Chapter 1: This Demon Venerate Is Clearly Invincible Yet Is Doubting Life
Sealed Demon Valley.
It is said that one hundred thousand years ago, the Immortal Dao Alliance fought the world's strongest Demon Venerate, Bo Xun, here for ten days and nights.
Ten of the most powerful Saint Venerates joined forces, paying the price of three falling in battle and two being severely wounded, before finally sealing him. From then on, the Xuan Ying Continent enjoyed one hundred thousand years of peace.
Spring passed and winter came, the sun and moon shifting with time.
As the elder generation of Saint Venerates retired, the battle gradually became a mere legend. This valley, now filled with blooming flowers, was left only with the name "Sealed Demon Valley," while everything else was buried beneath the dust of history.
Only one being never forgot.
That was the Demon Venerate Bo Xun himself.
After one hundred thousand years of rest and recovery, his strength had finally returned to its peak. This was the moment for him to escape Sealed Demon Valley and return to the world.
There was no collapse of heaven and earth, nor any dramatic change in wind or clouds.
Only a black serpent, accompanied by fine, continuous rain, swam silently out of the valley along a clear stream.
This was the true form of the Demon Venerate Bo Xun.
No one could have imagined that the ultimate darkness that had once dominated the Xuan Ying Continent for tens of thousands of years would so quietly break free of its restraints, about to bring endless bloodshed and chaos to a cultivation world that had been peaceful for one hundred thousand years.
Just as Bo Xun was about to reach the valley's exit, he suddenly sensed something. He raised his head, and his cold serpent eyes were about to meet a pair of curious human eyes.
A human youth.
Bo Xun thought to himself, and then a wave of hunger rose in his belly.
It had been one hundred thousand years since he had tasted blood. Judging by the youth's full forehead and well-proportioned figure, he was clearly an outstanding cultivator — and he looked quite appetizing.
As a Demon Venerate who brought chaos to the world, he had always been one to act without unnecessary words. The instant he decided to make the youth his dinner, he was already poised to strike.
In the next moment, he shot forward like a bolt of black lightning, aiming straight for the youth's exposed throat.
Having ruled the Xuan Ying Continent for tens of thousands of years, even such an ordinary strike from him was not something just anyone could evade.
A lion uses all its strength to hunt even a rabbit.
Although Bo Xun had not gone all out, he was still one hundred percent certain that unless his target had reached the Saint Realm, even the most highly cultivated opponent would perish under this plain and simple blow.
Yet the youth easily dodged it.
There was even a trace of lingering fear on his face, but his eyes showed more disgust than anything else — as if the fear came less from the attack itself and more from the fact that it came from a snake.
This reaction was not unfamiliar to Bo Xun. In his long and vulnerable youth, he had often seen humans make that very expression.
Realizing the meaning behind it, Bo Xun flew into a rage.
Opening his mouth again, he gathered boundless vital energy on the tip of his tongue.
In his eyes, the youth's earlier evasion had been pure luck. He sensed no Saint-level aura from him, which meant only two possibilities: either the youth had not reached the Saint Realm, or — like himself — he had already achieved Saint Realm perfection, returned to simplicity, and attained a flawless true body.
Judging from his bone age, the young man was at most five hundred years old. By human cultivation standards, reaching the Heaven-Human Realm at such an age already marked him as a peerless genius. To have attained Saint Realm perfection was laughable beyond measure.
Yet as the two began to exchange blows, Bo Xun grew increasingly shocked.
This youth could actually withstand several of his attacks — and not only that, he even had the leisure to counterattack. In less than an hour, both man and serpent had sustained minor injuries.
Bo Xun's thoughts could now only be described as fearful, and he failed to notice that the youth's face also bore the same fearful expression.
It seemed he would have to use that move.
Bo Xun made up his mind. Though the situation had unfolded far stranger than he could have imagined, he no longer intended to waste time on this opponent.
Silently circulating his incantation, the black mist coiling around him revealed countless shadowy demonic figures rising and falling within.
Then, from the chaos, the phantom of a long sword appeared, shrouded in a chilling aura of murderous intent.
In the next moment, a three-foot azure blade pierced through the void—the sword's edge gleamed like autumn frost, its surface flowing with a dim, icy light, while its serpent tail coiled around the hilt like a human arm.
This was the Heavenly Cluster Cloud Sword, its spine engraved with winding tadpole-like inscriptions that were in fact ancient demonic script.
During the bloody battle in Sealed Demon Valley back then, this soul-devouring demonic weapon had once pierced the heavenly crown of a Saint Venerate, instantly erasing the primordial spirit within the skull in the flames of True Demonic Fire.
When the youth saw it spit out the longsword, his expression grew complicated. Yet, as it was a battle of life and death, he quickly adjusted. With a hand seal, four ancient swords tore through the air, circling above his head. Behind him, the phantom images of four sacred beasts formed a Primordial Formation Diagram, fierce astral winds whipping at his wide sleeves.
Bo Xun's demonic pupils narrowed, his scaled claws gripping the hilt until it rang like grinding metal and stone.
It was the Four-Phase Sword Formation!
Bo Xun was secretly shocked. This formation possessed one hundred and eight thousand variations, its uses endless. Now, seeing it casually deployed by an ordinary human cultivator filled him with wariness. But with the arrow already on the string, there was no turning back.
Without fear, he charged into the Four-Phase Sword Formation. The Heavenly Cluster Cloud Sword, carrying the chill of the Nine Nether, struck fiercely toward the formation's core.
On the other side, the Four-Phase Sword Formation roared into motion, and the sound of tearing silk resounded through the world—
Within the formation, space and time twisted. Four-colored astral qi intertwined with ghostly blue light into a chaotic vortex, reducing mountains within several li to fine powder.
…
Half an hour later, watching the youth's figure flee in panic and grow more distant, Bo Xun, though victorious, felt only confusion in his heart.
Only he knew that he had won by the narrowest of margins. If the other had not been overly concerned with preserving his life, there might even have been a chance for mutual destruction.
Though his opponent had escaped, he was not fatally injured, and Bo Xun now needed time to recover, having no strength to give chase.
But that was not the most important thing. The most important was—why, after being sealed for one hundred thousand years, could any random person he met fight him to a standstill?
Could it be that during his one hundred thousand years of imprisonment, the era had changed?
At this thought, the earlier burning desire to bathe the world in blood completely vanished, replaced by a vague, lingering sense of danger in Bo Xun's heart.
He had originally been impatient to make the first human city he saw a blood sacrifice to announce his return.
Yet if any random stray could force him to use his trump card, wouldn't slaughtering a city be like throwing a meat bun at a dog—gone without return?
No. Perhaps his strength had not truly returned to its peak. The current feeling of perfection was only an illusion born of long confinement.
He would return to Sealed Demon Valley and cultivate for a while longer. It would not be too late to emerge once he had fully recovered.
And so, a small black serpent followed the stream, swaying as it slowly swam back.
The cultivation world, peaceful for one hundred thousand years, seemed to continue its calm…
Unknowingly, seventy years passed.