staggered, clutching his chest as torment consumed him, a howl tearing from his lips. Then his wild gaze locked on Qin Ting, smug and untouchable, standing apart like a dark deity surveying his chaos.
Frenzy seized Ye Qiu, and he thrust a trembling finger. "It's you! You framed me! Qin Ting, this is your plot—I know it! You poisoned me, turned me into this!"
A ripple of shock swept the crowd. Mu Qingyi's jaw dropped, revulsion surging as she whirled on him. 'Even now, he deflects his guilt!' she thought, bitterness gnawing at her core.
"You dare slander Senior Brother Qin?" she hissed, her tone as sharp as winter's edge. "Ye Qiu, you're utterly deplorable. Blaming others for your atrocities—have you no shame?"
The crowd surged forward, blades glinting, voices rising in a crescendo of condemnation.
"Liar!"
"Traitor!"
"Die, you filth!"
Qin Ting's smirk deepened faintly, a shadow of triumph curling his lips. 'How flawlessly they perform,' he thought, his cold heart pulsing with sadistic glee as Ye Qiu's world collapsed beneath the weight of his merciless design.
He stepped forward, raising a hand to silence the mob, his voice smooth and commanding. "Enough. Let his fate be sealed by justice, not chaos. We end this now."
A mechanical, frigid voice echoed in his mind: [Congratulations to the Host. Your scheme has paid off. For claiming the Earth Emperor's Mysterious Flame under the Protagonist's nose and killing your direct rival Jiang Zhongbai in such a ruthless manner, you have been awarded 70,000 Villain Points.]
'Ah, finally,' Qin Ting mused, satisfaction curling through him like smoke. 'The system took its time rewarding my work.'
The voice continued, unrelenting and emotionless: [Moreover, you have cunningly manipulated the Protagonist, turning him into a murderous fiend despised by the world—including the Heroine—while also claiming her heart in the process. This has left him utterly isolated, bereft of allies or support. In doing so, you have seized the remaining 80 Fortune Points from the Protagonist.]
His pulse quickened, ecstasy flooding his veins. This was his true prize—Fortune Points, the cheat codes of fate itself, bending the heavens to his will. 'Now that he's stripped of his plot armor,' he thought, 'Ye Qiu's life is mine to snuff out, no more slipping through my grasp.'
He turned his gaze to Ye Qiu, kneeling in the dirt, surrounded by a tightening ring of steel. "Any last words, demon?" he asked, his voice dripping with mockery.
Ye Qiu's head snapped up, his eyes blazing with a final, desperate defiance. "You'll pay for this, Qin Ting. If not in this life, then the next. The heavens see all—they'll judge you!"
Qin Ting's laughter rang out, a chilling yet refined chime that reverberated through the valley, as though the stones were compelled to bear witness to his dominion. "The heavens?" he mused, his voice dripping with icy elegance, a faint smirk curling his lips. "They are but shadows cast by my radiance, and I alone reign supreme."
With a graceful flourish of his wrist, he summoned a lance of golden-violet flame, its brilliance both majestic and merciless, hurling it toward Ye Qiu—a final, exquisite note in the cruel orchestration of his will.