Villain System: Stealing the Protagonist's Harem and Luck

Chapter 134: To Kill or Not to Kill; The Choice is Yours

“Are your injuries serious?”

Gu Changge asked the question casually, his tone almost indifferent as he looked back at Gu Xianer. However, at this moment, Xianer’s mind was a whirlwind of chaos.

She offered only a faint, dazed hum in response.

“Hmm? What is that supposed to mean?”

Changge arched an eyebrow. He knew perfectly well she wasn’t in any mortal danger—she had suffered a few minor wounds at most. But in this theater of war, even if she weren’t injured, she needed to be.

Gu Xianer, proving she wasn’t entirely slow-witted, caught his drift. She lowered her head, her voice trembling with a mix of cold pride and calculated grievance. “Very serious. Many of my bones are broken, and my internal organs have been displaced. If you hadn’t come… I likely would have died here today. Alone. With no one to even bury my body.”

As she spoke, she adopted an expression of such profound misery and sorrow that any onlooker would have felt their heart break. Truly, it was a performance that moved all who saw it to tears. Several young men in the distance felt a sudden, fierce surge of protective pity.

“To be wounded so severely… it seems the Sea King Palace truly doesn’t know the meaning of restraint.”

Gu Changge’s expression remained mask-like, but his eyes darkened into deep, abyssal pools. “No one,” he said softly, “has ever had the privilege of bullying Gu Changge’s sister.”

While he spoke with chilling conviction, he was inwardly praising her wit. The girl knew exactly how to play her part.

“Now then,” Changge said, turning his gaze toward the trembling Sea Clan warriors. His voice was light, conversational even. “Tell me—how do you want to die?”

The air in the valley seemed to drop ten degrees. A collective shiver ran through the gathered cultivators. How to die. Coming from Changge, the words sounded terrifyingly natural, saturated with an ancient, bloody weight. They could already smell the copper tang of the coming slaughter.

The Sea Clan warriors turned ashen. The two young supremes who had been so arrogant moments ago now retreated, their faces drained of color. This was Gu Changge. He had just decimated the Seventh Princess’s mount and shattered her arm with a single, casual blow. His strength was beyond anything they had imagined.

“Gu Changge, do not overstep,” the Seventh Princess hissed, her face dark. “If you insist on backing Gu Xianer…”

“The Sea King Palace hunts my sister, and you have the audacity to blame me for supporting her?” Changge interrupted, his smile playing with a dangerous amusement. “What kind of logic is that? Furthermore, you still haven’t answered my question.”

He leaned in slightly. “I’ll ask you one more time. How do you want to die?”

Pushed to the brink by his arrogance, the Seventh Princess’s rage boiled over. “Gu Changge, enough with your sanctimonious posturing! You are a Young Supreme, a man of ‘True Immortal’ caliber, yet you act like a common thug. Do you truly think my Sea King Palace is a soft persimmon you can squeeze at will?”

In her mind, Changge was a formidable but solitary threat. Even if he rallied the nearby Palace disciples, her Sea Clan forces were vast. A full-scale clash would likely end in mutual destruction—a scenario she assumed he’d want to avoid. She was willing to put her brother’s revenge on hold for the sake of survival.

But Gu Changge didn’t care about “logic” or “mutual destruction.” He hadn’t even bothered to ask why she was hunting Xianer. He had simply arrived and demanded her execution. Twice.

“Excessive bullying?”

Changge laughed, a cold, sharp sound that carried no warmth. His expression suddenly turned lethal. “If I choose to bully you… what are you going to do about it?”

Behind him, Gu Xianer felt a strange tremor in her heart. She looked at the back of his white robes. The Seventh Princess had used that same overbearing logic against her just minutes ago: I am stronger, so I bully you. Now, hearing Changge throw those words back at the Sea Clan filled her with an indescribable sense of security. For the first time in years, she felt she had someone to lean on.

Of course, she knew this was likely a performance for the crowd—a way for him to atone for the past or perhaps just to maintain the Gu Family’s face. But even knowing that, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. She had spent the last hour painting him as a doting brother just to bait the Sea Clan into a trap, never actually expecting him to show up.

“Gu Changge!” the Seventh Princess spat, her teeth bared. “If this is how it is, then tell me—how do you plan to settle the debt of my brother’s life?”

She gripped her golden spear, runes flaring along the shaft as metallic killing intent began to swirl around her. If he wouldn’t give her face, she would take his life.

“Settle it? Why don’t you go down to the yellow springs and ask him yourself?”

Changge’s figure blurred. He didn’t just move; he simply wasn’t there anymore. When he reappeared, he was standing directly in the Seventh Princess’s shadow.

