【It’s finally here! The battle of the century! Mars colliding with Earth!】
【I’m betting on Brother Coffin. He hasn’t even finished unlocking all his cheats yet.】
【Hard to say. Hiiragi Aoba was clearly holding back in the last match. There’s no way the Wind-Thunder Demon King is his only shikigami. The most disgusting thing about onmyoji is their swarm tactics.】
【Fight, fight, fight! I can’t wait any longer!】
The referee looked at the two contestants before him and felt an inexplicable pressure weighing down on him. He took a deep breath. His raised arm was trembling with unprecedented tension as he suddenly chopped it downward.
“Begin!”
The instant his voice fell, Hiiragi Aoba smiled. It was a brilliant smile, yet for some reason, it carried an eerie undertone.
“Chen Guan, I owe you my thanks.”
He unfolded his pure-white folding fan and spoke with measured composure. “If not for you, I would probably still be lost in the empty reputation of being the academy’s top student. You made me realize that in this world, there will always be opponents worth conquering.”
“In return, I’ll let you witness the true secrets of Kamitani Academy’s onmyodo. I’ll let you see what it means to unleash… the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.”
Before he had even finished speaking, he used the ribs of the fan to slash open a deep wound in his left palm. Bright-red blood immediately poured out, staining the pure-white fan an alarming crimson.
He did not pause. He used blood as ink and the fan as paper. Clearly, he had learned from his previous battle and prepared in advance—the fan’s surface had already been smeared with blood.
He gripped the fan, now thoroughly soaked in blood, and drove it viciously into the alloy floor beneath his feet.
The light around the arena was forcibly drained away. With Hiiragi Aoba at its center, the ground transformed into an abyssal black swamp. The enormous torii gate that had appeared in the previous battle rose from the mire once again.
But this time, the massive gate opened completely to both sides with a grating sound that made one’s teeth ache.
Behind it were countless pairs of eyes, glowing crimson, ghostly green, and deathly white.
The tide of demons had arrived.
The first to charge out were hundreds of shadow wolves. Close behind them came undead warriors clad in decayed armor and wielding battered weapons.
The sky was obscured by grotesque bird demons with wingspans exceeding five meters. They shrieked sharply as they circled overhead, waiting for the chance to swoop down and slaughter their prey.
This was only the appetizer.
After the low-level shikigami surged out like a flood, twelve enormous figures radiating terrifying pressure finally emerged from the torii one after another, each step shaking the earth.
The Wind-Thunder Demon King, green-faced and fanged, hefting a spiked club.
The Asura Ghost King, with six arms and four faces, each hand gripping a different weapon.
The Snow Woman Queen, her entire body wreathed in pale flames that froze even the air wherever she passed.
The Bone Lord, constructed from countless piled-up skeletons and wielding a massive bone scythe.
Twelve demon king-tier shikigami, each notorious in myth and legend, surrounded Hiiragi Aoba like the most loyal royal guard. Every one of them possessed an aura no weaker than the Wind-Thunder Demon King that Marcus had desperately fought to destroy in the previous match.
It was the equivalent of twelve drugged-up Marcuses standing opposite Chen Guan.
At this moment, the entire arena had transformed into a hellscape of monsters and demons.
In the stands, every student—including the teachers who prided themselves on their vast experience—rose in horror. They stared at this army of demon gods, powerful enough to effortlessly flatten a small city, their minds reduced to blankness.
“This… is this really a battle between students?”
“You’ve got to be kidding! One person summoned an entire army?”
“Is Hiiragi Aoba a monster? How is he controlling so many powerful shikigami?”
In North City Academy’s waiting area, Bai Huanran watched the scene before him. The last trace of unwillingness in his eyes turned into the bitter ashes of despair.
The water-based techniques he had always been proud of looked as fragile as a joke before this army of demon gods.
Among the four team captains, he seemed to have become the weakest once again. Even his victory over Qin Wu had only been achieved by taking advantage of the information gap.
On Huaqing Academy’s side, An Changqing’s hand was clamped tightly around his sword hilt. Not a trace of gentleness remained on his face. All that was left was unprecedented solemnity.
“This is trouble.”
Su Yuehe’s expression had also turned grave. She could sense that the twelve demon kings radiated power comparable to that of seventh- or eighth-tier experts.
What did that mean?
This was no longer a duel.
This was a war.
“Chen Guan.”
Guarded by the twelve demon kings and an endless tide of demons, Hiiragi Aoba pointed toward Chen Guan, who was completely surrounded. He looked like an emperor inspecting his army, a smile of absolute confidence on his face.
“Can you still remain as calm as before?”
“My army will grind you—and your coffin—into dust.”
“I told you. I’m going to wash away my humiliation.”
As his final word fell, he lightly waved his folding fan.
“Attack.”
“Roar!”
Thunderous howls instantly drowned out every other sound in the arena.
Shadow wolves, undead warriors, and bird demons surged toward the lone figure from all directions like floodwaters released from a dam.
The sky was covered by the shadows of the bird demons. The ground was filled with a relentless tide of undead. And the twelve demon kings advanced with heavy strides, like twelve moving mountains, slowly pressing forward with the might to destroy heaven and earth.
This was a killing formation—a flawless cage of death built from overwhelming numbers and absolute quality.
Yet in the face of this all-encompassing assault, Chen Guan drew his scythe, gripped it with both hands, and charged toward the Snow Woman Queen, the nearest of the twelve demon kings, whose body burned with pale flames.
Whoosh!
The black scythe traced an arc through the air and severed the neck of a shadow wolf that had lunged within striking distance.
The decapitated shadow wolf did not disperse into shadow. Instead, its body rapidly deflated like a punctured balloon. A wisp of nearly imperceptible black energy flowed along the scythe’s blade and was absorbed into its body.
Chen Guan did not slow down.
He moved like a farmer walking through a field of wheat. Every swing of the enormous scythe brought with it a wave of black “grain.”
Countless undead warriors and shadow wolves fell around him. Without exception, their bodies were instantly drained of every trace of energy, transformed into pure black aura, and devoured by the insatiable scythe.
After absorbing hundreds of shikigami, the once-black and unadorned scythe began to gleam with an eerie, dark-red sheen along its blade.
“A dying struggle.”
Hiiragi Aoba watched the scene with a gentle smile still on his face.
He did not care about the losses among the low-level shikigami. They were merely cannon fodder, tools meant to wear down the enemy’s stamina.
Once those cannon fodder were destroyed, they would return to the torii. As long as he wished, he could summon them again at any time.
The true main course was the twelve demon kings.
“Move.”
With a thought from him, the Asura Ghost King was the first to attack.
Its six arms swung simultaneously, wielding a blade, spear, sword, halberd, axe, and battle-axe. Together, they formed an impenetrable web of deadly weapons that descended over Chen Guan’s head.
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
