Chapter 1 The Beginning

North Border, Taibai Pass. A long-haired youth stood on the edge of the towering city wall, his right hand pressed on the hilt of the divine blade at his waist, slowly drawing it. His blue-purple eyes narrowed slightly as he gazed at the churning demonic energy in the distance, the sky filled with Kun monsters, and the colossal demonic shadows.

Su Zhou looked down from his high vantage point, surveying the enemies in the distance. Five-colored light wheels of azure, blue, purple, scarlet, and black, like the colors of dawn and dusk, formed five halos behind him. The dazzling and brilliant light wheels intersected and overlapped, revolving around him as the center, condensing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

The moment the two sides confronted each other from afar, it was as if time had frozen.

Just before, when Su Zhou uttered the words "Not enough," filled with mocking provocation, everyone, even the Nine Nether demon army, thought that the arrogant Heavenly Demons would be enraged, scolding or even directly punishing him.

But in reality, they did not do so.

Facing Su Zhou's slowly raised long blade, the crimson-gold Blade of Annihilation danced with dangerous, scorching flames, the three Heavenly Demon Descended Bodies were all silent, incomparably solemn, and even vigilantly staring at that Dao weapon.

[Wait, I didn't look closely just now... Why does this Dao weapon give me such a terrifying feeling?]

Multiple compound eyes rotated, adjusting their angles. The Decaying Heavenly Demon muttered to itself in a guarded voice, the wings of its giant insect body trembling slightly, almost deformed: [It's almost, almost like...]

[It's punishment, the Great Freely Transforming Heavenly Demon Lord's punishment!]

And similarly noticing the pitch-black demonic light contained within the long blade in Su Zhou's hand, the War Heavenly Demon, wielding a long halberd of blood, was also on guard. It nervously adopted a battle stance: [This guy, he obtained the Great Freely Transforming Heavenly Demon Lord's inheritance?!]

The Gloomy Heavenly Demon remained silent, not only because it had long suspected this when it was devoured by the demonic seed, but also because it noticed.

It noticed that Su Zhou, when facing the three of them, the Heavenly Demon Descended Bodies, not only did not retreat.

On the contrary, he took the initiative to draw his blade.

Stepping forward, Su Zhou trod on the steep city wall crenellation. His movements were simple and decisive. He simply drew his blade and slashed at the enemies hundreds of miles away, without any techniques or miraculous powers.

But the moment he raised his hand, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth began to respond. An invisible golden shockwave burst forth from the blade, the rapid gale tearing through the atmosphere and dust, heading straight towards the Decaying Heavenly Demon standing in front of him at a right angle.

Wherever it passed, the air began to turn cold, and all the temperature between heaven and earth seemed to condense in that invisible blade light. Extreme cold and extreme heat intertwined at this moment, and the ultimate yin and yang began to nurture and transform each other.

[Barrier!]

The blade light arrived in an instant, too fast to evade. The Decaying Heavenly Demon's compound eyes rotated, and it uttered a low roar. Layers of translucent gray grid shields appeared in front of it. Countless flying Kun monsters accidentally flew into these shields and seemed to age ten thousand years in an instant, immediately turning into flying ash.

Then, the blade light of yin and yang rotation arrived before it. The sound of a sword tearing silk rang out. The grid shield, capable of decaying everything, including the structure of spiritual energy, immediately extinguished the gale and air currents on the outermost side of the blade light, but the blade light of yin and yang rotation was incessant. It was not completely worn down in a short period of time, but rather pierced through all obstacles, causing the shield to dissipate in a flash of light.

Although it was therefore deviated from its direction and did not hit the Decaying Heavenly Demon, the remaining blade light cleaved onto the earth, still leaving a blade mark over several thousand meters long on the frozen soil of the Northern Border.

For Earth Immortals, the distance between their battles could no longer be calculated with common sense. Many battles that would be considered beyond visual range for ordinary transcendents were actually close-quarters combat in essence for True Men and Earth Immortals.

