They were not participants.

They were witnesses.

---

Wang Chen was still tens of kilometers away when he felt it.

A pressure—thick, ancient, and violently malignant—boiled up from the city's heart like a festering wound in the world itself. It wasn't merely demonic qi. It was something deeper, more fundamental, as if the land itself had been infected.

He slowed mid-air.

Perhaps it was his mastery of Non-Existence Authority, or perhaps the distortion of fate that now followed him like a shadow, but distance meant nothing to his perception anymore. His senses pierced space effortlessly, stretching toward the source.

And what he saw made his eyes narrow.

In his vision, the Bodhi Tree stood twisted and monstrous, its once-sacred form drowned in writhing black qi. Roots coiled like serpents beneath the earth, pulsing with corruption, while divine flames and sword light battered it from above in a desperate struggle.

"So it finally surfaced…" Wang Chen murmured quietly.

His gaze sharpened, the faint halo of fate behind him stirring as threads of destiny converged violently around the dojo's location. Whatever was awakening there was not a mere demon.

It was something born with the world itself.

And this time, Wang Chen knew—

His disciples were no longer fighting alone.

His expression paled instantly.

"What the hell is going on?"

Wang Chen rarely let surprise linger on his face, yet this time it crept in uninvited. He had always known there was something deeply unnatural about the Bodhi Tree. From the day he first set foot in the dojo, he had sensed a faint hostility buried within its roots, a pressure that did not belong to any ordinary spiritual plant. He had even suspected the heavens themselves were involved.

But until now, that hostility had been directed at him alone.

The tree had never acknowledged his disciples. Never targeted them. Never even reacted to their presence.

So what had changed?

His thoughts sharpened, a cold realization forming at the edge of his mind. Could it be that the thing lurking within the Bodhi Tree had finally awakened completely? That the fragment he had felt all along was no longer dormant, no longer testing—but had become whole?

The Original Demon.

The idea sent a faint chill through him.

Wang Chen closed his eyes for a breath, then opened them again, forcibly steadying his thoughts. Panic was useless. Panic was for people without options.

Ten thousand meters ahead, the land was crawling with demons. They poured through ruined streets and collapsed districts like a black tide, their twisted forms clinging to walls and rooftops, their laughter echoing in shrill, maddened bursts. Hundreds had already broken off from the main swarm, converging toward the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo, their collective aura warping the air into a suffocating haze.

His spiritual sense expanded, one after the Doom clock went off, he decided to get rid of all the demons in the dojo vicinity.

Images surfaced unbidden in his mind.

Sacrifice.

Original Demon.

Eternal, undying existences bound to the laws of the lower world.

The pieces aligned far too cleanly.

The Original Demon and the Original Angel were not ordinary beings. They were born from fragments of Creation Qi itself, incarnations of opposing principles that predated civilizations. As long as evil and divinity continued to exist within the world, these entities would never truly perish. They could be sealed, suppressed, weakened—but never erased by conventional means.

Wang Chen's jaw tightened.

"…How am I supposed to destroy a creature like that?"

The words escaped him quietly, more a statement of fact than doubt. There was no fear in his voice, only a heavy, grinding resolve. Whatever the cost, he could not allow such a thing to roam freely. Not after witnessing how its corruption alone had already reshaped the land, twisting heaven and earth into something unrecognizable.

He took a step forward, intent on closing the distance, space trembled beside him.

The air folded inward as if pierced by an invisible needle. A ripple spread outward, subtle yet absolute, carrying with it a presence so foreign that even the surrounding sequence-energy reacted instinctively, humming in low, distorted resonance.

Wang Chen stopped mid-stride.

Something had arrived.

And whatever it was, it was not part of his calculations at all.

"It is useless… forget about them."

The words had not even fully reached his ears when Wang Chen's vision caught on a familiar yet unsettling figure standing not far away.

Zi Han.

The Demon Queen stood quietly in the distorted air, her dark robes fluttering faintly despite the absence of wind. Her beauty was as striking as ever, but this time there was no arrogance in her bearing. Instead, her bewitching eyes were filled with something that unsettled Wang Chen far more than hostility ever could—undisguised pity.

Wang Chen studied her in silence.

For a brief moment, memories surfaced uninvited. Their first encounter. The veiled hostility. The sharp words exchanged beneath layers of calculation and suspicion. To others, only a few months might have passed since that meeting. But for him—someone who had spent centuries within distorted flows of tower time—it felt like an era ago.

If not for the clarity brought by his recent breakthroughs, he might have genuinely forgotten her presence in his life altogether.

The turbulence in his thoughts gradually settled. His gaze sharpened, expression returning to its usual calm indifference. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and even, betraying nothing of his internal evaluation.

"What do you mean, fellow Daoist?" Wang Chen asked slowly. "Why should I abandon my disciples?"

A faint pause followed. His eyes flicked briefly toward the distant city, toward the barely restrained catastrophe brewing around the dojo.

"Or is it," he continued, tone cooling by a degree, "that you believe I cannot interfere… because you doubt my strength?"

The air between them tightened, heavy with unspoken meaning. Zi Han did not answer immediately—but the pity in her eyes deepened, as if she were looking not at an equal, but at someone standing on the edge of an abyss they did not yet fully comprehend.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.