"Boss, Madam just called and said—"
"Get out."
Alvin Halman’s voice sliced through the air like a blade.
Yancy Gregg jolted as if struck, shoulders shrinking. He didn’t dare say another word and hurried out of the room, steps stumbling over themselves.
The door closed. Silence dropped.
Alvin’s face darkened, shadows gathering under his eyes. His jaw clenched so tight it trembled.
He’d come back. Alive.
Just moments before that, Sophia Hartwell had driven a dagger straight into his heart. No hesitation. No trembling hands. A clean, practiced stab.
And she’d said, almost annoyed, that if she waited for him to die on his own, the meat wouldn’t stay fresh.
Fresh.
Her voice still echoed in his skull like poison.
After that, already dead, he watched—watched from a cold, detached place—as Sophia’s whole damned family and his so‑called brother Giles Easmon tied his corpse to five horses and tore him apart.
His limbs ripped like rotten cloth.
And that boy… that brat he once called his son… grabbed his severed leg and tossed it to the dogs.
No. Not his son.
Sophia’s bastard with Giles.
She’d whispered that to him herself when the dagger slid in—every word colder than the steel in his chest.
Vile woman.
Filthy wretch.
If he didn’t take revenge, he wasn’t worthy of the name human.
Alvin couldn’t hold the rage down anymore. It surged up, wild and choking. His fist slammed onto the table with a dull, bone‑deep thud, the wood shuddering under the blow.
He wanted every last one of those who took part in ruining him to live wishing for death yet never reach it.
A crisp chime echoed.
“Ding!
Host’s temperament has undergone drastic change. System has corrected the cultivation path to Demonic Cultivation.”
Alvin Halman paused, stunned for a heartbeat.
Back when the apocalypse first tore the world apart, he had already awakened the system.
But the damned thing had pointed him toward the righteous path.
That so‑called righteous system demanded gratitude from others before it would strengthen him.
But this was the end of the world.
Outside, hailstones as big as fists smashed into the earth.
Black, corrosive rain ate through stone.
Mutant beasts prowled the ruins like starving ghosts.
And beyond all that—
humans were tearing each other apart.
In a world like this, wanting someone to sincerely thank you?
Harder than climbing a cliff with no rope.
Harder than any cursed mountain pass.
Because of that, his strength grew at a snail’s pace.
Every time he stepped out to scavenge resources, it was a gamble with death—nine lives gone, one barely clinging on.
In the end, he encountered a mutant beast and took a grievous wound.
He had clawed his way back home, half dead, using every shred of will to keep moving.
But Sophia Hartwell’s family, seeing he’d returned empty‑handed, didn’t wait for an explanation.
Sophia and her lover, Giles Easmon, tied him up like an animal.
Then they spent a full week torturing him—methods so cruel they scraped the soul raw.
He couldn’t even call it living.
By the time Sophia stabbed him, Alvin had already been hanging on by nothing more than a single dying breath.
If he hadn’t been on the verge of dying, Sophia Hartwell and Giles Easmon’s pack would’ve kept tormenting him just for fun.
System?
Great… heavens above, finally something on my side.
Alvin Halman had thought the system would vanish the moment he was reborn. He never expected it to cling to him like this—steadfast, loyal.
More loyal than his wife—no, his ex-wife—a thousand times over, ten thousand times over.
Still shaken, he hurried to pull up the system page.
[Host: Alvin Halman]
[Gender: Male]
[Cultivation Path: Evil Cultivator]
[Current Realm: Mortal]
[Required Negative Emotion Points for Advancement: 10000]
[Current Accumulated Negative Emotion Points: 2500]
Two thousand five hundred?
Why that much?
Alvin stiffened. Before being reborn, he’d scraped and clawed for half a month to gather a total of fifteen hundred gratitude points. But now, right after waking up, he already had twenty-five hundred negative emotion points?
As confusion spread through him, the number twitched again—twenty-six hundred.
What in the world was going on?
Alvin Halman narrowed his eyes and checked the screen.
System reward +500
Negative emotions from Yancy Gregg +1000, +1000, +100
The system reward was easy to understand.
But Yancy Gregg’s negative emotions… wasn’t that a bit too much?
He had only cursed at the man once.
“So that’s how it works…”
“Then maybe I should push a little harder?”
Alvin rubbed his chin, gaze sliding over the desk.
Good.
You’ll do—ashtray.
He picked up the ashtray, weighed it in his palm. Solid. Fit his hand well.
Then he called Yancy in.
Yancy came quickly, his footsteps light yet cautious.
“Boss, you—”
“Catch this!”
The moment Yancy stepped through the door, Alvin swung his arm and hurled the ashtray.
Bang!
It smashed square into Yancy’s forehead.
Yancy crumpled with a yelp, clutching his head and squatting down, eyes squeezed shut in pain.
He glanced down at his hand again, and that splash of bright red hit him straight in the eyes.
Blood?
I’m bleeding?