Generally speaking, when ordinary Earth Immortals fought from a distance of ten miles or so, it was equivalent to close-quarters combat. They could cross that face-to-face distance in an instant and bombard the other party's face with their divine powers and magical treasures.

The distance between Su Zhou and the Heavenly Demons exceeded a hundred miles.

But even in this Tianyuan World lacking spiritual energy, his attack could arrive in an instant within this range.

[It really is the Great Freely Transforming Heavenly Demon Lord's Freely Transforming Others!]

At this moment, having dodged and resisted Su Zhou's attack, the Decaying Heavenly Demon did not feel any joy or complacency, but was rather incomparably shocked.

It sensed that hidden within that attack was a terrifying power sufficient to devour its essence. The giant insect compound eyes locked onto the enemy, and it extended a limb, solemnly pointing at the youth in the distance: [There is the power of Freely Transforming Others in that saber strike just now!]

— The so-called Freely Transforming Others means 'one does not need to transform or create anything oneself, but can use the various things embodied by other celestial beings to enjoy themselves'.

In other words, the essence of this power is 'to transform the power of other beings into one's own power'.

Swallowing and mixing, turning evil to one's own use... the essence of the Demon Lord of Devouring Evil's divine power is the 'Freely Transforming Others' method!

[You obtained the Great Freely Transforming Heavenly Demon Lord's inheritance left behind in the mortal realm?]

Similarly seeing through this, seeing the 'Dao of the Demon Lord of Devouring Evil' residing on the Blade of Annihilation, the War Heavenly Demon gripped the long halberd in its hand. It raised its head and asked with some disbelief: [You are a true Great Heavenly Demon seed, how could you be a divine bird, and fight for these mortals!]

To this, Su Zhou smiled slightly.

With a single ordinary saber strike, he tested the essence of power and reactions of the Heavenly Demons before him. This time, it was a great profit for him.

The power of these Heavenly Demons was indeed powerful enough, completely the peak configuration that a True Man realm could possess. Three such peak True Men, coupled with the serious Heavenly Demon authority, the arrival of three Heavenly Demon Descended Bodies, this was a formidable enemy that even Nan Zhengkai, who held a Dao weapon, would probably need to be wary of.

"But... they are not worth worrying about."

He did not answer the Decaying Heavenly Demon's words, but instead turned his head and overlooked the semi-finished demonic soil before him.

Before Taibai Pass, the earth, which had already begun to be eroded and transformed under the auspices of many Heavenly Demons, exhibited a pitch-black form covered in demonic纹, with an aura originating from the Nine Netherworlds penetrating deep into the earth's veins, releasing a hazy light.

The so-called demonic soil is essentially the use of desires in people's hearts to erode the earth's veins.

The souls of all living beings in the Tianyuan World carry a trace of the aura of the Primordial True Dragon. Gods and demons can intervene in the core of the earth's veins by starting with faith and fear, gradually eroding the essence of heaven and earth.

Ming Zhengde influenced the earth's veins with the earth vein sacrificial pillars as the source, using the same method—he sacrificed to the earth in the name of the new dynasty, using his own prestige and even the prestige of the new dynasty to gather the power of all living beings to influence the earth's veins, thereby building the foundation of the Ying Tian Cheng Qi Five Virtues Rotating Grand Formation.

This is correct.

However, in practice, whether it was immortals and gods, Heavenly Demons, or human emperors, they all used completely different methods.

At this moment, because they were shocked that the youth might possess the inheritance of the Great Freely Transforming Heavenly Demon Lord, the three Heavenly Demons stayed in place, confronting Su Zhou without moving.

The Gloomy Heavenly Demon originally wanted to open its mouth along with its two companions, rebuking the youth's silence, but at this moment, it saw Su Zhou's eyes. The spiritual light in his blue-purple pupils was gentle, but the inner light was as sharp as a blade, stinging its eyes.

