Su Jiao stared at the man walking towards her. No, it wasn’t a man…

What she was facing was a demon.

The heir of the demons themselves, the monster who was able to trick all of them, who was able to become a crucial part of the sect. A man they’d all believed and loved…

Zhao Ying.

Or perhaps that wasn’t his real name. Su Jiao couldn't care less. She stood up shakily, using the throne next to her—the throne made for her, the chosen heir of the Heaven Abiding Sect, the biggest sect of humankind. She spread her other hand out, gathering her Qi to form a bright white blade.

“Tch,” the man tutted, smiling at her actions. “Dear heir, you know this just as well as I do. There is no way you will win. My elders have infiltrated the sect. Your elders are dead. I am stronger than you. Perhaps not much, but it’s enough to kill you as you are right now. What do you expect to gain from this futility?”

Su Jiao grit her teeth. Her Qi was rampaging within her body, making her actions unbalanced, making her body weak. Perhaps that was why she could feel the teeth dig deeper into her gums, blood pouring out.

She didn’t stop. Su Jiao couldn’t care less.

“I shall take you down with me, Zhao Ying. Even if it means my death, I shall take you down with me.”

Zhao Ying rolled his eyes, shrugging. “Don’t be stubborn, heir. Give up, give in. I’ll treat you properly. It’ll be nice to keep you alive as a power move and show the humans that they’ve truly, properly lost. If their illustrious heir is kneeling down in front of me, suc—” He paused, putting a hand on his mouth. “Forgive me for my vulgarity. I did say I’ll treat you properly, see? I’m even holding back my vulgarity. You’ll have a cushy life. Just give in.”

Su Jiao screamed, a primal scream of rage, as she leapt at Zhao Ying, her blade of Qi aimed at his head. Zhao Ying lazily waved his hand, and Su Jiao was sent barreling back, crashing into the throne. Her impact uprooted it and sent it crashing into the cave wall. Cracks spread across the cave.

“Elders, come here,” Zhao Ying ordered, and only a second later, there were four white bearded people next to Zhao Ying. Each ones’ beard stretched to their waists, large black horns on top of their head, and they all had blood red irises surrounded by black. “Capture her alive, if you would. We can force her into submission later.”

The elders nodded, and all of them leapt at Su Jiao at once.

Even with all her injuries, with the dizziness assaulting her head and the immense barrage of emotions that clouded her judgment, Su Jiao knew.

If she tried to fight the elders, she would lose. They would disarm her easily.

The only option she had left was… to self-detonate.

Instantly, she did so.

She directed all her Qi inside and towards her Qi core. Her actions were blatant enough that both the elders and Zhao Ying noticed what she was doing.

Zhao Ying raised his eyebrows, his expression morphing into one of genuine surprise. “Why?” was the only thing she could hear him say before the elders backed away, surrounding their heir and taking him away from the inner sanctum immediately.

There was no hope of subduing her once she’d decided to kill herself by detonating her core, after all…

Even the demon elders would find it impossible.

She felt like something inside her broke. There was no other way to explain that sensation, that painless yet torturous sensation of your very core breaking. The unshed tears in her eyes burned as the entire inner sanctum was bombarded by her Qi.

Then, she felt nothing.

Yet she was conscious.

Before she could ponder it, however, a series of lines appeared in front of her, some comprehensible, some not.

The a$to&ated Will of the Heavens has deemed this human’s soul to contain too much resentment and fury to be able to be effectively cleansed. Abiding the duties and the &#d^nce set by the the past, the Will of the Heavens has deemed that it is preferable to give this human a chance to cure her immense resentment and fury on the off chance she turns into a v$%us.

Sending the human to Aiguo {114}.

Before she could even fully read the lines, however, she lost consciousness.

—

Naturally, Su Jiao was beyond confused when she woke up in her seclusion cave on a makeshift mattress made by herself. She stared at the rocky ceiling of the cave and then sat up, looking around her cave. It was very familiar, the cave she’d used always, minimal, small, nothing but a stream of water and a large earthen pot of pills present, apart from her mattress.

Su Jiao only believed where she was after a solid few minutes.

This…

This was her seclusion cave. She was in her seclusion cave, in the cave that was destroyed minutes into the battle with the demons.

She blinked, looked down, and stared at her hands. Her unbloodied hands. Then she examined her body.

She was unharmed, uninjured, and clearly much, much younger.

This…

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This was a few decades before she died due to Zhao Ying. A few decades before, when she was only beginning to gain fame as a heiress candidate. Back when Zhao Ying would be nothing but an outer sect disciple.

Tears streamed down her eyes uncontrollably, not stopping even when she wiped away at them and rubbed her eyes.

Four words rung through her mind. Four words that she remembered seeing right before she died.

Indeed, she’d died. She died due to Zhao Ying.

Will of the Heavens.

Those were the four words that pierced through her blurry, confused mind, the four words that had flashed in front of her. The heavens had taken pity on her. They had sent her back in time and had given her another opportunity—an opportunity to save humankind; to save her sect; to save herself…

The heavens had shown mercy.

It felt like an eternity before her tears ran out and her eyes dried. She stared at the cave she was in with a hollow gaze. It was then, after her confusion on what had happened, her gratefulness to the heavens, her fear and fury and sadness and everything that had plagued her mind had emptied that a thought possessed her.

A thought that gave her a single minded focus. A thought with seemingly no emotions attached to it yet her very soul linked to it.

Zhao Ying was in her sect. Zhao Ying was in her reach, in her grasp, ready to die.

She would kill Zhao Ying.

Today, the sole heir to the demon race would die.

