The black fog was a mass of chaotic contamination capable of controlling exotic beasts, making them go mad and greatly increasing their strength.
It resided in the body of each generation of Yuan Guang leaders, affecting their actions, thoughts, and personalities.
Yuan Guang’s leader selection involved waiting for the strongest victor to emerge from all those “Gu.” That would be the black fog’s most perfect host body.
It was also before the first reset, when the black fog voluntarily exposed itself, that Shi Deng learned the truth.
But this thing seemed impossible to completely eliminate.
After choosing to reset, his first action was to kill the leader he’d once feared to the extreme, using his time ability to imprison the black fog within his own body.
“Shi Deng, sometimes I must admit you’re truly very cruel to yourself.” The black fog clearly knew how much its influence affected a person’s character.
No one could maintain their true heart under contamination without the slightest waver, much less lock it inside their body.
Only Shi Deng was the first one it had seen in thousands of years.
The black fog: “I heard you’re sick…”
The surrounding scene seemed to freeze again. Like chains, it coiled around the youth circle by circle.
Shi Deng remained silently still.
The black fog tempted, “I really miss you after the first reset. Come.”
The black fog froze together with him, falling into an even deeper dream.
…
“Leader, I heard you’ve canceled the ‘Gu’ system?”
The Left Envoy frowned, appearing very displeased.
He didn’t accept this guy who suddenly killed the previous leader and took the position—
So young.
Clearly just a wet-behind-the-ears kid.
The youth by the window had gentle, detached features, wearing the complicated leader’s garments. He lowered his head, tending a pot of sunflowers. He carefully adjusted the angle, letting the flowers face the sunlight outside.
“Left Envoy, do you have objections?”
The Left Envoy said, “This is a rule Yuan Guang established long ago. The elder council is all gathered in the assembly hall protesting now. You can’t be so arbitrary.”
After a long while, Shi Deng smiled. “Is that so? Many protesting?”
He called out softly, “Uncle Xiao Fu.”
Someone pushed open the door and entered—a handsome, mature man in his late twenties holding a pocket watch, his tailcoat worn impeccably. “Leader.”
“Go to the assembly hall.”
Uncle Xiao Fu responded affirmatively and followed behind him. Under the Left Envoy’s puzzled gaze, he prepared several handkerchiefs.
But very soon, he would know what those handkerchiefs were for.
In the spacious assembly hall, over three hundred elders—including no shortage of level 10 special-grade ability users—had been slaughtered down to fewer than fifty.
Yuan Guang’s assembly hall enshrined the leaders of all past generations.
The walls were carved with countless Sanskrit prayers for blessings. Most leaders, before dying, would break free from the black fog’s influence, review their lives, and discover they’d committed countless sins.
Therefore, throughout this hall full of sutras and incantations—some black, some gold, some sinister, some sacred—the common types all sought nothing more than to eliminate the wrongs committed in this life.
Offering incense mist filled the air, obscuring what was enshrined in the Buddhist shrine above.
But now, the walls full of sutras were splattered with mottled bloodstains. Dark red blood pooled on the floor. The fresh, pungent smell of blood mixed with incense smoke, faintly inducing nausea.
Those two hundred-plus people died miserably. This wasn’t just a one-sided massacre—it also conveyed a message to everyone in Yuan Guang—
The new leader was a madman.
One of the youth’s deep blue pupils faintly glowed with an eerie red. He threw the last person who’d opposed him onto the floor. His pale, thin wrists were pressed down by the complicated black-and-red garments.
The light-colored veins on the back of his hand gave a sense of fragile weakness, yet could easily arouse one’s desire for destruction. Beneath the youth’s feet was hell itself. The excessively rich, vivid colors made him look like a fallen god from an oil painting.
He smiled and said, “Left Envoy, no one opposes me now, right?”
Moody and unpredictable.
The Left Envoy’s numb brain belatedly felt fear.
Walking to the door, Uncle Xiao Fu handed him a handkerchief.