A strange unease began to spread in this Heavenly Demon's heart—it suddenly realized that they had never actually understood Su Zhou's bottom line of strength, but had only regarded him as an ordinary powerful divine bird.

But now it seemed that the other party's strength was far more than that.

So, it had a thought and connected with the nest deep in the ground in the distance.

In the next instant, a strange fluctuation flickered, and a formidable Kun monster tore through the earth and rushed out from the cracks in the ground.

It was a True Man level Kun monster resembling a moth. Its wings, hundreds of meters wide, beat against the bone-chilling ice wind, stirring up crisscrossing cold currents on the surface, causing endless ice dust to flicker in mid-air. The moment this extremely cold giant butterfly appeared, the temperature around the entire Taibai Pass dropped by another dozen degrees.

The ice butterfly flew over, beautiful and dazzling. It continued forward, the howling gale carrying the cold tide, freezing all things, provocatively pouncing towards the heavenly pass.

"It's the 'Profound Nether Ice Butterfly' of the Kun monster Butterfly Transformation Department!"

On the side, Yan Changfeng, who was also wary of the Heavenly Demon Demon Army Giant Hole, recognized the origin of this formidable Kun monster. His tone was solemn: "The essence of this Kun monster is the condensation of heaven and earth's essence into frost, and it is difficult to injure with swords and blades. It needs to be..."

He had not finished speaking.

Above the heavenly pass, Su Zhou simply turned his eyes, his eyes locked onto the Kun monster that was flying over.

The youth stared at the ice butterfly for a moment, and the Seal of Reincarnation rotated in his pupils.

Then, the ice butterfly, which was originally flying lightly, stirring up a turbulent cold tide in half the world, convulsed and stopped flying, falling to the ground.

Shattering into a pile of broken ice crystals.

Silence descended once again between heaven and earth.

[...No, we can't probe any further, we must take action!]

At this moment, the War Heavenly Demon realized that the fear in people's hearts, which had originally reached its peak due to their arrival, was now gradually being lost due to the failure of several probes conducted around this Taibai Pass.

Many New Dynasty soldiers who were originally afraid of their existence were gradually gathering courage because of the advent and performance of the Candle Sun, no longer fearing gods and demons.

So, it was preparing to take the initiative to attack and reverse the decline.

But Su Zhou's speed was one step faster than them.

"The probing is over."

At this moment, Su Zhou had already gripped the Blade of Annihilation tightly. After killing the Profound Nether Ice Butterfly with a single glance, he seemed to have roughly known the extent to which the Heavenly Demons' combat power in the demonic soil could reach. Between the shift of movement and stillness, his body was surrounded by Storm Seeds, and the rocket air currents sufficient to propel mountains pushed the humanoid body, accelerating its speed to an unbelievable degree.

"It's time to start the real battle."

Before the sonic boom of the air could be heard, the saber light had already flashed and arrived.

The War Heavenly Demon in the lead did not even have time to react before it saw a golden horizontal line light up in front of it, surging forward with a momentum sufficient to cleave everything apart.

— Fast, too fast!

The Heavenly Demon shuddered. As soon as the thought arose in its mind, Su Zhou launched an attack a step ahead of it, as if he could read its mind. Its guess was not wrong. Although the Mind of No Thought could not accurately reflect the emotions of a powerhouse of the same rank, it could at least sense the premonitions of surging emotions.

Having been preempted, the huge Heavenly Demon phantom could only barely raise the blood-red long halberd, and the thick and solid blood evil weapon blocked in front of the saber light. In the thunderous collision, the slash was blocked, and the War Heavenly Demon, forced to retreat a step, roared angrily. Bright light suddenly ignited in its blood-colored eyes.

The long halberd, condensed from the corpses and blood of countless Kun monster demon armies, also ignited. Countless phantoms of weapons of war emerged and condensed behind it. The sharp intent of killing and destruction condensed into a solid under the power of the Heavenly Demon, and then turned into a terrifying storm that destroyed everything. And what was rolled up in this storm was not ordinary sand and dust, but countless intangible and immaterial sword auras comparable to divine weapons.

