“Hahaha… Pitiful girl,” he rasped, rising to his feet despite the chains still binding him.
“Do you think you can take this old man’s life? You must be quite delusional!”
Crack!
A deafening snap echoed through the throne hall as the manacles shattered like glass.
The soldiers stepped forward to restrain him, but—
Too late!
The air grew heavy.
A swirl of black fog burst from his body, laced with crimson threads that pulsed like living veins.
His skin began to warp, cracking like dried clay, revealing patches of charred, armored flesh beneath.
His eyes burned a hellish red, and two jagged horns erupted from his forehead.
Fingers elongated into claws, and his grin split wider—far too wide for a human face.
“No… he’s—!”
“What is he?”
“A Devil!”
Gasps and screams echoed through the room. Even the traitorous people stumbled back in horror.
“Impossible!” one shouted.
They had been together for so long, it didn’t make sense that they hadn’t known Minister Ren was actually a Devil.
The Devil was different from Evil Cultivators and Demonic Beasts.
They were kind of like Demonic Beasts but with human-like appearances and intelligence.
They also seemed to possess the ability to control Demonic Beasts.
Bai Zihan looked at the Devil, which didn’t exist in his world.
It might have existed once, but not after humans managed to trample over and rule the world.
This was his first encounter, and he was curious to see just what kind of being the legendary Devil really was.
“You people were so busy stuffing your faces and counting gold,” Ren snarled in a voice no longer his own, layered with unnatural echoes, “you didn’t even notice a predator among you.”
With a flick of his clawed hand, a pulse of Demonic Qi exploded outward. Soldiers were flung like ragdolls, blood spraying against the stone walls.
The nobles screamed, crawling for cover.
“Hey, save me!”
“I’ll give you everything, protect me!”
“Don’t kill! Remember, I helped you!”
…
They rambled in fear, but there was no way to save them.
“Hmph! Useless worms.”
With a single swing of his massive clawed arm, black mist surged like a tidal wave, laced with blood-red lightning.
SHRAAAK!
In one grotesque arc, his arm cut through the air—and the traitors were reduced to pulp.
No screams. No resistance.
Just gore.
“Everyone, shoot!”
Princess Feilian raised her arm and ordered the soldiers to fire on the Devil.
“Feilian,” Bai Zihan said, stepping forward, his expression finally serious.
“Get out of here!”
Bai Zihan could sense the Devil Qi, which seemed to have surpassed that of a Grade-4 Demonic Beast.
Perhaps he was the one who had commanded the Grade-3 Demonic Beasts and other Demonic Beasts to invade the Inner City previously.
If so, it was another sign that Minister Ren—or the Devil before them—was someone much stronger than the Grade-3 Demonic Beast he had killed previously.
Against such an enemy, guns were useless.
(He must be the real enemy!)
Bai Zihan thought.
Though if one asked whether he was confident in being able to kill it, he could only say that he was only 1% certain and that too, only to survive against the Devil.
To kill the Grade-3 Demonic Beast had already taken almost all of his power, not to mention that the beast had been greatly weakened due to the explosion.
Now, he had to face an enemy far stronger than that.
“What?”
“I’ll handle this bastard.”
“But—”
“Go. Now!”
She hesitated for a second longer, but a second pulse of Ren’s aura cracked open a section of the ceiling, sending rubble crashing down.
That made her choice easier.
She turned and shouted, “Evacuate the palace! Get the civilians out of the Inner City! NOW!”
Guards scrambled to obey.
And then, Minister Ren’s transformation was complete.
He stood ten feet tall now, cloaked in shadow, eyes glowing like molten rubies.
“Kekeke… Do you think you can defeat me?”
The Devil’s voice slithered through the air like a poison fog—mocking, amused, savoring the moment like a cat toying with a mouse.
Bai Zihan didn’t move.
He just looked up at the towering creature in front of him—ten feet tall, cloaked in swirling demonic mist, eyes like molten blood.
Even the ground warped slightly beneath its feet, twisted by the foul energy leaking from its form.
And Bai Zihan?
He snorted.
“Defeat you?”
He said, brushing dust off his robes with a lazy flick of his sleeve.
“Please! A coward like you who needs to hide like a rat just to destroy a small city like this? I don’t need to think whether I can defeat you or not. I can!”
The Devil blinked.
“What?”
“Otherwise, why waste time pretending to be a minister of Ironmist? Just means you’re too weak to destroy it yourself!”
Bai Zihan provoked.
He didn’t know why the Devil was disguised, though he was curious—because with that kind of strength, Bai Zihan believed he could easily have turned Ironmist to dust.
“Hmph! You wouldn’t understand the mind of a genius like mine,” the Devil replied.
“An excuse for a coward. COWARD! Just say you’re a coward. COWARD!”
