Sunny's eyes snapped open.
He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his mind, instantly realizing that the piercing shrieks ringing in his ears were not a dream.
He was wearing a dark, flowing robe with silver trim that felt incredibly expensive.
Standing a few feet away from the edge of the massive obsidian bed was a young girl. She was dressed in a maid's outfit that resembled traditional ancient robes, and she was clutching a bronze washbasin to her chest.
She was his distant cousin, assigned by the family to be his personal caretaker. Sunny didn't know the full details of their relationship yet, but one thing was absolutely clear: she was terrified of him.
"Demon! Demon! You're definitely a demon!" she shrieked, backing away hurriedly until her shoulders hit the wall of the cavernous bedchamber.
"Whoa, hey, calm down," Sunny said, instinctively raising his hands in a peaceful gesture.
His own voice surprised him. It was smooth, deep, and carried an inherent, chilling arrogance that he didn't intend at all.
It was the kind of voice a villain used right before explaining their master plan.
"Help! Help! The famous evil wants to eat me!" the girl screamed. Her grip failed, and the bronze basin dropped from her hands.
It hit the floor, splashing warm water and fragrant rose petals everywhere.
Sunny swung his legs over the side of the bed. He just wanted to comfort her, to tell her he wasn't going to hurt anyone, let alone eat them. But as he stood up and caught his reflection in a massive mirror positioned across the room, he froze completely.
Staring back at him was the quintessential Evil Sect Young Master. He had sharp features, piercing crimson eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light, and long, perfectly straight jet-black hair that cascaded down his back.
A dark, sinister aura seemed to naturally emanate from his very pores.
"You!... Are you the one who is the!" the panicked relative stammered, pointing a trembling finger at him, completely forgetting her grammar in her sheer panic.
"The Young Master!"
Sunny clutched his head as a sudden, massive flood of memories assaulted his mind.
He was Sunny Shen, the notorious, cruel, and universally despised Young Master of the Heavenly Demon Sect.
"You stay away from me! Stay away from me now!!" she cried out as Sunny took a single step forward.
Sunny stopped immediately. He needed to assess the situation. Through the foreign memories rapidly merging with his own consciousness, Sunny learned the fundamental rules of this new reality.
This was a world of Cultivation and Beast Taming. In this world, practicing martial arts and gathering spiritual energy were only half of the equation. The true, absolute power of a cultivator lay in their spirit beasts.
Everyone in this world strived to become a Beast Tamer. When a person reached a certain age, they would awaken a 'Beast Space' within their soul. This mystical space allowed them to form spiritual contracts with the magical creatures, monsters, and divine beasts that roamed the vast wilderness outside the human cities.
A Beast Tamer's status and strength were directly tied to the beasts they controlled.
If you commanded a powerful beast, you were treated as a lord, a king among men. If your beast was weak, you were destined to be trampled underfoot by society.
There were countless species of beasts in this world: elemental wolves that breathed scorching fire, massive serpents that could summon thunderstorms, giant eagles whose wings obscured the sun, and even terrifying plant-type beasts that could swallow entire towns whole.
Taming these creatures was incredibly difficult. It required immense wealth, innate talent, and profound spiritual energy. A beast tamer's journey was arduous and fraught with peril.
First, they had to cultivate their soul to expand their Beast Space. Then, they had to painstakingly hunt down a wild beast, weaken it in combat, and forcefully imprint their soul seal upon its mind.
If the beast's willpower proved stronger than the tamer's, the tamer's soul would shatter, instantly turning them into a mindless cripple.
Because of this extreme risk, most tamers only ever contracted one or two beasts in their entire lifetime.
They treated these contracted beasts better than their own children, feeding them rare spiritual herbs, purchasing impossibly expensive elemental crystals to help them evolve, and training them day and night.
The Heavenly Demon Sect was infamous for taking a drastically different approach. They were notorious for taming dark, vicious, and bloodthirsty beasts.
They fed their beasts the flesh of rival cultivators and used dark magic to forcefully mutate them into killing machines. Because of these horrific practices, the Heavenly Demon Sect was universally hated and feared by the righteous, orthodox sects that dominated the prosperous central plains.
They were the undisputed villains of this continent.
And he, Sunny Shen, was known as the absolute worst of them all.
Well, at least in reputation. As Sunny dug deeper into the memories, he realized the tragic truth.
