"Hah... hah..."
"Senior sister... I can't anymore. There are too many of them..."
Under the crushing weight of battle, a young female cultivator collapsed to her knees. Her clothes were shredded and soaked through with blood — her own and the demonic beasts' so thoroughly mixed she could no longer tell them apart. Both trembling hands gripped the sword she'd driven into the ground, using it like a staff to hold herself upright. If she let go, she knew she would fall and not get up again.
"Mu Xia... hang on. We have to make it out of here."
Beside her stood her senior sister, whose own condition was equally wretched. But she carried responsibility on her shoulders, and because of that, she couldn't give up, no matter what.
If she fell, it wasn't just her own life lost. Her junior and senior disciples were still counting on her.
"...The Wild Bloom Sect people. They must've known already that the demonic beasts attacking were more than reported..."
Mu Xia could barely stay upright, yet she gritted her teeth. Her eyes burned red with resentment. This war had taken so many of her siblings — people she'd grown up beside, and none of them were coming back.
And she believed everything must be the Wild Bloom Sect's plan!
"...Mu Xia... don't say such things."
Su Lin tried to stop her. This was a battlefield, but soldiers and cultivators from other factions surrounded them. If those words reached the wrong ears, there would be consequences.
"Senior Sister Su Lin! You know it too!"
Mu Xia shouted with what little strength she had left, her body swaying with the effort. Any thought of survival had long since slipped away. She just wanted to scream it all out.
"Senior Wei Qin... Senior Lin Kun... even Senior Yi Xian are dead! Can you still tell me to calm down!?"
Both sadness and rage churned in the young girl's heart. She bit down on her once-beautiful lips hard enough to draw blood.
"...Because of them... all this is because of them..."
Finally she lost control. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, mixing with demonic beast blood on her face. The sight of her struck Su Lin like a blade to the chest.
"Mu Xia..."
Su Lin wanted to offer comfort — anything. But no words came. Nothing she could think of would ease what Mu Xia was feeling right now.
Because deep down, every word she'd said... she herself believed all of it too!
"Even the Empress... because of their lies, she had to be imprisoned separately from us..."
"If at least she was still here... Senior Yi Xian and the others might..."
"Mu Xia!"
Su Lin's shout, laced with qi, jolted the young girl back to her senses. She looked around. Cultivators from other sects and factions nearby were already glancing their way.
Su Lin held her junior disciple's gaze. Finally, Mu Xia clenched her jaw and pulled her sword up from the ground.
"...I'm sorry, senior sister... I lost my head for a moment..."
Right.
They could die.
But those living must remain!
She couldn't let a moment of lost composure create trouble for the sisters still waiting back at the palace.
When awareness returned, she forced her gaze back to the battlefield. The demonic beast army — countless tribes fighting as one — still crashed relentlessly against the front-line cultivators, driving the human forces back in crumbling strips.
If it continued like this, in less than an hour the front troops would definitely be completely routed.
"Senior sister... we must survive."
The young girl shifted her sword. The qi reserves in her body were nearly gone, yet sheer will wrung out what little remained, setting it to a boil. She was burning through her own life force just to stay standing a little longer.
"...I promise."
Su Lin nodded. She pulled out her last recovery pill — nearly useless at this point, but it was all she had — and swallowed it. Afterward, a bitter pang of self-pity rose up in her at how far they'd fallen, and through no fault of their own.
How could their palace's pills be lacking?
If not because they were compelled to hand them all over!
...And those who received those precious pills? What were they doing right now?
They were all cowering inside those city walls!
Su Lin wanted nothing more than to curse those pretentious, death-fearing cowards at the top of her lungs. But her position wouldn't allow it. She swallowed it all down and channeled every drop of rage into the demonic beasts in front of her.
"Yaaa!!"
But before either of them could charge into a final confrontation, a massive pressure swept in from behind the demonic beast group. The front-line cultivators felt it the instant it radiated outward, and every one of them froze in place, trembling.
"Th-this feeling?"
"...Huff!"
"...T-there must be some mistake."
"Ancient Demon!"
The moment that name left someone's mouth, every person who heard it felt their skin crawl. For anyone born and raised in the Myriad Demon World, "Ancient Demon" was a phrase they'd known since childhood — first from bedtime stories meant to frighten them, and then, when they grew older, from the grim realization that those stories hadn't been exaggerating.
"Demon General... Marsosius."
Behind the demonic beast army, a black wolf-man figure emerged — winged, towering, unmistakable. The moment he appeared, the demonic army's morale surged. Among the humans, the trembling began.
"Wh-why is the Demon General here?"
True to his epithet, Marsosius could dramatically amplify the physical and mental power of every soldier under his command. On top of that, his tactical mind and front-line combat ability were unmatched. On a battlefield, he was about as dangerous as a single existence could be.
