Demon Merin slowly breaks from enlightenment—as though dragged out of a deep ocean.
His eyes open.
A rare expression twists his features: displeasure.
Almost grief.
Because among the countless fragments of world-law that flooded into his mind—secrets of creation, structure, balance, and origin—
Ninety-nine per cent collapsed into nothing.
Gone.
Burned away like a dream at dawn.
Only one per cent remains—yet even that sliver forces his Dao to surge like a living creature, evolving from the budding stage to the blooming stage.
His aura stabilises. Power settles.
With only time and resources, he can now advance to the Great Saint Realm.
But as his senses expand to the world—
They stop.
Freeze.
All across the demi-plane, spiritual pressure erupts. Clashing Dao. Screams. Explosions. Tribulations.
A war—not a battle—shakes the sky.
He extends his awareness, comparing qi decay, celestial cycles, and memory drift.
His calculation concludes:
Three hundred years have passed.
A faint frown touches his lips.
"…Too quickly."
Then, he senses her.
Silan.
Her aura burns like a frozen star—at the razor edge of Saint Ascension.
He moves.
One step—
—and he appears above a battlefield.
---
Below him, chaos.
Spirit Dragons wage war in the sky. Dao bodies clash. Divine weapons howl. The Spiritual Transformation Sect and the allied clans wage war against rebels, deserters, and traitors.
And at the heart of it—
Gu Silan.
Scaled. Armored. Hair crimson like bloodied winter. Her Dao body radiates ice-silence and quiet hatred.
She cuts down a Tao King with one gesture.
Frost explodes. Qi freezes mid-air. His body shatters like glass.
Her pressure shakes the land—but she is not yet a Saint.
She is one breath away.
Demon Merin watches, unseen.
His voice inside his mind:
She has grown well.
Not fondness.
Not affection.
But acknowledgement.
---
Then—movement.
A woman steps out from the gates of the Spiritual Transformation Sect.
Not imposing.
Not radiant.
Just… ordinary.
An unassuming girl holding a sword wrapped in black cloth.
Yet when she walks, the battlefield itself falls quiet.
Elders—Saints—Tao kings—everyone reacts.
Shock. Fear. Expectation.
One elder shouts:
"Activate the Spiritual Blade! End this rebellion!"
The girl doesn't move.
Another elder points toward Silan:
"Obey! Strike her down!"
Still, she doesn't raise the sword.
She only looks at Silan.
And Silan looks back—stopping mid-battle as if the world itself holds its breath.
Her cold voice softens—gentle for the first time in three centuries.
"Baby."
A pause.
"You may choose."
For a moment, everyone is confused.
Then realisation hits.
The girl is not just a disciple.
Not a weapon.
Not a hostage.
She is Silan's daughter.
Her fingers tighten around the sword.
Demon Merin—watching from above—feels something he does not often feel:
Instinctive danger.
A warning from the Dao itself.
His mind whispers:
Escape.
Because the sword she holds…
It is not ordinary.
Not mortal.
Not even saint-forged.
It hums with a power older than the demi-plane—quiet, ancient, merciless.
A Supreme Weapon.
The girl lifts her eyes—no hesitation, no fear—and whispers:
"…Mother."
She releases the sword.
It flies—gentle as falling snow.
The elders lunge to stop it—summoning wind, lightning, chains of Dao-law.
But the blade ignores them.
Their techniques split apart, severed cleanly—like silk cut by a perfect edge.
And the sword lands softly—
—into Silan's waiting hand.
Silence collapses over the battlefield.
Then an elder snarls, voice shaking with fear and rage:
"Traitor! You carry the blood of the Zou Family—you dare raise a sword against us?!"
The girl—calm, cold—snorts.
"Blood of the Zou family?" Her tone drips with disdain. "Don't I also carry the blood of the Gu family? And who," her eyes sharpen, "said I ever carried the Zou bloodline at all?"
The elders freeze.
The sect leader's face turns pale.
Even the members of the Zou Clan stagger—horror, disbelief, and dread flashing in their eyes.
A chorus of thoughts echoes aloud or in terrified silence:
What?
Silan answers for all of them—voice steady, chilled as the abyss:
"You thought you suppressed me. Controlled me. That the marriage was the final chain."
Her gaze sweeps the mountain, the corpses, the broken banners.
"But all of it—every humiliation, every scheme—was only your delusion."
The Sect Leader's face twists as realisation slams into her.
"...Mengui's father… is the master of the Demon Transformation Sect."
She had always wondered why that sect protected Silan—why assassins vanished, why some secrets refused to spread.
Now she understands.
Silan nods once.
"Correct answer."
She raises the sword.
"But the reward is—death."
She swings.
No flare of aura.