Shi Deng wiped the blood from his injuries. Glancing casually ahead, he paused slightly.
There were two transparent figures ahead—
His future and his past.
Not materialized. Besides him, no one else could see them.
The youth hid his hands, not letting “past” stare any longer.
“Past” was close and familiar with him. He named him Xiao Deng.
He was very accommodating toward Xiao Deng. When Xiao Deng was stubborn, he would always compromise first, coaxing him, because he knew that version of himself was actually very uncomfortable and wanted someone to comfort him.
But “future” had never spoken to him. His eyes were always indifferent. Even when they fell on him, no particular emotion could be discerned.
He returned to his room, habitually materializing both of them.
This was the first time he’d personally killed people on such a large scale. In the past as “Gu,” he was skilled at pretending—concealing, pleasing, submitting, and calculating others. Killing without bloodshed.
Before, he thought killing that way was tiring. Now this way seemed even more tiring.
Uncle Fu brought water and placed it on the table. Shi Deng extended his hands into it. The clear water was quickly dyed pale red by the remaining bloodstains on his hands.
He didn’t move.
Just stared blankly like that.
The cold water quickly swallowed the temperature from his hands, then the chill drilled bit by bit into his body through his palms.
It seemed Uncle Fu said a few things to him in between, but Shi Deng didn’t hear clearly. He didn’t know how long he maintained this posture. He only felt the light in the room grow dim.
Until a pair of hands, larger than his own, also reached into the water, grasping his hands and gently washing them for a moment.
Shi Deng belatedly felt warmth.
He looked up.
A young man who looked the same as him but was far more mature lowered his head, eyes cold and indifferent, seriously washing away the filth from his hands. He changed to a basin of warm water, washed again, and dried them with a soft towel Xiao Deng handed over.
His future seemed to sigh, gently patted his head, voice low, saying the first sentence to him.
“Stubborn.”
Just as he would always compromise with Xiao Deng, from that day forward, Shi-ge would also always compromise with him.
***
The black fog imprisoned in his body continuously resisted his confinement.
Shi Deng waited a long time, finally waiting for news that Yuan Ting, Sister Le, and Zhi Ze had come out of F City and appeared again.
Afternoon. Few pedestrians. The three of them bought ice cream on a sycamore-lined street covered in fallen autumn leaves.
Playing and teasing each other, they looked like they’d just completed some mission and were very happy.
“Huh? Buy one get one free! Quick, choose. I’m having—blueberry!” Yuan Ting’s energetic voice came through.
“Anyway, Zhi Ze’s treating. Sister Le, I remember you like peach flavor.” He turned and winked at Zhi Ze. “Brother Zhi Ze, thanks!”
He tossed over a watermelon-flavored one.
Zhi Ze caught it, shook his head, and paid. “Troublemaker.”
Cen Le smiled and took a bite. “Let’s go.”
Shi Deng waited until they left before going up himself, standing at the shop window. He said to the owner, “Hello, I’d like to buy an ice cream. Orange flavor—”
“Brother!” An orange-flavored ice cream was held before him. Shi Deng froze.
Yuan Ting had run back over at some point, eyes enthusiastic, seeming somewhat embarrassed. “Well, buy one get one free, right? We had one extra. It’d be a waste not to eat it. If you don’t mind, this one’s for you!”
Sister Le and Zhi Ze turned back from not far away. They smiled at Shi Deng—friendly but distant smiles.
Shi Deng instinctively caught it.
“Thanks. Actually…”
He paused.
Yuan Ting grinned. “See you~”
He said goodbye, turned, and ran to join his companions.
The youth in a light camel-colored long coat stood by the street, holding the familiar orange-flavored ice cream in his hand, thinking—actually—
Your ice cream should have been the right number.
Sister Le would have stood beside them, biting her peach-flavored ice cream, watching her three companion-brothers argue and put their arms around each other’s shoulders, then walk away together.
Shi Deng watched them. But as he watched, that fourth phantom figure disappeared.
