It didn't take long before pairs of crows descended, clutching battered demons in their talons, the bodies slung limp in cruciform positions. The unconscious forms accumulated at the foot of Shuanggui Mountain, a growing mound of broken limbs and shallow, uneven breaths.
A handful of crows lingered to stand guard. The rest spiralled back to Yutao, collapsing into his original form, noticeably weaker now, his body still imperfectly divided. As Renhu's twisted silhouette snapped back into shape, he felt it immediately: the prince's gaze, sharp enough to flay.
Time is running out. The prince withdraws his killing intent from Renhu and turns instead toward the towering red pillar of energy. With a flick of his wrist, the pillar stretches impossibly long, spearing through sky and earth alike. Demonic energy erupts from Ren Jiang as he tears open two wounds in the fabric of space-time.
One led to Heaven. One led to Hell.
Yutao whistles softly, eyes reflecting the light of collapsing dimensions. "What audacity…"
The rifts are translucent—not fully open like the kind that allowed free passage between realms. But even crippled, they were vast, hovering over the capitals. With minimal effort, they could be widened enough to swallow cities whole.
High-ranking angels and devils feel the danger instantly. Alarms ring. Emergency protocols ignite. Ministers sprint through the Ten Courts in blind panic. Zou Yaozu and Jin Niu work themselves raw, bleeding sweat and blood as they scramble to investigate the sudden surge in deaths—and the monstrous rift looming over their city.
Everyone was anxious.
Everyone except He Bolin.
He lounges atop the palace rooftop, lazily popping grapes into his mouth as he watches his youngest brother, Liu Xue, arrive.
Hell and Heaven come at standstill as they anticipate the cause behind this atrocity.
"Demons. Angels."
Ren Jiang's voice thunders across the two realms.
"Hear my decree."
"I, Ren Jiang, have waited centuries to claim my destiny. The golden blood in my veins has never ceased to yearn for its birthright."
"As crown prince of the Fifth Court, I declare its king unfit to rule. His prolonged absence has burdened my people, one they have endured and overcome on their own."
He raises his fist up in the air. "And they have succeeded. Mortals and demons no longer require the senile judgments of Enma."
"Therefore, I will take the reins from my old father."
The residents of hell freeze at this mad declaration. Surely, they must have misheard or Lord Enma, who is as old as this realm, is being usurped. But Ren Jiang pushes forward with no fear.
"I will ascend my rightful throne."
A suffocating silence swallows the Three Realms, as though reality itself had been stunned into stillness. Rightful throne? Since when did Hell follow the laws of Earth?
The Kings of Hell have brushed the God Realm. They are worshipped in temples, feared by immortals, revered beyond mortal comprehension. They stand far above Immortal Emperors.
So how could a fledgling Immortal Emperor dare to claim a god's throne? Isn't that too presumptuous?
But it seemed that Ren Jiang is not planning to play this the righteous way. He has no plans to win the throne with dignity.
"I shall wait one day," Ren Jiang continues calmly. "One day for my coronation and Enma's dismissal."
"It would be wise not to waste it."
Instead, he uses underhanded methods to snatch what he wants.
"Otherwise, I will leave this Earth barren—stripped of every living soul. Your time is ticking."
"Oh, no one told Xiao-Xue…" He Bolin suddenly appears beside Liu Xue, who stands stiffly at the gates, staring at the rift tearing through the orange sky. "…that he can blackmail his way onto the throne."
"Absolutely… despicable!" Liu Xue grits out, fists clenched. His blazing eyes burn with unfiltered fury.
The ministers of Hell are equally shaken.
Their prince has invaded the mortal realm. He is the source of the mysterious rifts spilling ghosts and monsters onto Earth. And now, he holds the entire life force of the mortal world hostage—all to force his father out of the position he was born for!
"Absolutely outrageous!"
In Heaven, officials are apoplectic.
Never mind the millions of celestial regulations he has violated—this runt, born yesterday by immortal standards, dares to blackmail gods themselves.
