Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Under Miced and the others' terrified stares, Ning Chan pantomimed gripping something. The fireball compressed, then expanded, before finally exploding outward.

The shadow inside dissolved into a wisp of smoke, slowly vanishing.

Watching the disappearing smoke, the tension in Miced and the others eased slightly.

With the Lord Holy Son here, they surely wouldn’t meet disaster so easily.

Ning Chan, the actual mastermind, snapped his finger downward, and a full-length mirror appeared before them. "Look. This is what your souls look like now, corrupted by the demon seeds."

What Ning Chan produced was a funhouse mirror that warped their reflections.

They might not know their own appearances well, but they certainly recognized each other. Seeing the twisted figures in the mirror, they sharply sucked in the breath they’d just released.

"Under the Demon God, there are many types of devils, one of which is the skeleton monster. You all know what a dead person is, but if a corpse were stripped of all flesh, leaving only bones—what do you think it would desire?" Before they could examine the reflections more closely, Ning Chan withdrew the mirror and threw out another spine-chilling question.

Seeing them stood there like mute stage props, offering no opinions, Ning Chan found their silence boring. He pointed at Maifeipu, gesturing for him to answer.

Maifeipu swallowed hard, carefully considering Ning Chan’s words before venturing a reply, "It... it would want to come back to life?"

"What is 'life'? If mere movement counts, then skeleton monsters are already 'alive' upon awakening. But they retain no memories of their past lives—only an endless cycle of slaughter and reassembly until their soul flames extinguish." As Ning Chan loosened his grip on the sachet in his palm, a tiny, palm-sized skeleton dangled limply.

With Ning Chan’s fingers moving, the small skeleton performed various actions—raising its arms, kicking its legs—its tiny frame making it almost cute.

But paired with Ning Chan’s next words, Maifeipu and the others couldn't assume it was harmless based on its looks.

"They crawl out of graves, then drag everyone tainted by evil back into the earth with them."

The resurrection of skeletons—how horrifying. Only a god like the Lord Holy Son wouldn’t be scared of them.

If it were them, they imagined the dark night, the desolate graveyard, skeletal hands emerging from the soil, dragging them slowly into the dirt. The suffocation and helplessness made their bodies go numb with dread.

Yet Lord Holy Son seemed oblivious to their terror, proceeding to describe the horrors of that shadowed world.

"After you suffocate in the earth, your souls will leave your bodies and be led into hell by higher-tier skeleton monsters using soul flames.

"They will plant you in hell’s soil like potatoes, leaving only your heads exposed. Your hair will be shaved clean, and they will carve a cross into your bare scalps before pouring liquid silver into the wounds.

"The liquid silver will squirm under your skin like a lively little worm. You’ll feel every inch of your flesh swelling and separating until your whole skin is flayed off."

As he spoke, Ning Chan retrieved the chicken-bone skeleton and pulled an orange from his spatial storage, peeling it slowly.

By the time he finished speaking, he’d arranged the perfectly intact orange peel on the armrest of his chair like a delicate flower.

Ning Chan lifted his gaze, smiling as he studied their expressions.

Then, savoring their tension, he popped an orange segment into his mouth, relishing the sweetness.

Hmm, this mutant mandarin was excellent. Though its yield was lower, its taste was ten times better than the original.

He wouldn’t sell these—he’d keep them all for himself.

Meeting Ning Chan’s amused eyes, Miced and the others felt a weird, creeping unease, as though something had silently cracked apart.

After moistening his throat with two orange segments, Ning Chan resumed his tales of hell.

"Since you’re in soul form and planted in hell’s soil, losing your skin won’t 'kill' you. Instead, like plants, you’ll regrow new hides. Over and over, they’ll peel you until your souls turn transparent and fragile as paper, tearing apart."

"By the way, look at these orange segments—do you see all the white fibers? They look just like a net. In hell, besides the skeletons that love peeling skin, there are also one-eyed worms that devour soul-meat.

"If you’re unlucky enough to encounter them, you’ll be farmed like livestock. They’ll pump you full of something like ‘fattening feed,’ making your body grow more and more meat.

"Once you’ve fattened up to the size of a pig, they’ll bind you tightly with fine nets. Then, your flesh will ooze through the netting, only to be sliced off piece by piece and boiled in water for their meal.