Yancy Gregg just stared at Alvin Halman, dumb as a stunned ox.
“What’re you staring at?”
“Who the hell told you to step in with your left foot first?”
Alvin barked the words out like he was flinging stones.
Yancy’s mind went blank. This was bullying—plain and simple. But Alvin’s mood only lifted.
[Negative Emotion from Yancy Gregg +2000, +2000]
[Current Negative Emotion Total: 6600]
One hit, one curse—four thousand points in the bag just like that.
Alvin decided to push it further. He snapped, voice sharp as a whip, “Still squatting there like some useless lump? Get out. Come back in and do it right!”
“Y-yes, Boss!”
Yancy had always known how to fold himself small. Even being treated like this, he didn’t dare raise a breath of protest.
Head bowed, spirit crushed, he shuffled out and knocked again.
“Boss?”
“Come in.”
Alvin Halman sat stiff and straight in the boss chair, his eyes locked on Yancy Gregg like a blade pressed to a throat.
Yancy had clearly taken Alvin’s earlier warning to heart. Before stepping in, he’d actually paused at the door, glanced down at his feet, and made sure he entered with his right foot first.
But the moment that right foot crossed the threshold, Alvin’s face still twisted with fury.
“Damn it!”
“Who told you to step in with your right foot, huh?”
Alvin snatched the cup beside his hand and hurled it without hesitation.
This time, Yancy had learned. He jerked his head down in a panic. The cup skimmed past his ear and exploded against the wall.
A sharp crack rang out, shards scattering everywhere.
Alvin wasn’t done. His voice was cold and vicious. “You dare dodge? Yancy, you’re done being my secretary. Go clean the damn latrines.”
“Clean… latrines?”
Yancy froze for a heartbeat, then his face darkened, shame and anger crawling up his neck.
Alvin didn’t spare him a second glance. A thin, cutting smile curved his lips.
“What? You got a problem with that?”
“N–no… no problem…”
Yancy’s head dropped instantly, shoulders drawn in tight.
[Negative emotion from Yancy Gregg +2000]
[Negative emotion from Yancy Gregg +2000]
[Negative emotion from Yancy Gregg +2000]
In that split second,
Yancy Gregg dumped more than six thousand points of negative emotion straight into Alvin Halman’s lap.
That number alone said everything—
the man was furious, burning from head to toe.
Yet he still swallowed it.
Alvin almost admired him for that.
This guy was basically a walking turtle-shell of endurance.
“Since you’ve got no objections, that’s that,” Alvin said.
“Now get out.”
He flicked his hand, already too lazy to look at him.
Yancy kept his head down and hurried out without another word.
“Damn…
That felt good.
Too damn good.”
Alvin slapped the table hard, laughing until his eyes watered.
Now he understood the demonic system completely—
how it fed, how it grew.
And by comparison, the righteous system he had before rebirth…
what a pile of trash.
Do a good deed, get a polite ‘thank you,’ and the moment it’s said, the person forgets you.
How many gratitude points could that ever be?
But doing something nasty?
Walk up to someone and slap the soul out of them—
maybe they hold their tongue, maybe they pretend to be calm…
but that grudge?
That sticks.
Not just a day or two.
A year, two years—
they’ll still remember every detail.
Some people will hate you their whole lives, carry that hatred into the grave, and still gnash their teeth below.
And all that… just how much negative emotion would it be worth?
They say a man gets a golden belt for killing and burning, while those who build bridges die without a coffin.
That’s the way of the world.
As for Yancy Gregg, Alvin Halman didn’t feel he’d gone too far with him. If anything, he felt he’d held back.
Because Yancy was Giles Easmon’s eyes and ears.
Already bought.
Every move Alvin made would be sent straight to Giles, letting that bastard sneak off to hotels with Sophia Hartwell without a care.
Alvin remembered it clearly. Before his rebirth, Sophia and Giles had said it to his face—smirking.
“Yancy Gregg…”
“You’ve already chosen the road to death.”
Alvin buried the words deep in his heart, cold and sharp, swearing he’d make Yancy pay in the most drawn‑out way possible.
But before that, he had cultivation to raise.
[Confirm consumption of 10000 Negative Emotion Points to upgrade cultivation?]
[Confirm]
Alvin didn’t hesitate.
[Congratulations, host—cultivation successfully upgraded!]
[Realm: Qi Refining, First Stage]
[Remaining Negative Emotion Points: 2600]
[Next upgrade requires: 12000 Negative Emotion Points]
"Reward: one lottery ticket. Would you like to draw?"
Alvin Halman didn’t even flinch. The righteous-path system in his past life had the same feature, and back then, he’d pulled an F‑rank reward.
A pack of tissues.
That kind of luck could make someone want to curse the heavens apart.
But now he was reborn. He refused to believe his luck would still be that foul.
Draw.
Draw, damn it.
"Drawing…"
"Congratulations, Host. You have obtained the SSS‑Rank Reward: Infinite Space."