The plaza was dead silent.
Then, with a series of dull thuds, Demon Envoys still on their feet dropped to their knees.
Foreheads smacked stone, demonic auras trembling.
Imperial Scholars shook; several swallowed so hard their throats hurt, unable to form words. Their Samsara, their curses, their darkness all felt laughably small in front of a man who had just shattered the kingdom's backbone with a lazy twitch.
Among the younger generation, reactions were more complicated.
Some of the younger Situ clan members—especially those who had respected Yaoyue and Meiyue more than the old men—felt a guilty flicker of savage satisfaction.
So this is the 'greater good' you spoke of? they thought, watching the broken elders. Look at you now.
Ren's aura didn't rise.
He stood in the sky like a man who had just brushed a few flies aside.
"All right," he said, tone as light as before. "Now that the noisy ones are quiet, we can talk."
His gaze returned to the women.
"Starting with you five."
Situ Yaoyue drew herself up.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her eyes were steady. The Extreme Violet Dantian in her lower abdomen spun faster, as if trying to keep pace with the pressure.
"Senior…" She stopped, corrected herself, but old habits were strong. "…what do you intend to do with us?"
Ren shrugged.
"First," he said, "stop calling me 'Senior' like I'm some dusty relic."
He smiled, softening his tone.
"Ren is fine."
He lifted his hand in a loose half-shrug.
"Second, I don't 'do' anything with you unless you want it. I don't need to buy women who don't look at me willingly."
His eyes slid over to the broken figures of Haotian and Bonan.
"Your emperor just earned his current position," he added, voice faintly flat. "That's all."
Situ Yaoxi snorted despite herself, even through the shock and anger.
"You talk big for a brat who just shattered our Divine Sea elders like toys…" she said, tone sharp, soul force still prickling around her.
Ren chuckled.
"And yet you're still standing and they're not," he said easily. "That should tell you whose side I'm on."
The line sank in.
The five women—Yaoyue, Meiyue, Yaoxi, Qingzhao, Bi Ruyu—didn't relax, but something in their shoulders eased. Not trust, not yet. But the blade at their throats didn't feel quite as cold.
Ren lifted his hand again.
This time, what bloomed above his palm was not a halberd or threads of killing intent.
A dark lotus shadow unfolded there, petals layered and deep.
It wasn't ordinary darkness.
Ink-black petals held faint bands of blood-red, thunder-violet, dusk-gold, dim blue, earth-brown, all circling a muted gray center that seemed to drink in the surrounding light. Grandmist seeped out of it in quiet waves, thickening the air, bending the world's True Essence toward it.
"This is the Heavenly Demon Lotus Art," Ren said. His voice softened into that patient, almost teacher-like tone he slipped into when he dealt with dangerous things. "You'll get results within minutes."
He turned the lotus once between his fingers.
"It feeds on your foundations, your Laws, your fears, your pride…" His eyes glinted. "…and turns them upward."
He flicked his hand.
The large lotus shattered into five tiny lights.
Five dark-rainbow lotus sparks arced through the air like lazy meteors, one each toward Yaoyue, Meiyue, Yaoxi, Qingzhao, Bi Ruyu.
None of the five women flinched away.
They had been demonic path powerhouses for too long to show fear now.
The lotuses sank between their brows, leaving no mark in the physical world.
Inside…
Situ Yaoyue felt something open above her Extreme Violet Dantian.
Her inner world—normally a thick, violet sea with a blood demon moon hanging over it—suddenly seemed to sit beneath a different sky.
A lotus bloomed there.
Dark-rainbow petals unfurled over the purple sea and the demon moon, not suppressing them, but shading them. At the edges of her Domain, where Darkness Laws pressed against the limits of her comprehension, she felt another power stir.
Grandmist.
It whispered along the borders of her world, heavy and patient, tugging at the Heavy Darkness Law wrapped around her violet core.
Her Extreme Violet Dantian spun faster.
Not wildly, but with more weight. True essence condensed, thickening from a sharp river into a deep, dark current that carried strands of lotus light within it.
Her perception of darkness itself shifted.
What had once been a heavy blanket became layers—shades of black, depths of shadow, places where the world ended and something more ancient began.
Situ Meiyue felt a similar lotus open over her own Dantian.
Under the lotus' weight, their resonance changed.
