To Lu Yan, it felt like many things in life seemed to present a choice, when in reality, there was never any room for negotiation at all.

For instance, consider a university dog who, upon graduating, doesn’t return home to inherit the family company but instead goes through the grueling grind of looking for a job. Is it because he or she actually likes working?

It’s because there isn’t a company at home to inherit in the first place.

It was exactly like his current situation.

Lu Yan deliberated for a mere three seconds before answering, “I don’t care about the future. I only want to know which choice makes it easier for me to kill Lu Cheng.”

The System: [The second one, if things go smoothly.]

Lu Yan replied, “Fine. Tell me what to do.”

[The pollutant joining the fray this time is… I won’t say his name, you already know it anyway. One of his talents is called ‘Divine Descent,’ which allows him to turn his believers’ bodies into his disposable vessels. These vessels can obtain up to one-tenth of his strength at most. Don’t go thinking that one-tenth of an S-Rank pollutant is just 1,000 points of pollution value… it doesn’t work that way.]

[Without exception, these vessels will burst and die after being used by him. But he doesn’t care, because he has such vessels all over the world. The most disgusting part is that as long as a single vessel remains, he will never truly die.]

[His second talent is called ‘Conversion.’ As the leader of the Elysium Sect, he relied heavily on this talent to preach in his early days. This is also the reason why he wants to descend now. As long as he can convert Tang Xun’an to the Elysium Sect, he will possess the most powerful believer.]

[After all, as a spiritual-type S-Rank pollutant, he’s great at playing God and putting on a spooky show, but if it comes down to an actual fight, he’s a total combat weakling among those of the same rank. He needs someone to charge enemy lines for him.]

In the records of the Awakener Forum, there was no final verdict yet on what kind of creature the Holy Lord actually was. But hearing the System’s tone, the Holy Lord had also been an ordinary human in the beginning.

To be able to carry the Elysium Sect to such dizzying heights of prosperity, the Holy Lord’s performance back when he was a salesman must have been exceptionally stellar.

[Therefore, what you need to do now is eliminate as many of his vessels as possible. He is capable of descending into multiple bodies simultaneously.]

A map lit up within Lu Yan’s mind.

It was the same map of the Botanical Garden that the Prevention and Control Center had sent over initially. Now, more than twenty light spots glowed upon the image. Among them, one particular light spot was a stark red.

[The red one is the source of this outbreak, Chen Anzhi. The remaining green light spots are the new cultists he has developed.]

Out of the mere 60 trainees currently in the entire training center, who would have thought that Chen Anzhi had actually turned more than a third of them.

[The ones he could target were all people whose vigilance wasn’t that high, and whose spiritual power thresholds weren’t elevated. However, as vessels, they’re already good enough. They’re just single-use items anyway.]

Lu Yan said, “I want to go take care of Chen Anzhi first.”

[You can, but he won’t be that easy to kill. Besides, there’s an iron fist of justice right beside him.]

Lu Yan didn’t reply. Instead, he began moving in the direction of the red dot.

During his studies over the past two months, tracking and counter-tracking happened to be the subjects he excelled at the most.

Night fell.

Around the perimeter of the Botanical Garden, small sleeping bags were pitched one after another.

Having completed their day’s tasks, the trainees prepared to take a short rest.

This was precisely why the teams had to be strictly formed of three people during the initial grouping.

For a single person to survive under these circumstances would simply be too arduous.

Zhou Zheng pulled an automated hemostatic agent out of the medical kit, gritted his teeth, and yanked the venomous bee stinger out of his arm.

The bee hook at the abdomen of that pollutant had evolved barbs. Furthermore, Zhou Zheng hadn’t paid attention during first-aid class, so when he pulled it out, it hooked out a large chunk of flesh, causing blood to instantly gush like a torrent.

Beside him, Chen Anzhi’s expression was filled with guilt. “I’m sorry, Brother Zhou. If it weren’t to save me, you wouldn’t have been injured.”

Zhou Zheng dismissed it carelessly. “What does that matter? You’re a spiritual type; of course you aren’t as handy as a pure physical-attack combat type like me. Even with my iron arms, it still pierced this deep. If it had hit you, wouldn’t it have poked a hole clean through?”

It had to be said that Zhou Zheng still retained a lot of the “brotherly loyalty” from his days mingling in the streets.

“But damn it,” Zhou Zheng cursed, “there are way too many pollutants along the way. I wonder if Lu Yan is still alive.”

Chen Anzhi’s eyes flickered, looking somewhat bewitching under the reflection of the deep crimson campfire.

He said, “I’ll keep watch tonight. I’m a spiritual-type Awakener, so skipping a night of sleep doesn’t affect me much. You’re injured, so you should rest first.”

Zhou Zheng didn’t refuse. After treating the wounds on his body, he dove straight into his sleeping bag.

There was, of course, a reason why they had encountered so many pollutants.

Lu Yan had pricked his own finger and smeared blood along the path the two were bound to take. The pungent scent of vegetation masked the metallic smell of blood beautifully, and the tree trunks were extremely dark in color; except for natural predators, no one would ever notice it.

Now, he had finally waited out the night.

His night-vision capability meant that Lu Yan didn’t even require a source of fire.

Crouching in ambush upon a treetop, he quietly bided his time.

The downside of cold weapons was their tendency to reflect light, which was why Lu Yan hadn’t drawn an arrow yet.

