A soft chuckle left Yanwei's lips. "Ho? Someone still remembers that title?"
Zhang barely registered his own words as he responded. He wasn't thinking—he was speaking before he could understand why. The words left his lips as if dragged from the depths of his being, from something far more instinctual than conscious thought. "How could I forget? Your explosion was so flashy I'm sure everyone who attended that gathering you orchestrated still remembers it."
Yanwei only smiled. He didn't react as if Zhang had said anything of importance, as if the words didn't hold weight at all. He stood there, perfectly at ease, blood pooling at his feet yet never touching him.
Zhang felt it then. The creeping, gnawing dread curling around his lungs, tightening like an iron grip. And suddenly, a realization settled in.
Almost everyone here knew of that disaster. A calamity that had nearly wiped out entire cities, an event whispered about in fear. But all they had ever known was that it had been the work of the so-called "number one demon."
Now, they understood who Zhang was talking about.
It hit them like a slow-moving avalanche—unstoppable, suffocating.
"No—No way…"
"Haha, Zhang, what the hell are you talking about?" A voice broke in, laughter forced and cracking at the edges.
"You're going crazy!" someone else spat, anger laced with unease.
"That guy—the number one demon?! Are you stupid? A Rank 1?!"
Their voices rose, overlapping, growing louder, but Zhang barely heard them. His breathing had turned shallow, his pulse hammering against his skull. Neither he nor Yanwei paid them any attention.
Yanwei simply chuckled. "Hehe, indeed. Too bad those old men reacted too fast."
Zhang's heart pounded so violently he thought it might burst from his chest. A cold sweat clung to his skin. He didn't understand it—this feeling twisting inside him. It wasn't just fear. It was something deeper. Something more suffocating than simple dread.
"You're laughing?" His voice wavered, but the intensity remained. His breath was uneven, but his steps were firm as he took one forward. His body screamed at him to run, but his pride refused. "Do you even realize what you almost did? You nearly committed a calamity against the entire human race—your own race!"
Yanwei only laughed.
A quiet, amused sound.
Zhang's stomach churned.
And then, tilting his head, his voice came soft yet sharp, laced with a mockery that burned.
"So?"
Zhang froze.
Yanwei's abyss-like eyes glowed faintly, reflecting nothing, swallowing the battlefield whole. His lips curled ever so slightly. "What does that have to do with me?"
Zhang's throat tightened. His nails bit into his palms. "You don't even have an ounce of guilt!?" The words came sharper, louder, trying to drown out the weight pressing down on his chest. "No matter what you say, you're still a human! You were born as one—how dare you punish your own race?! What did humanity ever do to you?"
Yanwei's smile didn't falter. If anything, it deepened, something almost playful dancing in his gaze. He exhaled lightly, as if humoring an exhausting conversation.
Zhang braced himself. He didn't know what he was expecting—but it wasn't what came next.
"Well, first of all, I don't feel guilty at all." His voice remained casual, unwavering.
Zhang felt like he'd been doused in ice water.
"Second, I am not human anymore."
His abyss-like eyes gleamed, drinking in the light.
Zhang felt his breathing hitch.
"And third—nothing."
Nothing.
The battlefield was silent.
Yanwei took another step forward, deliberate, unhurried. His smile remained, but there was something else now—a weight behind his words, behind his presence.
Zhang's stomach twisted. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
"Humanity did nothing to me," Yanwei said, each syllable carrying the weight of inevitability. "I simply felt like creating a farewell for every race. Not just humans—demons, beasts, spirits, gods. All of them."
Zhang's blood ran cold.
His smile widened, as if relishing the sheer absurdity of it all.
"Stop acting like a victim."
Zhang's breath hitched.
"As if humanity is some righteous, pitiful little thing," Yanwei continued, voice like silk, yet edged with something sharp, something that cut deeper than any blade. "Full of hypocrites. They blame other races for their own incompetence. They twist history to their liking. They steal, they kill, they destroy, they manipulate, they betray."
His gaze flickered toward Zhang, piercing straight through him.
Zhang felt pinned in place, as if those abyss-like eyes had swallowed him whole.
"They only act righteous when it suits them. And when their pride is hurt, they will justify anything."
The words landed like blows, each one hammering deeper into Zhang's chest.
His fingers curled into fists, his nails digging into his palm so hard they nearly drew blood.
But Zhang had no answer.