Her Dantian flared—not in mimicry, but in assertion. A second, slightly different violet tide rose beside the first in that demonic bloodline. She felt, for the first time, the exact shape of her own inadequacies.
The gaps in her Life Destruction foundation lit up like small cracks under moonlight.
She could see where she'd rushed, where she'd compressed too much demonic energy, where she'd let fear of falling behind twist her Dao.
Now, the lotus showed her how to step back and mend.
Situ Yaoxi's Soul Sea was a cold, storm-tossed place, full of curses and soul chains and the lingering backlash of the Monstrification Devil Art.
The lotus dropped into that chaos like a heavy, cool stone.
It didn't erase her curses.
It weighed them down.
A dark lotus spread above the center of her Soul Sea, petals drifting over the snarling curse marks and twisted soul chains. Under its influence, the curses' wild loops untangled, their backlash pathways rerouted along cleaner tracks.
Her soul sense sharpened.
She saw, with a clarity that made her breath catch, how much of her cultivation had been spent just wrestling her own arts. How many little chains she'd placed on herself out of fear of losing control, fear of aging, fear of becoming irrelevant.
The lotus pressed down on those fears.
Not to crush them, but to pin them so she could step around them.
Situ Qingzhao had paid for her beauty with her cultivation.
She had razored away parts of her foundation, twisted her own Laws to keep her face and body ageless. For years, she had told herself she didn't regret it.
The lotus didn't believe her.
It descended into her Spiritual Sea like a mirror turned sideways.
For a heartbeat, pain flared along all the places she'd cut.
The lotus didn't shy away.
Instead, it wrapped those scarred pathways in petals, offering alternative routes. She saw, for a brief, dizzy moment, a version of her Dao where darkness wasn't just a veil for allure, but a blade that carved delusion.
She saw how the Laws she'd bent for vanity could be woven back into a stronger whole without tearing her face away.
Her heart thudded once, hard.
So… it's not all gone.
Bi Ruyu's Soul Sea was a tangled forest of curses and deathly resentment.
Her Demonic Sea had been gnawed at from inside; the after-effects of the Nether Bone Claws and other arts had bitten at her marrow for decades. Her joints ached; her blood felt heavy with poison she'd accepted as the price of power.
The lotus fell into that forest.
Curses boiled.
For a terrifying instant, she thought everything was going to explode.
Then the lotus pulsed.
The boiling settled.
Curse lines that had been chewing at her lifeforce shifted, paths bending away from her organs and nerves, redirecting their backlash into closed circuits that burned themselves out on each other.
Her blood warmed.
The ache in her joints lessened, a thin layer peeling off the constant pain.
Her back straightened by a fraction without her realizing.
On the outside, the five women staggered.
Their auras surged violently for a heartbeat, then stabilized at a higher level. True essence shifted, thickened. Soul force grew clearer. Darkness Laws and curse patterns and violet seas all adjusted around a new center.
The world around them changed.
Lines they'd never noticed before—the subtle Dao patterns carved into the Giant Demon Minor Realm, the faint threads of fate curling around the royal city, the texture of the demonic clouds overhead—suddenly stood out, sharp and crisp.
Situ Yaoyue's eyes widened.
"My Extreme Violet Domain…" she murmured, more to herself than anyone. "It's thicker. The demon moon's pull has… changed."
Situ Meiyue drew in a shaking breath.
"I… can see the gaps in my Life Destruction foundation," she whispered. "If I stepped again right now… I could rebuild what I broke."
Situ Yaoxi's hand lifted, fingers touching her own cheek in disbelief.
"This old woman's Soul Sea…" she said hoarsely. "It's like… I've wasted centuries chewing on scraps."
Situ Qingzhao's hand pressed against her heart.
"The path I cut away…" she breathed, dark eyes shining with something like hope. "…there's a road to mend it…"
Bi Ruyu flexed her fingers.
The tremble that had been there for decades was… not gone, but less.
"My curses…" she muttered, lips twisting in disbelief. "They're not eating me alive anymore."
Ren watched them carefully.
Their expressions.
The shifts in their auras.
The way their Dao Hearts reacted to a sudden widening of their horizons.
He looked pleased.
"That's just the first breath," he said, voice warm. "Give it ten days, and you'll see what it really does."
Then he added, completely shameless, eyes sliding over them with open appreciation—but no vulgarity.
