My Core is the Boss

With a roar, Luo Bufan surged forward, but the Sea God caught the blow.

Contempt flickered in the Sea God's eyes. "I am a demon, yes, but I have never killed my own kind. And you? You personally exterminated your entire bloodline. Your father, your mother, your elders, even the children—you spared no one. What does that make you?"

Luo Bufan stiffened, screaming, "No I didn't!"

Images erupted through his mind in a torrent. Pair after pair of terrified eyes. His parents collapsed in pools of blood.

The Sea God's disdain was evident. "Hmph. You couldn't even spare your own mother and father, all for the sake of advancement. What are you? Tell me, does killing demons justify the lives you took?"

"No, I didn't!" Luo Bufan screamed, tumbling down from the sky.

He hit the ground, clutching his head, unable to accept the reality crashing down on him.

The Sea God went on. "After you killed your family, guilt consumed you. You had nowhere to go, so you went to your fiancée, Chen Xinlian. Out of kindness, she took you in and even cared for you.

“Then, by accident, she discovered your gruesome deeds. Fearing she’d ruin the demon slayer’s reputation by telling others, you panicked and lashed out. You killed her, and then her whole family for good measure.”

Each word landed like a blade.

Luo Bufan crumpled to the ground, his spirit shattered. With one hand pressed over his forehead, he cried, "Stop! Stop talking!"

In his mind, images spun wildly. He could see Xinlian dying in his arms as the light faded in her eyes. There had been a flicker of hesitation before she died. His aura collapsed as his mind went into disarray.

Not far away, the faces of the Demon-Slaying Bureau Envoys shifted through a dozen expressions.

"So that's the truth."

"This is bad. The Sea God has noticed us. He won't let us leave."

"We're finished. We're dead."

None of them had expected a routine investigation to draw the eye of a Jade Blood great demon.

An Qiao said, "Luo Bufan is formidable. If he could recover his full strength, he might be able to defeat the Sea God. Still, he’s just a useless dog as he is.”

The tracking dog cut in, trying to speak up for itself, "Hey! Dogs have done nothing wrong, thank you very much."

The others largely agreed with An Qiao's assessment. Luo Bufan was not a good person, but so was the Sea God. If anything, they were equally as bad as the other.

The Sea God’s voice lowered, laced with seduction. "Luo Bufan, should you not atone with your life?"

At that moment, a corpse in a wedding dress drifted up from the sea. She opened her eyes, glaring venomously at Luo Bufan. "Luo Bufan, give me back my family!"

Luo Bufan squeezed his eyes shut in anguish. "Xin-Xinlian! D-did I really make a mistake?!"

Demons ran rampant. Yunyan County teetered on the brink of destruction. Word had come one day out of nowhere. A close friend had brought the news that a great demon was about to emerge in Yunyan County. Once it appeared, the county would be annihilated. There was little time left.

The long-celebrated great demon slayer was desperate yet powerless. Unless he reached the Jade Blood realm, he simply had no way to intervene in matters of such magnitude. That same day, the same friend had casually mentioned a brutal method for forcing a rapid increase in power.

For a fleeting instant, Luo Bufan’s heart stirred, but he pushed the thought back down. On one side of the scale hung every living soul in Yunyan County. On the other, the people closest to him.

In the days that followed, his mind grew more and more unhinged. He began having episodes and slipping into hallucinations. When he finally came back to himself, everyone was dead.

Then, from within the crowd, a young man stepped forward.

He wore a look of guilt and deep, heavy remorse. "Brother Bufan, I thought you were a righteous man. I only mentioned that method casually. I never imagined you would actually do it. I'm sorry. I failed your mother. I failed Xinlian. I didn't protect her."

He turned his gaze toward the female corpse, a flicker of tenderness crossing his eyes.

Luo Bufan sat there, hollow, his mind adrift.

The young man then said, "Xinlian will never forgive you. Neither will I."

Luo Bufan’s aura surged into disorder. His blood martial qi boiled as though a heart demon had taken root inside him.

"Now this is a drama worth watching," Qi Yuan whispered. Since he had no melon seeds to crack, he began to slow-clap instead. "Everyone showed up right on cue, just like a TV show."

"Hm?" An Qiao, who had been completely absorbed in Luo Bufan's depravity, blinked at his words. "What do you mean?"

"Don’t you think that friend’s appearance was a bit too convenient? Like I said, just like on TV. In real life, coincidences don't stack up this neatly. A whole group of people, just standing around monologuing at one man, waiting for him to..."

He deliberately did not finish his sentences.

An Qiao fell quiet, turning something over in her mind.

The man in black was far less contemplative. "What do we do?! If Luo Bufan dies, we're next! Do you think the Sea God will just let us leave?"

"Why hasn't the mission ended yet? Does that mean there's still something we haven't uncovered?"

The Demon-Slaying Bureau envoys were anxious.

The Sea God's cold gaze settled on Luo Bufan. “If you don't destroy your own heart, how will you face your kin?"

"I..."

"Brother Bufan, a killer must answer for what he's done. If you end yourself here, Xinlian may forgive you."

Luo Bufan knelt on the ground, hair tangled and loose. He was breaking down. He raised his hand and held it over the crown of his own head, as though he would die the next moment.

At that moment, Chen Fan jumped up and called out in a sharp, clear voice, "Luo Bufan, what's done is done! All that matters now is killing that demon! Do you want all 176 members of the Luo family to have died for nothing?! Kill it first. Then die if you want to!"

Luo Bufan's hand froze in midair. He seemed to be pondering Chen Fan's words slowly.

His friend said, "Brother Bufan, do you have any right to face Xinlian? We both pursued Xinlian once, and in the end I chose to step aside. You promised you’d cherish and take care of her always! How could you kill her?! She died at the hands of the great demon slayer she most admired, the man she loved most!"

Luo Bufan's eyes clouded over again. The will to die stirred in his chest once more.

"If I were you, I would end it right here." His friend then turned to look at Chen Fan. "And you, are you going to listen to a lackey of the imperial court? When we begged the court for help, what did they do? They demanded one hundred thousand silver taels!

“Between our two families, we scraped together every last coin. They took every single one and did nothing! Nothing! He's a court dog, what business does he have interfering in Yunyan County's affairs? Is it because of that uniform?!"

Chen Fan reached up and tore away a piece of his own face. "It is because I am Luo Bufan!" [1]

Beneath the human-skin mask was a face that matched nearly eighty percent of Luo Bufan’s features!

1. ***E/N:No, I am Luo Bufan!!! ☜