Still, no matter how many laws this wild boar tramples, Heaven must obey its own rules.
And so, the angels descend toward Hell, wings slicing through the firmament as they prepare their response.
Back in the mortal realm, Ren Jiang feels a deep, delicious satisfaction.
After centuries, he has finally declared his ambition for all realms to hear—and to work for him. The weight of inevitability thrills him.
He already feels like a king.
Laughing carelessly, he turns toward the outcast trio, eyes curved with amusement. "How did the lot of you end up following me?"
"So, you don't know…" Zhang Xiyu sighs. "The Pànguāns hired me to clean up the inexplicable trash slipping through the rifts."
He pulls a badge from his robes and dangles it in front of Ren Jiang's face.
It bears the same seal granted to the Pànguāns—those tasked with collecting lost, resentful ghosts and returning them to peace.
Ren Jiang blinks.
His enemy is his coworker.
"So," Zhang Xiyu says, waving casually, "do not mind us. We are just doing our job. You may continue harassing gods and monsters. We really do not mind."
"You and your fucking job are ruining my life," Ren Jiang snaps.
He glances down at the growing pile of demons with open disdain, then lifts his gaze back to Zhang Xiyu—eyes brimming with naked killing intent.
"I should have killed you the day I caught you."
He didn't say it explicitly, but the three of them understood what day he is talking about. The day Zhang Xiyu was captured—after stabbing Aika, Ren Jiang's wife.
After his premature death, shortly upon entering the underworld, Zhang Xiyu had been tricked by a demon named Blazebeast and sold to Aika for pocket change. Realizing what awaited him, he stole a dirk from one of her guards and fled the villa in a blind panic.
That was when he accidentally encountered a fragment of the Blue Lotus.
If not for that grotesque stroke of fortune, Aika would have succeeded in eating his soul—after raping him. Instead, borrowing the Lotus's strength, he managed to stab the powerful demoness and escape.
Freedom didn't last.
Ren Jiang's men caught him soon after.
They flayed his skin. Hung him upside down. Lowered him headfirst into a pool of acid. The liquid burned through his flesh, poured into his throat and nose, suffocating him as his body dissolved.
But peculiarly, the ghost refused to die.
No matter how violently he writhed, no matter how long the torture lasted, his skin always healed. As if his body held magic.
Until one day, he woke up to unfamiliar surroundings. The first face he saw belonged to one of his torturers and he realised that he has been kidnapped yet again.
He had been sold again.
This time—to the Third Prince, Liu Xue.
That benefactor would then throw him down the Kaigan Pit to find the Blue Lotus for him.
So, not killing Ren Jiang? That is a tough promise to keep, Lord Enma.
Especially, when he shamelessly unleashes his killing intent towards me.
"No matter," Ren Jiang snarls. "You're in luck."
He smiles cruelly.
"I have a lot of time to kill."
Zhang Xiyu tilts his head, treating the suffocating pressure of that killing intent like a passing breeze. "I know," he says mildly. "You've been barking for most of it. Make a move, will you?"
A thunderous boom erupts above as Yutao and Renhu leap down the hillside without hesitation.
"Woah…" Renhu squints up the mountain after landing. "Is that water?"
He scratches his chin. "Water as an innate trait isn't that uncommon, right?"
"So I've heard," Yutao replies, shrugging.
Ignoring the battle raging above them, Yutao turns to Renhu. "Keep bringing the demons around this mountain's perimeter. I am off to set the array."
His eyes sweep over the lush green terrain, appraising it with professional focus. "It's far from the residential areas making it a good spot. Good job finding it. See you later. "
He takes a step away, then pauses.
"Oh—wait."
"What now?" Renhu asks warily.
"Give me your wallet."
"…"
"Uh," Renhu says slowly, scratching his head. "Am I getting robbed?"
The moment the two of them leap off the cliff, the long-overdue battle between Ren Jiang and Zhang Xiyu finally begins.