No roar.
Just a whisper—like silk tearing.
Thousands of sword lights bloom from the blade and spread outward like a storm.
The Sect Leader, the Zou elders, and every cultivator who stood against Silan attempt to defend—but how could their Tao realm techniques stop a Supreme Weapon?
The sword qi passes through them.
Bodies freeze.
Then fall—cleanly severed, without blood.
War ends in a single breath.
The battlefield trembles.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
Then—
A tear in the space beside Silan opens.
Demon Merin steps out.
His gaze falls on the sword.
Then on Silan.
Then, on the girl, Mengui.
The three stand—mother, father, daughter—like the axis of a new world.
Demon Merin speaks first.
"Lend me the sword."
The world itself seems to tighten—air stilled, qi frozen, even the wind afraid to move.
Silan meets his gaze without lowering hers.
"I will not be controlled. Not by them."
A breath.
"Not by you."
His voice lowers—not threatening, just absolute.
"Are you breaking our agreement?"
Silence hangs—sharp enough to cut.
Mengui's small voice breaks it:
"Mother… Father… don't fight."
Silan's expression softens—only for her.
She looks back at Merin, eyes unreadable.
Then—
She throws the sword toward him.
"Take it."
Demon Merin catches it.
The moment the blade touches his palm, it screams.
A soundless vibration shakes the air. His arm trembles. Muscles tear. Bones groan. Cracks spread along his skin as though invisible blades carve him open.
His blood spills—not from a wound—but from rejection.
Supreme Weapons are not tools.
They choose the worthy—or destroy those who presume.
Demon Merin grits his teeth, holding on for one more heartbeat—
—but the sword's spirit rejects him fully.
He releases it.
The blade turns without falling and returns to Silan—landing in her hand with effortless obedience.
She smiles—slow, quiet, triumphant.
"It seems," she says softly, "the sword doesn't like you."
Demon Merin wipes the blood from his palm.
"We will see."
And without another word, he turns and walks away.
Mengui reaches toward him.
"Father!"
But he doesn't stop.
Don't hesitate.
Only disappears—swallowed into space.
Leaving mother and daughter beneath a silent sky—
—and a world changed forever.
---
Demon Merin returns to the Frozen Abyss.
No hesitation. No backward glance.
The moment he steps inside, his Dao manifests— ice and fire rotating like twin halos.
They circle him as he descends deeper, peeling apart the essence of the abyss with every breath.
He sits on the frigid ground, cross-legged.
And once again—
He disappears into comprehension.
---
Outside the ridge.
Jun Tian and his group remain gathered near the dormant space array.
Twenty years.
They have waited outside this ridge for twenty long years, hoping Demon Merin—or Yu Feng, as they still believe—would emerge.
Nothing.
Only dead quiet desert wind and shifting sand.
Jun Tian folds his arms.
"This is pointless. If he isn't dead, he has no intention of coming out."
Another saint whispers:
"Should we enter?"
A ripple of unease passes through the group.
They exchange glances—bravado cracking into hesitation.
"No. We don't know what lies on the other side. Even Saints may not survive an unknown realm."
Someone clicks their tongue.
"And we still haven't gone to the Human Council meeting held decades ago… I wonder if they succeeded in taking a city."
Silence.
No one answers.
No one knows.
No one wants to admit regret.
---
Then—space distorts.
Three figures step out of the distortion like walking through a curtain of wind.
An old man leads—his gaze sharp, ancient, inhuman.
Behind him walk a young man and a young woman, both with the presence of beasts disguised as mortals.
The young man frowns toward the ridge.
"Is the Karma Clan's information reliable? They claim a branch of our clan—with one of the Icefire Supreme's weapons—is hidden inside."
The old man answers without looking at him:
"The Karma Clan rarely gives wrong information."
They descend into the ridge.
They touch the ground—and pause.
"The information is correct," the old man murmurs. "A cave. A Space Moving Array inside."
His eyes narrow.
"And seven human Saints guarding it."
A cold fury sparks in the young man.
"Lowly humans. They dare covet our clan's inheritance? Let me slaughter them."
But the young woman speaks before he moves.
"Arrogant as always. The human race is still the only race with four Heavenly Supremes alive. Respect them—or you'll die like the others."
The young man scoffs.
"If not for their supreme weapons, they would've vanished long ago."
The old man snaps:
"Enough. Both of you."
His aura sinks like iron.
"Kill the humans. Activate the array."
The young woman steps forward.
She smiles—soft, almost gentle.
"Allow me."
Then her body dissolves.
Skin becomes dust.
Dust becomes motes.
Motes become insects.
Thousands—millions—of tiny bone-white flies scatter into the darkness.
And the hunt begins.