ILDV Chapter 68

Yin Lang watched as Yan Guihe averted his gaze as if avoiding a snake or scorpion, fleeing so quickly that he doubtfully reached up to touch his own face, almost thinking he’d been disfigured without knowing it.

Earlier under the archway, Yan Guihe had shown this kind of subconscious reaction, but this time it had become stronger and more obvious.

Yin Lang pondered thoughtfully. Had he thought of something…?

Yan Guihe’s mind was still somewhat dazed. He spoke two perfunctory sentences with an expressionless face, and then Yan Yan announced the beginning of the ten Demon Venerables challenging each other to re-rank their positions.

Since the beginning of heaven and earth, the Northern Demon Territory had eleven venerable positions, bearing the fortune of this land that was the Northern Demon Territory. One Demon Lord commanded ten Demon Venerables. They were both the rulers of demonic cultivators and the bridge connecting demonic cultivators to the demonic qi between heaven and earth. The ‘width’ of this ‘bridge’ depended on the demonic cultivator’s own cultivation level and the order of their venerable position. The ‘bridge’ width that the Demon Lord alone could support far exceeded that of the ten Demon Venerables combined.

The same was true for the Demon Realm.

Therefore, ever since the Demon Lord perished and the Demonic Beast Lord was severely injured and remained unconscious a thousand years ago, the Northern Demon Territory and Demon Realm had been in decline, forced to lie low and recuperate under the suppression of the Immortal Sects.

Wu Mantuo was still hesitating whether to be the first to take the stage as this early bird when the Sixth Demon Venerable had already flashed onto the Life-and-Death platform at Yan Yan’s signal, facing Yan Guihe’s direction. “Venerable Yan, would you like to come down and warm up?”

Yan Guihe lifted his eyelids, gave him an indifferent glance, pressed one hand on his venerable seat, and in the blink of an eye appeared in the center of the elevated platform. His eyelids remained half-closed throughout. He lightly lifted his chin, still saying nothing, his contempt clearly evident.

The Sixth Demon Venerable’s gaze gradually turned cold. Fortunately, he still remembered Venerable Yan’s instructions. He took a deep breath, forcefully suppressed his anger to maintain his rationality, and gripped his weapon, standing ready in strict formation.

Yan Yan’s vulture-like gaze was firmly fixed on Yan Guihe.

After the Battle of Ming City, when Yan Guihe’s life or death was unknown, Yan Yan had made complete preparations to support another subordinate to rise in position. However, Yan Guihe’s soul lamp never extinguished, the subordinate he prepared to support couldn’t rise to the position, and Jiuyou Court, which had just come into his hands, was in chaos for a time. Following that, Qian Yu and Xiao Xu, who went to Beiyu City to compete for the secret treasure map, suffered consecutive defeats and died. He lost nearly half his forces almost overnight!

Yan Guihe… Yan Guihe… Six hundred years ago you luckily escaped with your life. Since you’re unwilling to cooperate with this Venerable, then go follow in Yin Jiuxuan’s footsteps!

On the platform, Yan Guihe gave a cold laugh. Ominous dark green smoke suddenly exploded, enveloping the entire elevated platform. At the same time, his entire person also transformed into a wisp of ethereal, illusory smoke, instantly merging perfectly into the dark green fog.

“Hmm?” Those who understood Yan Guihe’s strength all focused their attention to watch carefully.

Diwu Hong was somewhat surprised. “This guy’s strength has increased too quickly, hasn’t it?”

Yin Lang had just fought with Yan Guihe in Ming City not long ago, so he felt the changes in his opponent’s strength more keenly. In Ming City, releasing a wave of primordial poison qi had nearly cost him his life. After disappearing for so long before daring to reappear before others, yet this time after releasing the poison qi, Yan Guihe’s aura actually hadn’t weakened much!

Looking at Yan Yan again, sure enough, his expression wasn’t very good, but he also didn’t appear overly angry.

Yan Guihe wantonly released his Tribulation stage Great Perfection strength. Compared to the ‘him’ familiar to the people in this realm, having lived several hundred more years and experienced the Battle to Suppress Yan, his battle experience and techniques were more than a level stronger.

Wherever the poisonous fog reached, Yan Guihe’s figure was as elusive as a ghost, gathering and dispersing. With the Sixth Demon Venerable’s mid-Tribulation stage strength, it was difficult to keep up with his rhythm. Before long, many small wounds appeared on his body. None of these wounds were fatal—clearly Yan Guihe was in no hurry to end this battle and was toying with him.