His lips parted, but no sound came. He couldn't refute it—not completely.
And that realization settled like ice in his veins.
So he asked something else instead.
"…If humanity wronged you so badly," Zhang started, his voice quiet but strained, "why didn't you just use your strength to help people—not to go through the same experiences you've had?"
For a moment, Yanwei didn't respond.
He simply watched Zhang. Playful, relaxed. Nonchalant. As if the question wasn't worth considering.
Zhang's fists trembled slightly.
Deep down, he already knew this was pointless.
Yanwei wasn't someone he could reason with.
And yet.
His words spilled out, almost desperate. "You—" His breath came shakily. "You could've saved millions."
There it was.
A glimpse of something buried deep within Zhang—something unshaken even in the face of absolute terror. The dream of saving lives. Of being the hero.
Yanwei merely chuckled.
He stepped closer.
Zhang's breath stilled. His muscles tensed, every instinct screaming at him.
This time, Zhang didn't move. Couldn't move.
"Well," Yanwei murmured, tilting his head slightly, "a lot of times, I don't bother answering questions."
His smile curved into something sharper.
Zhang felt like the world was caving in.
"And you have no right to question me."
Zhang inhaled sharply.
"None of you do."
Yanwei's voice dipped lower, softer, yet it crashed over them like a tidal wave. "But as a dying farewell, I'll humor you." His abyss-like eyes gleamed with something unreadable. "Three questions. That's all you get. Who knows—maybe if I like your questions, I'll spare you."
Zhang's mind blanked.
A chance.
A hint.
Survival.
His breath came quicker, his pulse hammering against his skull. He should take it. He had to take it.
But—
His fingers twitched.
A hero doesn't negotiate with a monster.
The thought clawed at his mind, warring against the sheer, primal instinct to survive.
But this wasn't a battle he could win.
He had no choice.
He swallowed hard, forcing himself to speak. "Why do you hate humanity enough to blow yourself up just to take them down?"
Yanwei blinked. And then, a low, almost amused sigh left his lips.
"I don't hate anyone." He smiled faintly, as if entertained by the question itself. "And, as I said before—humans weren't the only ones nearly wiped out."
Zhang forced himself to stay composed, but the slight tremor in his voice betrayed him. "Second question—what is your belief?"
Yanwei raised an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly, as if the question mildly amused him. He seemed to consider it for a moment before his lips curled into an effortless smile.
"I don't have one."
Zhang could barely breathe.
And then Yanwei spoke.
The words fell like a casual remark, light and indifferent, yet somehow carrying the weight of something far more sinister.
"I simply enjoy playing with the lives of geniuses."
His voice was almost lazy, yet the meaning behind it seeped into the air like poison. A creeping, unsettling wrongness.
Somewhere among the trembling figures, a cannon fodder swallowed hard. The burly man's fingers twitched. The woman's breath came out uneven.
"Watching them compete, kill, conspire—"
Each word was slow. Measured.
"—form alliances, betray each other—"
The skinny man clenched his jaw, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. Something about the way Yanwei spoke, so unbothered, so certain, made it feel as if he wasn't speaking of mere concepts but of realities he had crafted over and over again.
"—and the peak of it all?"
He let out a soft chuckle, his abyss-like eyes narrowing with something almost akin to delight.
Zhang could hear his own heartbeat. Louder than it should be.
"That moment when they believe they've finally won… when they stand at the summit, certain they've left everyone else in the dust…"
Yanwei took a step forward, casual, unhurried. And yet, with that single movement, an overwhelming pressure settled over the battlefield, crushing the breath from their lungs.
Linglong, barely clinging to consciousness, felt something deeper than fear—it was an instinctual, visceral dread. Even Yun, who had once thought herself numb to fear under Yanwei's command, felt her fingers tremble slightly.
"Only for me to appear."
His abyss-like eyes glowed faintly in the dying light, a black void that swallowed everything whole.
"To crush their dreams—"
Someone let out a sharp breath, almost a whimper.
"To trample their pride—"
The woman stiffened, her face pale.
"To erase their very existence."
A deathly silence fell.
Not the silence of shock, nor the silence of thought. But the silence of prey when they realize they've already been caught.
It was at that moment that every single person—no matter how clueless they had been before—finally understood what Zhang had meant.
This was not just a man.
Not just a monster.
Not just a legend.
This was something that was never meant to exist.