"I'll personally help you work through the rough parts," he said. "With women like you, it'd be a crime not to enjoy the process."
Situ Yaoyue's cheeks heated despite herself.
She pressed her lips together, covering the flicker of reaction with a cold look.
Situ Meiyue's ears went red; she turned her face slightly away to hide it.
Yaoxi snorted loudly, but the spark in her gaze was impossible to miss.
Qingzhao's heartbeat stuttered; she held his gaze for half a breath longer than she meant to before looking away, lashes lowering.
Bi Ruyu let out a dry, startled laugh.
No one had spoken to her as a woman, instead of a witch, in… she couldn't remember how long.
Ren let the moment linger just long enough, then turned his eyes to the capital at large.
"As for the rest of you…" he said, raising his hand again. "You'll get the appetizer."
Behind him, the Grandmist Heavenly Demon Heaven stirred.
Most of the Asura Divine Kingdom's martial artists couldn't see it clearly; they only felt a pressure descend. For those at Revolving Core and above, however, it was as if a second sky unfolded above the royal city.
A dark-rainbow dome, vast and heavy.
It slipped into place over the kingdom, pinning their world between itself and the Sky Spill Heavenly Dao. For a breath, it felt as though the Asura Divine Kingdom had been peeled away from the rest of the continent and set under a different Heaven entirely.
A deep weight settled over the capital.
Countless tiny lotus sparks drifted out from the unseen dome.
They looked like fireflies to those who could perceive them—small, dark-glowing motes, each with a faint rainbow edge.
They fell.
Princes on distant towers gasped as lotus sparks slipped between their brows.
Demon Envoys' disciples, standing in formation around the plaza, jolted as warmth rushed through their meridians.
Common geniuses training in side halls, Revolving Core martial artists meditating in remote courtyards, even some Peak Xiantian elites—each one stiffened as a lotus seed sank into their Sea of Consciousness.
The sparks didn't burst.
They curled in on themselves, settling into silent, heavy seeds.
Meridians warmed.
True essence flows that had been rough for years suddenly smoothed, as if someone had poured oil over grinding gears.
Laws that had refused to give way at bottlenecks flickered at the edge of perception, like doors that had been sealed now showing faint light at their cracks.
Everywhere in the capital, martial artists opened their eyes in shock.
"What…"
"My meridians… the blockage from ten years ago…"
"I can feel… the hint of a Law I couldn't touch before…"
In the plaza, one detail stood out to those who were watching closely.
The lotus seeds sank into everyone… except a specific cluster.
Situ Haotian.
Situ Bonan.
Situ Chuan.
Situ Yangon.
Situ Bai.
Imperial Scholar Xuan.
The other crippled Demon Envoys and Imperial Scholars whose bones Ren had shattered.
The lotus lights flowed around them as if they weren't even there, bending their paths, slipping past. It was as though the Heaven Ren had brought down had already written them off.
Ren's voice rolled over the capital.
"That's a seed," he said. "If your Dao Hearts are trash, you'll cough and spit it out. If they're decent, you'll climb."
His tone sharpened just a little.
"Either way… don't come begging me. I laid the path. Walk it yourselves."
He pointed, almost lazily, at the crumpled forms of Haotian, Bonan, the princes, Imperial Scholar Xuan, the broken Demon Envoys.
"As for these ones…" His eyes cooled. "They're noisy, but still useful as examples."
Then he turned his gaze back to the sky, to the woman who now stood like a blade at the forefront of the royal clan.
"Yaoyue," he said lightly. "You decide what you want to do with the people who sold you out in less than a heartbeat."
Situ Yaoyue froze.
The entire capital held its breath.
Demonic clouds drifted slowly across a blood-colored sun.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of distant banners snapping in the reshaped wind.
Then, from the ranks below, movement.
Several Demon Generals stepped forward—men and women whose armor was stained with old battle-scars, whose auras smelled more of war than court.
They were people who had followed Yaoyue personally in campaigns, who had watched her hold the Asura Divine Kingdom's younger generation together, who had grown quietly tired of the old men's constant games.
They bowed first to Ren.
Then, as one, they turned and bowed to Yaoyue.
"Royal Princess," the foremost of them said, voice steady. "Crown Princess. Please give the order."
Yaoyue's fingers clenched at her sides.
She glanced once at Ren.
