"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The demon king roared.

"Rah? That doesn't sound like an answer to me. Unless your reason for cursing that village is just because you're mad and you're kind of miming it, I guess?"

"ARRRRRRRRRR!" the Demon King howled. Great. So he was a pirate now. "You filthy immortal cultivator! That IS why I cursed that boring little village! I WAS IN A BAD MOOD! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR! RELEASE ME THIS INSTANT!"

"...You were in a bad mood, so you murdered people with an aging curse...?"

"YES! THAT'S RIGHT! I DID! YOU WANNA KNOW WHY? I'LL TELL YOU!"

Huh. This guy had to have some really pent-up anger if he was just bursting to give away his motives like Halloween candy.

He stopped struggling and sat there in a cloudy black Demon King slump, baring his long, white teeth.

"Immortal, do you know how boring it is to sit under a mountain all the time? All I have to entertain me are these little useless ghost flame servants who can't do anything right! Have you ever heard a joke from a ghost fire servant? Tried to play a game of Go with a ghost servant? Terrible, terrible! They're the most boring, soulless creatures in existence! Nothing is more boring than them! Not even...not even..."

"Zombies," I added helpfully.

The ghost king's red eyes turned orange with confusion.

"Zombies...?"

"They're brainless living corpses that walk around like this and sound like this. OOOOAAAAAaAooOOOOOAAAAAaa!" I stuck out my arms and made zombie noises to demonstrate my point.

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"THAT'S ENOUGH! STOP YOUR FREAKISH OOOOING!" The Demon King barked furiously, his eyes flaming red again. He writhed, but he was still soundly held by my Demon Restricting Technique. "ANYWAYS! You get my point! I was sealed under this insufferable glittering mountain a thousand years ago by some dog of an immortal like you, and since then, I haven't seen the light of day! I sit and I sit, and I crush those insipid ghost fires, and I talk to myself, and sit and SIT AND SIT! AND NOTHING! I AM BORED! AND EVERY DAY, MY BOREDOM GROWS! AND EVERY DAY MY BOREDOM GROWS, MY MOOD WORSENS! NOW, I AM SO BORED AND IN SUCH A BAD MOOD THAT I COULD MURDER EVERYONE ON THIS MOUNTAIN AND STILL NOT BE HAPPY!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, sending out a net of qi to reinforce the Invisible Shield technique that was holding up the shaking ceiling.

"If you were sealed here a thousand years ago, you must be the aging demon Fong Jue, who was sealed beneath a mountain by the Blue Jade Immortal, the third head of the Jade Heaven Sect."

"DON'T SPEAK HER NAME!" the Demon King hissed, curling into himself. "OR HER TITLE! WHICHEVER IT IS YOU HAVE SAID! A CURSED NAME, A NAME CURSED ENOUGH TO LAND ME BENEATH THIS MOUNTAIN FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!!! HISSSSS!"

"All right, all right, buddy, calm down. So...you cursed the village out of boredom? But what d'you even get out of that? Is it fun for you, or what?"

"YES! OF COURSE IT'S FUN! I send my little insipid ghost fire servants out to that even more insipid village, and they bring back stories of how it's going! How many people died, how loud the screaming is, how confused people are, how ugly and old they become!"

"So...it's like a soap opera for you. You press play by cursing more people, and you get episodes through the service of your ghost fires. Like Ghost Fireflix, heh heh. Or something."

"What strange language are you speaking? Ghost Fire-flicks? WHAT?! You know what, immortal? I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU! THIS WAS A FUN CHANGE AT FIRST, BUT NOW YOU'RE LIKE AN ANNOYING FLY BUZZING IN MY EAR!!!"

Rumble, rumble.

With a shocking burst of demonic qi, the Demon King broke free from the Demon Restricting bonds. In seconds, he blew up to twice his size, and he towered over me like a giant tornado-y demonic ghostly figure thingy!

Well...I guess it was pretty impressive that I'd held him for that long. He was a demon king, after all. If he didn't cooperate...

There was nothing else to do but fight.