All right. This was going to be harder than I thought.

I either needed to destroy this Demon King, or get him to retract the curse on the villagers of Yingxuan Shan. And to do the second thing, I needed to know, more importantly, why he'd cursed them.

To do any of those things, I needed to get him to talk.

And to get him to talk, I needed to get the upper hand on him.

I used the Spectral Transformation technique to transform myself into a little red ghost fire and cover myself and my insides in mock ghost qi. It wasn't a foolproof technique, but I'd just have to hope it held up enough for what I was about to do.

I zoomed to the double doors, still invisible. Then I burst them open, revealed myself in my little red ghost fire form, and sped forwards towards the moody ancient demon king.

"My King!" I wailed in my tiny, ghostly voice. "My King! Terrible news! Terrible news from the outside!"

The Demon King growled, causing the cavern to shake again. The other ghost fires chittered.

"Have you seen that ghost fire servant before?"

"No...but you know how it is, Master has thousands of servants..."

I stopped at the foot of the Demon King's throne, breathing heavily like I was panicking.

"My King! Oh, the news is terrible! A betrayal! A betrayal!"

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The Demon King growled again, baring his knife-sharp teeth down at me.

"What is it, you lowly servant? What merits your disturbing the peace of this Mighty One? Don't you know I'm in a bad mood today?"

I hiccuped in fear.

"Yes, this lowly servant knows! But — but, my King, it is urgent! A betrayal, a traitor is about to cause destruction! My King, oh, it is terrible! WAAAAAAH! Terrible, terrible!"

BAM!

The Demon King smashed his fists on the stone armrest of his throne, gnashing his demon teeth.

"Well, hurry up already, you scum of a servant! What is it?! I'm one second away from crushing you to bits!"

I quailed. "My King...it cannot be said aloud in front of your other servants. M-May this lowly servant come close to tell you o-of the treachery?"

Here was the critical part. The Demon King gritted his knife-like demon teeth while his eyes flamed red with rage.

"FINE! But make it quick. I'll give you FIVE seconds!"

"Yes, My King!"

I rushed forward in my tiny red ghost fire form and hovered next to the Demon King's ear.

Then I whispered:

"There is someone about to fuck you up, Demon King! And that person — is me!"

With that, I performed the Deafening Shriek technique with lightning speed and sent a — you guessed it — a deafening shriek down the ancient Demon King's ancient demon earhole. Then I lifted the Spectral Transformation Technique, pulled Destiny Blade out of the air, and pointed it right at the Demon King's neck as he roared in pain and rage, doubling over as the deafening shriek permeated his ancient demon brain.

"AAAAAAAAAARGGGGGH! AAAAAAACK! DDDDDOOOOOG OF AN IMMMMOOOOORTAL! WHAAAAAT HAVE YOU DOOOOOOOOONE TO MEEEEEE?!!!!!!"

I grinned. All of the tiny red ghost fires fled the room with shrieks as giant rocks started falling from the ceiling. After they were all gone, I cast an Invisible Shield Technique to hold the ceiling up, and cast a Demonic Restricting Technique on the ancient shrieking demon king, so that the only thing he could do was writhe a little and keep shrieking.

"All right, big demon bro — you're gonna speak, and you're gonna speak now. Tell me — why did you curse the village of Yingxuan Shan with the Frightful Aging Curse? What do you have against them? And also, what's up with the moodiness? "Personally, I think water with ice is better than lukewarm water, but...I guess everyone has their preferences."