Chapter Eighty-Eight: So Satisfying!

Ji Ning's arrival did not dampen Lan Yi's good mood.

In fact, it noticeably eased the terrifying, suffocating atmosphere of the prison, prompting Lan Yi's "friends" to believe they had found a glimmer of hope amidst their despair.

Since this polite-looking bureaucrat seemed so close to Lan Yi, surely he could put in a good word for them? They had only made minor mistakes. There was no need to make a mountain out of a molehill and call for their execution. If all else failed, they were even willing to serve a real prison sentence. At least that would mean a structured routine, clocking in and out, and a fair trial, rather than rotting away in this barren place, only to vanish into thin air once they were no longer needed. This was especially true for a few elders who believed they had made great contributions and sacrifices.

Ji Ning had indeed worked hard to curry favor with Lan Yi. But to squander the goodwill he had built with Old Demon Lan for the sake of these people... Unless his brain was dug out and devoured by the Evil God Race, he would never do something so foolish and self-destructive. Thus, the highly tactful Mr. Ji, having secured another boost of favorability, decided not to interrupt Old Demon Lan's venting pleasure. He prepared to return to the surface to get to work. After all, someone had to clean up the aftermath of the fierce battle. Lan Yi clearly did not want his living environment to remain filled with blood and terror.

"Mr. Lan, please carry on. I won't disturb you any further!"

The moment Ji Ning spoke, the slightly eased atmosphere plunged back into dread. His departure meant that the "kind and friendly" Lan Yi, currently offering hospice care, would resume counting their sins!

"Ji Ning! You can't leave!"

"Ji... Ji Ning! It's me!"

"Director Ji! Save us! Even if we are to be executed, we should be judged by the higher-ups!"

"This is a lynching! This is a mockery of the rule of law!"

In an instant, the factions that had remained silent under Old Demon Lan's tyranny—the clean-eating yoga faction, the highly respected faction, the incorruptible faction, the memory-restoration helpers, and the procrastinators—all panicked. In their desperation, they pressed themselves tightly against the iron bars, clawing at the air like zombies, hoping to hold Ji Ning back. At least for the sake of being former colleagues! Give a brother a hand!

In response, Ji Ning wore a peculiar smile, scratching his itchy cheek with his middle finger. Looking at these faces—people he once had to flatter and deal with hypocritically—he placed his index finger to his lips.

"Shh...!"

"Behave yourselves."

"Don't disturb Mr. Lan. You're all adults. Show some basic decency and manners, and stop causing trouble for others."

As Ji Ning pronounced this death sentence, the people he looked at shuddered without exception. They felt the temperature around them plummet. Shivering, they curled up in the corners, no longer daring to press their bodies against the freezing iron bars. In their eyes, the smiling Ji Ning had suddenly become hideous and terrifying. They were no longer of the same kind. The current Ji Ning was of the same kind as Lan Yi. They were both psionic cultivators—the ones who represented the future.

The Glacial Heartscape.

Ji Ning, who primarily practiced martial arts and seemed so gentle and elegant, actually possessed such a heartscape. A martial artist's heartscape was, simply put, the manifestation of their own will, especially their most extreme and steadfast determination. Mental attacks were the dominant intents of martial artists, born from different obsessions, insights, and martial philosophies. Ultimately, they refined their physical martial arts into mental strength, releasing it through innate Qi to distort reality and overpower others. A Glacial Heartscape typically only appeared in cold-blooded or naturally detached martial artists. Such people were extremely rational, never swayed by emotions, and always made the most correct decisions that aligned with their interests.

Lan Yi remained indifferent to this, though he now had a clearer understanding of Ji Ning's strength. He was likely close to the Dharma Manifestation stage, just like himself. It seemed he had also run into the issue of cultivating too quickly, where the subconscious of his martial body had not yet adapted, leading to a conflict of philosophy between the two orthodox paths of Daoist arts and martial arts.

This was a bottleneck that kept all the reincarnators at this boundary.

But it did not limit their combat power.

Whether it was the Golden Lion's nation-destroying power at four times the speed of sound, Lan Yi's madman-like plasma cultivation, or the Evil God Race that had appeared at the end, it was enough to prove that the top combat forces of the main world were already capable of turning everything upside down. Lan Yi was confident, but not so arrogant as to believe that apart from the Golden Lion and that Evil God, the two great civilizations had no other combat forces of this caliber. The reincarnators had deep reserves. If pushed to their limits, they could always muster something.

