Volume 3, Chapter 91 – Awe-Inspiring Shadow

The Imperial House was demonkind? The court, even the Nine Provinces themselves, were controlled by demonkind?

For the first time in his life, Hua’an’s heart shook this hard. His cultivation in nurturing-qi shattered completely and he cried out, “That’s impossible!”

Of course it was impossible.

Demonkind?

In Great Yu’s Nine Provinces, from ancient times till now, so many Sacred Emperors and overlords, so many heroes rising one after another, had all fought for one thing: that the brilliance of a human-ruled age could continue between heaven and earth.

So many generations, each one supervised by the one before and after, squeezing the span of time and history between them and carefully guarding it. Under such circumstances, how could demonkind possibly find an opening, quietly seizing the human world?

Even if demonkind really had managed it, there was no way they could have kept it hidden. The Nine great Sword Daos, especially Suzhen Dao and Qingping Dao, those two sects would never sit by and watch something like that happen.

“What are you so worked up about?” The black-robed monk put on a languid look. “Did I say the sun and moon had been swapped out?”

“You might think this doesn’t make sense, that demonkind could never slip in silently, and that even if they did, the various Dao Lords would never fail to notice.”

“Your doubts are not wrong.” The black-robed monk was practically doing a dramatic pause on purpose, laughing with obvious bad taste. “Congratulations, Junior Brother. It is still a human-ruled age. This world still belongs to humans.”

“If Senior Brother wants to kill or cut, then do it quickly. Don’t play games with strange words to toy with me!” Master Hua’an snapped, clearly feeling he was being made a fool of.

“But I haven’t lied to you either.” The black-robed monk, Huali, suddenly knit his brows. The smile vanished from his face.

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“Who said that a human-ruled court cannot contain demonkind inside it?”

This time, Hua’an did not take the bait. He closed his eyes. “Senior Brother might as well speak plainly.”

“Hmph.” Huali snorted. “Let me ask you: how long has Great Yu’s national mandate lasted?”

Hua’an turned and stared at him like he was a madman.

“Sixteen hundred years? On and off, that’s about the number.” Huali answered himself, then went on with a cold little smile. “The historians have indeed recorded all of that clearly. And if that weren’t enough, those stinking Daoists of Suzhen Dao definitely have rubbing-copies of many deeds from back then.”

“But before that?”

“My good Junior Brother, answer me. Is there any clear record of the ‘prehistory’ before that?”

This…

Master Hua’an’s face twitched. For a moment, he could not answer.

In truth, the question was very easy, so simple that even a schoolchild could answer it in one breath.

Because the answer was “no.”

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Great Yu’s mandate had lasted sixteen hundred years, and the historians had only recorded sixteen hundred years of human history.

As for what things had been like before Great Yu… Well, if not for Great Yu’s Taizu, Sacred Emperor Gu, opening up the Sword Dao and hacking open the firmament of a human-ruled age by sheer force, then countless humans would still be under demonkind’s rule, slaves and blood food.

There was nothing about that worth writing down, and no one treated the history from sixteen hundred years ago as all that important.

“You think demonkind was barbaric and ignorant? That it was an age of eating meat raw, where humans wore animal skins and slept in caves like apes, and nothing from that time was worth recording?”

Huali’s gaze was filled with pity. “At its height, Golden Cicada Temple’s influence extended beyond the borders of the Nine Provinces. It gave rise to Southern Buddhism, Nuo-land Buddhism, Su-land Buddhism and many other branches. While the temple’s lineage still existed, there was no shortage of texts specifically recording the customs of other regions. Did those not include a great many ‘demon temples’?”

“Does that not prove that demonkind already had a civilization several thousand years ago?”

“This still hasn’t been settled as fact…” Hua’an frowned. He had not expected the conversation to drift toward “archaeology.”

Indeed, as the land of the Nine Provinces had been more deeply developed, people had found all kinds of oddly shaped temple-like buildings and shattered murals. Some were naturally remnants left by ancient humans, but others bore scripts that were completely unreadable. The statues enshrined in the temple ruins and the scenes painted on the walls were grotesque to the extreme, filled with unspeakable demonic monstrosities.

The currently accepted theory was that these were things created by ancient humans under the oppression and enslavement of demonkind, used as sacrificial offerings.

For example, in the lands of Qi, at the mouth of the Jing River there was Qiyun Circuit. In the area north of the water along Qiyun Circuit, they had once found three or four such ruins. Every ruins site was filled with carvings and murals of “eyes,” and at the deepest point of the “main hall” there was a giant stone bowl. Experts had speculated that it was used to hold fresh human blood or the organs of children, dedicated as tribute for powerful demons to feast upon.

“Ignorant,” Huali said.

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“Some of those ruins are carved with exquisite craftsmanship and a dazzling artistic style.”

“If humans at that time were eating meat raw, wearing animal skins and sleeping in caves, then where did that style come from?”

“Copying?”

“If humans were ‘ape-men,’ then who exactly were they copying?”

“There is only one explanation.” He continued, “Civilization. The legends of the ‘Demon Court’ are real. The legends of the ‘Xuan Dynasty’ are real. A demon-ruled age was not some made-up era of ape-men. It could have been open and gentle, and demonkind might even have been more learned and reasonable than humans.”

This was outright, outrageous heretical thinking.

Hua’an glared furiously at the Senior Brother before him, at a loss for where to even begin refuting him.

He had originally thought Huali was only leading the surviving monks of Golden Cicada Temple to seek revenge against the court. He had never imagined that he would actually agree with such crooked theories. This was the sort of thing only the most extreme demon-factions believed.

“I don’t need to give you proof.” Huali slowly shook his head, voice low and steady. “You only need to know that the method of using demonic power was not something Gu figured out alone. A traitor emerged from demon civilization, and that traitor chose him…”

“…Senior Brother!” Master Hua’an growled in a low voice.

“And those puppet-worms, the things they’ve newly renamed ‘divine-vein demons,’ are nothing but scouts probing for intel on that traitor.” Huali spoke faster and faster. “Tell me, what usually follows behind ‘scouts’ like that?”

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“Armies. Civilizations.”

After a beat, Huali supplied the answer himself. “Everyone knows there are Demon Kingdoms in the Illusory Realms, but no one has ever considered why Illusory Realms exist at all, or what kind of beings this space-folding power might be capable of hiding…”

Hua’an’s pupils shrank slightly. This time, he held his tongue.

Because he had remembered the sea-of-blood phenomena that had plagued the northern frontier for more than twenty years now.

It was true that some scholars had said that behind the Sea of Blood, behind the endless blood-mist Demon Pools, there might be a vast Illusory Realm concealed…

“The Sea of Blood is only the beginning, a sign.”

The black-robed monk set the sword tip on top of Hua’an’s head.

“The Void Calamity has passed. Those powerful ancient demons and ancient clans are fated to awaken one after another in the future.”

“The ancient Demon Court is about to return. The old laws will once again rule the stars and the sun and moon. In the face of this great tide, nothing is worth mentioning. All the traitors of the past will be awed into submission beneath its might, kneeling and trembling.”

“Such a future is something you and I cannot stop.”

“Not even the Sword Lord can stop it.”