He feigned madness for eighteen years, all for the power of a god.

"Monster! Another one is here!"

Bai Ye realized that there wasn't just one monster in the mall.

He started walking towards the cave entrance.

"Hey! Kid, where are you going? There are monsters outside!" The security guard finally snapped out of his shock and shouted instinctively.

Bai Ye didn't turn around, but simply uttered a sentence.

"Go eat...no, go kill them all."

After saying that, his figure disappeared into the dark cave entrance.

The mall lobby had been transformed into a scene of carnage.

The shelves were overturned, goods were scattered all over the ground, bloodstains were everywhere, and several mutilated corpses lay in pools of blood, a horrifying sight.

The survivors were like headless flies.

Behind them, several bald, one-eyed monsters identical to the previous ones were leisurely chasing after them.

Some of them dangled halfway down from the ventilation ducts in the ceiling.

It used its slippery tentacles to scoop up the panicked crowd below.

Some escalators were blocked, completely sealing off escape routes.

Each swing of the tentacles was accompanied by a piercing scream and the cracking sound of bones breaking.

These monsters didn't seem to be in a hurry to kill everyone; instead, they seemed to be enjoying the hunting game.

Just as a young man was about to be dragged into the monster's gaping maw by tentacles, his ankle was caught in the attack.

A dark figure, like a ghost, flashed out from a gap in the nearby storage room.

brush!

A streak of dark light pierced the air.

The tentacle that was wrapped around the man snapped off instantly.

"roar?"

The headless monster let out a low growl of confusion, turning its huge single eye to look at the troublemaker who had suddenly appeared.

However, all it saw was a black blade of light moving at incredible speed, rapidly magnifying in its single pupil.

puff!

Clean and neat.

There were no unnecessary movements, not even a sound.

The head, the size of a millstone, was split in two, just like its counterpart in the storage room, and crashed to the ground.

This sudden turn of events brought the chaotic scene to a brief halt.

Whether they were fleeing for their lives or hunting monsters, they all instinctively turned their gaze to the boy wielding the jet-black longsword.

Bai Ye remained expressionless, seemingly oblivious to the stares around him.

The shadow beneath his feet writhed and instantly devoured the cleaved monster's corpse.

Immediately afterwards, his figure transformed into a black shadow moving swiftly along the ground, rushing towards his next target.

"Over there!"

"Look! Another monster has been..."

Before the survivors could finish speaking, they saw Bai Ye's figure appear behind another monster.

Hand up, knife down.

There was another slight tearing sound.

The second monster was also split in two.

The shadow appeared and swallowed it.

The whole process was so smooth and fast that it was dazzling.

What happened next completely overturned everyone's understanding.

They saw that the thin boy was like a grim reaper walking on the battlefield.

His body sometimes transformed into an elusive shadow, darting rapidly between the ground and walls to evade the attacks of all the monsters.

At other times, it would solidify into a physical form, wielding its shadow blade and reaping the lives of those monsters in an almost unreasonable manner.

puff!

The third one.

puff!

The fourth one.

……

In less than a minute.

Six headed monsters lurked in the mall lobby, driving dozens of people to the brink of despair and bringing endless death and fear.

Just like that... he alone slaughtered them all.

After the last monster's corpse was swallowed by the shadow, the entire mall lobby fell into a deathly silence.

The air was filled only with the strong smell of blood and the heavy breathing of the survivors.

Everyone stood there, stunned.

Looking at the boy standing in the center of the hall, covered in dark green slime, his mind went blank.

saved?

They... were saved just like that?

A girl who had been saved by Bai Ye earlier walked tremblingly toward Bai Ye, who was covered in blood:

"Thank you for saving us..."

Bai Ye slowly raised his head and looked around.

Damaged shelves, scattered goods, mottled bloodstains, and survivors with tear stains and terror still on their faces...

All of this was so clear and so "normal" in his eyes.

There were no more twisted tentacles, no more wriggling chunks of flesh, and no more grapes covered in eyeballs.

