As this person's fame rose, some cultivators seemed to recognize him, saying that he looked extremely similar to a cultivator who had disappeared from their clan back then.
Just as the outside world was full of speculation, this Nascent Soul cultivator, as black as refined iron, finally admitted that he was that person.
His skin color was the result of cultivating a certain technique, and he listed some things to prove his identity.
Although his cultivation was profound, his current appearance was an anomaly. He could not resist the entire Demon Clan's exclusiveness with his own strength alone.
Moreover, his ambition was extremely great. He was not someone willing to be subservient to others. The confirmation of his identity finally allowed him to gain a firm foothold on the Forsaken Continent and create his legend.
This person was the later world-renowned "Black Demon Ancestor"---Xiahou Shangxie.
After proving his identity, Xiahou Shangxie began to establish his own family. With his status as a Nascent Soul cultivator and his outstanding combat power, it was not difficult to do this.
Countless cultivators were willing to pledge allegiance to him.
His family began to be extremely low-key. Xiahou Shangxie also changed from his initial dazzling appearance to disappearing without a trace.
He lived in seclusion all year round, and family members rarely traveled outside.
It wasn't until seventy years later that the great war between the Forsaken Continent and the Verdant Continent broke out.
When the two sides were fighting extremely fiercely, and the high-level members of the Demon Clan were constantly urging the major families and sects to supplement the army with cultivators, a demon army composed of a single family entered their sight.
What first attracted their attention was the skin color of these cultivators. They were completely different from other demons.
Each armored soldier was as black as refined iron, their skin gleaming with a metallic luster, giving people a great sense of oppression, like demons from hell.
And what was even more unexpected was that the combat power of this army far exceeded that of other armies.
With the same realm and the same number of people, they could often fight two against one, or even more.
Both their physical bodies and techniques were unusually powerful. The battlefields where they appeared often made the enemy cry out in misery.
Soon, many people learned the origin of this demon army: the reclusive cultivation family—the Xiahou Family.
In this great war with the Verdant Continent, the Xiahou Family's demon army was almost invincible. In several major battles, they were the ones who emerged as a surprise force, guiding the direction of the battle.
And the ancestor of the Xiahou Family, Xiahou Shangxie, was even more unstoppable. With his mid-stage Nascent Soul power, he fought against a late-stage Nascent Soul Great Cultivator from the other side.
Although he was suppressed and constantly pushed back by the other party, he ultimately retreated completely unscathed.
With this battle alone, Xiahou Shangxie, who had not appeared in the world for a long time, once again became famous in both realms.
And by the time the war between the two realms slowly subsided, Xiahou Shangxie had already killed one mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator and one initial-stage cultivator from the other side, while seriously injuring several other Nascent Souls.
His fame was unmatched for a time. However, at this time, the Xiahou demon army had also suffered heavy losses and become a remnant army. But their strength and ruthlessness had attracted the attention of countless people.
The cultivation method practiced by the Xiahou Family was once again constantly mentioned, but at the same time, it also aroused criticism from many in the Demon Clan.
"After cultivating the Xiahou Family's technique, the Demon Clan's bloodline has already changed, turning them into ferocious beasts that only know how to kill..." and so on.
But even so, many people still began to resolutely seek refuge with the Xiahou Family, in the hope of obtaining even greater power.
Just like that, the Xiahou Family slowly grew into a behemoth.
During this period, although many demon clan families and sects also wanted to hinder its development, Xiahou Shangxie's technique was unparalleled, and even late-stage Nascent Soul Great Cultivators could do nothing to him.
On the contrary, just one hundred and forty years after his comeback, he smoothly entered the late-stage of Nascent Soul, and his power became even more invincible.
After reaching this point, Xiahou Shangxie no longer had too many scruples and began an even more frantic expansion.
And the biggest secret of their family was no longer a core secret.
That was that the Xiahou Family had a mysterious secret realm. When cultivators cultivated inside, their cultivation speed would increase exponentially.
