Heart Devil.
What… was a Heart Devil?
Neither Zou Lian nor Xian Yuan had ever explained anything about Heart Devils to Little Snake.
For one thing, in their eyes, the Little Snake Demon’s cultivation realm hadn’t reached that level yet. For another, given Little Snake’s personality, it seemed pretty unlikely that she’d ever develop one.
“The Postnatal Realm tempers the body, the Innate Realm tempers the spirit,” the Ghost King explained. “Only when both body and soul are prepared can one step onto the grand path of cultivation. Treading the Void is the first step. To enter this realm, one must choose their own ‘Dao’.”
“Oh…”
The clever Little Snake put on an expression that screamed, Yes, yes, that’s right, got it!
“However,” the Ghost King glanced up at Yin Luan and continued her explanation, “the process of choosing a ‘Dao’ is incredibly arduous and perilous. One misstep, and you’ll die without so much as a burial plot. Do you want to know what Dao I chose?”
Yin Luan shook her head vigorously.
“Guess first.”
“Mei’er said you cultivate a unique ‘Ghost Technique,’ so I figured you must follow the ‘Ghost Dao’?”
The Little Snake Demon thought for a moment before replying.
“No, the Ghost Technique is merely a cultivation art I created. It’s not my Dao,” the Ghost King refuted. “What I cultivate… is the Heartless Dao.”
As they conversed, the person paired with Mei’er had their left ear sliced clean off. Their agonized screams echoed shrilly through the air.
Yet in the face of her own impending punishment, Mei’er showed no reaction whatsoever—not fear, not excitement—as if she had long foreseen this moment.
“Heartless Dao,” Yin Luan mused. “From the name, it sounds like a cultivation path that demands ‘severing the seven emotions and six desires’?”
“It’s not quite that straightforward,” the beautiful Ghost King replied coolly, “but you can think of it in those broad terms.”
What a ‘Dao’ truly was remained beyond the current Little Snake’s grasp. But what baffled her even more was why the Ghost King had chosen such a path.
Wait… could it be…
“Forced into the Dao,” Yin Luan swallowed hard. “You didn’t choose the Heartless Dao of your own free will. You had to ‘enter the Dao’ to save her?”
The Ghost King lounging on her gilded throne neither confirmed nor denied it. Not even her eyes betrayed a flicker of emotion.
Now it all made sense.
If she’d entered the Heartless Dao to save someone, that person would inevitably become her deepest “bond.”
A bond was an emotion too—and one of the strongest kinds.
Cultivation path on one side, emotion on the other. The two were fundamentally at odds.
That was why the Ghost King called Mei’er her “Heart Devil.”
Down below on the stage, Mei’er’s right ear was lopped off with a single stroke of the blade. She didn’t make a sound, simply waiting in silence for fate to unfold.
“Second place: Cane Punishment!”
The Green-Robed Matron was forced face-down to the ground. One of the servants hefted a specially made wooden cane and brought it crashing down.
“Ah—! You little bitch! You had what it took to claim first but threw the game to come second, dragging me into this punishment!” she snarled between blows. “Just wait till we get out of here—I’ll make you pay!”
The punishment for second place wasn’t as gory as that for third or fourth, but cane strike after cane strike—even this sprite, whose strength rivaled at least Innate Mid-Stage—could barely endure the agony.
Ren Tan, whose power topped out at Postnatal Peak, would be beaten to death from the pain, wouldn’t she?
This had to be the “something’s wrong” they’d been waiting for.
Yin Luan dropped all pretense and spoke directly to the Ghost King.
“I’m not curious about you, or your master-disciple drama, or whatever’s going on with this ship—not even a little. We came here for one Soul-Reviving Pill. Hand it over, and we’ll leave right now!”
“Want the prize?” the Ghost King replied indifferently. “Finish the game. Those are the rules.”
Ren Tan was pinned to the ground as well. The servant raised the cane high, poised to bring it down.
“I don’t want to rob you,” Yin Luan’s expression darkened as her aura erupted. “Make a trade offer if you want, but don’t hurt my companion like this!”
The sudden surge of powerful aura from behind the pearl curtain drew every eye below—even the servant mid-swing froze in place.
“I’m not forcing you,” the Ghost King lifted one hand and clenched her fist lightly. Yin Luan’s body constricted instantly, bound as if by invisible ropes, rendering her immobile. “This was your choice.”
“Hiss hiss!”
Sensing the threat, the power lurking within the Snake Demon’s body stirred instinctively, ready to burst forth.
“Yin Luan!” Ren Tan shouted from where she lay pinned to the ground. “This is my fight! I decide if we keep going!”
At her companion’s voice, the eerie, chilling glow rising in the Little Snake Demon’s pupils faded away.
