Poisoned by My Mistress

The Mask of Madness

Pain. Agonizing pain.

A crawling numbness skittered across Mu Yunfeng’s skin while sharp waves of torment erupted from every inch of his body. Every bite, every sting, every scrape seemed to burn straight into his nerves.

It felt like hell itself—unable to live, unable to die.

“AAARGH!!”

At last, the broke him. He opened his mouth and screamed.

The scream lasted only a second before venomous insects poured into his mouth.

As the pain raged through him, so did his .

*Why the hell are you screwing with me like this?!*

*You me into another world as a beggar.*

*Fine.*

*But no cheat powers? No blessings? Nothing?*

*Starving every day, every night—what was the point of transmigrating at all?*

*And now I have to die like this?*

*Haven’t I enough already?!*

*Where’s the legendary gift every transmigrator gets?!*

Mu Yunfeng roared those words in the depths of his mind.

Then suddenly—

The pain vanished.

All of it.

The stinging. The bites. The crawling sensation on his skin. Gone in an instant.

He jerked upright and looked around.

He was no longer in the pit.

Instead, he sat in the middle of an endless grassland beneath an open sky. At the center of that vast plain stood a single tree. Beneath its branches, a young girl in a black dress sat on a swing, staring at him in clear surprise.

“Well,” she said, blinking. “That’s unexpected. How did you get here?”

Mu Yunfeng stood quickly, patting himself down. No wounds. No pain.

“Funny, I was about to ask the same thing. Where am I?”

“This,” the girl said, hopping lightly from the swing, “is the part of your consciousness.”

She wore a flowing black gauze dress, elegant and strange all at once.

“You must be close to death. Without that kind of overwhelming pressure, you never would have broken through the barrier and this place.”

Mu Yunfeng frowned and glanced around again.

“If this is *my* mind, then who are *you*?”

“Me?” She tilted her head, lips pursed in an almost playful pout. “You can think of me as the spirit of a treasure residing in your body.”

“A treasure spirit?” His eyes lit up immediately. “So there’s some divine artifact inside me?”

“There is a spiritual artifact,” she replied vaguely. “Whether it as divine... I couldn’t say.”

Then she smiled faintly.

“Why don’t you try using it?”

Her tone was ambiguous, almost seductive. But Mu Yunfeng was far too excited to notice the hidden beneath it.

Divine artifact or not, anything with a spirit attached had to be extraordinary. Maybe—just maybe—it could save him.

“I’ll use it!” he said without hesitation.

The girl walked toward him slowly until she stood directly before him. Then she raised one hand and gently placed her palm against the left side of his face.

“Just don’t let it devour you.”

The words barely left her lips before black flames burst from her hand.

A pain thousands of times worse than the swarm’s t*****e speared into his skull.

“AAAAAHHH!”

Mu Yunfeng screamed as the world shattered around him.

He was violently expelled from the depths of his consciousness.

---

“So it’s a complete failure after all?”

The giant brute standing at the rim of the pit looked mildly disappointed.

The entire pit had become a writhing sea of insects. Not a single human body could still be seen.

“So the human body truly cannot survive the Ten Thousand Insect Gu...”

He sighed.

“Well then, let’s see what kind of supreme venom after they devour one another.”

Then, from within the living tide—

A blood-red eye snapped open.

“Hm?”

The brute’s gaze sharpened instantly.

At the very center of the pit, something began to rise.

A man slowly stood, forcing the insects away with sheer presence.

It was Mu Yunfeng.

His body had turned dark purple-black. Veins bulged violently beneath his skin. Poisoned blood leaked from countless tiny wounds. Spiders, centipedes, and venomous creatures still crawled across his flesh.

Yet his expression was eerily calm.

His crimson eyes stared directly at the giant.

The brute burst into laughter.

“Hahaha! Excellent! You didn’t disappoint me after all. You really survived to the end!”

Mu Yunfeng’s voice was low and steady.

“I figured dying alone would be lonely.”

He took one step forward.

“So I came to drag you down with me.”

Blood from across his body suddenly flowed upward, drawn by some unseen force toward the left side of his face.

In an instant, it wove itself into a half-mask shaped like a demonic oni visage.

The moment it settled onto his skin, endless violence and murderous madness crashed into his mind, nearly destroying his sanity.

At the same time, fragments of memory flashed before his eyes.

Scenes. Faces. Battles. Deaths.

He slowly understood.

These were the memories of every previous wearer of the mask.

The girl had been right.

This was no divine artifact.

It was a cursed weapon.

Not one of its wielders had met a good end.

And now... it had chosen him.

Through the of memories, he learned its name.

**The Yi God Nuo Mask.**

The brute stared in shock.

“What kind of technique is that?!”

Mu Yunfeng his head.

A terrifying aura outward.

Every insect in the pit recoiled instantly, from him in panic.

Within moments, a perfect empty circle formed around him amid the sea of venomous creatures.

“This?” Mu Yunfeng said softly.

“It’s a technique I learned in hell... for collecting lives.”

His body vanished.

In the next blink, he appeared directly before the giant and a .

Fluid. Precise. Savage.

Nothing about him resembled a cripple whose meridians had been shattered.

*Fast!*

Even masters famed for movement techniques might not match that speed.

The brute paled and hurriedly thrust out a palm backed by internal energy.

Fist met palm.

His entire into blood mist.

“What?!”

Real fear finally him.

“Kill him! All of you, move!” he screamed at his subordinates.

Mu Yunfeng back his head and laughed like a madman.

From his back, countless blood-forged spikes erupted outward.

In the blink of an eye, every black-clad man was skewered and screaming into the air.

The brute stood .

Cold sweat poured down his face.

Compared to the madness in those crimson eyes, his own cruelty was less than an ant’s.

Then Mu Yunfeng smiled.

A pure, clownish smile.

“Try to last a little longer for me.”

The brute trembled.

“What... what kind of monster are you?” he asked in despair.

The only answer was laughter—

and a fist.

**Bang! Bang! Bang!**

Still cackling wildly, Mu Yunfeng pounded the man’s head again and again, long after it had become a mangled heap of flesh.

, the half-mask began to grow.

It crept across his right cheek like living flesh.

The spikes on his back multiplied, lashing outward and destroying forest, stone, and earth without distinction.

He was becoming something inhuman.

Then the girl’s voice echoed in his mind.

“So... you weren’t enough either?”

The quiet remark cut through the madness.

A shred of clarity returned.

Mu Yunfeng’s next changed direction and seized the mask on his face.

“So that’s how it works...”

Staggering forward, he gritted his teeth and tore at it with all his strength.

The mask clung like a living parasite. Where it peeled away, blood-like tendrils from it to his skin, refusing to let go.

“GET OFF!”

With a furious roar, he ripped it free and crushed it in his hand.

The mask shattered.

At once, the blood spikes behind him dissolved into mist.

His strength vanished.

Mu Yunfeng’s knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground.

Darkness swallowed him once more.