Eighteen years.

Eighteen years in total.

He finally saw the true face of the world with his own eyes.

He's not crazy.

What he saw was always true.

The problem isn't him, it's the world!

No, or rather, it's the ordinary people who can't see the truth!

It's like a math problem that everyone else got wrong, but you were the only one who wrote down the correct answer from the very beginning.

For the past eighteen years, everyone has been pointing fingers at you, saying you're wrong, an oddball, or a madman.

They mock you, isolate you, pity you, and lock you in a cage called "mental illness."

You struggled and tried to explain, but no one believed you.

Gradually, you become convinced that you are really wrong.

Today, you have finally found evidence to prove your unique answer.

That's right.

An pent-up sense of grievance, anger, and resentment from the past eighteen years erupted like molten lava, breaching the dam of reason.

"Oh……"

Bai Ye lowered his head, his shoulders shrugging.

"Haha...hahahaha..."

He knew he shouldn't laugh at that moment, or others would think he was crazy.

But for some reason, he couldn't control his laughter.

The pent-up frustration accumulated over 6,500 days and nights disregarded the occasion.

"Hahahahahahaha—!"

He covered his face and laughed so hard in the middle of the hall that tears streamed down his face.

The laughter, tinged with seven parts self-mockery and three parts catharsis, echoed in the desolate silence, sending chills down one's spine.

The survivors, who were about to step forward to express their gratitude, all stopped in their tracks.

The woman holding the child instinctively covered the child's eyes even tighter.

The grateful smile on the young girl's face, which had just been rescued, froze on her lips.

Everyone stared in horror at the boy who was laughing wildly, as if he were a madman.

"Is this guy... crazy?" someone muttered.

Bai Ye didn't care about their gazes.

He laughed for a long time, laughing until tears streamed down his face, until the pent-up frustration of eighteen years welled up in his chest.

He only stopped slowly after he had completely vented his emotions.

He wiped his face, unable to tell whether it was tears or the stench of the monster's blood.

Bai Ye's gaze fell on the beef counter not far away, which had been gnawed on by a monster.

He thought of his sister, and of that hard-earned 100 grams of beef.

He walked over, ignoring the mangled corpse on the ground that belonged to the butcher.

They took out a similar-sized, fresher, and more intact piece of beef from the freezer.

That piece had already been gnawed on by the monster, so it was considered damaged cargo.

After all that hard work and risking my life to solve this disaster, it's not unreasonable to ask for a new piece.

He weighed the beef in his hand, hastily wrapped it in the packaging paper on the counter, and turned to walk towards the exit of the mall lobby.

……

Not long after Bai Ye left, the piercing sound of police sirens rang out outside the mall.

But the first to rush in were not police officers, but two men in black uniforms with cold expressions.

These two men in black were members of the city's official organization responsible for handling supernatural events.

As soon as they stepped into the mall, they were so shocked by the hellish scene before them that they stopped in their tracks.

The place was a mess, with overturned shelves and scattered goods everywhere.

Large patches of dark red blood, already beginning to congeal, remained on the ground, and the air was filled with a pungent odor of blood mixed with dust.

"Brother Zhao, it seems we're a step too late," one of the men said, his voice a little hoarse.

This was a burly, strong man whose black law enforcement uniform was stretched taut by his bulging muscles.

He had a neat buzz cut and a resolute face, but his eyes revealed a shrewdness that didn't match his appearance.

The other person next to him was the complete opposite.

He was a tall, thin man with a sickly pale face.

His eyes were long and narrow with deep-set sockets. When he looked at people, his gaze was gloomy, like a venomous snake hiding in the dark, which made people feel very uncomfortable.

He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, but it wasn't lit; he just habitually held it there.

"He stopped breathing."

"Either the weirdo has eaten its fill and left, or..."

He scanned the survivors, who were terrified but mostly unharmed, and narrowed his eyes:

"Either they'll be dealt with by something even more ruthless."

"Go, find someone and ask them what exactly happened here."