“But…”
She responded with evident concern.
“Believe me,” the Eldest Young Lady said, enunciating each word deliberately. “Please!”
Yin Luan glanced down at the Eldest Young Lady in the audience, then back at the Ghost King standing before her. After a moment’s hesitation, she let out a sigh.
“Fine, you’re calling the shots…”
A direct confrontation with the Ghost King was the worst possible strategy—far worse than most. They might not even win, and even if they did, securing the Soul-Reviving Pill would be nearly impossible.
She knew Ren Tan was worried that battling the Ghost King would put her in grave danger. Unless they were truly backed into a corner, force wasn’t the answer.
The wooden staff came down on the Eldest Young Lady again and again, contorting her face in agony. She clenched her teeth until they nearly shattered, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.
Yet she didn’t utter a single cry.
The Little Snake Demon’s heart ached at the sight, and she turned her gaze away.
“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Yin Luan said to the Ghost King. “If Mei’er’s goal is ‘to seek death,’ why come back here and end it like this?”
“Her goal isn’t death,” the Ghost King replied, lowering her hand. The binding force vanished in an instant. “It’s to shatter my Heart Devil. She wants to confront my Heartless Dao head-on in front of me, in a way that feels ‘justified,’ forcing me to choose. Only then can the Heart Devil be broken.”
“To put it simply,” Yin Luan said gravely, “she can’t just die offhandedly or make it too obvious she’s throwing her life away. You have to witness it yourself. You have to personally wipe out that final flicker of tenderness in your heart, that last lingering attachment, that fading memory. Only then does she succeed, right?”
“…That’s right.”
The Ghost King paused for a beat before confirming it.
“Then why did you let her go last time and only take half her soul?”
The Little Snake Demon demanded.
“Because,” the Ghost King said after a long silence, “my Dao heart wasn’t steady.”
“Snap out of it,” Yin Luan urged. “Think hard about why you set foot on the Heartless Dao to begin with.”
The Ghost King fell silent and offered no reply.
~~~
After the first round, everyone grasped the game’s brutality.
These punishments might not kill on their own, but stacking three last-place finishes? That was another story.
Even survival could mean flayed skin, shattered bones, and a lifetime as a cripple. What good was a reward then?
Solo players scrambled for ways to protect themselves. Teammates debated who should claim the top spots and who the bottom.
Some fought tooth and nail for first to dodge the pain, while their bonded partners urged them to yield it, sparing them the torment.
Different minds, clashing ambitions—even within the same team, goals pulled in opposite directions.
The game’s mechanics themselves? They’d faded into irrelevance.
Yin Luan watched Ren Tan and Xiao Luo, her anxiety mounting, yet she felt utterly powerless.
“Look, cultivate your Heartless Dao if you must,” she couldn’t resist saying to the Ghost King. “But why run a game this twisted? Just to indulge some sick hobby?”
“That holds no appeal for me,” the Ghost King answered. “It’s a regrettable necessity.”
“Necessity?” Yin Luan’s mind raced. “To fend off your Heart Devil?”
The Ghost King nodded.
“Despairing emotions bolster my defenses against the Heart Devil’s assault,” she explained slowly. “The instant it’s pierced, this Ghost King Ship meets its end.”
“Unbelievable… utterly insane…”
The Little Snake Demon racked her brain but couldn’t puzzle out how Despairing Souls countered a Heart Devil. Still, the Ghost King’s tone rang true—no deception there.
No reason for lies, either.
The second round wrapped up: Mei’er took first, Xiao Luo second, Ren Tan third.
Mei’er likely hadn’t cared about avoiding punishment, but her teammate? She was desperate not to perish on this vessel.
“Ren Tan, I…”
Xiao Luo clutched her head, eyes brimming with remorse and guilt. She couldn’t even muster the courage to meet the Eldest Young Lady’s gaze.
The first-place finish last round, the second this time—Ren Tan had maneuvered her into both.
When it came to mastering these games, the Eldest Young Lady might be the sharpest in the room. Even sabotaged, she’d still boosted her partner’s rank.
“Sorry I couldn’t snag you first,” Ren Tan said with a hearty laugh. “This game’s got a few tricky layers.”
“You bitch! You goddamn bitch! Wanna die? Do it without dragging me down!”
The Green-Robed Matron—who’d chatted them up amiably on the way to the hall—had devolved into a raving maniac. She shrieked and lunged at Ren Tan.
Without that human sabotaging her, first place was hers for the taking!
But before she could close the distance on the Eldest Young Lady, a fierce gust of wind blasted through. It hurled the beautiful woman aside, slamming her into the ground in a spray of blood.
“Fighting is prohibited inside the ship,” the Golden Glyph Servant retracted his hand and warned. “Violators will bear the consequences themselves.”