—

Tang Enlai sighed, bringing himself out of his cultivation. Once more, as he’d expected, this seclusion was fruitless too. No matter how hard he tried, how deep he dived, what books he read, what new experiences he’d gained, or what perspectives he’d tried to see from…

The block he was facing was immovable.

The wall he was facing… He could not climb it. He could feel it. His journey as a cultivator, as an elder, was coming to an end.

No, it had already come to an end.

He would die as a first realm Void Exploring Cultivator. He had a few thousand years to live, but then he would die, unable to even reach the second realm.

That fact made him feel despondent, desperate… He felt his breathing quicken as he leaned on the cave walls, clutching onto his heart. Was this it? Was this all his effort, what all his life amounted to? To not be able to conquer the heavens, to die, to lose everything he had worked and sweat blood for?

In the end, would he die like a mere mortal?

Before tears could prickle his eyes, however, he heard two knocks echo on his cave’s boulder. That broke him out of his reverie as he sat up straight, rubbing at his eyes to remove the unshed tears. He took a deep breath to sort his heart.

He wondered who it was that had dared interrupt his seclusion. He could think of no one but his fellow elders or his disciples. No one else would dare. Letting out a sigh, he stood up, walked to the cave boulder, and moved it into the mountain with a flick of his hand.

Standing outside was neither one of his personal disciples nor an elder… No, it was an heir candidate, one of the personal disciples of the Sect Leader.

Tang Enlai blinked, looking at the young lady. What was her name…? Yes, Su Jiao. He regarded her with curiosity. “Might I ask why you have interrupted my seclusion, Disciple Su Jiao?” he boomed, trying to look stern but not too stern. She was a personal disciple of the Sect Leader, after all. Being too stern was a bit overboard.

“Can we talk inside, Elder Tang?”

—

“Can we talk inside, Elder Tang?” Su Jiao asked, biting the inner flesh of her cheek.

Elder Tang nodded and walked into his cave, gesturing for Su Jiao to enter.

Su Jiao did enter, her mind filled with thoughts. She could not think of a better elder to preface her request with than Elder Tang. He was one of the few elders who wouldn’t be absolutely furious if he was interrupted from his seclusion, that too by a mere disciple, and also one of the few elders both paranoid and hateful of the demons enough that he’d entertain her.

True, her master, the Sect Leader herself, would probably entertain Su Jiao’s words too, even if just because Su Jiao was her disciple, but the Sect Leader was deep in seclusion. She would be more than pissed if she was interrupted by Su Jiao without very good reason.

And well…

A hidden demon within the sect, at least one only within the outer circle, wasn’t quite the good reason her master would seek.

It was not exactly time limited, after all.

Her master would still be angry, even if she wouldn’t punish Su Jiao for interrupting her, since a hidden demon spy was indeed somewhat of a big matter.

Zhao Ying was currently only in the Golden Core Realm, after all. Elder Tang alone would be enough for her to destroy Zhao Ying. There was no need for Su Jiao to involve the Sect Leader. As much as she felt cold fury travel through her veins at the very mention of Zhao Ying, the only reason the demons had been able to deal so much damage last time was because of Zhao Ying becoming an elder.

Right now, Zhao Ying was no threat. He was but a pest to be stamped upon. An overconfident pest, one that had thought it could take down the Heaven Abiding Sect from within with simply a few decades of patience and immense talent…

A pest that had succeeded in justifying its overconfidence.

That made Su Jiao grit her teeth once more. Her broodiness, silence, and general demeanor seemed to both annoy and confuse Elder Tang, for he asked, “Is something wrong, Disciple Su Jiao?”

Su Jiao finally focused on the elder in front of her. The elder, seemingly satisfied that he’d gotten her attention, waved his hand to close the entrance. “There. The cave is fully private now. What is bothering you, disciple? Bothering you enough that you interrupted an elder’s seclusion?”

“I—” Su Jiao paused, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down. “There is a demon who is hiding as a disciple within the outer ring of our sect, Elder Tang.”

Elder Tang’s expression turned masterfully neutral at the word ‘demon’, before changing into incredulity as soon as she finished speaking. “A demon? In our sect, as a disciple? Impossible.”

“He has an artifact, Elder. An immensely precious artifact, one that allows him to temporarily purify his Qi before using it. That is why he has not been caught until now.”

Elder Tang’s expression turned stern and his tone sharp as he spoke this time. “Do you even understand what you are talking about? Such an artifact is beyond precious—precious enough that the demon elders would not hand it over easily to anyone except their finest members, their direct heirs. Why would they send their heirs to our sect undercover? When they value their heirs, their future so much? That is stupid, foolish, irrational, illogical.”

Su Jiao bit her lip. She could understand Elder Tang’s logic. What the demons had chosen to do was so foolish that it was genius. No one would expect an heir—the sole heir, even, which they only got to know later—to do something this risky.

“Elder,” she begged, “please believe me. It—You’ll know whether I am speaking the truth or lying if you can get this disciple to remove his ring… Instantly, his qi should turn demonic. Dark. Please, please believe me.”

The elder stared at her silently, his eyes narrowed. It was only after a few minutes did he sigh, stroking his black, rather short beard. “Alright.” He sighed once more. “I still cannot see such a scenario occurring. Sending an heir, that too with such a precious artifact, so deep into the enemy territory, completely unprotected? Unless, there are other demons hidden in our sect?” Elder Tang’s eyes sharpened as he looked at Su Jiao. “Are there?”

“As far as I know…” Su Jiao bit her lip. “No.”

Elder Tang looked at her with the same sharp gaze before sighing. “If what you are saying turns out to be false, simply a story you have cooked up—”

“I will break my qi core, Elder.”

The elder’s eyes widened. Then, he nodded. “What is this disciple’s name?”

“Zhao Ying.”