He watched Chen Anzhi pull a scented candle from his backpack, light it, and place it before himself.

As a devout cultist, Chen Anzhi would preach to the new cultists he had developed within their dreams every single night.

His table was already crowded with blank, bewildered souls, merely awaiting the descent of their god.

Barring any accidents, tonight would be the final page of the Old Century.

[This dream-invasion ability is truly very annoying.] The System, which hadn’t spoken in a long time, suddenly chimed in. [Once he falls asleep, Chen Anzhi can perceive any nearby spiritual constructs.]

Lu Yan frowned, preparing to retreat.

[The only saving grace is that he wants to kill you too. No particular reason—he plays the big philanthropist too much during the day, so his personality has long since twisted. He just finds you highly obnoxious.]

[Though I can understand that last part. Excellent people are always bound to be envied.]

Chen Anzhi only closed his eyes for half a minute before slowly opening them again.

The corners of his mouth still held that compliant, harmless smile.

Chen Anzhi glanced at the sleeping bag and extinguished the campfire. Judging by his posture, it seemed he wanted to ease himself in the woods.

Lu Yan naturally followed.

Chen Anzhi knew Lu Yan was there and wanted to kill him. Thus, he wanted to utilize this information asymmetry to turn the hunter into the prey.

He thought he was playing 5D chess on the fifth floor.

He had no idea that because Lu Yan possessed the omniscient cheating tool that was the System, Lu Yan was operating all the way from the stratosphere.

[Mmh, he lit some calming incense. This kind of incense can temporarily force a person quickly into a state of deep sleep. But because it’s easy to be startled awake by external force, he seems to want to hypnotize you into committing suicide.]

Holding his breath wasn’t too difficult for Lu Yan. He possessed two respiratory systems.

Lu Yan patted a bit of water behind his ears. It wasn’t a lot, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about suffocation.

He walked toward the direction where Chen Anzhi had left. He moved with utmost caution, making absolutely no sound.

Yet the moment he entered the radius of the calming incense, Lu Yan froze in place like a statue, completely unmoving.

Both of Lu Yan’s eyes closed, his eyelids trembling as the eyeballs beneath underwent rapid eye movement.

After a long while, Chen Anzhi’s figure materialized from behind a tree trunk.

Both of Chen Anzhi’s eyes had now been completely overtaken by pitch-black pupils. Upon closer inspection, the shallow and deep accumulations of pigment on his irises made his pupils look exactly like overlapping black coils of various sizes.

“Your soul is black,” Chen Anzhi said suddenly. Perhaps because he usually spent his time wearing a disguise, he was exceptionally loquacious now. “Ordinary people are blue. Tang Xun’an is golden. The believers are red. Yet yours is black—the same black as those pollutants who still retain their sanity.”

“But you are clearly just a human, and your level of mutation is still very low. Why is that?”

As he spoke, he stepped closer toward Lu Yan.

“Open your eyes and look at me. I know you have already grown weary of this world filled with slaughter and strife, that your soul is already exhausted…” A smile graced Chen Anzhi’s face once more. “Let me take you to the pure land of ultimate bliss and eternal life. No one in this world will ever hurt your soul again.”

Unlike during the day, Chen Anzhi’s face no longer bore a gentle, faint smile. Paired with those eyes of his, it looked incredibly morbid.

Lu Yan opened his eyes exactly as desired, but he explicitly avoided looking into the man’s eyes.

With a reverse grip, he plunged a sharp bee stinger straight into Chen Anzhi’s chest.

Lu Yan’s strike was far too swift. By the time Chen Anzhi could even process what was happening, he felt nothing but a sharp agony in his chest.

Everyone knew Lu Yan was highly skilled with a bow, but no one knew that the weapon he had initially acquired was actually a dagger.

Lu Yan used one hand to clamp down tightly on his throat, choking back his cry for help. His other hand pulled out the relatively short stinger and swapped it for his dagger.

He pinned Chen Anzhi to the ground. The other man’s fair face flushed a violent crimson, and he pushed his hypnosis capability to its absolute limit, yet Lu Yan remained entirely unaffected.

The dagger twisted inside Chen Anzhi’s chest, producing a squelching, sickening sound of churning flesh.

In agony, Chen Anzhi’s hands clawed at Lu Yan’s arms, leaving several shallow scratches. “Wh… Why… are you…”

—Why are you completely unaffected by the hypnosis?

“Yeah, why is that?” Lu Yan asked in return, a hint of mocking coldness flashing deep within his eyes.

Villains always died from talking too much, which was why Lu Yan only began to ramble continuously to the corpse after ensuring Chen Anzhi was thoroughly and completely dead.

“My father didn’t like me; he liked my younger brother.”

“I am an only child, but I do indeed have a younger brother. The doctors called him a split personality. From the moment he was discovered, my father wanted him to come out every single day—so, I was frequently hypnotized. I knew I was being hypnotized. Lu Cheng wanted to kill me to leave this body entirely for himself.”

“My younger brother also used to tell me frequently that if it hurt too much, I didn’t have to endure it. He would bear all of it in my stead.”

“But I will never let him come out. In all these years, he has only ever come out once.”

“That time, after he appeared… a mutation instantly manifested upon my father’s body. I saw a second head grow out from behind Lu Cheng’s back. I felt power, but I was also… terrified because of it. I live in terror. You people won’t understand at all, and no one understands.”

Lu Yan wiped the blood off his face, nodded once more, and said, “I won’t let him out.”