The golden gleam of the pill sitting in Luo Zhen's palm represented more than just condensed spiritual energy; it was a stepping stone to godhood. A single Golden Flower Pill granted him a staggering 57,000 experience points, a rush of power that coursed through his meridians like liquid fire. Yet, as he calculated the mathematics of his own ascension, a sense of frustration gnawed at him. To bridge the gap to the mid-stage of the Demon Core Realm, he required a million points. The arithmetic was simple but cruel: he needed to refine a dozen of these potent spheres to break through the bottleneck of his cultivation.
The cruelty lay in the scarcity. He possessed only five.
He consumed them one by one, feeling the energy detonate within his core, but it wasn't enough. The remaining pills in his inventory were of pedestrian quality, offering diminished returns that barely moved the needle of his progress. When the last pill had dissolved into his bloodstream, his experience counter stalled at roughly half a million points. The momentum was gone. With a heavy sigh, Luo Zhen uncoiled his legs and ended his meditation, the silence of the room settling around him like dust.
That silence was shattered an instant later. The heavy wooden door groaned and swung open, admitting a burst of sunlight and the booming, jovial voice of King Wu.
"Haha, young friend Luo, I have returned!"
Luo Zhen frowned, shaking off the lingering traces of his trance, and stepped out into the sun-drenched courtyard. Two figures dominated the space, their auras heavy and suffocating, pressing down on the air itself. One was King Wu, the man who had just left, but the other was a stranger—a white-robed old man with hair like withered frost and eyes that held the weight of mountains.
"King Wu," Luo Zhen asked, his guard instantly rising, "what is the meaning of this?"
King Wu offered a dry, somewhat apologetic chuckle. "Hehe, forgive the intrusion so soon after my departure. You see, after I secured that piece of Iron Essence from you, I began my journey home. But as fate would have it, I ran into an old friend on the road. I have a loose tongue, I admit it, and I happened to mention your stock of Iron Essence." He gestured to the elder beside him. "When he heard of it, he practically demanded to be brought here. I couldn't say no."
The white-robed elder stepped forward, the fabric of his garment rustling like dry leaves. He cupped his hands in a gesture of polite greeting that didn't quite reach his cold eyes. "I am Pang Hong. I wonder if my young friend has heard my name whispered in these parts?"
Pang Hong.
The name hit Luo Zhen with the force of a physical blow. It felt as though an invisible needle had been driven into the base of his skull, sending a shiver cascading down his spine. He knew this name. Everyone in the region knew this name. This was one of the two great Demon Kings of Feisha City.
More importantly, this was the father of Pang Feiyun—the man Luo Zhen had murdered.
Internal alarm bells began to ring deafeningly, but Luo Zhen was a creature of deep calculation and profound cynicism. He had lived too long and fought too hard to let his face betray his heart. He smoothed his expression into a mask of polite reverence.
"So it is the esteemed Demon King Pang Hong," Luo Zhen said, forcing a smile that felt tight on his face. "Your name has long resounded like thunder in my ears."
King Wu, oblivious to the undercurrent of lethal tension, clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Old Pang, listen to me. This young Luo Zhen is no ordinary cultivator."
"Oh?" Pang Hong raised a singular, skeptical eyebrow. "How so?"
"Hehe, despite being only at the early stage of the Demon Core Realm, he can summon wild lightning comparable to a Half-Step Demon King," King Wu boasted as if Luo Zhen were his own protégé. He paused for effect, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "And his wealth is staggering. Not only does he possess Iron Essence, but he also wears a Spatial Ring."
The air in the courtyard seemed to freeze.
At the mention of the words Spatial Ring, Pang Hong's gaze snapped instinctively toward Luo Zhen's hands. It was a reflex, a greed common among cultivators, but for Pang Hong, it was something more. Luo Zhen sensed the shift in attention and instinctively curled his fingers into his palm, trying to obscure the jewelry.
But he was a fraction of a second too slow.
"Young friend Luo," Pang Hong said, his voice dropping an octave, losing all pretense of warmth. "I just caught a glimpse of your artifact. Why does your ring look exactly like my Dark Gold Ring?"
Slowly, deliberately, Pang Hong raised his own hand. On his finger sat an exquisite band of dark metal, intricate and foreboding—a perfect mirror image of the one Luo Zhen tried to hide.
King Wu blinked, looking between the two men. "Eh? It really is! I thought it looked familiar earlier, but seeing them together... they are identical."
"Of course, you find it familiar," Pang Hong hissed, his eyes locking onto Luo Zhen with the intensity of a predator who has cornered its prey. "The Dark Gold Rings are spatial artifacts I refined personally. They were created as a pair."
King Wu's smile faltered. He looked at Luo Zhen, then back at his friend, confusion knitting his brow. "That doesn't make sense. Old Pang, didn't you give the matching ring to your son, Pang Feiyun? How would it end up in Luo Zhen's possession?"
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bone.
"Humph! That is a question for this Luo Zhen to answer," Pang Hong growled, his aura flaring up, turning the air around him hot and oppressive. "My son went to find a Green Snake Demon General days ago and vanished. I tracked his spiritual signature to a patch of scorched earth. There was no body, only ash. Whoever killed him took everything, including the ring."
