Cut off my way home? You'll sacrifice the entire other world in return!

Chapter 5: Cruel Slaughter of the Hero, Game Over

The wind stopped.

The tens of thousands of fully armed allied soldiers on the plain in front of the Demon King's castle looked like a group of statues whose pause button had been pressed.

Just minutes before, they were still basking in the joy of the hero's party storming the Demon King's castle, fantasizing about the triumphant horns and the glory sung by the bards.

But now.

Their glory—the brave Eric, hailed as humanity's last hope and the darling of the Holy Light—was carried in that man's hand like a dead dog.

Eric's left leg was twisted at a bizarre angle, broken by Li Fan's casual stomp.

Fresh blood dripped onto the black earth.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

Li Fan tilted his head and looked at the vast army in front of him.

A general in the allied forces, clad in golden armor, finally came to his senses.

He was the Lionheart Marshal of the Holy Empire, a veteran of countless battles. Although the scene before him was beyond his comprehension, he forced himself to remain calm.

"Demon King... Li Fan!" Marshal Lionheart drew his longsword, its tip trembling as it pointed forward. "Release Lord Eric! You're at your last gasp! That magic circle must have exhausted all your magic power! Don't bluff!"

Humans are always like this.

At this point, people would rather believe the lies they've made up than the harsh reality.

Li Fan ignored the noisy marshal and instead looked down at Eric, whom he was carrying.

Eric's consciousness was already somewhat blurred, but the excruciating pain kept him awake.

His face was covered in blood, and his eyes were filled with fear and confusion.

He couldn't understand why the Demon King, who had always fought him to a standstill and even been driven to the brink of defeat many times, had suddenly become so terrifying.

"Did you hear that, Eric?"

Li Fan leaned close to Eric's ear, his voice so gentle it sent chills down your spine, "Your fans are cheering you on, as an idol, shouldn't you respond?"

"Demon..." Eric managed to squeeze out a broken voice from his throat, his blood-stained lips trembling, "Kill...kill me..."

"Kill you?"

Li Fan felt as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world.

The smile on his face vanished instantly.

"Dream on."

Click!

A crisp sound of bone cracking echoed throughout the venue.

"Aaaaaaah!!!"

Eric let out a heart-wrenching scream.

Li Fan crushed Eric's right wrist without expression; the same right hand that once held the Holy Sword and pointed it at Li Fan's nose with such arrogance.

"This is the hand that held that missing person poster, right?"

Li Fan's voice was soft yet clear, penetrating everyone's ears.

He then reached out and pinched Eric's index finger.

"This finger poked my parents' photo."

Click.

My index finger was forcibly broken off and stuck to the back of my hand.

Eric's screams became shrill and distorted, his body convulsed violently, and his eyes bulged out from extreme pain.

"Stop! Stop!!!"

The Allied soldiers in the distance collapsed.

Their god, their faith, is being torn apart little by little.

"Devil! You're a devil!!" Marshal Lionheart roared, his eyes bulging with rage. "All troops, charge! Rescue the hero! Kill him!!!"

Rumble.

As the war drums sounded, tens of thousands of troops surged forward like a tidal wave.

The mages began chanting spells, the archers drew their bows to the limit, and the heavy cavalry launched a charge.

Li Fan didn't even look up.

He simply lifted his left foot lightly and stomped it casually on the ground.

thump.

There are no fancy lighting effects.

Immediately afterwards, an invisible ripple spread outwards from Li Fan as the center.

Wherever the ripples passed, the charging warhorses suddenly neighed and knelt down, the mages chanting spells coughed up blood and flew backward, and the rain of arrows in the sky turned to dust as if they had hit an invisible wall.

Absolute territory.

The attack is completely nullified.

The tens of thousands of troops charging forward were instantly reduced to dust and thrown into chaos.

It was just a stomp of the foot.

The entire venue fell into a deathly silence once again.

"Shh"

Li Fan raised a finger to his lips, making a shushing gesture.

"I'm catching up with old friends. The adults are talking, so the children shouldn't interrupt."

He looked at Eric again.

At this point, Eric's psychological defenses had completely collapsed.

He looked at Li Fan as if he were looking at an incomprehensible monster.

The power displayed by that casual kick just now surpassed that of any deity he had ever seen in ancient texts.

"Why...why..." Eric burst into tears, sobs streaming down his face, utterly devoid of any hero's dignity. "You have this power...why...for the past ten years..."

If you have such power, why bother playing those dragon-fighting games with them?

