The New Demon King

For once, Baal did not speak at that moment. Standing before him was the dried corpse from earlier—Yan.

Baal remained a shapeless mass of black mist.

Yan’s phantom still took the form of a dried corpse, its body surrounded by faint, gentle golden motes of light that flickered in and out.

“You’re awake.”

There was a trace of amusement in Baal’s voice, familiar as though old friends had reunited.

“I thought you were going to sleep until this world had rotted away completely.”

Yan’s phantom had no features, yet Baal could sense a pair of calm eyes watching him, just as they had in life.

“I was never asleep. I was annihilated. I was already dead.”

Yan’s ancient, peaceful voice rang out directly.

“It was the power from your side that disturbed the peace of my annihilation.”

“Don’t blame me.”

Baal gave a derisive laugh.

“It was you humans who dug your bones out of the grave, then tried to force clothes that didn’t belong to you onto your own child.”

His tone was filled with disdain.

“The child is innocent.”

Yan’s voice remained gentle. “She should not have had to bear this karma.”

“So you gave her the name of your power, shouldered the final consequence yourself, and then vanished into nothing.”

“How noble. How boring. How… foolish.”

“You guarded that worthless rule until you turned yourself into dust. Was it worth it?”

Yan’s phantom replied calmly, “And you locked yourself away as well, willingly becoming a beast trapped in a cage.”

“There is no difference between us.”

Baal’s laughter stopped.

“I’m not like you.”

His voice sank, carrying a hint of anger born from embarrassment.

“I was simply tired. The heroes never stopped coming, and the weeds never stopped growing. It was too noisy. I only wanted to sleep in peace.”

“Enough about me. What about you?”

Baal immediately changed the subject, with a rare trace of curiosity in his voice.

“What were you doing it for?”

“To protect humanity? Don’t make me laugh. Does humanity need protecting? Whenever it’s about to perish, a new hero appears.”

Yan’s phantom fell silent for a moment.

The golden motes of light drifted slowly around him.

“What I protect isn’t humanity.”

“It’s the story itself.”

“What?”

Baal’s laughter was filled with absurdity. He had lived in the modern world for far too long; he could no longer understand the way these ancients spoke.

“On opposite sides of a scale, there can only be black or white, this or that—yin and yang in balance.”

Yan’s voice drifted through the air.

“But what the world has always needed was never absolute equality between the weights on either side.”

“What it needs is for the scale itself to exist.”

“For the story to continue.”

Yan’s phantom raised an arm, his withered fingers pointing distantly toward Baal.

“Your existence gives the story conflict, with all its twists and turns.”

Then he pointed at himself.

“The existence of heroes gives the story the passion that carries it toward its climax.”

Yan’s phantom turned back toward Baal.

“Once the story comes to a standstill, do you know what will happen?”

“At that point, there will be neither demons nor heroes.”

“Neither struggle nor hope.”

“Neither you nor me.”

“Everything will return to nothingness.”

“That will be the true ending—the greatest boredom of all, as you put it.”

Baal looked at him with great interest.

“That’s rather intriguing. The Yan I knew in life would never have said something like that. After death, what did you see?”

“I was once the hero of the story.”

Yan spoke slowly.

“Now, I am merely the kindling.”

The outline of his phantom grew increasingly transparent.

“I have burned away completely. There will be another hero.”

“Baal, your long-cherished wish has also been fulfilled.”

“Hey!”

Baal’s voice could not hold back the fading figure. He could clearly feel that Yan had truly disappeared.

This hero who had once dominated an entire era had finally fallen to the passage of time.

…Leaving without answering Lord Bael’s question. He really was as rude as he had been in life.

Watching the place where Yan had vanished, Baal tried hard to make sense of his words.

What did he mean by saying that his long-cherished wish had been fulfilled?

What was his long-cherished wish?

Even Baal himself found it difficult to answer that question. For an old monster like him, there was no longer anything he desired that he could not obtain.

No, no. He had to start from the beginning.

The hero. The Demon King.

For the story to continue, it could not escape these two roles.

With Yan’s complete death, the position of hero had become vacant. A new hero would probably emerge from among the younger generation. And he, old Baal, would remain the Demon King.

…Would he?

Baal suddenly realized that escaping the identity of Demon King was also one of his wishes.

…

“This place has stabilized completely.”

Huo Qixing stared at the compass in his hand, its needle perfectly still, and muttered to himself as he confirmed this utterly unbelievable reality.

Su Yuehe withdrew her gaze and glanced at An Changqing. He was supporting her by the arm, the steady warmth of his palm passing through to her.

She shook her head to indicate that she was fine, then took half a step forward and moved out of his support.

An Changqing’s fingers paused in midair before finally withdrawing.

He looked at Su Yuehe’s profile. Beneath the pallor of her face, something had settled there—something he had never seen before.

“How do we get out?”

Qin Wu broke the silence. Supporting a limp student from Yanjing Academy, he said, “The entrance has disappeared.”

Everyone’s eyes converged on Su Yuehe almost in unison.

The person who had tied the knot had to be the one to untie it.

At this moment, the most unfathomable person in the group had become this Huaqing prodigy who had just returned from the brink of collapse.

Su Yuehe said nothing.

She closed her eyes and sensed the power within her. All its former violence had faded away, leaving only a gentle current flowing through her.

The sensation was strange. A long-lost part of her body had been restored, fitting perfectly into place without the slightest trace of rejection.

She opened her eyes again and looked toward the empty ground at the edge of the camp. A golden character lit up deep within her pupils, then vanished in an instant.

“Door.”

The space before them silently rippled outward. A circular entrance, its edges flowing with a faint blue radiance, appeared out of thin air—the exact same one they had entered through.

“This…”

Wang Shuo’s gaze moved back and forth between the doorway and the unruffled Su Yuehe. He felt as though his entire worldview had been smashed to pieces and rebuilt again and again.

“Let’s go.”

Su Yuehe’s voice was soft, but every word was clear.

An Changqing walked at the front and stepped through without hesitation. Long Ao and Qin Wu followed close behind, protecting the two Yanjing students who were in poor condition.

Chen Guan walked at the rear of the group.

As he passed Su Yuehe, the girl’s steps slowed.

“Chen Guan.”

She called out to him.

Chen Guan stopped. His left hand remained in his pocket as he merely turned his head to look at her.

“Your hand…”

Su Yuehe’s gaze fell upon his arm. Amid the chaos earlier, she thought she had seen something strange there.

A flash of black light. After it vanished, his sense of control over his body had become clear again.

“Nothing serious. It’s not getting in the way. I might just have to trouble Doctor Zhou when we get back.”

Su Yuehe’s lips moved slightly, but in the end, she did not ask any further questions.