Leaving the prison, Ji Ning let out a long breath, feeling as if he had just walked a tightrope over a mountain of blades.

*How terrifying. Just standing next to him, I felt suppressed by his overflowing heartscape.*

*His Daoist arts are even more monstrous. How much of his original self is still left under his skin?*

*Just one trip to the Artificial Divine Realm, and Old Demon Lan has grown this powerful...*

*Whatever. He will surely be the grand leader of the Jianghe Civilization in the future. As long as he doesn't destroy the world, why not support him?*

Once the thought of aligning with Lan arose, the path ahead suddenly seemed infinitely wide!

Those annoying fellows, noisy crows, and backstabbing trash had all been swept away. Psionic cultivators were psionic cultivators; rules and regulations could not bind them, let alone control them. When those stubborn, old-fashioned diehards tried to make a move after the first trial, the reincarnators, who had long used the excuse of contacting Lan Yi to mobilize resources, completed a brilliant and clever counter-kill. Wherever power lies, authority will spread. Once extraordinary power was obtained, this process was even simpler and faster than in their past lives, so much so that many of their peers didn't even realize what had happened.

In comparison, the Ocean Civilization seemed much rougher and wilder due to the infighting between Yngray and the Pantheon. A civil war would likely break out in the next couple of days. There was no rush. With a month's time, as long as the planned matters were not delayed, then now... Commander Lan Yi would surely continue to enjoy his post-battle "cigarette" time.

Did honest people really have such poor popularity?

Lan Yi sighed as he looked at the remaining "non-renewable strategic resources" trembling and stealing terrified glances at him. Just because he was a diligent and honest worker, a beast of burden who could endure hardships, so many people rushed to bite him when he was injured and bleeding. Indeed, feeding on human tragedy was always sweet.

"You..."

Lan Yi's gaze landed on the female empowerment influencers.

They all had one thing in common: unpleasant facial features—large mouths, thick lips, pointed chins, and short jaws, which led to insufficient blood supply to the brain. Whenever they got excited, the lack of blood flow caused their thoughts to become muddled, making them easily lose control.

This was not meant as an insult.

Old Demon Lan was just curious. Did these people share a Bogang gene primarch? Otherwise, why did their appearances look so similar? Even from a psionic cultivator's perspective, it felt a bit eerie.

"...Forget it. You've all awakened and become independent, so you certainly don't need help from a man like me."

No help?

That was wonderful! Look at the people Lan Yi had "helped" before; every single one of them had broken down in despair. They would rather ask for a quick death than have Lan Yi offer them any assistance. Lan Yi was so kind; if he said he wouldn't help, he meant it. He was a man of his word.

"For the first week, you can only eat the meat of your own kind. Well, I don't mean human flesh, but pork."

"For the second week, you'll surely get tired of just pork. Since there's no production line dedicated to making feed for you, your ingredients will remain pure, natural, pollution-free, and unprocessed high-end ingredients: dirt and earthworms. You don't have to eat them if you don't want to."

"For the third week, you can only eat yourselves. I will put you all together, so you can make good use of your innate ability to love others and help one another."

The fourth week?

There would be no fourth week. They couldn't possibly survive past the third, and Lan Yi was not so bored as to leave potential time bombs for himself.

Lan Yi's words cast a spine-chilling coldness over these creatures who had once made outrageous remarks about him and had disgusted him for a long time before his rebirth. This was not excessive at all. Before his rebirth, when Lan Yi was put on the wanted list, these troublemaking pests had all celebrated, acting as if they had foresight and claiming he should be executed immediately to benefit society. This had truly filled Old Demon Lan with hostility during that period, making him wear a dark, magnetic-field-like scowl all day.

However, once Lan Yi's battle records began to skyrocket and he became unstoppable, they behaved themselves, quickly deleting comments, closing accounts, and running away. Unfortunately, Lan Yi was petty and vengeful, and they had long since been hunted down and dealt with in real life. In the words of Old Demon Lan's sharp criticism back then: "Fat fills the brain; Bogang cannot think." Conclusion: "They deserve to be killed!"

Obviously, the idea of eating themselves was truly horrifying.