King Wu took a step back, the pieces falling into place. "Dark Gold Ring... Green Snake Demon General..." He looked at Luo Zhen with wide eyes. "Luo Zhen, the evidence is damning. Did you really kill Pang Feiyun?"
Pang Hong didn't wait for an answer. His body tensed, energy gathering in his palms, ready to strike.
Luo Zhen, however, remained eerily calm. The moment Pang Hong had identified the ring, Luo Zhen had accepted that talk was cheap and violence was inevitable. While the two Demon Kings had been exchanging words, his mind had already engaged with his internal System interface. He wasn't browsing for weapons; he was looking for an exit.
He bypassed the standard Gale Talisman he had used in the past. Against a Demon King, that was a toy. He poured his accumulated points into something far more extravagant: a Wind Escape Talisman.
It was a Demon Emperor-grade item, hideously expensive, but the only thing that could guarantee survival. With his cultivation now at the Demon Core Realm, he calculated that his body could just barely withstand the torque of its activation.
"Ahem, King Wu, do not speak nonsense," Luo Zhen said, coughing lightly to clear his throat. He held the wind talisman ready in his mind, invisible and primed. "I am a simple, honest cultivator. I rarely quarrel, let alone kill. I don't even know who this Pang Feiyun is."
"Old Pang, look," King Wu interjected, trying to play the peacemaker. "He denies it. Perhaps it is a misunderstanding? Maybe the rings just share a design?"
Pang Hong sneered, a sound like tearing metal. "A misunderstanding? We shall see. The ring I wear is the Yang Ring. The one my son held was the Yin Ring. They are spiritually tethered. If I activate mine, the Yin Ring will resonate." He raised his hand high, dark energy swirling around his finger. "If Luo Zhen's ring glows, he is the killer. There is no third option."
Pang Hong poured his demonic energy into the metal. Instantly, a piercing, ghostly light erupted from his hand. Across the courtyard, the ring on Luo Zhen's finger exploded with the exact same luminescence, casting long, damning shadows against the walls.
"It was you!" Pang Hong roared.
The pretense was over. Pang Hong opened his mouth and spat out a streak of green light that expanded into a massive steel fork. The weapon unleashed a pressure wave like a collapsing ocean, creating layers of phantom afterimages that screamed through the air toward Luo Zhen's throat.
But the steel fork struck nothing but empty space.
Right before the eyes of two Demon Kings, Luo Zhen simply ceased to exist in that location.
"What?" King Wu gasped, scanning the empty courtyard. "Spatial teleportation? Invisibility?"
"Impossible," Pang Hong barked, recalling his weapon. "He is an early-stage Demon Core cultivator. His body would disintegrate under the pressure of spatial teleportation. It must be invisibility."
"Invisibility..." King Wu mused. "He hides his talents deeply."
"It matters not," Pang Hong scoffed, though his eyes darted frantically. "Invisibility is a parlor trick against a Demon King. He cannot hide from my Divine Sense."
Pang Hong closed his eyes, extending his consciousness outward. An invisible radar swept the compound, the city, and the surrounding desert. Within seconds, his eyes snapped open, locking onto a vector outside the city walls.
"Found him."
Without another word, Pang Hong launched himself into the sky, a streak of murderous intent tearing through the clouds.
Miles away, Luo Zhen was pushing his wings to their limit. He had relied on the stealth characteristics of his invisibility to slip past the city gates, but the sensation of being watched suddenly prickled the back of his neck. A massive aura was closing in from behind, moving with terrifying speed.
"Host," the cool, robotic voice of the System echoed in his mind, "your optical camouflage is ineffective against the Divine Sense of a Demon King. Once a cultivator forms a Demon Infant, their mental perception transcends the physical spectrum. You have been tagged."
"I know," Luo Zhen gritted out, banking hard around a dune.
He had suspected as much since his encounter with the Ant Queen. She had seen through him easily, and she hadn't even undergone her tribulation yet. He had gambled on the invisibility, hoping for a fluke, but the gamble had failed. Pang Hong was locking on.
"Damn Green Snake!" Pang Hong's voice boomed from the sky behind him, amplified by magic. "I will flay the skin from your bones!"
Luo Zhen didn't look back. He simply triggered the Wind Escape Talisman.
The world dissolved. One moment, he was a physical being of flesh and scale; the next, he was a concept of motion. His body transmuted into a gust of wind, accelerating beyond the laws of friction. He crossed the horizon in a single heartbeat, leaving the sound of his own passage far behind.
Within a second, his aura vanished completely from the perceptible world.
Pang Hong skidded to a halt in the air, the sudden loss of his target causing a backlash in his sensory perception. He was both furious and terrified. The speed Luo Zhen had just displayed was impossible—it rivaled that of a Demon Emperor.
He frantically swept his Divine Sense back and forth, expanding the range to dozens of miles, burning his own mental energy in a desperate dragnet. But there was nothing. The desert was empty.
"He traveled dozens of miles in a breath?" Pang Hong muttered, his face turning an ugly shade of iron-green. "This is absurd."