Ren Jiang flicked his sword, and a torrent of black, churning water erupted from the dry earth, not as a wave, but as a coiling serpent of liquid shadow, shot through with the faint, despairing faces of drowned souls.
Zhang Xiyu does not move. He stands, a pale statue in his dark robes, as the spectral flood closes in. Three feet from him, the water serpent… stops.
It does not hit a barrier. It simply refuses. The vile water parts around him in a perfect circle, streaming harmlessly past as if repelled by an invisible, fundamental law.
"What's this?" Ren Jiang frowns deeper as the huge blade of water dissipates away. Behind it, he sees Zhang Xiyu leisurely reaching for his sword.
Ren Jiang's eyes narrow. "A powerful ward. It will break."
"It is not a ward." Zhang Xiyu exhales with exasperation. "Your Highness," he whines, "It seems it's going to be hard for me to go easy on you."
Ren Jiang's face flushes with anger. "You bastard!"
He surges into the sky, fury boiling over, and summons countless blades of water that rain down like executioner's guillotines. At the same time, a colossal sphere crackling with spiritual energy launches itself toward Zhang Xiyu like a divine missile.
At this point, half the mountain should have collapsed.
So, why can he still see Zhang Xiyu standing untouched and alive?
Even more irking is the fact that the man has just then pulled out his sword completely. Which means he did not even need it to defend himself.
"Do not fret, Prince Ren." Zhang Xiyu says, smiling lazily. "Your cultivation is definitely stronger than mine."
He tilts his head. "It's just that…"
"You don't have any skills."
The words hit harder than any blade.
"You're like a baby handed a cannon." he continues mildly. "You have no idea how to use it."
And then he vanishes.
"Do you want me to teach you?"
Clang.
The two separate. When did he get behind me?
Ren Jiang abandons restraint and throws himself fully into the battle. Their swords collide again with a deafening crash, and this time Ren Jiang truly feels it—the peculiar, suffocating rhythm of Zhang Xiyu's swordplay.
No movement is wasted. Every slash carries demonic force, every clash bent on killing.
But Ren Jiang's rigid, pristine techniques fail him.
The forms drilled into him in royal academies never taught the experience of surviving a million battles. Zhang Xiyu—who had known nothing but slaughter and desperation in the Kaigan Pit—does not allow him even a single breath.
His blade moves so fast it seems like many swords at once. His body slips like a shadow, his intent unreadable, his timing merciless.
If Ren Jiang doesn't uncover the flaw in his spiritual power soon, he will lose.
As if hearing his thoughts, the hateful ghost decides to enlighten him.
"Would you like to know why your water attribute doesn't work on me?"
Ren Jiang remains silent, gritting his teeth as he barely holds the line. But his faltering steps betray him. Zhang Xiyu notices this and smiles even wider. "I can tell you if you want."
They break apart again, blades lowering just enough for breath. Ren Jiang probes lowly, "Will you?"
"Of course."
Zhang Xiyu raises his sword before him. His pale fingers trace the blade from hilt to tip as his dark eyes bore into the prince.
"It is hierarchy." he says softly.
"Since your power isn't truly yours, it's only natural you don't know its source." He exhales and points the blade at Ren Jiang.
"You summon the holy waters of the Sanzu."
Ren Jiang's eyes widen.
His ancestors guarded the Sanzu River, yes—but commanding its waters was no ordinary feat.
This can only be done by his father, Lord Enma.
But why do its waters avoid Zhang Xiyu?
"Do you have a guess yet?" Zhang Xiyu asks.
In the same breath, his black sword appears at Ren Jiang's throat. Their blades cross, steel screaming.
Ren Jiang snarls, realization dawning. "I fucking knew it."
He shoves Zhang Xiyu back with a violent thrust. Zhang Xiyu flips away effortlessly.
"You have the Blue Lotus." Ren Jiang spits.
"That's correct."
