Chapter 741: We Go South
Since the first year of the New Kingdom, the entire continent had cared about only one thing.
Not the exiled Pope, not the sealed-off Holy Maiden Peak, not Wang Po’s return to the Huaiyuan Courtyard.
That matter was more urgent than all of these combined.
The demon invasion.
In the autumn of the year before last, the Demon Lord died, Nanke left, and a new lord was just established. Chaos reigned within the demon race. Blood flowed everywhere in Xuelao City. The weather was abnormally cold, winter arrived early, blizzards raged, harvests were disastrously poor. Countless minor demon tribes were forced to flee far from Xuelao City. The output of the Wolf Cavalry, which the Demon Palace valued most, was less than one-third of previous years.
To any observer, this was the demon race’s weakest moment. Few could have imagined that the demons would choose this time to launch a full-scale invasion.
The word "full-scale" meant madness, meant at any cost.
Perhaps the survival crisis brought by the blizzards and bitter cold had directly transformed into the demons’ bloodthirsty drive. There was also a very important reason: the former demon prince Han Qing, who had guarded the Heavenly Book Mausoleum for over six hundred years, had finally left the capital, crossed the vast snowy plains, and returned to Xuelao City.
According to the agreement with Shang Xingzhou, White Emperor City used some secret method to send him into Xuelao City, where he contacted certain members of the Council of Elders who had always remained loyal to him. Through intelligence from the Demon Palace, he became convinced once again that the true rulers of the demon domain were not the new Demon Lord in the palace, but the Demon Marshal and the mysterious strategist, Black Robe.
He believed that although the Demon Marshal and Black Robe had joined forces to overthrow his once-dominant father, the Demon Lord, this did not mean they truly trusted each other. On the contrary, without the shadow in the sky, the trust between them could dissolve into nothing at any moment. They must be wary of each other, even ready to strike at any time. As for the young new Demon Lord in the palace, he was merely a pitiful puppet, swaying like a blade of grass between two cold winds, liable to be swept away and killed at any moment.
Han Qing wanted to exploit the tension between the Demon Marshal and Black Robe.
Due to historical reasons, he could not cooperate with Black Robe, so naturally, he contacted the Demon Marshal first.
He knew the Demon Marshal would not fully trust him, but he didn’t care. The one he truly wanted to ally with was the young new Demon Lord.
That child, isolated and helpless in the Demon Palace, must be terrified and restless. If he could gain the support of him and the power behind him, the young lord would surely be overjoyed.
Moreover, they were blood brothers.
In hindsight, Han Qing’s thinking was not wrong—in fact, it could be said to be absolutely correct. The demon race was not the human race; they viewed the world from a different angle, but in essence, there was not much difference between them. All decisions were ultimately determined by interests, trust, and the inherent strength of their relationships.
Han Qing failed because his initial judgment was flawed.
There might indeed be problems between the Demon Marshal and Black Robe, but the young Demon Lord was not the helpless puppet he imagined. In fact, it was only after his death that the entire continent learned that the mastermind behind the Xuelao City rebellion was neither the Demon Marshal nor Black Robe, but that young Demon Lord whom all factions had pitied or ignored.
He was the true usurper.
The reason the Demon Marshal and Black Robe had joined forces to push the once-overbearing Demon Lord into the abyss was precisely because of him.
The Demon Marshal and Black Robe indeed did not trust each other, but both trusted the young Demon Lord completely, regarding him as their closest nephew.
How had the young Demon Lord earned the trust—even the loyalty—of these two?
His father had once been the most terrifying shadow on this continent, one that even Emperor Taizong and Zhou Dufu combined could not completely eliminate, yet he had killed him with his own hands.
What kind of being was this young Demon Lord?
Placing hope for success on a true opponent, approaching an enemy of unimaginable terror with a mindset of exploitation—unsurprisingly, Han Qing failed utterly. As he was about to die, he, who had endured six hundred years guarding the Heavenly Book Mausoleum unmoved by wind or rain, couldn’t help but raise his head and look toward the throne.
There sat a young, handsome demon, the corners of his lips slightly raised, perfectly tempering the nobility and dominance of his demonic form.
This young demon was the youngest son of the great Demon Lord, not much older than Nanke.
The departed Demon Lord had many children. Han Qing was the strongest among them, Nanke the most famous; the rest were hard even to remember.
By comparison, this one’s name was fairly well-known, because he had once been the Demon Lord’s heir, and more importantly, because of a single sentence he had spoken.
“I very much want Xu Yourong.”
Not “want to see”—“want.”
After this sentence spread across the continent, it naturally provoked boundless fury from both humans and demons, as well as much mockery.
Because at that time, aside from his identity as the Demon Lord’s heir, he had nothing else to boast about.
Whether in talent for cultivation or advancement of his demonic form, he had performed unremarkably, inferior to Nanke, let alone Xu Yourong.
At noble gatherings in Xuelao City, at the Lanxi Art Exhibition, he had never received any praise, not even matching Chen Changsheng, let alone Qiushan Jun.
Until now.
Outside Xuelao City, beacons blazed everywhere. Inside the city, countless nobles lay headless and broken, their green blood staining the sky.
Outside the Demon Palace, the Wolf Cavalry howled as they rode. The palace buildings bore the scars of fierce battle everywhere.
His legendary elder brother knelt before him, covered in blood.
The Demon Marshal and Black Robe stood quietly at his side.
He was at the front.
He was at the center.
…
…
“Do you really believe you can keep their loyalty forever?”
Han Qing asked the young Demon Lord. Of course, he was referring to Black Robe and the Demon Marshal.
“Brother, you’ve lived too long. When you think, you can only dwell on dull old words like loyalty, passion, trust, conspiracy… I am still young. I prefer some fresher new words, like ideals, dreams, sunlight, warmth, spring… the south, and girls.”
A moving smile appeared on the young Demon Lord’s face. “They support me not out of loyalty, but because we share a common ideal, or rather, a dream.”
Han Qing understood his meaning, and his face turned pale.
The Seventh Demon General and the Twenty-Fourth Demon General stepped forward and dragged him out of the hall. The abyss behind the Demon Palace awaited him.
The demon army was about to march.
The young Demon Lord walked outside the hall, looked at the dense ranks of Wolf Cavalry on the snow and the demon soldiers growling lowly, and suddenly fell silent.
He didn’t know what he was thinking, lost in thought for a long time before waking up, letting out a self-deprecating smile.
Then he spoke a sentence that would later become famous.
“The sunlight in the south is better, warmer, the spring lasts longer. The south also has many girls. So, we go south.”