He spent the next hour tearing up the dunes, searching for a trace, but the trail was cold. The Silver Flood Dragon Island was too vast; trying to find a Demon General who didn't want to be found was an exercise in futility.
"Run then, you slippery snake," Pang Hong screamed at the empty sky. "I will plaster your face on every wall in the Red Desert. You will have no sanctuary!"
Far away, in a quiet ravine within the borders of the State of Wu, Luo Zhen collapsed.
The Wind Escape Talisman had demanded a heavy tithe, draining his demonic energy to the dregs. He lay there panting, waiting for his heart rate to normalize.
"System," he wheezed, "is he still on my tail?"
"Negative. The pursuit has ceased," the System replied. "However, the Red Desert is now a hostile zone. Wanted posters are likely being drafted as we speak."
"Let them post them," Luo Zhen said, a grim smile touching his lips. "I'm not going back until I can crush a Demon King with one hand."
He sat up, dusting the sand from his robes. "Can he track me with the ring?"
"The resonance range is ten meters. Outside of that radius, you are a ghost to him."
Relief washed over him. Luo Zhen pulled up his internal map. He was far from the desert now, deep in Wu territory. "I'm going to Black Water Lake," he decided. "There's unfinished business there. A sealed Silver Flood Dragon, and a Salamander General who owes me a debt of blood."
He rested for an hour, consuming a small fortune in medium-grade Spirit Stones. He crushed the glowing rocks in his grip, inhaling the released vapor. It tasted like ozone and raw power, refilling his reserves until his scales shimmered with renewed vitality.
When he finally slid into the waters of Black Water Lake, he was no longer the fugitive. He was a predator returning to his hunting grounds.
The lake was dark, the water heavy with silt and ancient magic. As Luo Zhen descended, his form—a terrifying hybrid of human torso and serpent tail—sent shockwaves through the local ecosystem. Schools of aquatic demons scattered in a panic. In the outside world, shapeshifting was common thanks to alchemical pills, but here? A semi-human form was the hallmark of a Demon General.
The pressure he radiated was undeniable. Lesser beasts didn't just swim away; they froze, paralyzed by the instinctual fear of a superior predator. They watched him pass with eyes wide in reverence and horror. The hierarchy of Black Water Lake had just been violently rewritten.
Luo Zhen ignored them, his powerful tail propelling him toward the Ten-Mile Water Shop. It was a humble territory, but it was his territory. He felt a rare pang of nostalgia.
However, as he approached the familiar underwater structures, the water carried the vibration of violence. The dull thud of impacts and the sharp tang of blood in the water reached his senses.
"Invaders?" Luo Zhen's eyes narrowed.
In the center of the Water Shop's clearing, a brutal scene was unfolding. Five massive Black Fish demons were circling a lone, battered Seal.
The Seal was a ruin of flesh. Deep, jagged gashes crisscrossed his blubbery hide, staining the water around him a murky red. He was breathing in ragged, wet gasps, but he refused to collapse.
"Haha! Look at him!" the leader of the Black Fish brothers jeered, firing a condensed spear of water into the Seal's open wound. "Stubborn trash. You're hanging onto this shop like a dog with a bone."
"Just die already," another fish laughed. "You're barely in the Earth Profound Realm. You're out of your league."
Even the Seal's own terrified subordinates, hiding in the kelp, were pleading with him. "Boss Seal, please! Just give it to them! We can be bandits again! Don't throw your life away for a building!"
The Black Fish boss smirked, swimming closer. "Hear that? Even your boys know it's over. This place has no treasure, no oil. Why die for it?"
The Seal spat a mouthful of blood and broken teeth into the water. He raised his head, his eyes swelling shut but burning with a fanatical light. "This place... is different," he wheezed. "This is where my Young Master began his ascent. I will guard it."
"Young Master?" The Black Fish scoffed. "Who? That Black Water Snake? He's probably dead in a ditch somewhere. If he cared, he'd be here."
"Silence!" the Seal roared, summoning the last dregs of his strength to lunge forward, a futile, desperate attack. "Do not insult him!"
"Pathetic," the Black Fish boss sighed. "Boys, finish him. Tonight we feast on seal meat."
The five brothers surged forward, a wall of scales and teeth. The Seal closed his eyes, his body failing him, his spirit finally breaking under the weight of inevitable death. Young Master... I tried. I hope you don't blame me...
But the killing blow never landed.
The water pressure suddenly spiked, becoming heavy and suffocating. A shadow fell over the Black Fish brothers, blotting out the filtered light from the surface. They froze, their instincts screaming that a calamity had just arrived.
The Seal opened one eye. Hovering above him was a figure from legend—a being with the torso of a man and the emerald tail of a serpent. The creature's eyes were glowing a terrifying crimson, burning with a rage that boiled the water around them.
Luo Zhen looked down at the mangled body of his loyal servant, and then at the five tormentors. His voice was low, vibrating through the water like the toll of a funeral bell.
"You dared to touch my Ah Bao?"
He raised a hand, claws extending.
"Today, every single one of you dies."