Most of the demonic cultivators on the ground watching the battle with upturned heads were so excited their blood rushed. Yan Guihe’s superior manipulation techniques, whether visually or in terms of momentum, thoroughly crushed his opponent, very much to the demonic cultivators’ taste.

The Sixth Demon Venerable still seemed to have no intention of admitting defeat. He wiped away the blood obstructing his vision and kept his gaze constantly searching for Yan Guihe’s position in the green fog.

Suddenly his gaze briefly froze on a point in the void. Then his right hand slightly turned, as if grasping something. He lowered his eyes, pretending nothing had happened, and continued his ‘futile’ struggle.

Until Yan Guihe carelessly and overconfidently drifted before him, the Sixth Demon Venerable suddenly erupted, throwing himself bodily forward!

****

Qin Xun traveled a thousand li to rush to Supreme City’s outskirts, taking a slight breath before stepping into this royal city of the Northern Demon Territory.

The selection within Taihua Immortal Sect had concluded, and the matters his master had arranged were mostly handled. With nothing to do there, he might as well come see if he could help in any way. Moreover… there was still that miraculous ‘rebirth’ that master and disciple needed to think through carefully.

He showed the guards the token from the Eighteenth Hell and smoothly obtained qualification to enter the city. As Qin Xun passed through the inner city gate, a commotion caught his attention.

The disturbance wasn’t large, but those who dared cause trouble in Supreme City’s inner city were a rare breed throughout the entire Northern Demon Territory, inevitably arousing curiosity.

Qin Xun turned to look, and in the next instant, his gaze froze on that person, unable to shift away even a fraction.

It was a woman dressed in a fire-red long dress, with a tall figure and gorgeous appearance, yet her face was cold as frost, her entire being emanating an unapproachable, inviolable aura that kept people at a thousand li distance.

Around her were seven or eight men and women in matching attire, all at Spirit Transformation stage or above in cultivation. Judging by their insignia markings, they were demonic cultivators belonging to Jiuyou Court.

Yan Shu.

Jiuyou Court’s little princess. Yan Guihe’s most beloved daughter.

Qin Xun silently chewed on this name, the intense hatred in his dark eyes rising and spreading like wildfire, burning his heart with scorching pain, almost incinerating his bones and flesh.

In his nostrils was the unpleasant smell of burnt wood. In his ears, the ‘crackling’ sound of flames licking was incessant. The wind blowing in through the hall doors swept up fierce flames, bringing suffocating heat.

Under the attacks of Integration stage great powers, the halls collapsed rapidly one after another. The panicked pregnant woman clutched her abdomen with both hands, fleeing desperately toward the hall’s exit without regard for direction.

“Heh, just a small Corpse Puppet Sect—either of us alone could destroy it with a flip of our hand. I don’t know what Lady Yan Shu was thinking, insisting we both act together…”

“So much nonsense. Hurry and clean up these two old immortals. Handle it cleanly and get back to rest earlier.”

“Yue’er, run! Don’t look back!”

Father’s hoarse shouts mixed with the violent explosion sounds of clashing blades, swords, and spell techniques came from far away. The blood and flesh of loved ones splattered on her back and arms. Qin Yue only felt her legs were about to break from running. The scorching breath she inhaled seemed able to burn her lungs, yet her fleeing footsteps beneath her didn’t dare pause for a moment.

She didn’t know how long she ran, only remembering: don’t stop! Don’t stop! She ran until her stamina was exhausted and her vision went black before collapsing.

When Qin Yue awoke, a thread of faint morning light appeared on the horizon—an entire night had already passed.

The ones who saved her were a household living in a remote small town in the northern part of Zhongzhou. The Corpse Puppet Sect was already an insignificant weak sect in the Northern Demon Territory, so their sect grounds could only be established in remote places far from the center. Unexpectedly, this accidentally saved her life.

Seeing she was a pregnant woman, this kind-hearted household briefly took her in. Washing clothes daily and helping cook a meal or two counted as payment for room and board.

Qin Yue had been pampered since birth. Her delicate fingers that had never touched spring water were doing such hard labor for the first time. She suffered quite a bit during the initial period, often unable to help crying secretly late at night, both for the sect that suddenly suffered catastrophe and for her own bitter fate.

