The mud house was dimly lit, permeated with a strong odor of herbs mixed with rotting flesh.

An emaciated old man lay on a wooden bed, emitting unconscious moans. Though covered with a tattered blanket, his exposed skin showed dark purple patches. From the center of these patches, tiny fungal growths—like flower stamens—had broken through the skin, trembling slightly with each breath.


[Medical Check: Critical Failure]

[Sanity Check: Success]

[Analysis: Late-stage symptoms of "Decay Plague." This is not a disease but a forced "plant transformation." The infected will eventually transform into a massive "fungal mat" capable of spreading spores, becoming a nursery for the "King of Decay."]


In the center of the room, a middle-aged man knelt on the ground, using a small bowl to feed the old man spoonfuls of black, foul-smelling viscous liquid.

He seemed oblivious to our intrusion, mechanically repeating the feeding motion.


"Father, drink this 'immortal water,' and you'll be able to go to 'paradise'..." he muttered, a fanatical, vacant smile on his face.

I noticed a faint spiral mark vaguely visible on his neck.

This village... was already finished.

They weren't slaughtered but transformed. The villagers had willingly accepted the "blessing" from the "King of Decay," turning themselves and their loved ones into cultivation mediums.

This was more chilling than any massacre.

"What... are you doing?"

A cold voice came from the doorway.

It was Chongzhen.

He walked in, his pitch-black eye sockets quietly observing the kneeling middle-aged man.

The man seemed to only then notice us. He slowly turned his head, saw the three uninvited guests, and his smile grew even more sinister.

"Outsiders?" he laughed hoarsely. "Are you... also here to seek 'immortal destiny'? You've come at the right time. The 'immortal master' is giving a sermon. Just drink the 'divine immortal water,' and you can escape this chaotic world's suffering, entering the 'lotus immortal realm' of neither birth nor death..."

As he spoke, he picked up the bowl of black liquid and shakily walked toward us.

I instinctively stepped back. The sweet, putrid smell emanating from the bowl made me dizzy from just one whiff.

Wang Cheng'en, terrified, hid behind me.

But Chongzhen didn't move.

He watched the man as one might watch an insect crawling toward them.

"Mortals... are always so foolish," he said in that emotionless, multilayered tone. "Taking stench for fragrance, destruction for salvation."

The man seemed not to understand, still smiling as he offered the bowl.

Just as his hand was about to touch Chongzhen's dragon robe, Chongzhen moved.

He simply raised his hand and, with his index finger, gently flicked the clay bowl.

*Ding.*

A crisp sound rang out.

In the next second, the middle-aged man, the bowl in his hand, the old man on the bed, and even the inner walls of the mud house were instantly covered with a grayish-white substance.

The texture resembled... weathered stone.

["Black Dragon's Curse" ability activated: Annihilation]

[Instantly maximizing the entropy of matter, returning it to the most primitive, most disordered state of "stillness"]

No explosion, no shockwave.

Only absolute, thorough, conceptual "death."

The thriving fungi, the fanatical followers, the twisted viruses—all teeming with life just a second ago—instantly turned to basic, meaningless dust.

A breeze blew in from the entrance, and the three human silhouettes that had been "annihilated" into dust dispersed in the air, as if they had never existed.

I stared blankly at the scene, a chill running up my spine to the top of my head.

Was this the true power of the "Black Dragon's Curse"? Not distortion, not devouring, but... complete erasure.

If the power of the "King of Decay" was a slow, flourishing, life-filled "evil," then Chongzhen's power was an absolute, cold, all-ending "death."

"Let's go," Chongzhen said, showing no interest in his handiwork as he turned to leave. "The 'sacrifices' here... are too inferior."

I pulled up the nearly paralyzed Wang Chengen and followed.

We passed through the deathly silent village, encountering no more "living beings." All houses had their doors tightly shut, with twisted spirals painted on them. The entire village resembled a massive tomb.

In the threshing floor at the village center, we saw the "Immortal Master" they had mentioned.

It was a massive mountain of flesh, ten meters high, formed by countless villagers' corpses and fungal mats piled together. At the top sat a figure in Taoist robes, similarly covered in fungal growths. This was the "Immortal Master," the regional representative of the "King of Decay."

He was already dead.

His body, like the flesh mountain beneath him, was covered with a thick layer of grayish-white "Annihilation" dust, devoid of all life.

Chongzhen didn't even spare him a glance.

We silently crossed the threshing floor, heading toward the village's far end.

There, we found what we needed—a stable.

Inside were three emaciated horses, some scattered hay, and a bag of black beans. In one corner, we discovered a clay pot filled with water and half a bag of hardened dry rations.

This was the only place in the village untouched by "decay" or "annihilation."

I didn't know if this was fortunate, or if... Chongzhen had deliberately spared it.

Perhaps, in his logic, a "tool" serving as a "navigation system" required basic "maintenance."

I shared water and dried food with Wang Cheng'en. He received them with trembling hands and devoured them ravenously. The nourishment seemed to restore a bit of his consciousness. He looked at me, lips quivering, wanting to speak yet unable to form words.

I patted his shoulder without saying anything.

The three of us, each with a horse, left this desolate village that had been crushed by two successive evils.

With horses, our traveling speed increased significantly. We followed the official road westward, advancing toward the Taihang Mountains.

Along the way, we witnessed more human tragedies. Abandoned villages, slaughtered towns, refugees fleeing with their families... the entire North China Plain had become a slaughterhouse.

But strangely, we encountered no significant resistance—neither from Li Zicheng's rebel army nor from other evil deity cultists.

It was as if an invisible hand cleared our path.

I knew this wasn't an illusion.

It was Chongzhen.

The deathly stillness of "the end of all things" emanating from him was the most effective "crowd control." Any creature with basic survival instincts instinctively avoided this walking "natural disaster."

We had become the most bizarre, most illogical "safe zone" in this apocalyptic wasteland.

At dusk, we arrived at a post station.

The station had long been abandoned, but the main structure remained intact. We decided to spend the night there.

As we lit a bonfire, I distributed the last of our dried rations.

Wang Cheng'en's mental state had improved—he even voluntarily tended to the horses. Perhaps the mechanical labor helped him temporarily forget the horrors we'd witnessed.

I sat by the campfire, lost in thought.

Chongzhen's power far exceeded my imagination. His very existence massively disrupted this world's balance. I needed to find a way to limit him, or... guide him.

Just then, a hoarse voice sounded in my ear.

"Are you... afraid of Us?"

I looked up to see Chongzhen sitting across from me, his pitch-black eye sockets appearing even more profound under the dancing firelight.

This was the second time he had initiated "non-mission" communication with me.

His "AI" had evolved again.