The icy chill and sharp pain pressing against his neck snapped Aoki awake in an instant.
This wasn’t the smoke-filled, demon-haunted battlefield of the simulated world, but rather that shabby wooden hut at the edge of the Deepwood District’s border forest where he’d been hiding.
Beneath him was a rough straw mat. The air was thick with the scent of earth and greenery. In the distance, he could vaguely hear Xiaoya deliberately suppressing her breath.
But all of that was shattered by the cold dagger gleaming with ghostly light at his throat.
That voice was all too familiar, carrying a hint of mockery and a chilling murderous intent.
“Time to end it~”
It wasn’t Yue Lan’s frenzied, divine tone, but something steadier, sharper, like a drawn sword.
Colder, even, than the blade pressed to his skin…
“Yue Qi?!”
Aoki didn’t dare make any rash moves. The shock of seeing Yue Qi alive was plain on his face.
He remembered clearly: on the cliff, Yue Qi had been stabbed by Yue Lan and plunged downwards. That scene was burned into his memory. Yet now, Yue Qi was here beside him, a dagger pressed to his throat?
Was this an illusion?
Why had he been forcibly pulled out of the simulation?
Nothing like this had ever happened before.
Given the circumstances, Aoki silently circulated his qi, sensing the state of the person behind him.
He could feel Yue Qi’s body pressed tightly against his back, the hand holding the blade utterly steady, not a hint of tremor. The killing intent was so thick it seemed to materialize.
“Looks like you haven’t forgotten your ‘fiancée’ just yet.” Yue Qi’s voice was mocking. “Or perhaps… you’re missing my foolish little sister even more?”
“You didn’t die,” Aoki stated, inwardly wondering if this was all tied to Yue Lan.
Yue Lan had always insisted Yue Qi was a demon…
“Die? It’s not that easy.” Yue Qi gave a soft laugh, pressing the blade even closer. Beads of blood seeped from Aoki’s skin. “Before my mission is done, I won’t fall so easily.”
“Mission? Where’s Yue Lan?” Aoki’s voice was low, silently reinforcing his neck with qi, ready for a sudden slash.
All he could think of was Yue Lan’s miserable state after defying Nongli’s orders.
“Far away, yet right before your eyes.” Yue Qi’s tone was laced with an indescribable complexity—scorn, and a trace of something like pity.
“She thinks her devotion can move the gods, that she can seal me away with her own strength, that she understands everything? Laughable. My foolish sister… I hope she’s watching, so she can see how I resolve these troubles, Visitor from Another World…”
“Visitor from Another World?” Aoki caught that keyword. Both Yue Lan and Yue Qi knew about the Visitors?
If he took Yue Qi’s words at face value, then Yue Lan was the good one, and Yue Qi the villain?
Was Yue Lan trying… to protect this world? Wasn’t she colluding with the Demon King?
She’d warned him to beware of the Visitor from Another World, but he himself was one—why?
“My sister truly is foolish. Her feelings for you made her push you away.
We both received divine revelation, both tacitly aware of the matter of the Visitor from Another World, but she always insisted she knew nothing.
For you, she struck at me, deluding herself that her so-called efforts could make you leave the ranks of the Visitors, evade the world’s purge.
You variables who don’t belong here want to become permanent. You are this world’s affliction, bringing grief and lamentation to the gods.”
“And you, Yue Qi?” While stalling for time, Aoki slowly spread his qi throughout his body. His muscle fibers, suffused with spiritual energy, became tough and unyielding. “What role are you playing? Are you colluding with the Demon King’s Army?”
“The Demon King’s Army? Heh…” Yue Qi’s derision was unmistakable. “Those fools from the abyss are just another faction trying to disrupt order. Compared to you lot, they’re nothing but worms in stagnant water. I am not like them. My goal is simpler—elimination.”
“Eliminate what?” Aoki already knew, but asked anyway.
“Eliminate those like you, like Lin Qiyou, like Nongli—‘Visitors from Another World’!” Yue Qi’s voice suddenly turned icy. “Your very existence is a corruption to this world! Your karma, your power systems, the variables you introduce are pushing this world’s fate toward an unpredictable collapse!”
The instant her words fell, Aoki struck!
His pent-up qi exploded, his body sliding sideways like a darting fish. At the same time, his elbow slammed backwards! The skin of his neck scraped against the blade, making a sound that set his teeth on edge. Blood welled from a deeper cut, but he dodged the fatal severing of his carotid.
“Bang!”
Yue Qi clearly hadn’t expected Aoki to break free with such speed and force under these conditions. Struck in the ribs by his elbow, she grunted, retreating half a step. Yet her reaction was lightning-quick: the dagger traced an uncanny arc, stabbing straight for Aoki’s heart!
Aoki ducked low, shifting his footwork and pulling back. He touched the wound on his neck; blood stained his fingertips crimson.
