The Blood Moon Marsh stretched like a crimson-lit dream, its still waters reflecting the soft glow of the eternal blood moon.
Mist curled gently among clusters of reeds and willow-like trees, their leaves shimmering with a faint red light. Rare herbs and flowers dotted the marshlands, filling the air with delicate fragrances, while small creatures moved quietly through the reeds.
The marsh hummed with tranquil magic, a serene yet mysterious land where life thrived beneath the moon's enchanting glow.
Long before the beginning of the Age of Darkness, the Divine Moon Peak Empire had risen to become the most powerful force on the entire Divine Continent.
At the height of its supremacy, the empire produced some of the most formidable Legend-rank Demon Spiritualists of the era.
Each of these supreme experts enjoyed unimaginable prestige. The emperor himself bestowed upon them wealth, resources, and influence, and they reveled in the privileges that came with serving as the empire's esteemed protectors.
Except for one.
Her name was Suo Leiyue, the empire's strongest weapon.
She was a once-in-a-generation genius born into a commoner family in one of the many farming villages scattered throughout the Divine Moon Peak Empire.
In exchange for half their harvest, commoners were permitted to live and farm on the empire's limited arable land.
One such family was the Suo clan, whose eldest daughter was Suo Leiyue.
Although her childhood had not been entirely blissful, she had lived a relatively peaceful and content life alongside her loving parents and younger siblings.
Most days, she stayed home to care for her brothers and sisters while her parents worked the fields beneath the open sky.
From dawn until dusk, her world revolved around simple chores, warm meals, and the quiet rhythm of rural life.
Suo Leiyue had never dreamed of anything beyond the boundaries of her birth.
Although she knew of Demon Spiritualists and the extraordinary power they wielded, she had never imagined becoming one herself.
After all, she was a commoner, the daughter of two humble farmers.
By law, cultivation techniques were forbidden to people like her. Such knowledge was reserved for the children of nobility and wealthy merchants.
That path was never meant for someone of her standing.
But fate had a cruel sense of humor.
One day, a group of experts from the Divine Moon Peak Empire's royal family arrived in her village.
All children below a certain age were ordered to undergo examinations to determine their spiritual talent.
A massive soul crystal was placed in the center of the village square, and parents hurriedly brought their children forward to have their innate potential assessed.
The Suo family was among them.
Suo Leiyue noticed the relief on many parents' faces when their children were declared mediocre in talent.
She also felt her father's rough hand tighten around her shoulder as they drew closer to the soul crystal.
At the time, she had no idea that the moment the crystal reacted to her touch would be the moment she was separated from her family.
Like other commoner children deemed sufficiently talented to be trained as warriors, Suo Leiyue was selected for the royal family's army.
Within the empire, there existed a long-standing tradition known as recruitment, a system designed to strengthen the royal family's rule by cultivating talented children into powerful experts.
This custom had existed since the founding of the Divine Moon Peak Empire.
In the beginning, participation had been voluntary.
But as the empire grew in power, the resources required to maintain its supremacy increased.
And among those resources were people.
The empire's nobles looked down upon commoners, believing they existed solely to serve the aristocracy. This prejudice extended even to the commoner children they raised into warriors.
So how did the royal family ensure the unwavering loyalty of an army born from such oppression?
The answer was simple.
A soul slave imprint.
The moment gifted children were recruited, while they were still young and powerless, a soul slave imprint was forcibly branded onto their souls.
It was an invisible shackle etched into the deepest recesses of their very being.
With it, the commoner soldiers could never disobey their masters.
A single command from the person who controlled their imprint could condemn them to a miserable death.
And that was how Suo Leiyue became a Demon Spiritualist soldier serving in the royal army of the Divine Moon Peak Empire.
She despised her circumstances, but like her fellow slaves, she had no choice but to obey.
All because her innate talent was slightly better than that of others.
Over the Years
Despite limited resources and a brutal environment, Suo Leiyue steadily climbed the ranks. She endured countless battles in which every mistake could cost her life. Each time she survived, she emerged stronger than before.
Eventually, she reached the Legend Rank, achieving a feat that only a handful of commoners had ever accomplished.
Naturally, the royal family began treating her more favorably.
She was given her own courtyard, exquisite meals, and high-quality armor and weapons. She was even permitted to travel freely throughout the empire, almost as though she were of noble blood.
But no matter how gilded the cage became, it remained a prison she could never escape.
Despite her strength, achievements, and countless contributions to the empire, the royal family regarded Suo Leiyue as nothing more than a tool for preserving its authority.
A weapon to be discarded once she had outlived her usefulness.
Every promise of freedom had been nothing but sweet words, offered whenever the royal family needed her to expend every last ounce of her strength for the empire.
Time passed, and eventually, Suo Leiyue reached the pinnacle of power within the Tiny World.
She became known as the strongest Demon Spiritualist of her era.
Yet despite her immense prestige, many of her fellow Demon Spiritualists looked upon her with pity.
Those who fell by her hand sometimes laughed in their final moments, knowing that, unlike her, they would die as free men.
The royal family, astonished by her achievements, grew increasingly greedy. They sought to uncover the secret behind her extraordinary physique. If such a prodigy could be replicated, the empire's strength would multiply severalfold.
Then came the night Suo Leiyue was ordered not to resist, no matter what her master did to her.
That was the night she was reminded of the truth.
She was nothing more than a tool.
Her strength was unrivaled beneath the heavens, yet the soul slave imprint allowed her master to treat her like a defenseless puppet, utterly powerless to resist his commands.
After that night, Suo Leiyue stopped dreaming of brighter days.
She simply continued to obey.
