The moon hung heavy over the sect's temporary camp, casting silver light on the hills of the war-torn Zhao Dynasty. In the distance, plumes of smoke curled into the night sky. Once a bastion of mortal prosperity, the dynasty now lay fractured by internal strife and demonic incursions. Cities had fallen, and the spiritual veins that once nourished the land ran dry.
At the heart of the sect's western outpost, within a barrier of silver talismans and protective wards, Lu Xuan sat in deep meditation. His breathing was calm, but the qi around him was anything but.
Crimson and black energy coiled and devoured the ambient spiritual essence. A vortex of invisible force churned above him. Beneath the surface of his flesh, his veins glowed faintly like molten gold streaked with shadow.
He was awakening the true potential of his body—an ancient, forgotten physique known only in whispers across millennia.
### The Immortal Demon God Body
No cultivator of the present age had heard of it. Even the grandmasters of the inner sect hadn't seen the signs. But deep within his blood and bones, Lu Xuan carried the **Immortal Demon God Body**—a legendary physique that had not appeared since ancient times.
It could not be slain. Each wound only made it stronger.
It did not cultivate qi—it *devoured* it, twisted it, remade it.
Ordinary cultivation methods were insufficient. Pills dissolved upon contact with his qi. Techniques failed to settle. And yet, his progress outstripped prodigies by realms.
The more he fought, the more he was wounded, the faster he grew.
His inner desire pulsed louder with every breath:
**"I will never be powerless again."**
Not like when his village burned. Not like when his bones were shattered beneath the boot of a sect elder. Not like when his heart was cold and alone in the night.
Now, the altar's energy still pulsed faintly in his core. The Devouring Skill continued to fuse with his meridians. A transformation was underway—and it had only just begun.
Across from him, Su Xue watched in silence. The glow from the warded circle reflected in her clear, solemn eyes.
She had seen it before.
### Where Time Begins
Su Xue was not from this era.
She was born in the Northern Frost Domain, once part of the **Heavenly Aurora Dynasty**—a dynasty that fell a thousand years before Lu Xuan's time. Her cultivation path had led her to the mysteries of time itself, and after uncovering forbidden runes at the edge of the Frozen Wastes, she had been cast into a temporal rift.
When she awoke, centuries had passed.
Her cultivation, already at Nascent Soul, had stabilized into something rare and delicate. She could no longer ascend by ordinary means—but the runes of time bound to her wrists granted her glimpses of the future.
And in those glimpses, she saw **him**.
The return of the Immortal Demon God Body. A boy consumed by hatred and pain. A power that once shattered realms.
She had traveled across continents searching for signs. Every ruined temple. Every lost record. And in a mountain sect where no one noticed the quiet boy with cold eyes, she saw the first spark.
"I knew it was you the moment I saw your blood burn the training platform," she said softly.
Lu Xuan opened his eyes.
"Then why didn't you stop me?"
She looked away. "Because I saw something else too."
She reached into her sleeve and removed a scroll wrapped in ancient silk. Opening it revealed a faded portrait—charcoal and ink, weathered by time. It showed a man with one silver eye, one crimson.
Lu Xuan froze.
"He bore the same body," Su Xue whispered. "But he burned the heavens."
She met his gaze. "But in all the visions that followed, I saw someone else. Someone who stood before the same altar, and chose not to destroy."
"You," she said, voice steady, "are the divergence."
A heavy silence fell between them.
Outside, the camp stirred with whispers of an upcoming sect-wide deployment. The Zhao Dynasty's core cities had sent word—demonic cultivators were spreading like wildfire. The inner sect would dispatch elite disciples to recover lost artifacts and secure spirit veins.
And Lu Xuan, for the first time, would be among them.
But within the circle of light beneath the moon, another truth was solidifying.
Not only was he different—he was *dangerous*.
Yet she stayed.
She did not draw her blade.
She stood by him, as she had done from the first day he entered the sect.
Whether as protector—or executioner.
---
**End of Chapter 12**