The night was pitch-black, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It was already late into the night.
A dead silence hung over the streets of Jiunan Town.
The doors of every home were shut tight. Not a single sound dared to escape, for fear of attracting a Demon Fiend. People didn't even dare to snore in their sleep.
Even the Night Watchman, who normally patrolled deep into the night, was nowhere to be seen.
But in the darkness, two figures flitted across the low rooftops, one following the other, before finally coming to a stop on one of them.
"Senior Brother, what's wrong?"
Pan Yu had been following her senior brother, Pan Shi, as they sped along using a Body Technique. She hadn't expected him to suddenly stop.
"Shh!"
Pan Shi held a finger to his lips, his gaze fixed on the street below. He immediately dropped into a crouch.
"A Demon Fiend! Get down!"
He urgently whispered to his junior sister behind him.
Pan Yu immediately did as she was told and crouched, following Pan Shi's gaze. She saw nothing.
The desolate, silent street below was empty.
"Where? I don't see anything."
Excitement flashed in Pan Yu's eyes, but when she couldn't find anything, she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
"You can't see it because your Mana is too low. You're still a mere mortal and haven't opened your True Eye, so of course you can't see a Demon Fiend's true form."
"Once you pass the Resonance Stage and reach the Fake Food Realm like me—a state invisible to mortals—you'll be able to spot these things easily too."
"But I just want to see what a Demon Fiend looks like! We haven't seen a single one since we left the sect. Senior Brother~ please help me~"
Pan Yu pleaded in a low voice, shaking Pan Shi's arm and looking utterly pitiful.
Pan Shi sighed. He was helpless against his junior sister. He had no choice but to nod in agreement.
"Close your eyes!"
Delighted, Pan Yu obediently shut her eyes.
Beside her, Pan Shi extended three fingers, reached into his own eye socket, and gouged.
A bloody eyeball popped out. The nerves connecting it snapped, and it dangled limply from the empty socket as fresh blood streamed down the bridge of his nose.
Pan Shi winced, sucking in a sharp breath against the pain.
But to maintain his composure as a senior brother, he didn't react much.
Holding the eyeball in his right hand, he formed several Seal Decisions with his left, then gently pressed the eye against his junior sister's forehead.
The eyeball attached itself to Pan Yu's forehead as if it had taken root. The black pupil twitched and slowly began to focus.
"Alright, you can open your eyes now."
Only after finishing all this did Pan Shi speak to his junior sister.
Pan Yu opened her eyes and looked excitedly down at the street. She immediately saw a twisted figure, like a walking corpse, shuffling slowly toward a house.
Pan Yu curiously studied the so-called Demon Fiend as the pupil of the eye on her forehead slowly swiveled.
"So this is a Demon Fiend? It looks like it's neither human nor ghost, but it doesn't seem that scary."
'It's less frightening than the props in those horror movies I saw in my visions.'
Her intense curiosity vanished the moment she saw the Demon Fiend's true form. It was a far cry from what she had imagined, and she instantly found it boring.
'The horror movies I see in that other world during my cultivation-induced visions are way more exciting than this.'
"Don't say that. It may not look like much, but it's a Demon Fiend of the Fake Food Realm at the very least. Even I might not be able to handle it. You can't judge a book by its cover or let your guard down."
Pan Shi admonished her softly, his tone grave.
He knew his junior sister was spouting nonsense again, but he ignored it. He was clearly used to it by now.
Because of her strange Cultivation Technique, his junior sister often fell into visions where she saw things from another, illusory world.
As a result, Pan Yu often spouted words he couldn't understand. Over time, neither he nor the other disciples paid them any mind.
Hearing Pan Shi's words, Pan Yu nodded and said no more.
The Demon Fiend below hadn't noticed them. It had now reached a house with a tightly shut door and simply stood there, motionless.
"What is the Demon Fiend doing?"
Pan Yu asked, puzzled.
Having only recently been accepted as their Master's disciple, she was still ignorant about many things and could only rely on her senior brother, Pan Shi, for answers.
"What else could it be doing? It wants to eat someone, of course!"
"These Demon Fiends are similar to us Cultivators on the path of cultivation, but they can't suppress their desires. Their minds are filled with nothing but flesh and blood. We, at least, can maintain our reason."
Pan Shi explained softly.
Cultivators had always looked down on these Demon Fiends. Even though both sides cultivated Flesh and Blood Mana, the distinction between righteous and evil was still vast.
He then glanced at the house the Demon Fiend was facing. While the rest of the town was shrouded in darkness, this one house was conspicuously bright, its light spilling out. A lamp was clearly lit inside.
'The people in that house must have a death wish. Lighting a lamp under these circumstances is just asking to die.'
After a single glance, Pan Shi lost interest in watching. You didn't need a brain to figure out what would happen next.
Once the Demon Fiend got inside, the people in the house were as good as dead.
Pan Yu, on the other hand, looked worried. This was her first time witnessing a Demon Fiend about to devour someone.
"Shouldn't we do something? To save the people inside?"
Pan Shi shook his head without a moment's hesitation.
"Setting aside whether I could even win against that Demon Fiend, I wouldn't interfere even if I had the power."
"Junior Sister, don't forget the purpose of our trip. Master instructed us that our journey to the Grand Communal Feast cannot have any complications."
"As far as I know, all of Jiunan Town is White Buddha Temple's territory. If a Demon Fiend has appeared here, it's definitely connected to them. We're just passing through, so we absolutely cannot afford to stir up trouble. That bunch of bald monks are not to be trifled with."
"Once this Demon Fiend is finished and has moved on, we'll leave here quickly. We can't let it spot us."
Seeing Pan Shi's firm refusal, Pan Yu didn't press the matter, but her gaze toward the house below was filled with pity.
'Compared to the peace and happiness of the other world I see in my visions, this world is just too chaotic.'
'If I could choose, I'd rather give up cultivation and just be a normal person slacking off in that other world than have to see these disgusting things in this one.'
'If it weren't for the need to protect myself in these chaotic times, I never would have started cultivating in the first place.'
'But that world is just a vision, it isn't real. And I don't have the power to choose where I was born.'
On the rooftop, the senior and junior fell silent, lying in wait for the Demon Fiend below to finish its business and leave.
「Meanwhile, inside the very house they were watching, the one filled with light...」
Yang An sat on his bed. He had been waiting since dusk, and now, late into the night, still nothing had happened.
Just as he was starting to feel bored, a wave of drowsiness washed over him. His mind grew foggy and his limbs felt heavy. It was as if he had lost control of his body and was about to collapse onto the bed.
A long, droning ring echoed in his ears.
The drowsiness came on with startling suddenness. Just a moment before, Yang An hadn't been the least bit sleepy. Bathed in the red glow of his Lighting Technique, he had been perfectly alert.
Just as the drowsiness threatened to overwhelm him and he started to topple onto the bed, his vision was flooded with an intense red light. A bone-chilling cold shot through him.
The red light instantly dispelled the sensation. The Bright Heart and Pure Spirit effect of the Lighting Technique was constantly at work.
Yang An jolted, instantly wide awake. His Heart began to pound wildly in his chest.
The moment he was lucid, he reacted, his hand immediately darting under the pillow for the knife he had placed there.
'This sudden feeling of drowsiness…'
'It's exactly the same as last night!'
'The Demon Fiend is here!'