The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 2

OO swallowed hard and continued tremulously, “Human stories always say that villains can be reformed through love. Once the villain lets go of their hatred, the world is saved.”

With every word it spoke, Lin Yang’s face darkened further. “Between him and me, there is only hatred. There could never be something as disgusting as ‘love’.”

“Then you can just make hate,” 00 said innocently. “The books all say that if you do it enough, love follows.”

Lin Yang gave a sinister look. “The books also say that villains end up being hacked into a thousand pieces. Care to try it?”

Terrified, 00 shook its head. Hugging its own tail, it spoke dejectedly, “My power is limited. Jumping across world lines consumed ninety percent of my strength. Furthermore, the seals on this Prison Tower are complex. Even if my power were at its peak, I couldn’t break such a difficult restriction.”

Lin Yang looked up at the Prison Tower suspended beneath the flowing seawater. Faint wisps of black mist swirled around the structure, mingled with an ominous streak of red. The sight left Lin Yang with a profound sense of unease.

“Warning! Foreign object detected! Proceed with capture immediately!”

A hoarse, grating voice suddenly rang out. Several pairs of eyes emerged from the silt surrounding Lin Yang’s feet. These creatures crawled out from the mire, surrounding him.

Silt covered their entire bodies, but one could vaguely discern that they possessed the upper bodies of humans and the lower bodies of fish—like a corrupted version of merfolk from a fairy tale.

Their dark, turbid eyes stared eerily at Lin Yang, their mud-caked lips twitching.

“The foreign object must die!” “Death to the source of calamity!” “Die, die, die!”

They spoke the human tongue, but their voices were crude and unpleasant, scraping against his eardrums like a form of mental torture. They approached Lin Yang with harpoons, their movements clumsy and crooked due to their heavy fishtails.

The circle tightened until a blood-rusted harpoon was pressed against Lin Yang’s neck.

Lin Yang raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I mean no harm, nor am I the ‘heretic’ you speak of. Could there be a misunderstanding?”

“You still dare to quibble!” The young man holding the harpoon was named Qi Xun. “You wear the garments of the Evil One! Among the thousand survivors of the Kingdom of Qishui, neither the Yin Jiao nor the humans have ever seen a face as beautiful as yours!”

Qi Xun’s eyes were filled with intense hatred, though a trace of imperceptible fear lurked in the depths of his gaze. “You carry the scent of that ‘bastard.’ There is no mistake!”

Lin Yang, held at bay by the harpoon, was dressed in a robe of exquisite and complex craftsmanship. It featured a crimson base with a white outer garment; rare butterfly wings bloomed along the hem, and fine red-and-gold silk threads traced large patterns of mandalava flowers onto the white fabric. Around his waist was a crimson sash, half a palm wide, adorned with hanging golden bells.

The outfit was so elaborate and ostentatious it defied description. Wrapped in these clothes, Lin Yang looked like a meticulously crafted doll.

Lin Yang opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

He was a prisoner wearing a prisoner’s garb; he simply wore whatever the Evil One sent to him. As for the “scent”… he had been locked away by that creature for a thousand years. If he hadn’t picked up a scent by now, he would have to be made of industrial-grade filter paper.

Feeling quite weary of life, Lin Yang mentally marked a vengeful tally against the Evil One.

Watching the breathtaking beauty before him frown, Qi Xun grew even more alarmed, despite the mud masking his own face. “Cover the Evil One’s face! It seeks to bewitch us with pity!”

A nearby “merman” named Shang Xuan bent down, scooped up a handful of mud, closed his dark eyes, and summoned the courage of one facing death.

Caught off guard, Lin Yang had his face smeared with mud. The fishy smell and slimy texture overwhelmed him. Lin Yang clenched his fists; his desire to fight the Evil One to the death reached its peak.

Looking at Lin Yang’s eyes, which seemed even darker against the mud, Shang Xuan felt the lingering sensation of Lin Yang’s skin on his palm. He hesitated. “Leader, the Evil One’s eyes are too prone to bewitching… should we gouge them out?”

Qi Xun glanced at Lin Yang’s eyes and quickly looked away. He told Shang Xuan, “We cannot dispose of the Evil One at will. When A-Da and A-Xiao stabbed that bastard, they were turned into mincemeat by something unknown the very next day.”

Qi Xun raised his voice. “Take this Evil One back and hand it over to the superiors! Keep it under strict watch, and remember—do not have excessive contact with it!”

A strip of tattered cloth was tied over Lin Yang’s eyes. He was jostled forward for a long distance until he felt himself being led into a building. After navigating several winding staircases, a cage door slammed shut.

Lin Yang was now in a prison.

As the chaotic footsteps faded, a gaze landed on Lin Yang. A pleasant, magnetic voice spoke, “So, you are the outsider. The ‘Evil One’ they speak of.”

The gaze was scrutinizing, as if looking at a piece of merchandise in a display window.

Lin Yang sat upright in a golden birdcage about three meters high. His hands and feet were bound with rags. Breaking free would have been easy for him—those “merfolk” from earlier couldn’t have truly restrained him—but he didn’t move. He allowed the other party to inspect him.