The Princess’s pupils shrank. Her followers gasped, paralyzed by the sheer speed. There had been no spatial ripples, no warning. It was as if he had folded the world itself. Is this the ‘Great Distance in a Breath’ technique? Or ‘Shrinking Earth’?

Before they could even process the thought, a pressure like a falling sun erupted from Changge’s position.

“Xianer killing him was his greatest honor. Since you dared to touch her, you can join him in the afterlife.”

BOOM!

As the words left his lips, the void was filled with the metallic cling of unsheathed swords. Thousands of crystalline sword-beams manifested, sparking against each other with a sharpness that felt like it could cleave reality.

Gu Changge pointed his fingers. From his tips, the Infinite Immortal Art bloomed—a soul-shredding light that cascaded down like a cosmic waterfall. It wasn’t fueled by Spiritual Energy alone; it was a manifestation of pure Rule-power.

Under the blessing of his Transcendence talent, his control over his arts had undergone a qualitative leap. These were the swords of Order, capable of erasing any technique that didn’t possess an equal grasp of Rules. To use this against mere “Young Supremes” was like using a butcher’s cleaver to slice silk.

Simultaneously, Changge’s followers emerged from the mist, charging into the Sea Clan ranks from all sides. A chaotic melee erupted.

Swoosh!

Changge walked through the carnage as if strolling through a garden. He flicked his fingers toward the golden-fish youth—the mid-stage Conferred King who had earlier attacked Xianer.

“No… please!” the youth screamed. He felt a primal, soul-chilling terror. He summoned his most powerful artifact, pouring every drop of his cultivation into it. The treasure flared with a light that could have leveled a city.

It didn’t matter. A single strand of Changge’s sword-light, humming with the power of the Rules, pierced the youth’s brow. The soul-protection runes he carried shattered like glass.

“If resistance worked, why would I bother with overwhelming strength?” Changge asked rhetorically. He was still suppressing his “surface” cultivation to the Conferred King Realm, but the quality of his attacks was on an entirely different plane.

“Is… is this his true power?” Gu Xianer was paralyzed. She had spent every waking moment trying to surpass him, yet the gap seemed to have become an uncrossable abyss. This sword art was born for nothing but slaughter.

“Dead… a Young Supreme, killed in an instant…” The Sea Clan warriors were losing their minds. They had seen many geniuses, but never one who could erase a Conferred King’s soul with a flick of his wrist. It was now clear that Gu Changge wasn’t just a tier above them—he was playing a different game entirely.

“He can wield the power of Rules?” the Seventh Princess whispered, her soul trembling. That is the domain of Saints! She realized with a sinking heart that no matter how many trump cards she had, they were useless against a man who could bypass the laws of combat.

“His consumption must be enormous! He can’t keep this up!” she shrieked, trying to rally her spirits.

She watched as the mermaid-dragon girl tried to flee, only to be bifurcated by a beam of light. Desperation turned into a savage ferocity. If she didn’t kill Gu Changge, he would undoubtedly end her.

“KILL!”

The Princess transformed into a streak of golden divine flame. She swept her spear, creating a golden vortex that threatened to swallow the sky. At the same time, she produced a red, shimmering furnace—the Crimson Sun Furnace (Imitation).

She uncapped the lid, and a torrent of celestial fire erupted, containing fragments of Rule-power that coalesced into burning chains.

“An imitation?” Changge noted with a bored hum. It was a famous weapon, but in her hands, it could only touch the True God level.

In front of the shocked spectators, the two clashed. The mountain range buckled under the light of a dozen exploding suns. The glare was so intense that the monks in the distance had to close their eyes or risk permanent blindness.

CRACK!

The Crimson Sun Furnace was sent spinning into the distance, its lid shattered. A blue-haired figure, covered in her own blood and with half her torso crushed, was thrown across the valley like a broken doll.

“Why…?” the Seventh Princess gasped, her eyes wide with a horrific realization. She had hit him with everything she had, and he hadn’t even flinched. His Spiritual Energy was supposed to be drained, yet he looked as fresh as the moment he arrived.

“Because,” Gu Changge said, appearing before her twisted, bloody face with a playful smirk, “I am simply much, much stronger than you.”

Thump.

He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her. The prideful Princess now looked like a tattered ghost.

“Gu Changge… if you kill me… my father…”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Changge interrupted, his voice dropping to a whisper. He systematically sealed her cultivation with a series of brutal strikes and then tossed her like a bag of refuse to the feet of a stunned Gu Xianer.

“Xianer,” he said, his smile becoming sharp and meaningful. “I’ll leave her to you. To kill, or to keep—the choice is yours.”

He had placed the knife in his sister’s hand.