A silence stretched in the throne hall for half a heartbeat.
Then—
BOOM!
Demonic Qi surged like a storm exploding from the Devil’s body, cracking the walls and sending flames licking across the ceiling.
The palace trembled. Even the soldiers retreating in the distance stumbled from the shockwave.
“YOU!”
The Devil snarled, voice twisted with fury.
“Oh, a coward wants to say something?”
“No one—no one—has ever made me want to kill as much as you do, boy!”
Bai Zihan tilted his head, unbothered.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that before. From arrogant bastards, overgrown monsters, and a pig demon. And now, a coward.”
He lifted his sword.
“They all ended up the same way. Dead. Under my feet.”
“Arrogant WORM!”
The Devil lunged.
His clawed hand tore through the air, and Bai Zihan vanished in a blur of motion.
Clang!
His sword intercepted the strike mid-air, but even with all his strength, Bai Zihan was forced back—his boots skidding across the cracked marble floor, lines gouged from the sheer force.
The Devil laughed.
“Where is that arrogance now?!”
He followed up with a brutal kick, and Bai Zihan barely managed to bring his sword up in time—the impact launching him through a broken pillar and into the far wall.
Crash!
Dust exploded out.
“Zihan!”
Princess Feilian looked back once from afar, eyes wide, heart thudding. But her guards dragged her along as the city burned around them.
“Princess, you can’t stay here! We must flee!”
Everyone understood the gravity of the situation. Even if everyone were to attack the Devil together, it would be of no use.
Whenever a Devil descends, there is no hope for that place unless powerful Cultivators intervene.
Even then, any kind of Devil is treated like a major disaster, and even Cultivators tend to be careful when dealing with them—as most of the time, they end up falling for their trap.
The Devil’s voice boomed through the crumbling throne hall.
“What’s wrong, little hero?”
He mocked.
“I thought you said I’d end up under your feet?”
Inside the dust cloud, Bai Zihan gritted his teeth.
“Pui—If I had my real body, you wouldn’t even have the courage to stand before me,” Bai Zihan muttered to himself.
He was having a hard time against the Devil, no doubt. It was only because of his experience and techniques that he’d managed to survive at all.
His sword hand trembled. His arm was numb from the impact.
This trial, Bai Zihan thought, was clearly impossible to pass.
He didn’t think even the other participants—without their actual cultivation—would be able to deal with something like a Devil.
(Was the trial impossible in the first place?)
He didn’t think so. It was a trial to choose and grant inheritance—there had to be some kind of way to pass it.
He just needed to find it.
The Devil growled.
“Is that fear in your eyes, human?”
“No!”
Bai Zihan said with a smirk, even as blood trickled down his chin.
“Just disgust! Your breath stinks too much. I’d be grateful if you stopped talking.”
The Devil’s face twisted into something monstrous.
“You dare—!”
But Bai Zihan didn’t wait.
“Flickering Shadow Step!”
His figure blurred, vanishing like smoke in a gust of wind.
Crack!
The floor where he stood exploded into rubble as the Devil’s claw smashed down—but Bai Zihan was already behind him, darting across the battlefield with dizzying speed.
One step. Two steps. Ten steps.
He flickered from place to place, shadows trailing behind him like ghosts, trying to gain distance, trying to spot something—anything—that might hint at how to survive this.
His mind raced.
(There has to be a way out!)
His eyes scanned the crumbling throne room—walls split, fire roaring, tapestries shredded.
Statues of past rulers… shattered.
Royal sigils… torn and half-burned.
The palace itself… no secret formations, no hidden glyphs. Just a graveyard waiting for a corpse.
And the Devil?
Still smiling.
BOOM!
In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance and struck—a claw sweeping through the air.
Bai Zihan twisted to dodge, but too late!
The Devil’s claws grazed his ribs, slicing through his robes and flesh like paper.
Blood sprayed.
“Guh—!”
Bai Zihan was thrown like a broken doll, skipping across the ground before crashing into the base of the throne itself.
The Devil stood tall above him, laughing as his demonic aura pulsed like a tide of death.
“Run all you want,” he growled, walking forward slowly. “Struggle as much as you can. This is your reward for provoking me.”
Bai Zihan coughed violently, red staining his lips as he leaned against the cold stone, one hand still gripping his sword.
His vision blurred.
Pain screamed through his side.
Even Flickering Shadow Step wasn’t enough to get him clear—not from this monster.
His eyes flicked up to the Devil, closing in, dragging that massive, shadow-wrapped form with each step.
(There really is… nothing?)
No. That couldn’t be right.
He didn’t believe in “no chance.”
Even if it’s less than 1%… it was still a chance.
He wasn’t dead yet.
Which meant—
He hadn’t lost.
Not yet!