With the situation suppressed, the punishments began.
The little snake demon behind the beaded curtain grew anxious once more.
“No, that really won’t do. If Ren Tan comes back missing an arm or a leg, how am I supposed to explain that to everyone? Change the punishment!”
“I said, don’t interfere with the game…”
“Wah wah wah, change the punishment!”
Little Snake hugged the Ghost King’s thigh and rubbed her face against it vigorously, pleading coquettishly in a childish, milky voice.
“Are you sure?” The Ghost King saw that she was just short of sticking out her tongue to lick and relented. “Fine, third place will get a different punishment.”
“Third place: Soul Tempering Punishment!”
The servants hauled in an unlit furnace, pinned down the Green-Robed Matron, and shoved her head inside.
“Why is it always me getting punished first? Can’t you…”
Before she could finish speaking, the Green-Robed Matron’s head entered the furnace.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
There were no flames and no smoke, yet everyone present heard a sound like burning firewood.
“Urgh… urgh… urgh…”
The beautiful woman formed from the Heart Linking Grass convulsed violently. Her mouth seemed desperate to make a sound, but not a single complete syllable escaped.
A servant nearby kept time. After thirty breaths, she was dragged out—eyes vacant, foam dribbling from her mouth, limbs gone limp as if she were dead.
The little snake demon suddenly sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.
“Hold on, hold on! If you ruin the Eldest Young Lady, how am I going to explain it when I get back? Change it again, change it…”
The Ghost King clearly had no intention of being so accommodating.
Ren Tan was pressed into the furnace with a smile on her face. After the same interval, she too was dragged out. Her condition wasn’t as dire as the Green-Robed Matron’s, but she remained dazed for a long while.
“Let me take the next one,” Xiao Luo said as she helped Ren Tan to her feet. “My recovery ability is stronger than yours. We need to conserve our strength for the final round.”
Ren Tan managed a feeble smile but said nothing.
This time, Xiao Luo endured the cane punishment, howling in agony the whole way through.
It wasn’t a matter of weak willpower—the wooden staff carried a special power that struck pain straight into the soul.
It was impossible to imagine the horrors of tempering one’s soul in flames.
Once the punishments ended, the third round commenced.
By this point, the scene had descended into utter chaos.
Those desperate to protect themselves grew even more frenzied in their efforts, while even the bonded pairs began to diverge in their thinking.
“Your companion,” the Ghost King said. “The bonds between them are obstructing the team’s path to victory.”
Ren Tan was manipulating the rankings again, trying to secure first or second place for Xiao Luo.
The Little Radish Spirit stared in shock, her mouth opening and closing, but direct communication was forbidden during the game, leaving her speechless.
I told her to let me handle it this time—why is she still doing this?
Xiao Luo frowned in anguish, but soon her gaze hardened with resolve. She shook her head firmly at Ren Tan, rejecting the help.
“In truth, I don’t collect only despairing souls,” the Ghost King said. “Any soul brimming with enough pain or intense emotions can be used to combat heart devils.”
Take, for instance, these people whose bonds were on the verge of shattering.
“With Ren Tan’s constitution, she might not survive a third punishment,” Yin Luan said. “In this chaos, it’ll be nearly impossible for her to claim first place for herself or Xiao Luo…”
What a repulsive game.
From the moment they boarded the ship, the atmosphere and environment here had made the little snake demon feel deeply uneasy.
“I don’t care anymore,” the little snake demon said earnestly. “I can’t just sit here and watch my companions suffer like this! Let’s fight to the…”
Little Snake’s words cut off abruptly. The beautiful Ghost King, who had remained seated on her throne throughout, rose to her feet without warning.
“…death! Uh, I-I’m not scared of you! They call me the Immortal Slayer—you’d better surrender quick…”
Yin Luan took two steps back, eyeing the stunning beauty before her and nervously flicking out her tongue.
But the Ghost King ignored the provocation entirely. Instead, she turned her gaze in another direction, her expression shifting.
“What’s wrong?”
The little snake demon ventured cautiously.
“A ship is approaching,” the Ghost King murmured. “Several of them, and there are experts aboard.”
“You can see outside?” Yin Luan asked. “Could it be a passing fleet?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I can sense it—they’re coming for me.”
~~~
Under the moonlight, upon the Long River.
One vessel after another closed in on the enormous Ghost King Ship, arraying themselves in a pincer formation that sealed off every possible escape route.
In the lead flagship, a graceful figure stood at the bow. She removed the mask from her face and casually tossed it onto the river’s surface, letting it drift away.
“What a beautiful ship. I hear the person inside is a beauty as well… Haha, Voidtreading Expert, I want to see just how strong you are!”
