Chapter 27: Selfish Demon
On a vast, elevated platform stood an elderly figure, his hands clasped behind his back. Behind him, seven children stood silently, their gazes fixed ahead. Beneath the platform, nearly twenty meters below, lay rows of metal-barred jails. Within them, a mixture of humans-women, children, youths, and the elderly huddled together in fear and confusion.
Among the group on the platform stood a young man, his eyes locked on the scene below. As he observed the miserable figures imprisoned beneath, old memories surged in his mind like an unstoppable tide.
"From my transmigration from Earth to this strange world, where cultivation and immortality are within reach through spiritual energy... a world where formation masters roam the heavens and dominate all directions... and now, this new life of mine..."
Raising his head, he looked up at the sky, his eyes slowly closing as the weight of remembrance settled on him.
He was Lin Fan.
As his eyelids shut, a storm of thoughts brewed within him.
"I'm here again... the same test. The one I refused to take in my first life. Back then, I had only been transmigrated into this dangerous world for a week. When I denied participating, my foster father ,a respected elder of the Holy Land was deeply disappointed. As his adopted son, I carried the burden of his expectations. But I was still bound by the ideals of my past life on Earth. I couldn't comprehend the cruelty of this world... and so I refused.
But they forced me. Using methods I couldn't resist, they broke me. And from that moment, this test became my greatest heart demon. The one thing I despised about myself the most."