The influencers immediately revolted. So what if he was Lan Yi? Believe it or not, we'll split half your cultivation power right now!

Just as they were about to spew filth, they were easily overwhelmed by Old Demon Lan's ferocious and violent mental power. Their minds went blank, and they collapsed to the ground, losing control of their bowels. It was clear they were not satisfied with their future dietary structure. Lan Yi was no god who could satisfy their unreasonable demands, so now they could only rely on themselves.

How satisfying!

Sure enough, revenge could be categorized. Going berserk and chopping off the enemy's head with a single slash was the most direct pleasure, like the wild grin of a hearty northern man. On the other hand, watching their wills crumble and their souls die before their bodies was like the gentle smile of a maiden from the southern water towns. Both offered endless aftertastes and cleared one's mind.

Lan Yi was very fortunate.

Even though they were "non-renewable resources," he managed to enjoy both kinds of pleasure!

Finally...

Lan Yi pulled up a chair and sat in front of his ex-girlfriend, Xu Xingya, once again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I was really wrong, Lan Yi. Let's forget these unpleasant things and go back to when we first met, and live a good life together, okay? I forgive you. Let's reconcile!"

The only response Xu Xingya received was Lan Yi's raised hand.

She was instinctively overjoyed, thinking Lan Yi was reaching out to her. She quickly stood up, only to see in shock a rapidly and stably spinning plasma ring pressing right before her eyes.

She was the only person Lan Yi chose to execute directly.

It wasn't because Old Demon Lan was still spineless or a submissive wretch, harboring twisted feelings for a bitch who had cuckolded him, stabbed him in the back, and tried to bankrupt and imprison him.

Rather, it was because he felt absolutely nothing for her now.

Torturing a creature he felt absolutely nothing for would not bring any pleasure to Lan Yi, who considered himself mentally healthy. Just as he had lamented earlier, he had actually once liked such a shallow, low-intelligence creature. She was nothing but a lump of rotten flesh devoid of any beauty or wisdom. Since that was the case, he might as well kill her directly.

Divine Firmament Peak Daoist Art: Palm Thunder.

In the next instant, Xu Xingya turned to ashes.

A living person was instantly electrocuted into ashes. The prisoners who still held a sliver of hope fell into complete despair. Especially those miscellaneous cat-raising, coffee-tasting factions; no one knew better than them that when such terrifying power was held by the common rabble, it was equivalent to everyone holding a gun.

Once you have a gun in hand, what do you do next?

Follow me!

After the Conquest Space descended, the era of their rule had already come to an end.

Once they lost what had originally allowed them to hold their heads high with arrogance, it was equivalent to draining their vitality and stripping away their glamorous coats, only to find that what remained could no longer keep up with the new era that advanced by any means necessary.

In other words, everything they had previously thought could save them had turned to ash and ceased to exist.

This was even more despairing than when Ji Ning abandoned them. Ji Ning's actions could be seen as individual behavior, whereas the exaggerated, extraordinary power displayed by Lan Yi silently announced the comprehensive and rapid collapse of the old order. Under such a collapse, there were no survivors to speak of, because everyone could enter the Conquest Space.

Cries, pleas for mercy, and wails rose and fell.

Lan Yi left this hell without looking back.

After he left, the underground prison, completely deprived of power, fell back into pitch-black darkness, making the name of "hell" even more fitting.

While Lan Yi was creating hell, the Ocean Civilization was also manufacturing hell.

The main entities of the Ocean Civilization—the dominant organizations and nations, such as Yngray, the Pantheon, and the Knights of the True God—had all slammed on the brakes of war because of the battle between Lan Yi and the Evil God Race.

The global atmosphere instantly grew bizarre.

It was as if a group of burly warriors had rolled up their sleeves and were ready to fight and scramble for a good opportunity, only to suddenly see a dragon next to them grabbed by a giant hand falling from the sky and crushed to death like a lizard—especially when they had intended to let this dragon loose to run amok in the first place.

Now that the dragon had been casually crushed to death, post-battle analysis showed that Old Demon Lan, who killed it, was almost unscathed. Furthermore, he had made a very obvious gesture of looking up at the satellites, his attitude clearly showing that he was preparing to settle scores later.

How should they treat Lan Yi next?

How could they carefully and decently treat this man who, after the first trial, was the undisputed invincible figure of the world, a true god on earth!

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