"After you’ve been flayed a thousand times, reduced to nothing but a skeleton, they’ll shove ‘feed’ into your mouth, forcing your body to regrow the meat."

As Ning Chan spoke, he subtly swallowed—it had been so long since he’d had hotpot. Maybe he should find time to enjoy some soon?

Meanwhile, Maifeipu and the others discreetly touched their own flesh, as if the gesture could soothe their nerves.

After finishing the last orange, Ning Chan meticulously wiped the juice from his hands with a handkerchief and proceeded to describe every torture he had witnessed in detail.

By the end, Ning Chan suddenly recalled the most repulsive crime they had committed and decided to illustrate a scene straight out of certain explicit literature.

"The last kind of creature might not be as bloody as the others, but I doubt you’d ever want to meet them.

"He-Beasts—monsters with dozens of fleshy tubes on their backs and a member thicker than a bull’s.

"Their sole instinct is reproduction, endless reproduction, until they die. If you ever cross paths with them, pity you. They’ll insert their tubes into your body, pumping you full of nutrients, and then subject you to endless breeding.

"Eventually, you’ll notice your belly slowly swelling, growing larger and larger.

"Until—*pop*—it ruptures like this bubble, and swarms of tiny He-Beasts wriggle free from within.

"And since the adult He-Beast’s tubes are still embedded in your back, your body will quickly recover, only to continue bearing their offspring."

Finding mere words too dull, Ning Chan pulled out a tube of bubble solution. Dipping a small wand into the sticky liquid, he waved it gently through the air.

Carried by the breeze, shimmering bubbles floated into the room, sunlight streaming through the upper windows and casting rainbow hues across their surfaces.

Soft light, fragile bubbles, a scene fit for a nursery!

Yet Maifeipu and the others had no mind to admire it. With each bubble that burst, they clutched their stomachs in terror, as if something might leap out at any moment.

How horrifying! What kind of depravity is this? They didn’t want to be male broodmares!

The terrified group collapsed to their knees, begging Ning Chan to deliver them from such torment.

Finding them utterly docile, devoid of even the slightest rebellious thought, Ning Chan nodded benevolently. As long as they obeyed him, he’d ensure they never endured such horrors.

Thus, during the Charity Sale, they strained every nerve into completing Ning Chan’s tasks flawlessly.

Now, with the auction nearing its end and their chance to plead for purging of the demonic taint within them so close, this wretch dared to target Lord Holy Son? Michede burned to drag him straight to the gallows.

But then it struck him—hadn’t Lord Holy Son said the Demon God was ravaging the land? Maybe this man was already corrupted.

Hmph. Let him rot. Once in hell, he’d be the first carved up for meat. With that build, the worms could skip the fattening—who told him to defile Lord Holy Son with his gaze?

Never mind that Michede had once committed the same sin. Hypocrisy came naturally to him—mercy for himself, ruthlessness for his enemies.

"The entire church is under the divine will of God. Every act here is known to Him. How dare you taint Lord Holy Son with your filthy thoughts? You deserve punishment!

"Guards! Seize him and bind him to the stone pillar outside the church—let him kneel in repentance!" Michede lashed out with his sleeve, the fabric striking Maifeipu’s face before the man could react, then summoned the nearby guards.

Having witnessed the church’s power time and again, these guards had long pledged their absolute loyalty. At the Archbishop’s Command, they moved without hesitation.

What was a mere baron to them? Their Holy Tablet had even smote a viscount without trial.

When McCann White was forced to kneel at the stone pillar of the sundial, passersby couldn't help but stop and whisper about what crime he had committed.

Most of them were locals who held complete trust in Lis Church. Since the church's guards had acted this way, the man must have been in the wrong.

"Damn it, do you know who I am? I'm McCann White, a noble! You filthy vermin, how dare you do this!

"It's just some insignificant Saint Child—it's not like your place hasn't..." McCann White's unfinished words were cut off by a lump of mud shoved into his mouth.

Ning Chan, who had just been tending to a rare medicinal lotus in the Sacred Plant garden, frowned when Kane told him that the disgusting, slimy, perverted hog had come looking for him. Without even washing his hands, he stormed out.

As he emerged, he happened to witness McCann trying to pick at old wounds. Without a second thought, Ning Chan scraped the mud off his hands and hurled it straight at him.

Goddamn it, he should have made this bastard keel over dead on the spot—every extra second he lived was just polluting the air!