The original owner of this body was actually incredibly weak. He was a complete trash cultivator with zero talent for beast taming. His Beast Space was so small and fragile that even attempting to contract a common, low-level house cat might cause his soul to collapse.
To hide this fatal weakness, the original Sunny had put on a terrifying facade. He had acted overbearingly cruel, relying entirely on his father's terrifying reputation as the Sect Master to bully the servants, extort resources from lower-ranking disciples, and execute anyone who dared to look at him with suspicion.
Sunny took a deep breath. His personal goal, and now the heavy burden passed onto him, was simply survival.
In the Heavenly Demon Sect, the weak were literally fed to the strong. If the other ambitious young masters or the scheming sect elders ever discovered that the Sect Master's only son was a talentless cripple, he wouldn't survive the night.
He needed to find a way to grow stronger, step by step, keeping his true, gentle nature hidden while he built a foundation of power.
He wanted to change this body's grim fate. He wanted to grow naturally into someone strong, someone driven by the simple, personal goal of living a peaceful life away from all this sect politics and murder.
He just wanted to eventually leave this dark place, find a nice sunny mountain, tame a few fluffy beasts, and live quietly.
"Listen to me," Sunny tried again, softening his voice as much as his villainous vocal cords would allow.
He really needed an ally. He wanted to build a good relationship with this terrified cousin.
"I am not going to hurt you."
"Liar!" she sobbed, pressing herself harder against the wall.
Suddenly, before Sunny could try to explain himself further, a sharp chime rang out in the very center of his mind.
Ding!
[Initiating Universal Scan...]
[Target identified: Sunny Shen.]
[Evaluating alignment...]
[Result: Maximum Evil. Innate Villainous Aura detected. Host is recognized as the most evil entity in the world!]
[Binding successful!]
Sunny blinked in confusion.
A cheerful, distinctly female voice echoed loudly in his head.
[Hello, Master! I am the Supreme Merge System! I have crossed the vast cosmos to find the ultimate villain, and congratulations, you are the grand prize winner! Because you are the most evil, cruel, and diabolical entity in this entire world, I have chosen you as my one and only host!]
Sunny's jaw dropped. 'Wait, what? I'm not evil! I just woke up in this body five minutes ago! The original guy wasn't even that evil, he was just a desperate poser trying not to get murdered!'
"Don't be modest, Master!" the System girl chimed, her voice bright and bubbly, completely contrasting with the terrifying words she was speaking.
"Your dark aura is simply unparalleled! It's off the charts! With my help, you will become the supreme overlord of all existence!"
"Allow me to explain your glorious new powers, Master!" the System continued, completely ignoring his panic.
[As the host of the Supreme Merge System, you possess the ultimate, rule-breaking ability in this beast-taming world: The power to fuse absolutely everything! You can merge two weak, trash-tier beasts together to create a new beast! You can merge basic cultivation techniques to create forbidden arts! You can merge items! You can even merge beast skills to create world-destroying ultimate attacks! The possibilities for evil are endless!]
Sunny stared blankly at the floating blue screen. He could merge... everything?
In a world where people spent decades searching for rare, high-tier spirit beasts, he could just mash a bunch of low-tier common beasts together to create something unstoppable?
If he took a common Fire Lizard and merged it with a common Wind Sparrow, would he get a Dragon?
If he merged two basic fireball skills, would he get a meteor strike?
The system didn't just offer him a way out; it offered him a path to absolute safety. Not that he wanted to be supreme. He just wanted to be safe enough that nobody would ever try to feed him to a Shadow Wolf.
A slow smile spread across Sunny's face. He didn't mean for it to look sinister. He was genuinely just happy and relieved that he wasn't going to die immediately.
He was already imagining the wonderful, peaceful life he could live once he merged enough weak slimes into an invincible, giant guardian beast. He was feeling pure joy!
But on the outside, with his pale skin, glowing crimson eyes, and innate villainous aura, that smile looked like the terrifying, bloodthirsty grin of a demon who had just decided exactly how he was going to slowly torture his prey.
The terrified caretaker, who had been watching him stand in silence and suddenly smile like a deranged psychopath, finally reached her breaking point.
All remaining color drained from her face. She let out a final shriek of absolute horror.
She scrambled to her feet, slipping frantically on the spilled water from the washbasin, and bolted for the doors.
"Stay away from me! Stay away from me now, you evil entity!"
The doors slammed shut behind her.
Sunny was left standing alone in the grand room, barefoot in a puddle of warm water, his hand still awkwardly half-raised in a friendly wave.