Demon Merin walks through the desert with lazy, unhurried steps.
With each step, the Law of Space folds beneath his feet, and his figure flickers a few meters ahead as if the world bends to move him forward.
He stops atop a tall sand dune.
The wind carries dust and silence—yet his crimson eyes narrow with hunger.
"Ah," he murmurs, voice low and amused. "The smell of prey."
His body shifts.
Bones ripple beneath skin.
Aura folds inward.
In a breath, the terrifying devil vanishes, replaced by the image of a frail scholar—white robe fluttering weakly, posture fragile, a wooden box held carefully in both hands.
Bait.
Perfect bait.
He walks forward, feigning exhaustion, footsteps sinking into soft sand.
As he crests the next dune—jagged rocks scattered like broken teeth around him—figures spring from hiding.
Four men in dark brown clothes surround him.
Three wield Tao Lord cultivation.
One stands stronger—Great Tao Lord, spear already pointed at his chest.
"Hand over everything you have," the leader commands, voice cold and confident. "Now."
Inside, Demon Merin smiles.
Prey appears.
Outside, his face twists into fear—the perfect trembling, helpless expression.
He lifts the wooden box with shaking hands.
"I… I only have this…" he whispers, voice weak and timid.
His gaze lowers, shoulders hunched.
Every movement says victim.
But in his eyes—beneath the scholar's gentle disguise—
The demon waits.
The bandit leader flicks his fingers, giving a silent command.
One of his men steps forward, snatches the wooden box from Demon Merin's trembling hands, and returns to the group. He opens it.
Inside lies a single star fruit—rare, coveted, and worth more than everything these four have ever stolen combined.
Greed flashes in their eyes.
At that moment, something invisible pulses from Demon Merin—a subtle wave, unseen yet irresistible.
The bandit leader's pupils dilate.
Words spill from his mouth before he realizes what he's saying.
"Paying tribute… a star fruit… if I give this to the Sand Claw Sect, they'll accept me." His breathing quickens, expression twisting with ambition. "And I can offer the heads of these three idiots as an extra tribute."
Silence crashes down.
Only the whisper of wind moves across the dunes.
The three bandits slowly turn toward him—eyes hard, killing intent rising like a tide.
One speaks, voice low and icy. "Boss… what did you just say?"
The leader blinks, panic flaring as he finally senses the hostility locked onto him from all sides.
He stumbles back a step.
"I—I was joking," he says quickly, hands raised. "Come on, you know I'm not welcome in the Sand Claw Sect. They'd kill me if I went near them. Why would I say something stupid like that?"
The three exchange glances.
For a heartbeat, doubt wavers.
Then they nod.
Their shoulders loosen.
They believe him.
The leader exhales in relief.
And then—he laughs.
A loud, ugly, triumphant sound.
"You idiots. You really don't know anything." His grin splits wider. "All our loot? I've been selling it to Sand Claw Sect for years. They give me sixty percent of the true value."
Shock crashes over the group.
One bandit stares, betrayal twisting his face. "You told us they only paid twenty‐five percent… and that you took ten percent of that for transporting it."
Another steps forward, trembling with rage. "So you had money—but still refused to lend it when we needed it?"
The leader sneers. "You wanted money to waste on your dying mother. I stopped you because you're too pathetic to understand value. I was helping you."
The man's eyes redden.
His teeth grind.
His voice is a growl.
"…I'm going to kill you."
He lunges.
The other two join him without hesitation—rage finally erupting.
Steel meets steel.
Shouts tear the desert air.
Above the chaos, Demon Merin's timid mask dissolves—his lips stretching into a soft, satisfied smile.
The devil watches as his prey tears itself apart.
The three enraged bandits launch Tao techniques fueled by rage and betrayal. The desert trembles, sand twisting upward like serpents as power collides.
The bandit leader snarls, summoning his own technique.
"Weeping Sand!"
Sandstorms rise around him like wailing spirits, devouring the others' attacks and slashing into flesh with razor grit. Blood stains the dunes. Screams echo. The storm rages until the last blow lands.
When the sand finally settles, the three bandits lie lifeless and half-buried, bodies still warm but already claimed by the desert.
The leader stands alone—victorious, but broken. His robe is shredded, blood dripping from deep wounds. His spirit flickers like a dying flame.
He staggers—and in that moment of stillness, clarity snaps back.
Inside his spirit space, a faint black aura clings to his soul like a stain.
Then, before his eyes, the treasure box fades—star fruit and all—vanishing into nothing.