She fought.
She plundered.
She killed.
And whenever the nobles grew bored, she was forced to entertain them.
Eventually, she stopped caring.
Sometimes, she even wished that someone stronger would appear, someone capable of defeating her in battle and ending her lifelong servitude to the royal family.
Perhaps, one day, fate would finally grant her that wish.
Then, a mysterious expert appeared out of nowhere and revealed the truth behind her physique to the royal family.
Suo Leiyue felt neither fear nor sorrow as the Moon Peak Emperor's gaze settled upon her, greed burning in his eyes.
She understood what that look meant.
No longer did they see her as a person. To them, she was nothing more than an unrivaled treasure, something to be harvested once her physique was ready.
One hundred and thirty years.
That was how long the mysterious expert told the emperor he would have to wait before the Glaze Blood within Suo Leiyue fully matured. Only then could the emperor extract it and claim its power for himself.
The emperor's greed knew no bounds.
Following this revelation, Suo Leiyue was confined to a treasure chamber, a hidden place where the emperor kept his most precious possessions.
And so, Suo Leiyue, the strongest Demon Spiritualist of her era, known as the Moon-Chained Goddess, vanished from the face of the Divine Continent.
She was never seen again.
If Suo Leiyue had believed that her circumstances could sink no lower, she was soon proven wrong.
A Legend-rank Demon Spiritualist whose strength could determine the fate of entire kingdoms had been reduced to guarding a treasure chamber.
She called it guarding, though the bitter truth was that she herself was one of the treasures.
The thought alone was enough to turn her stomach.
Several other slaves, all bound by the same soul slave imprint, were assigned to protect both Suo Leiyue and the treasures within the chamber at all costs.
And so, she spent her remaining days confined within its walls, waiting for the day the emperor would harvest her Glaze Blood.
At least the other servants gradually became something akin to family.
For those who had been reduced to disposable tools, finding comfort in one another and forming bonds came surprisingly easily.
In some ways, Suo Leiyue's days in the treasure chamber were more bearable than the years she had spent among the nobles.
But fate had another cruel twist in store for her.
Suo Leiyue was dying.
It began without warning.
During one of her routine walks, she suddenly lost her balance and collapsed unconscious.
After that incident, her body gradually weakened. Standing for too long became exhausting, and even sitting upright for extended periods left her drained.
The royal physicians were baffled. None could determine the cause of her mysterious affliction.
Unlike Suo Leiyue, the Moon Peak Emperor immediately panicked upon hearing the news. He feared losing the Glaze Blood he had waited so long to obtain.
Suo Leiyue, on the other hand, felt strangely detached from the situation.
She was not afraid.
Perhaps she was simply tired of being treated as a tool. Perhaps she had abandoned all hope of ever obtaining her freedom.
Whatever the reason, the prospect of her own death held little significance for her.
After all, wasn't death the same fate that awaited her once the Moon Peak Emperor finally extracted her Glaze Blood?
Like Suo Leiyue, the other slaves guarding the treasure chamber had grown indifferent to their own mortality.
All of them had borne the soul slave imprint since childhood. Under its curse, death was the only thing that could truly free them from their lifelong servitude.
And yet, even death was not a choice they could make for themselves.
If their master forbade them from dying, their bodies would struggle desperately to survive, clinging to life against all odds simply to fulfill that command.
They did not fear death.
They longed for it.
The Moon Peak Emperor, however, did not share their sentiments.
A hundred years still remained before the Glaze Blood would fully mature. If Suo Leiyue died prematurely, the precious blood within her would decay along with her.
Desperate to find a solution, the emperor once again sought the help of the mysterious expert.
With the expert's guidance, he poured vast amounts of wealth into searching the world for a treasure capable of preserving the Glaze Blood.
Eventually, they found their answer in the form of the Eternal Tomb, a sacred relic belonging to a distant kingdom.
When that kingdom refused to surrender its ancestral treasure, the Divine Moon Peak Empire razed it to the ground.
The Eternal Tomb, along with a Soul Attachment Crystal and countless other treasures, was seized and transported to the emperor's treasure chamber.
A few years later, Suo Leiyue finally succumbed to her mysterious illness.
Her remains were placed inside the Eternal Tomb, which preserved her body in an undying slumber while her soul drifted into the afterlife.
The emperor's intention was to preserve her body until the day he could finally claim her Glaze Blood.
But he would never get that chance.
In that very same year, the Divine Moon Peak Empire, along with the other human kingdoms, was trampled beneath overwhelming hordes of demon beasts.
Humanity was pushed to the brink of extinction, as none of the era's superpowers possessed the strength to withstand the catastrophe.
Thousands of years passed, leaving only scattered remnants of humanity across the Tiny World, struggling endlessly to survive.
And now, three figures stood amid the ruins of the fallen Divine Moon Peak Empire, searching for the long-lost treasure chamber of its former emperor.
Blood Moon Marsh - Present Day
Mist coiled through the marshlands below.
On a wind-carved cliff stood two hooded figures beside a white demon beast donkey. A golden box was strapped to its back, its surface glinting faintly beneath the crimson glow of the eternal moon.
In the distance stood a small, unremarkable mountain, half-veiled in fog. It appeared silent, ordinary, and utterly inconspicuous.
Yet beneath its unassuming exterior lay the remains of an empire that had once ruled the world.
After months of travel, they had finally reached their destination.
Xue Hui and Chen Zhenlong exchanged a glance.
This was it.
Once they retrieved the Glaze Blood and used it to rebuild Chen Linlin's soul realm, they could finally return home.
Back to Glory City.
End of Chapter 24