Yue Qi stood poised, still clad in that familiar suit of silvery-white armor. She was a hero, a savior. Unlike Yue Lan’s pure white robes, her look was sharper, more battle-hardened. Her eyes were as keen as a hawk’s, devoid of Yue Lan’s occasional warmth or madness.
“Despite Yue Lan’s mistake with the medicine turning you into a vegetative state, despite the magic core in your body shattering, you still have this much power. Is it all from the other world?”
“Do we really have to do this?” Aoki shouted, pouring his qi into his fists as he attacked.
His fists howled through the air, colliding again and again with Yue Qi’s dagger, ringing with the clash of metal. Yue Qi’s movements were agile and unpredictable, her dagger as venomous as a snake, always targeting his vital points. It was clear she had undergone the most brutal training, utterly different from Yue Lan who relied on Holy Light.
“Yue Lan… she always thought you were a demon?” Aoki asked between exchanges. He needed answers, needed to figure out what was really going on between these sisters.
Was Yue Lan’s demon a product of her own mind, or was Yue Qi the one who had become the demon, targeting him?
But when had Yue Qi learned all of this?
Could everything until now have been an act by Yue Qi?
Was she playing some grand game?
Her attacks suddenly grew faster, her dagger weaving afterimages. “To save the world, any means are justified! This is the hero’s mission! I’m not anyone’s mouthpiece—I am the executor!”
At that moment—
“Holy Light! Protect the innocent!”
A crisp chant rang out, and a gentle yet steadfast shield of Holy Light appeared before Aoki, blocking Yue Qi’s lethal strike.
It was Xiaoya!
She’d finally been roused by the noise of battle. Seeing Aoki in danger, she’d cast her divine spell without hesitation. Though her power was far below Yue Lan’s, her sudden intervention was enough to disrupt Yue Qi’s rhythm.
“Hmph… So busy looking for Aoki, I forgot about you? Even if you’ve taken a step toward becoming a Visitor…” Yue Qi’s gaze sharpened.
“I… I…” Xiaoya clutched her little staff, her face pale, her body trembling with fear, but her eyes shone with resolve. “I don’t know anything about Visitors from Another World! I only know that Lord Aoki is the hero’s strategist—he’s always worked for peace on the continent! And you, Lady Yue Qi… right now, you’re the one who looks like a demon!”
“Utter foolishness!” Yue Qi snarled, abandoning Aoki and flashing like a specter to Xiaoya’s side, dagger plunging for her throat!
“Watch out!” Aoki roared, qi surging to the limit as he hurled himself at Yue Qi like a cannonball!
“Bang!”
Aoki grabbed Yue Qi, smashing through the hut’s wall. The two tumbled into the open ground outside. Xiaoya sat paralyzed in terror, her staff nearly slipping from her grasp.
Yue Qi quickly broke free from Aoki’s hold, reversing her grip on the dagger and stabbing for his abdomen. Aoki twisted away, but his arm was slashed open to the bone, blood soaking his sleeve in an instant.
“Cough… cough…” Aoki coughed up blood, dropping to one knee, glaring fiercely at Yue Qi. Overdrawing his qi and the wounds on his body had pushed him to the brink.
Yue Qi stood dagger in hand, moonlight spilling over her, outlining a face as cold and resolute as frost.
She looked at the battered Aoki and the petrified but still unyielding Xiaoya, a flicker of something complex passing through her eyes.
“You simply don’t understand.” Yue Qi’s voice was icy with exhaustion. “This world is like a finely woven spider’s web, and you are the stones hurled into its strands. You think you’re struggling, fighting to survive, changing your fate, but every move you make tears at this web, dragging more lives into the abyss.”
She raised her dagger, pointing at Aoki—and perhaps at some vaster presence in the void:
“Lin Qiyou, for your sake, she could slaughter the royal capital, chase vengeance across worlds—the killing and hatred she brings, is that karma?”
“Nongli, entangled with you, grew from an ignorant little demon to the Demon King who led the century-long war between humans and demons. Is that karma?”
“And you, Aoki, you, this anomaly that cycles endlessly between life and death, the variables you bring are countless! Your very existence is the greatest ‘misfortune’!”
She took a deep breath, her killing intent sharpening:
“Yue Lan wants to ‘repair’ things her way—it’s futile. Only by erasing you, deleting you ‘viruses’ from this world’s ‘program’ entirely, can we stop the collapse spreading because of you!”
“I, Yue Qi, am the true… sweeper of this world!”
Before her words finished, the dagger in her hand flared with unprecedented dark light. She merged with the night, radiating the resolve to end everything, and launched her final assault on Aoki.
As that dagger, brimming with destructive power, neared his body, he clenched his jaw, gathering all his remaining qi in his palm for one last desperate strike.
Just then—another change!
A figure clothed in pure white, exuding peerless majesty and fury, descended like a meteor from the heavens, landing precisely between Aoki and Yue Qi!
“Lay a hand on him? You court death!”