His expression twists in horror.
"It… was an illusion," he whispers. "And those words… I said them under influence…"
His gaze slowly lifts to the scholar—now smiling calmly in the shifting sands.
"You… made me do this."
Demon Merin tilts his head, expression almost playful.
"No. This happened because you attacked me," he replies gently. "So everything is your fault."
The bandit leader stares—blank at first, then gradually softening into a dazed acceptance.
"…My fault."
"Yes," Merin repeats softly. "It's all your fault."
The leader's shoulders sag. His voice trembles as he speaks—not to Merin, but to himself.
"What… what should I do now?" His voice cracks. "I didn't lend money to Rakul because the physician was cheating him—I already arranged a better healer for his mother… How do I face her now…?"
His hands shake.
"I didn't give them the full share because they gambled everything away. I transferred what they lost to their families so they wouldn't starve. How… how did it become like this…?"
Merin steps closer, voice smooth as silk.
"Then to atone," he whispers, "you should kill yourself."
The leader's mind folds under the weight of guilt and suggestion.
"Yes…" he murmurs. "I should… kill myself."
But instead, he turns his qi inward.
One breath.
One final tremor.
His energy reverses.
His heart collapses.
He falls.
The desert claims him without protest.
Demon Merin glides forward, placing a hand above each corpse. Vitality, soul essence, resentment, despair—everything torn, wounded, and unresolved—flows into him like dark wine poured into an endless vessel.
When all four bodies have turned still and cold, he turns away.
No footsteps mark his path.
Only the whisper of the wind and the fading stench of death remain as Demon Merin continues deeper into the endless desert—hunting.
Inside the sealed dream world, Merin watches through the connection between their shared souls.
He sees how Demon Merin kills the four bandits—how their fear sharpens, how resentment blooms, how despair reaches its peak at the moment of death. When Demon Merin absorbs their souls, a thin stream of their corrupted emotions leaks through the barrier and enters the dream world.
Merin studies it carefully.
Resentment.
Despair.
Hopelessness.
All of it carries a structure—patterns in the emotional imprint. Feelings do not exist in isolation; they are shaped by memory, belief, desire, regret. And above all—
They are produced by souls.
And this is where his previous creations fall short.
His artificial intelligence spirits operate through rune logic.
Emotion for them is an imitation.
A programmed reaction.
Not instinct.
Not origin.
Not real.
To understand the true nature of the soul, Merin continues watching the demon side of himself hunt—observing how it twists feelings, how it provokes fear, how it drives people toward destruction with nothing but a sentence or a whisper.
And with every death Demon Merin harvests, Merin's understanding deepens.
Emotion is the thread.
Memory is the frame.
Identity is the anchor.
That is a soul.
Outside, Demon Merin walks through the desert, guided purely by instinct and hunger.
Suddenly—he stops.
Something ahead calls to him—a dense cluster of life force buried deep beneath rock and sand.
His lips curl in interest.
Without hesitation, he leaps.
He drops into a steep ridge, falling through layers of shadow—only to be met mid-descent by dozens of black lizard-like beasts clinging to the walls.
They screech and strike, jaws snapping with venomous intent.
Demon Merin does not dodge.
He welcomes them.
With a thought, demonic intent materializes into a long crimson-black sword—fluid like blood, sharp like malice. His movements are cold and efficient. Each swing cleaves a beast, turning flesh into dust, bone into ash, essence into nourishment.
Their dying emotions flood into him—rage, terror, instinctive hatred—and somewhere far away, Merin quietly analyzes each one.
When Demon Merin reaches the bottom, the lizard swarm stops.
Silence spreads through the ridge like a warning.
He moves forward.
Step by step.
After walking for some time, he halts.
Before him rises a massive black mound—silent, unmoving, radiating pressure.
But it isn't earth.
It breathes.
Scaled like obsidian, wings curled tight, tail coiled like a fallen mountain—
A black Yalong.
Saint-stage level.
A creature one step away from becoming a true dragon.
Demon Merin lowers his aura to a whisper, eyes gleaming with both restraint and hunger.
He walks around the sleeping beast with careful steps, tracing the source of the gathered life energy.
Finally—he finds it.
A cave entrance.
Blocked entirely by the Yalong's tail.
Whatever lies inside pulses with dense life force—treasure, cultivation resources, or something stranger.
Demon Merin stares at
the blocked entrance for a long moment, crimson eyes narrowing with calculation.
The prey is close.
But another guardian sleeps between them.
And the desert holds its breath.