"I hold the Blue Lotus, the condensed will of that very realm." Zhang Xiyu grins shamelessly. "Your element remembers its master. It cannot touch me."
Dense silence envelops the mountain once again. Only the thunder above harmonises with the caws of the crows.
Will Ren Jiang give up? Watching the prince steady his breathing, composure slowly returning, Zhang Xiyu already knows the answer.
No, he won't.
"Then let us see," Ren Jiang hisses, "if the rivers of this world share such deference."
He reverses his grip on his sword and plunges it into the rocky ground. Not into hell, but into the deep, terrestrial waterways far below. A roaring, mighty blue surged forth—the unleashed might of the Yangtze, pure in its mortal power. It smashes towards Zhang Xiyu as a colossal hammer.
Zhang Xiyu moves. His sword leaves its sheath with a sound like a dying breath. He does not block the water; he decays it.
Where his sword passes, the vibrant blue turns septic grey, crumbling into foul mist and lifeless sludge before it could reach him. The stench of rot blankets the mountain.
"That's better!" Zhang Xiyu laughs.
He lunges. Their swords meet—black jade against bone-white—in a shriek of conflicting energies. Ren Jiang fights with imperial fury, each stroke commanding torrents that spirals from his blade. Zhang Xiyu fights with sadistic precision, his movements efficient, his Ghost-Qi leaking from his sword to sap vitality from the air itself.
Where Ren Jiang's water touched the ghostly aura, it froze and shattered, or boiled away into poisoned steam.
Ren Jiang is driven back; his style better suited to annihilation at a distance. A gash opened on his arm from a near-miss, and the wound immediately greyed, flesh necrotizing at the edges. With a roar, he disengaged, leaping onto a jagged outcrop.
The sky, burdened with their clash, finally breaks. Cold, hard rain begins to fall.
Ren Jiang sheaths his blade and raises his hands. Every raindrop that fell within a hundred yards of him halts in mid-air, glistening like a trillion frozen tears. Demonic energy saturates each one, humming with lethal intent.
"You may decay rivers but let's see you decay a storm," Ren Jiang snarls.
With a sweeping gesture, he hurls them. The rain becomes bullets, needles, and lances of hyper-compressed water, shoot with the speed of crossbow bolts from every direction at once—a spherical, inescapable barrage.
Zhang Xiyu's smile finally fades. He spins his blade, forming a blinding shield of red light. Thousands of droplets decay into harmless vapor—but there are millions. A needle punches into his thigh. Another slices his cheek.
He is pushed back, decay straining under the sheer volume of purified, relentless water.
"Not bad!" Zhang Xiyu laughs.
He stops defending.
Hovering midair, he brings his sword before him once more. Sanskrit chants spill from his lips, coiling around the blade like living seals—
Until they shatter.
With a single slash, black tartar seeps from thin air itself, spreading rapidly across the sky. The sight reminds Ren Jiang of the unreasonable calamities that once devastated Hell.
From that abyssal mire, phantasmal claws erupt. Wailing spectral forms surge forth, intercepting the water bullets in shrieking collisions.
Now shielded, Zhang Xiyu attacks leisurely, striking at the prince while infinite tartar continues to pour forth in his defence.
The battlefield devolves into a chaotic maelstrom—blue against sickly green, life's water against Hell's absolute denial.
They are locked in the stalemate of ultimate techniques, their auras clashing like opposing tides. Just as Ren Jiang estimated, killing Zhang Xiyu is a long endeavour. The thought only reinforces his belief that invading the mortal world was the correct decision.
If not for this unexpected spirit haunting him.
That's when the space between them rips.
It was not a sound, but a tear in reality itself. A shimmering, vertical slit opens, and from it steps a figure.
Both demonic cultivators stagger back as their techniques collapse instantly, the battlefield falling unnaturally silent.
Ren Jiang glares at the newcomer, hostility undisguised.
"…And why," he growls, "are you here?"