"Wasn't he missing for three years already?"
An elderly cultivator at advanced Grandmaster level murmured in disbelief. He had followed the news closely. Three years ago, word had come out that Marsosius had vanished. Perhaps even perished.
No one had expected the Demon General to appear here.
"Retreat troops!"
At that moment a shout rang from the front. The speaker was a white-bearded elderly man in full battle armor, a Sage-level cultivator whose armor had been washed in more demonic beast blood than most would see in a lifetime. He commanded this battle.
He had cut down countless enemies today. But the moment Marsosius set foot on the battlefield, the color drained from his face and he gave the order to withdraw without a second's hesitation.
"Too late!"
A soldier beside him screamed. The wolf-man, barely a silhouette at the edge of vision, let out a howl, and black light flooded across its body. Its form began to shift. From two legs it dropped to four, and within seconds, a massive black wolf with griffin wings spread across its back stood in its place.
"GRAAAH!"
Marsosius roared. But rather than crashing into the human army still struggling to retreat, the giant wolf launched itself skyward, spreading its massive wings and shooting upward like a bolt of darkness toward something hovering far above.
"That... a human?"
Mu Xia still didn't fully understand what was happening. A moment ago she'd been certain she wouldn't survive, her remaining strength nowhere near enough to escape something called an Ancient Demon.
But that Ancient Demon charged at the human floating up there instead.
"Now's our chance! Fall back!"
Su Lin was the first to recover. She spun around and called out to the other palace disciples, especially those still staring blankly at the sky. Most of the forces here didn't know yet that Marsosius had appeared. They needed to get back and report as fast as possible.
"Mu Xia... Mu Xia!"
Su Lin didn't understand what her junior disciple was staring at. But whoever that person in the sky was, they had no chance of surviving an Ancient Demon. The only thing left to do was run.
"S-senior sister..."
"Stop talking! Go quickly!"
Su Lin grabbed Mu Xia's wrist and moved to drag her along. But Mu Xia shook her off and pointed up at the sky, her voice barely above a trembling whisper—
"Th-the Ancient Demon."
"It's an Ancient Demon, yes!"
"...Is falling down already."
"...?"
*BOOM!*
The moment Mu Xia's voice faded, Marsosius's massive body crashed into the battlefield with a thunderous boom. A wall of dust and smoke surged outward, swallowing the impossible truth in a haze.
"..."
The elderly Sage-level cultivator was first to move. He quickly went to check the situation after the wind cleared the smoke away.
And what he saw made his jaw drop.
The once-mighty body — the one that had radiated a killing aura powerful enough to make all who witnessed it tremble — now bore a gaping wound slashed clean from chest to belly. Blood poured out in rivers, soaking the ground bright red. The elderly man had heard legends about hide that no blade could pierce, not even high-level weapons or magical treasures. Every one of those legends had just been shattered before his eyes.
What level of power could create wounds on an existence like this?
The great wolf coughed blood one last time. It tried to lift its head to see the one who had brought it down in a single strike. But the wound was too deep. Its breath gave out before it could.
"...Lord Marsosius is dead."
A rat-like demonic beast crept forward to check. Its voice shook as it spoke.
"Lord Marsosius is dead!"
"Lord Marsosius is dead!"
Like a chain reaction, the news rippled outward through the demonic army. In an instant their morale shattered. The horde that had been charging without fear turned and fled in every direction.
The surviving humans all looked upward, transfixed. A young woman stood in the air, as beautiful as a painting — composed, unhurried, impossible to look away from.
It was several seconds before Mu Xia came to her senses.
"Empress...?"
"What are you saying... that's not the Empress at all." Su Lin froze, then squinted up again. But no. Neither the face nor the bearing of that woman in the sky matched their Empress.
And besides, there was no way she could be here. She was being held inside those city walls, kept there by the royal family.
"..."
Mu Xia's mouth opened and closed for quite a while. Her mind dug back through distant memories with all its strength. Back when she was only a few years old, always mischievously wandering somewhere she shouldn't.
Once she'd accidentally wandered into the Forbidden Palace.
A palace only the palace master or the Empress was allowed to enter.
Though she was caught and punished according to the rules, the Empress hadn't held it against her. She had even knelt down to comfort the small, frightened girl who couldn't stop crying.
Mu Xia had kept silent about it ever since — a promise to herself, a way of repaying that kindness.
But even if she told, it probably wouldn't have mattered much.
Because what she saw there was just one painting hanging on the wall...
...A painting of the most beautiful, powerful young woman she had ever seen. The image had burned itself into her memory so deeply that even now, over ten years later, she could recall every detail.
None of that would have mattered.
...If the woman standing up there didn't have a face exactly like the one in that painting — as though they were the same person!