He only smiled at her, eyes relaxed, offering neither guidance nor restraint.
The choice was hers.
Her heart pounded.
She looked down at the men who had just tried to trade her body and future like a sack of jade.
At the emperor who had given her the Extreme Violet Dantian's training, who had spoken of the Divine Kingdom's glory—and who had decided in an instant that she, Meiyue, Yaoxi, Qingzhao, Bi Ruyu were acceptable currency.
At the old ancestor who had ruled over the kingdom's heritage like a dragon on a pile of bones.
At the princes and scholars who had bowed without hesitation.
The Extreme Violet Dantian spun harder.
Heavy Darkness Law coiled around it, and for the first time, that darkness didn't feel like something imposed on her by her bloodline.
It felt like her own shadow… and the shadow she would cast on others.
She breathed out slowly.
"Bind them," she said, voice low but clear. "Seal their true essence. Place them in the deepest prisons. Their titles are stripped."
The words dropped like stones.
Sealing arrays blossomed around the broken elders and princes, patterns of demonic lines snapping into place. Chains of demonic iron surged up from the ground—thick, black, coiling with demonic inscriptions.
As they wrapped around crippled limbs and shattered bones, Ren lifted two fingers.
Grandmist rippled.
The chains drank that power eagerly, their inscriptions gaining a dim, gray depth. They became more than simple restraints; they became tiny anchors linking the prisoners to the Grandmist Heavenly Demon Heaven hanging above.
Any attempt to riot their true essence would be fed back into the chains and crushed.
Situ Haotian watched as chains wrapped his arms, his legs, his chest.
He tried to roar again.
The sound died in his throat.
Situ Bonan's eyes followed the chains as they tightened, rage and disbelief fighting with the terrible clarity that came at the end of a road: this is what I chose.
Imperial Scholar Xuan's Samsara Devil Arts trembled in his Sea of Consciousness, trying to twist away, to find a loophole.
The Grandmist-reinforced chains didn't care.
One by one, the old pillars of the Asura Divine Kingdom were hauled away.
They were still conscious.
That, perhaps, was the cruelest part.
They watched as the people they'd once ruled—generals, juniors, even some elders—averted their eyes, or looked on with cold faces, or in a few cases, with flat satisfaction.
No one dared to speak in their defense.
With the old men gone, the demonic wind blowing through the plaza felt different.
Lighter.
Sharper.
Ren let out a slow breath, as if dusting his hands off.
"Well," he said, clapping his palms together softly. "Now that the unpleasant people are out of the way…"
He looked back at the five women, eyes bright.
"Shall we begin?"
He gave them that easy, teasing grin that had made phoenix empresses roll their eyes and devil queens choke on their tea.
"I'm hoping one of the lovely ladies here can show me around the kingdom while I give pointers," he said. "It'd be rude not to let your guest inspect the house he just propped up."
Situ Yaoyue felt a dozen emotions rise at once.
Annoyance.
Relief.
Wariness.
An unexpected, dangerous flicker of… anticipation.
She tried to suppress them all with a scoff.
It didn't work very well; the faint heat on her cheeks argued against her icy tone.
Situ Meiyue looked away, biting the inside of her lip, ears still pink.
Situ Yaoxi snorted loudly, arms folding under her chest, but the edges of her mouth twitched.
Situ Qingzhao lifted her chin, eyes cool, but the hand resting lightly on her waist trembled once, betraying her.
Bi Ruyu gave a long, suffering sigh that didn't fool anyone; the light in her gaze was far less tired than it had been an incense stick of time ago.
Watching from the sides, Demon Envoys and Imperial Scholars and younger Situ clan members were… bewildered.
These five were pillars of the Asura Divine Kingdom's fearsome reputation.
Royal Princess Yaoxi, whose curses had made Divine Sea experts hesitate.
Supreme Elder Qingzhao, whose beauty and blades had both cut countless enemies.
Bi Ruyu, the fierce witch whose name was whispered like a curse.
Yaoyue, the cold crown princess whose Extreme Violet Dantian and Heavy Darkness Law had always felt untouchable.
Meiyue, the proud younger talent arrogant and cruel in her own right.
Seeing complicated, barely concealed emotions flicker across their faces at the words of an outsider—it was like watching cracks appear in statues they'd thought were carved from the same stone as the heavens.