He stood in place and took a bite of ice cream.
…
The scene shifted again.
Amid raging flames everywhere, a special-grade exotic beast was destroying the city.
The wind lifted Shi Deng’s dark red hair tips.
He stepped on Yuan Ting’s back, grinding down. Not far away, Zhi Ze half-knelt on the ground. Cen Le’s face was covered in blood as she summoned a weak healing light to treat Zhi Ze.
Shi Deng laughed quietly, saying to the youth beneath his foot who kept resisting, “I investigated you. A few years ago, your sister and mother both died at Yuan Guang’s hands.”
“That’s why you joined Tiangu, thinking you could protect others now, right?”
“The elite team. Quite impressive indeed.”
Shi Deng: “How about I kill them right in front of you first?”
He wiped the dust from his boot clean on Yuan Ting’s back. The moment it touched the ground, Yuan Ting desperately grabbed hold of it.
Yuan Ting spat out a mouthful of bloody foam. The tip of his nose smelled the unpleasant asphalt and dust from the ground. Heat waves rolled. He struggled to lift his head, roaring toward Zhi Ze and Cen Le, “Run—!”
The Yuan Guang leader with deep blue eyes tilted his head back slightly and closed his eyes, seemingly taking a breath of relief. The next second, he kicked Yuan Ting flying!
Bang! The originally bold and enthusiastic youth slammed hard against the building wall, life or death unknown.
Cen Le’s pupils contracted sharply. “Yuan Ting!!”
She’d lost all strength and couldn’t walk over. She could only grit her teeth and deploy her area healing with full force, barely covering Yuan Ting.
“He told you to flee. Why didn’t you?”
Shi Deng walked over, crouched down, lifted Zhi Ze’s chin, and patted his face.
“So stupid.”
During the first reset, Shi Deng hadn’t fully grasped his time ability yet, so for some choices, he temporarily didn’t dare make active changes.
After killing the previous leader, imprisoning the black fog, and dealing with so many elders, after removing some unreasonable systems, Shi Deng made no other changes.
He truly became Yuan Guang’s leader, doing every single thing his predecessor leader had done in his memory.
He imprisoned a mass of chaotic black fog, but seemed to have imprisoned himself as well.
Shi Deng even coldly made himself his former companions’ whetstone.
Black fog contamination began from the heart. What you feared, it would show you. Shi Deng remembered that last time, Yuan Ting and the other two had taken too long to break free from their fears.
Perhaps if they’d broken free one second earlier, they could have survived.
He understood all too well what Yuan Ting, Zhi Ze, and Sister Le feared and dreaded most in their hearts.
Shi Deng released Zhi Ze’s chin and said, “It’s all your misjudgment that led to you facing your current predicament. Didn’t you think you could control everything?”
“Special-grade support type, main healer, domain augmentation—very good. But Cen Le, you still can’t help your companions now, can you? Useless.”
Shi Deng raised his hand. The second before striking, Cen Le withdrew her healing and deployed a slowing domain on him.
Shi Deng paused slightly.
Zhi Ze’s eyes snapped open. His unusual gray pupils brightened dramatically. Pulling Cen Le back rapidly, he said hoarsely, “…Grand Prophecy Technique!”
Countless transparent threads capable of glimpsing human destiny flew from his palm. Shi Deng quickly dodged.
At the same time, Yuan Ting, who’d shown no movement, suddenly erupted with intense, terrifying black lightning infused with corrosion and high temperature.
He leaped into the air, eyes blazing like fire, hating evil like an enemy. Extending his hand, a long blade flickering with lightning suddenly appeared in his palm.
Yuan Ting swung the blade at Shi Deng. “That orange-flavored ice cream I gave you—I must’ve been blind then—!!”
Shi Deng smiled, his figure retreating. In the fierce flames and night wind, one thread prophesying destiny touched this young leader’s fingertip.
Instantly, bright red light blazed, vivid as blood.
***
wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 50.1