In the dim, flickering firelight, that smile appeared like a ghost!

The one-eyed man's hand, which was about to touch his skin, suddenly froze in mid-air!

The fingertips were less than an inch away from that pale skin!

His one eye suddenly widened, and his pupil contracted sharply in an instant!

An indescribable chill, like being doused with ice water, suddenly shot up from the deepest part of my spine without warning and swept through my entire body in an instant!

It made his body, which was burning hot from the alcohol, stiffen as if it had been frozen!

The chill even overwhelmed his surging lust! His mouth was agape, the lewd smile on his face frozen, turning into a comical yet horrified blankness.

Black Wind Demon, who was about to step forward, suddenly stopped in his tracks!

The drunkenness and greed on his face were frozen in place by this sudden, extremely bizarre expression!

A strange palpitation made him furrow his thick, dark eyebrows, his cloudy eyes fixed on Jiang Chan's face, trying to find fear or something else familiar in that coldness and that twisted smile, but he only saw a bottomless pool of ice and a kind of... inhuman mockery.

"You little wench!" Black Wind Demon's voice carried a hint of anger, and a trace of tension he himself didn't even realize. He growled, as if trying to embolden himself, "What the hell are you laughing at?!"

Inside the stone house, all was deathly silent.

The cold smile that froze on Jiang Chan's lips was like an invisible needle, piercing through the pervasive smell of alcohol and desire, making the air thick and dangerous.

The outside world hasn't gone away; instead, it has seeped in in a more distorted way.

First came the sound of unsteady footsteps and drunken shouts, accompanied by the sounds of rough drinking games and the shattering of wine jars on the ground.

The bandits were clearly celebrating their "harvest".

The voice echoed across the empty hillside, arrogant and unrestrained.

"Drink! Drink up, everyone!"

"The boss is having his first love tonight, the rest of us will be next!"

"That young lady inside, tsk tsk, so fair and tender-skinned, the boss is so lucky! Hahaha!"

"Wait until the boss has finished enjoying himself..."

What followed was even more vulgar and obscene laughter, like a pack of hyenas rolling around a rotting corpse.

The foul sound waves crashed against the stone walls and also against the villagers who had been driven to a corner of the village.

The man was roughly bound hand and foot, gagged, and left there like bundles of firewood awaiting disposal.

Women and children were tied together with ropes, huddled together on the cold, muddy ground.

Their faces were hidden in their arms, and their shoulders were trembling uncontrollably.

The suppressed sobs, squeezed from deep in their throats, blended together like the desperate cries of a dying animal.

Each time the bandits erupted in louder laughter, the sobbing on this side would suddenly stop, followed by a deeper trembling and a more desperate sense of oppression.

"Don't...don't cry out loud..." A woman bit her lip hard, blood seeping out. She pressed down hard on the mouth of a teenage girl next to her. The girl's face turned purple and she burst into tears.

“Summoning…summoning those living devils…it’ll be even worse…” the woman squeezed out the words through clenched teeth, each word dripping with blood and tears.

Aunt Zhao was also crying, her tears silently washing away the dust from her face.

She stared intently at the stone house in the distance, her chapped lips moving silently, as if in prayer.

Her mind was filled with images of villagers being kicked and beaten until they vomited blood and curled up on the ground, as well as Jiang Chan's unusually calm profile as she was dragged away.

To her, this calmness was resignation, utter despair.

God... how am I supposed to live...?

Inside the stone house.

The icy, twisted curve of Jiang Chan's lips remained unchanged.

Her eyes, like two deep wells frozen for a thousand years, reflected the distorted and swaying shadows of the three people at the door, yet showed no emotion whatsoever.

That gaze was more like that of a butcher weighing pieces of meat on a chopping board.

The one-eyed man's hand, which had been frozen in mid-air, suddenly retracted, as if burned by an invisible flame.

The chill that shot up from the spine did not subside; instead, it spread through the blood to every part of the body.

His one eye was wide open, filled with unbelievable horror, and his throat made gurgling sounds, but he couldn't utter a single complete syllable.

This isn't right! This is fucking wrong!

Just as Black Wind Demon's angry curses had barely faded, and just as One-Eyed Dragon instinctively wanted to take a half-step back—

Jiang Chan's dust-covered lips parted slightly, uttering a few words. Her voice was soft, yet it pierced the polluted air like steel needles tempered with ice:

"Laugh at you all—"

Before she finished speaking, her gaze suddenly focused, passing over the hideous face in front of her and casting it into a void.

That look wasn't about looking at people; it was more like it was locking onto some kind of invisible coordinate!

At the same time, her hands, which were bound behind her back with rough hemp rope, twisted her wrists very slightly!

At the knot where she had been repeatedly scraping, a crucial hemp fiber emitted an extremely faint groan, as if it were about to snap from being stretched to its limit!

This sound, so subtle it was almost inaudible, was amplified infinitely by the precise movements of her fingers!

"—Your death is near!"

The moment the last four words were uttered, an unbelievable scene unfolded!

There were no special lighting effects, and no smoke.

Right in front of Jiang Chan, less than half a foot from her chest, the air rippled rapidly like the surface of water!

A cold, slender silhouette, shimmering with a matte metallic sheen, appeared out of thin air!

Its appearance was so abrupt and illogical, as if it had torn open the curtain of reality, carrying a pure killing intent that was incompatible with modern technology and even the entire era!

It was shorter than a spear but longer than a saber. It was pitch black, with cold, hard, and smooth lines. At the front was a deep, unsettling circular hole, and a bent iron arm connected it to the main body. The cold metallic luster reflected a deathly halo under the dim oil lamp.

M24 sniper rifle!

The deadly fangs of the apocalypse descended upon this time and space without warning!

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

From the moment Jiang Chan opened her mouth to the moment that icy killing weapon appeared out of thin air, less than half a breath had passed!

“Demon… demon…” Scarface’s scar twitched violently. He was a little further away and could see it most clearly. That thing “grew” right under his nose!

The immense horror instantly overwhelmed his alcohol-numbed nerves.

"You... demon..."

He finally managed to squeeze out two distorted, broken sounds from his throat, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets!

The lust and greed I felt earlier were completely overwhelmed by pure fear of seeing a supernatural being!

The effects of the alcohol receded like the tide, leaving only a cold, bone-chilling fear!

The drunken red glow on Hei Feng Sha's face vanished instantly, replaced by a deathly pale complexion.