There was a so-called "Demonic Qi" in the secret realm that could rapidly improve cultivation. This Demonic Qi was more domineering than spiritual energy and more suitable for the bodies of the Demon Clan.
This "secret" was of course deliberately released by the Xiahou Family to attract more cultivators to seek refuge and pledge allegiance.
As the secret realm could no longer support the cultivation needs of the increasingly large family, Xiahou Shangxie simply planned to expand the range of "Demonic Qi" and occupy more territory.
At this time, no one could stop the Xiahou Family's expansion. It was said that Xiahou Shangxie had reached some kind of agreement with a Spirit Transformation ancestor, which led to other Spirit Transformation ancestors no longer interfering in this matter.
The Demon Clan believed most in the law of the jungle. They would do whatever it took to put foreign races to death.
As for competition within the clan, they would often not suppress it excessively, in order to maintain the unrivaled combat power of the entire Demon Clan.
At this time, even if the entire Demon Clan on the Forsaken Continent gathered its strength to destroy the Xiahou Family, the entire Demon Clan would also lose more than half of its elites at the same time, and would inevitably become the weakest race on the Forsaken Continent.
While expanding, the Xiahou Family began to continuously plant some spirit plants in the occupied territories.
These spirit plants grew extremely fast. They could devour a large amount of spiritual energy between heaven and earth and quickly strengthen themselves.
In a land of a thousand li, in just five or six years, it could become a place of continuous towering trees, and the ground would be covered with dense bluish-black grass.
What was even more terrifying was that while these spirit plants devoured spiritual energy, they would continuously secrete a large amount of black smoke, causing the spiritual energy in this area to become impure and extremely violent.
If there were fewer spirit plants, this black smoke would be almost invisible, just merging into the spiritual energy and easily overlooked.
But when a forest or a prairie was formed, the black smoke had already solidified and become visible. At a glance, the Demonic Qi was rolling, and bluish-black colors shot up into the sky.
As a result, the Demonic Beasts in many parts of the Forsaken Continent also began to mutate, becoming more ferocious and violent, constantly killing and even devouring their own kind. If ordinary cultivators entered, over time, they would also become bloodthirsty, their minds slowly lost, and they would become unconscious, raging killing puppets.
The actions of the Xiahou Family finally led the cultivators of the original Demon Clan to devise a plan to gather the entire clan's strength and eradicate the dissidents.
The original Demon Clan was not only dissatisfied with the expansion of these plants that could devour spiritual energy and spit out so-called Demonic Qi.
They also looked down on the bloodline of the Xiahou Family, believing it to be an inferior bloodline contaminated by Demonic Qi, turning the noble and holy demon gods into asuras from hell.
The actions of the Xiahou Family were tantamount to destroying the true Demon Clan. The two sides went from small regional frictions and secret assassinations to a prolonged great war.
This war within the race lasted for seventy-one years. In the end, the original Demon Clan was no match for the Xiahou Family's army and was beaten back to a corner in the northwest.
Even the clan's "Sacred Demon Palace" was surrounded. It seemed that the original Demon Clan was about to be annihilated by Xiahou Shangxie.
And at that time, for some unknown reason, after a certain night, the Xiahou Family's army surrounding the "Sacred Demon Palace" all retreated.
And the army returned to the Xiahou Family's territory a few days later, giving up a lot of previously occupied territory.
Just as the other races were puzzled, thinking that a Spirit Transformation cultivator from the original Demon Clan had intervened, and speculation was rife, Xiahou Shangxie suddenly announced a piece of news that shocked the Forsaken Continent.
From then on, an era began. Xiahou Shangxie declared that from now on, the Xiahou Family would no longer exist. He would be the "Black Demon Ancestor" and establish the Black Demon Clan.
He occupied sixty percent of the eastern territory of the Forsaken Continent and ruled by dividing the border with the original Demon Clan.
Other sects or families in the original territory, if they were willing to stay with the Black Demon Clan, then the Black Demon Clan would provide the same protection and cultivation resources.
In order to enable them to adapt to the Demonic Qi, they would also provide some corresponding cultivation methods.