Why pretend you were almost defeated?

"Because I want to go home, you idiot."

Li Fan sighed, a deep weariness and boredom showing in his eyes.

"As long as you collect enough resentment points, you can exchange them for a ticket back to Earth, but killing is a one-time transaction; once the person dies, the resentment is gone."

Li Fan was explaining a complex math problem to a mentally challenged child, his patience tinged with impatience.

"So I support you, I play along, I pretend to be an evil and stupid villain. Every time I beat you half to death, I let you go back to heal, letting you grow stronger with fear and hatred, and then come back to me... That's called sustainable development, understand?"

Li Fan patted Eric's cheek, making a loud slapping sound on his handsome face.

"In the past ten years, I haven't killed a single person. In fact, to prevent you bunch of trash from dying on the road, I even secretly cleared out the monsters for you. Did you really think it was the goddess's blessing?"

Eric was stunned.

A sense of absurdity overwhelmed his mind.

ten years.

A full ten years of righteous holy war.

It turns out it was just a ranch that the Demon King had carefully built to raise money for his journey?

They are not soldiers, they are not heroes.

They're just cows that produce milk and hens that lay eggs.

"But..." Li Fan's eyes instantly darkened. "You shouldn't have done that, you absolutely shouldn't have done that."

"You shouldn't have cut off my path."

Li Fan's fingers slowly tightened, gripping Eric's neck and lifting him into the air.

"I only needed to accumulate three more months of resentment before I could go home: my mom's braised pork, my dad's secret stash of money hidden under his shoe insoles, my Steam account, my air-conditioned room..."

Li Fan's voice began to tremble; it was a loss of control after extreme anger.

Why do you want to go to Earth?

Why did you cut off the passage?

"Why...did you show me that photo?"

With each question, Li Fan increased the pressure on his hand.

Eric's face turned a deep purplish-red, and his legs kicked helplessly in the air.

His eyes rolled upwards, and through his blurred vision, he saw the scarlet eye above the Demon King's castle.

That eye was staring at him greedily.

[Ding! Target hero Eric has been detected to be experiencing extreme despair.]

Energy conversion rate: 300%...500%...800%!

[The target's vital signs are about to drop to zero.]

The system notification sounded in Li Fan's mind.

"Don't be in such a hurry to die."

Li Fan suddenly released his grip, causing Eric to fall to the ground.

Before Eric could catch his breath, Li Fan stepped on his chest.

"System, initiate Soul Extraction."

[Command confirmed. Pain maximization time perception extended by 100 times.]

"Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!"

This scream was no longer a sound that a human could make.

That was the wailing of a soul being crushed bit by bit.

Eric's body began to wither rapidly. His golden battle aura, strong flesh and blood, and even his proud Holy Light talent all turned into visible streams of red energy that were forcibly drawn out and poured into Li Fan's body.

"Since you've blocked my path, I'll use your life to fill the first brick."

Li Fan looked at the warrior who was rapidly drying at his feet.

This torture lasted for a full five minutes.

For Eric, that was centuries ago.

At last.

Only a desiccated corpse clad in armor remained on the ground, its posture contorted in extreme contortions, its empty eye sockets staring fixedly at the sky, questioning why the gods had abandoned it.

[The target hero, Eric, has been completely sacrificed.]

[Current door opening progress: 0.05%]

Li Fan scoffed at the pitiful number.

"Is this all the strongest hero is worth?"

He kicked Eric's body away.

Rolling around.

The dried corpse rolled to the front of the two armies and stopped under the hooves of the Lionheart Marshal.

This time, no one dared to roar and charge.

Fear spread among tens of thousands of people.

The hero died.

They were tortured and killed like chickens.

Li Fan slowly raised his head, his gaze passing over the trembling army before him, looking further into the distance, towards the azure sky, towards the clouds where the gods were said to reside.

He pulled the crumpled missing person notice from his pocket.

The parents' aged faces in the photo looked particularly glaring in the sunlight of this other world.

He gently smoothed out the creases on the photo with his blood-stained fingers.

"Dad, Mom."

"Wait a moment."

"There's a bit of traffic on the road, I need to clear some roadblocks."

Li Fan carefully put the missing person poster back on his body.

Then he turned to face the tens of thousands of Allied troops who were almost crushed by fear.

He opened his arms to embrace the world, and then pronounced its death sentence.

The black vortex above the Demon King's castle behind them began to spin wildly, with countless tentacles reaching out from it.

"Game over, all NPCs."

Li Fan's voice no longer had any inflection.