The figure stepped closer. Water manifested into a pair of gentle hands, untying the cloth over Lin Yang’s eyes and washing the mud from his cheeks.

Lin Yang saw the being before him.

It was an adult male with broad shoulders and a narrow waist; every proportion of his body was perfect. He had a face of extreme aesthetic beauty, silver hair, and silver eyes. He wore a tightly fastened knight’s uniform, and the hands controlling the water were encased in white leather gloves.

He looked so beautiful he seemed like a mannequin.

After looking Lin Yang up and down, he spoke with admiration, “You are the most beautiful human I have ever seen. Well… if we don’t count the monster in the Prison Tower. But then again, both of you fall far short of me. You needn’t feel inferior, though; having even a tenth of my beauty is an honor.”

“I forgot to introduce myself. I am Zhuo, the leader of this world.”

Zhuo’s face then fell. “Though it matters little now. The little monster in the Prison Tower can no longer be suppressed. This world will soon be destroyed. Neither the Yin Jiao nor the humans will escape, and it is all because of you and your God!”

Lin Yang’s irritation spiked, his expression turning cold. “He is not my God.”

He refused to be placed in the same camp as that disgusting creature.

Zhuo was busy admiring his own flawless face in a water mirror. Hearing this, he snorted. “The Evil One is dishonest. Those are just excuses to escape guilt. The Evil God in the Prison Tower possesses world-ending power, and you are his believer, willing to sacrifice your life to bewitch living souls for him!”

“After tonight, I shall send you to the White Tower to be imprisoned, where you will suffer day and night, unable to live and unable to die!”

Lin Yang questioned, “If you are certain I am an Evil One, why not lock me in the Prison Tower with the Evil God? With layer upon layer of chains, even the God cannot escape; I would have no chance.”

“Or is it,” Lin Yang narrowed his eyes, “that you simply cannot reach that tower? The temple was originally built on the ground, but for some reason, it now floats in the sky, and the seawater of this world has gone out of control.”

Zhuo’s expression became awkward. “Who says we can’t reach the tower? The Grand Liturgist can go to the temple!”

Zhuo glared at Lin Yang. “You really are a bewitching heretic! Rot to death in the White Tower!”

With that, Zhuo left in a huff, slamming the door with a deafening crash.

00, who had been hiding in Lin Yang’s sleeve, poked out its round head and blinked its large eyes. “That person is so mean.”

“He isn’t human,” Lin Yang said calmly. “Those ‘merfolk’ were the original humans.”

But they had been robbed of their voices and legs by monsters, transformed into that fish-like state. Those monsters were likely the “Yin Jiao” they mentioned. He wondered if they were the same species as the things moving in the seawater.

Lin Yang pushed those questions aside. His primary goal was to reach the Prison Tower to verify if the Evil God could be killed.

00 had said it couldn’t reach the temple. Based on the conversation with Zhuo, the only one who could currently enter was the Grand Liturgist.

00 untied the rags binding Lin Yang. Lin Yang extracted a portion of his soul, and an exquisite key appeared in his palm. The ornate birdcage clicked open.

The structure of the rooms here differed from Lin Yang’s world; they were all individual spaces carved out of earth, lacking even wooden doors for privacy.

Lin Yang walked quietly toward the exit. Whether out of overconfidence in the cage or fear of the heretic’s bewitchment, there were no guards outside. He searched the entire area but found no other living beings.

“Stop looking. There is only you and that little snake here,” a muffled, booming voice echoed from all directions.

Lin Yang couldn’t find the source.

“You are in my stomach. My name is Lin Lin, and I am a Giant Rock Monster. You cannot escape; my domain can extend infinitely. For every foot you run, I can stretch a yard.”

Lin Lin let out a yawn and continued, “It is dark now. Staying in my stomach is the safest place. Even if you are a believer of the Evil God, he won’t care about you when he goes mad at night.”

Lin Yang recalled what he had seen during the day—the ground made of mud and scattered rocks. It turned out the humans and Yin Jiao were living inside giant stones.

Lin Yang stopped moving and sat down. “How does the Evil God go mad when it gets dark?”

“Ugh, it’s terrifying,” Lin Lin shuddered, causing the ground beneath Lin Yang to shake. “A long time ago, the Yin Jiao and humans fought for territory. Many died every day, yet for thousands of years, hundreds of millions of lives remained. But after they summoned that one, in just a hundred years, only a thousand survivors are left.”

“At first, he wasn’t this crazy… AH!!!” Lin Lin suddenly screamed. “The nightly nightmare is starting.”

Lin Yang stood by the window and saw the sky instantly turn blood-red. Thick, viscous rain began to fall, burning holes through everything it touched. Furthermore, countless arrows made of long feathers shot down from the sky in a dense barrage.

Screams and wails rose up across the land, all coming from the Giant Rock Monsters huddled on the ground.

Lin Lin sealed all the exits, and even the last window was tightly blocked. As the sharp arrows and corrosive rain struck its body, its muffled voice sounded as if it were being torn apart. The entire world had become a terrifying, macabre purgatory.