Those who were unwilling to stay could freely move to the territory ruled by the original Demon Clan, and they would not be given any trouble or hunted down.
For a time, the cultivation world of the Forsaken Continent became even more chaotic and turbulent.
In response, the original Demon Clan also quickly issued a statement, acknowledging what Xiahou Shangxie had said, and declaring the west as the territory ruled by the "White Demon Clan."
Other races' cultivation sects could decide for themselves whether to stay or leave, but once they chose to leave, their original sect sites would no longer be preserved and would be allocated to other sects and families.
On this point, the White Demon Clan was not as generous as the Black Demon Clan. The Black Demon Clan let people come and go as they pleased, and even gifted them cultivation methods for Demonic Qi.
The White Demon Clan, on the other hand, directly confiscated the old sites of other people's sects.
From then on, the Forsaken Continent was divided sixty-forty, into eastern and western regions. The east was black and the west was white, and they ruled their respective territories.
The White Demon Clan did not allow any spirit plant that could produce Demonic Qi to appear in the west, and stationed a large army at the border to guard it strictly all year round.
They killed Demonic Beasts with strong Demonic Qi that crossed the border, as well as Black Demon Clan cultivators.
Li Yan had learned most of this from Shan Yiyuan. Although Shan Yiyuan was surprised by Li Yan's questions, he still answered them one by one.
Li Yan had only asked seemingly casually. To his surprise, the amount of information Shan Yiyuan knew about the cultivation world was so much that it even astonished him.
Seeing Li Yan's somewhat strange gaze, Shan Yiyuan finally explained, "The origin of our relationship with the Black Demon Clan is a story passed down from ancient times. It's something almost everyone knows."
"So, the moment you opened your mouth, Great Immortal Master, we knew you must be an outsider cultivator. Here, although we don't often see cultivators of other races, they do exist. After all, this is the Forsaken Continent."
Only then did Li Yan feel relieved. His seemingly meticulous probing of the other's words might have been a laughing matter in the other's eyes. They had seen through his general background at a glance.
However, after learning of Li Yan's origin, Shan Yiyuan was also surprised. An outsider cultivator who could establish a connection with a Great Immortal Master in the army as soon as he arrived—this connection must be quite deep.
However, if it were Shanggong Changge facing Li Yan's questions at this moment, she would surely have concluded that Li Yan and Zhao Min were simply used to living in a remote corner, oblivious to the affairs of the world.
At the same time, Li Yan also roughly knew that the White Demon Clan still mainly focused on absorbing spiritual energy, cultivating the purest "Demonic Origin Power" into their bodies.
So, the further west one went on the Forsaken Continent, the less Demonic Qi there was, until finally it became completely pure spiritual energy.
The village he was in now was at the border of the two realms. The heaven and earth here were a mixture of Demonic Qi and spiritual energy.
This Demonic Qi did not have a great impact on mortals. Their physical bodies could not absorb the spiritual energy and Demonic Qi between heaven and earth.
If they could, it would mean they had cultivation aptitude. At most, the dense spiritual or Demonic Qi would just nourish their bodies more.
Demonic Qi did have some effect on the minds of mortals, but these mortal demons, because their ancestors had lived here for a long time, had slowly adapted to the Demonic Qi that had spread over.
Like Shan Yiyuan and the others, they were actually more adapted to the Demonic Qi. Their bloodlines had also undergone a certain transformation, and their physical bodies were stronger than those of the original White Demon Clan mortals.
In addition, there had been no major war between the White Demon Clan and the Black Demon Clan for many years. Therefore, not many people from the mortal villages at the border had migrated westward.
However, the cultivator armies stationed at the border by both sides still stretched out, guarding against each other.
Now at the border, what appeared more often were Demonic Beasts from the Black Demon Clan's side crossing the border from time to time.
Nourished by Demonic Qi, those Demonic Beasts were extremely ferocious and bloodthirsty. They liked to cross the border and slaughter mortals, and even low-level cultivators.
In general, there was no major war between the two sides, but there was constant friction in the shadows.