Having blocked Su Zhou's saber light, the War Heavenly Demon raised the long halberd, summoned a storm of swords and blades, and in turn submerged the area where the youth was located. The torrent of evil spirits that swallowed everything surged forward at the general's command, dyeing the heaven and earth a blood color.

At the same time, the Gloomy Heavenly Demon and the Decaying Heavenly Demon reacted to Su Zhou's sudden attack. The giant insects vibrated their wings, and countless bone-white scales were spread throughout the heavens and earth. Wherever the scales passed, soil and stone rotted and weathered into sand, and trees withered and shattered into dust. All things returned to decay, which was the inevitability of the human world.

And the Gloomy Heavenly Demon once again spread its black mist, and the black mist like a wall mixed into the red evil spirit storm, everything fell into a gloomy darkness, causing people's minds to be lost and their souls to be dimmed.

Too spectacular.

The three Heavenly Demons attacked with all their strength at the same time, and the blank area between Taibai Pass and the Demon Army was completely covered by the black and red storm, overturning half the firmament. Even if immortals and gods were shrouded in this storm between heaven and earth, they would inevitably drift like fallen leaves in the storm, and eventually be cut into pieces by the countless evil spirits gathered into swords and blades, turning into a sky of bloody rain, and then swallowed by the darkness, and their flesh and blood decayed into ashes.

An extremely powerful, sure-kill attack.

But their attacks were all aimed at the wrong target from the beginning.

— No one ever said that a blade must be held by someone to be swung.

Or rather, there was no need to use the entire body to swing it.

One hand was enough.

In the violent storm of swords and blades, the Dao weapon stood still, the evil spirit weapons were meaningless to it, because it itself was the most powerful divine weapon, and decay was as harmless to the immortal and indestructible Dao weapon as the warm wind in spring, let alone the gloom that could not cover its light at all.

It didn't even have a blade spirit now, and even if gloom wanted to erode its soul, it couldn't—Heavenly Demons had no way to bewitch things that had no brains.

But, one could see that a human arm was gradually turning into white bones under the full attack of the three Heavenly Demons, and then decaying into ashes.

But, in the final analysis, it was only an arm after all.

"You need to see clearly what you are hitting."

At the distant heavenly pass city wall, Su Zhou, who had only taken a step forward and launched his right arm rocket flying sword, and had not really thrown himself forward, sneered.

Then, this right arm empty human body turned into nothingness in a burst of light.

And what appeared in the next instant was a huge and unparalleled divine bird like a mountain, standing tall and reaching the sky.

The five virtues light wheels revolved on its back. Before the three Heavenly Demons could figure out what was going on, the wings on the back of the divine bird fell off with a 'crack', and then transformed into a huge gun cannon in its hand that looked very ferocious and terrifying, and was overall slender and smooth.

— It has been a million years since the Era of Gods and Demons, and the War Heavenly Demons are still using long halberds?

— Falling Star Divine Cannon 2.0, Five Virtues Rotating Gatling, three thousand six hundred revolutions per breath, great compassion and great mercy to deliver evil spirits!

Without any hesitation, between the rumbling of thunder, the torrent-like spiritual energy bullets were condensed, turning into a storm. Each spiritual energy bullet was like a shining stardust, small and light, but it could tear apart the most solid armor. The storm of bullets swept forward, and Su Zhou, who controlled the divine wing cannon and their direction of advance, was the general who led them. Wherever he aimed the muzzle, destruction would befall.

Because it was focusing on performing an attack before, the War Heavenly Demon had no time to react at all, and was submerged by the large swaths of bullets that reached one percent of the speed of light. Even though the Divine Demon Descended Body was extremely solid and difficult to destroy, it felt as if it was being repeatedly smashed by divine mountains falling from the sky.

The Heavenly Demon didn't even have time to experience the pain of being punched all over its body by the bullets, and its broken body was sent flying like a cannonball.