Father… Mother… Shan Lang…

She stroked her rounded belly, thinking of her unborn child, grief surging from within.

Several months later, Qin Yue gave birth to a chubby baby boy, naming him Shan Xun.

After another month of recuperation, once she had briefly recovered her mobility, Qin Yue couldn’t wait to bid farewell to the farming family. Carrying her child and slightly disguised, she made her way back to the Corpse Puppet Sect’s location.

These months she had always held a thread of hope in her heart—the sect’s main combat method was controlling puppets, so perhaps her parents had luckily escaped with their lives!

The sect-protecting grand array was nine-tenths destroyed, the mountain gate toppled, halls and pavilions collapsed.

Qin Yue carried Shan Xun on her back as she climbed the stone steps step by step up to the sect plaza. The ground was covered with congealed, dried dark red bloodstains. The corpses of her martial brothers and sisters had all rotted down to white bones, exposed to the wind.

With each step forward, Qin Yue’s heart grew colder.

Finally she walked to where her parents had intercepted the invading enemies that night. Among broken bricks and rubble, two sets of white bones were scattered across the ground, almost unrecognizable as human shapes.

Qin Yue stared at one skeleton’s right hand, which was missing half of its little finger bone. She couldn’t even cry anymore, only feeling the sky spinning before her darkening vision. With a ‘thud,’ she lost consciousness and collapsed softly to the ground.

She was awakened by Shan Xun’s hungry cries from the bamboo basket on her back.

After waking, Qin Yue sat dazed on the ground for a long time before slowly climbing up. She first fed the child, then one by one gathered those corpses and buried them in succession.

After finishing this, she stood at the mountain gate for a long while before walking down from the sect grounds with weary steps.

She was like a lifeless wandering soul, eyes blank as she drifted through the small towns and cities near the Corpse Puppet Sect’s location. Her cultivation was low; she could only do heavy physical labor to exchange for meager spirit stone wages. Except for the brief spark of life in her eyes when feeding the child, she was like a soulless body, leaving early and returning late doing repetitive and meaningless work, not knowing what meaning there was in her living.

Until one day while working, she overheard others’ idle chat.

“Sigh, that Corpse Puppet Sect was truly unlucky. If Jiuyou Court’s lady hadn’t failed to watch her captured little pet carefully and let him escape, why would they have suffered such an undeserved disaster?”

“Tsk! This is the Northern Demon Territory! Daring to snatch someone Lady Yan Shu of Jiuyou Court had her eye on, you must be prepared for sect extermination. What undeserved disaster—do you think we demonic cultivators are like those Immortal Sects’ hypocrites who say one thing and do another… But speaking of it, I heard that the two Integration stage great powers who came to exterminate them that night didn’t take anyone when they left. Could it be they didn’t find the little princess’s lover?”

“Who knows…”

As Qin Yue listened, tears streamed from her eyes.

So it was her… So it was her who had caused her parents’ deaths… It was her who had killed the brothers and sisters in the sect…

Shan Cheng was someone she had picked up during an outing a year ago. At that time, he lay unconscious in the grass by the roadside, with many terrible bloody wounds on his body. Qin Yue felt momentary pity and secretly saved him back to the Corpse Puppet Sect without telling her parents, then used her half-baked medical skills practiced on corpses to keep Shan Cheng alive.

When he woke, he claimed to have amnesia and gave himself the name Shan Cheng. According to him, when he first awoke he already remembered nothing. Before he could figure out what was happening, he was spotted by a crazy woman who wanted to capture him to serve as a male pet. He expended tremendous effort to escape from that woman’s hands, but couldn’t hold on halfway and collapsed by the roadside, never expecting to be picked up by Qin Yue.

Shan Cheng was a handsome and refined beautiful man, widely knowledgeable, and humorous in speech. Qin Yue had been frail since childhood with weak cultivation, rarely seeing the outside world. She quickly fell for Shan Cheng’s gentleness and consideration.

By the time her parents discovered there was an extra person in the sect, they had already become intimate. Plus, with Qin Yue’s stubborn appearance of “it’s him or no one,” the Corpse Puppet Sect Master could only sigh and agree to this marriage.

Who could have imagined that just three months after the wedding, the crazy woman who had her eye on Shan Cheng would follow the trail to find them. Even more unimaginable was that this person turned out to be Jiuyou Court’s little princess, Venerable Yan’s young daughter—Yan Shu.