The Holy Lord and the Prefect did not flee, for they knew they had been firmly locked onto—just like a heavenly tribulation, there was no escape no matter where they hid.
At this moment, all their former arrogance and pride as the leaders of the top imperial immortal sects had vanished. They pleaded desperately to Gu Qingfeng.
"Demon Lord, spare us! We’ll give you the true Imperial Scriptures now—please show mercy!"
Gu Qingfeng remained unmoved—mainly because even if he wanted to, he couldn’t do anything about it. After all, the punishment for breaking an oath wasn’t up to him.
"Liars get struck by lightning, you know. Remember to be honest in your next life—oh wait, your oath mentioned 'annihilation of body and soul,' didn’t it?
My bad, seems like you two won’t have a next life."
At this, the Holy Lord and the Prefect were utterly consumed by despair, their eyes brimming with boundless madness and resentment.
"Then die with us!" they roared, locking onto Gu Qingfeng from both sides, clearly intending to drag him down with them when the lightning struck.
Gu Qingfeng smirked. The reason he hadn’t left was precisely to get struck by lightning.
BOOM—!
With a deafening roar, a thick black bolt of lightning descended at a speed rivaling light itself, too fast for anyone to react.
In a fraction of an instant, the three were bathed in the terrifying black lightning.
"AHHH—!!"
Screams of agony echoed throughout the Heavenly Court. Everyone watched in horror as the three figures were engulfed, instinctively retreating several miles further to avoid being caught in the aftermath.
Moments later, the screams abruptly ceased.
The black lightning and the sky-obscuring dark clouds slowly dissipated, revealing a single unharmed figure—Gu Qingfeng.
Yet, his face was stormy, his rage palpable, like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
Because he hadn’t gained a single shred of power from it.
That terrifying black lightning had seemed sentient, deliberately avoiding him entirely and focusing every last volt on the Holy Lord and the Prefect, wasting none on him.
Gu Qingfeng felt targeted. He was certain—this had to be the Oath Demon Lord’s doing!
Damn it!
......
Beyond the Realm of Demonic Tribulations.
The trio of demon lords—Heart, Oath, and Longevity—paused in their efforts to forge a cross-realm passage.
Oath Demon Lord: "That brat tried to devour my power again just now. Luckily, I sensed it in time and stopped him."
Heart Demon Lord: "Good. Because of him, not a single cultivator in the Cangming Realm has fallen to demonic corruption lately. Even if I suffer heavy losses, I’d rather lose a hundred times more than let him grow stronger by feeding on us! We’re immortal anyway—what’s a little sacrifice? The important thing is to stop him at all costs!"
Longevity Demon Lord: "Fine. I’ll cut off all lifespan-trading deals in the Cangming Realm. Even though his demonic scroll is already blocked, who knows if he’ll find another?"
Thus, the three demon lords sealed off every avenue for Gu Qingfeng, leaving him completely isolated.
......
Gu Qingfeng cursed for a long while before finally calming down slightly after glancing at the two spatial rings in his hand.
He had snatched them from the Holy Lord and the Prefect while they were being struck by lightning.
After all, the men might have been scum, but the rings were innocent.
It was just a shame about those several Supreme Saint Weapons—all destroyed in the tribulation.
He then channeled his Sinful Power, flooding the rings with endless malevolent thoughts that clashed against the residual imprints inside, eroding them away.
Malevolent thoughts were something Gu Qingfeng had in endless supply—as long as living beings existed, so did corruption.
In just this short time, the entire Heavenly Court had contributed plenty.
After expending a massive amount of dark energy, the imprints shattered. Gu Qingfeng immediately inspected the rings.
The treasures and spirit stones inside were plentiful—almost one percent as much as his own family’s vault!
Clearly, these two had embezzled quite a bit during their reigns.
But Gu Qingfeng wasn’t particularly excited. At his current level, material wealth no longer interested him—he had never cared for treasures in his life.
The only thing that still captivated him was knowledge—books, scriptures.
Soon, he found what he sought in their rings—the Imperial Scriptures. Satisfied, he allowed himself a brief smile.
But when he noticed the fearful gazes of the Heavenly Court and Netherworld’s Supreme Saints fixed on him, he quickly wiped the smile off his face, replacing it with a cold glare.
"Surround them!" he ordered.
"As you command, My Lord!"
WHOOSH—!
Over a hundred Supreme Saints encircled the twenty-odd from the Heavenly Court and Netherworld.
Having witnessed the deaths of the Holy Lord and Prefect—and now knowing Gu Qingfeng’s true identity—these Supreme Saints were utterly terrified.
The name "Demon Lord" carried weight comparable to that of the Heavenly Emperor himself.
Yet, as cultivators who had reached the Supreme Saint realm, they refused to cower. Instead, they steeled themselves, weapons at the ready, prepared for battle.
No one would simply wait for death.
As Gu Qingfeng slowly approached, their minds raced, eyes flickering with suspicion and calculation.
They had already pieced together much.
At their level, they were the core of the Heavenly Court and Netherworld, privy to the secrets of the Great Contention and the joint divinations performed by the Holy Lords.
Now, they finally understood why Gu Qingfeng had appeared in those divinations when the Holy Lords sought the reason for the demonic invasion of the Cangming Realm.
Gu Qingfeng was the Demon Lord!
He must have colluded with the foreign demons, acting as a spy to pave the way for their conquest!
This horrifying realization weighed heavily on them. They were certain Gu Qingfeng would silence them—after all, exposure would ruin his plans.
Through secret transmissions, they debated:
"Fellow Daoists, who would’ve thought Gu Qingfeng was an incarnation of the foreign demons? The Holy Lord and Prefect sacrificed their lives to uncover this truth—we must spread this knowledge to the world!"
"Agreed. Even if we die, we cannot let the demons destroy the Cangming Realm!"
"But Gu Qingfeng has over a hundred Supreme Saints under his command! We stand no chance!"
"No chance or not, we must fight! Remember—this is the Heavenly Court! The Quasi-Emperors may be in slumber, but if the Court faces existential crisis, they will awaken!
The true forms of the demons cannot enter our realm. Once the Quasi-Emperors act, this demonic fiend will perish!"
Their resolve was absolute—they would rather die than surrender.
Yet, to their surprise, Gu Qingfeng didn’t kill them. Instead, he demanded their spatial rings.
He had no intention of provoking the Quasi-Emperors yet. If they awoke, even his hundred-plus Supreme Saints wouldn’t stand a chance. While he was immortal, who enjoyed being killed over and over?
He had his pride, after all.
Sure, he could flee—but being hunted by Quasi-Emperors day and night would be humiliating.
Hiding was out of the question too. After finally amassing so many subordinates, he wasn’t about to cower in obscurity. That kind of pathetic existence wasn’t his style.
As for the Quasi-Emperor, let's wait until the Chaos Body is forged first.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
