Chapter 6: Three Years Later, the Patriarch in the Ring Shows His Face

In the third year, the Demon Abyss quaked.

The demonic qi sealed beneath it for a thousand years suddenly surged up. Demons poured out of the cracks, and three border cities were ravaged in a single night.

The Xuantian Sect sent every Peak Master down to suppress it.

【Year THREE?! That’s four years earlier than the original!】

【In the original the Abyss doesn’t open until year seven!】

【Gu Chen’s demon bone is about to fully stabilize. Whoever wants it can’t afford to wait any longer.】

I had meant to leave Gu Chen on the mountain.

But when I studied the formation map, I found the crack in the seal wasn’t on the surface. It was deep inside the abyss, where ordinary divine sense couldn’t reach.

Only a Heavenly Demon Bone could feel the flow of demonic qi.

I had no choice but to bring him.

Before we set out, I told him again and again:

“Stay within range of my divine sense. Don’t act on your own. Don’t chase enemies alone. Don’t use the demon bone to absorb demonic qi.”

“Repeat it.”

He repeated it, word for word.

I felt reassured.

Looking back later, I’d been reassured a little too soon.

The Demon Abyss was worse than we’d expected.

Wen Changfeng led the elders in reinforcing the main seal. The four auxiliary formation eyes were divided among four groups.

The western formation eye was given to the disciples of Heavenly Sword Peak.

Their leader was Qin Lang.

The moment Gu Chen set foot on the ground, he frowned.

“Master, the western formation eye. Someone is breaking it from the inside.”

I rushed there.

On the stone platform of the formation eye, several Heavenly Sword Peak disciples lay scattered, their breathing as thin as threads.

Qin Lang stood in the middle, his sword driven into the heart of the formation.

The black ring on his hand blazed like an eye.

“Qin Lang!”

He turned. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Martial Aunt Shen.” He smiled. “You came.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I know.” His voice was hoarse. “Two years. I’ve been stuck at Golden Core for two years. The whole sect looks at me like a broken sword. And him…”

He pointed his sword at Gu Chen.

“Someone with mixed roots, and he’s already Nascent Soul.”

“The patriarch said that if I open this formation eye, he’ll give me a Nascent Soul. And the Heavenly Demon Bone, to forge my sword. The thing that should have been mine all along!”

“And you believe him?”

“He’s guided me for seven years and never once lied to me!”

I sighed.

“Qin Lang, your patriarch’s name is Cangming. Five thousand years ago, he was sealed right beneath this abyss.”

“He never lied to you because he was waiting for today.”

Qin Lang froze.

A deep, muffled laugh burst out of the ring on his hand.

“A clever little girl.”

Pitch-black demonic qi poured out of the ring and wrapped around Qin Lang like a snake.

He screamed and struggled. But within a few breaths, his eyes had turned completely black.

The voice that came out of his mouth was no longer his.

“Seven years raising this pawn. Time to use it.”

【NO!!!】

【The patriarch really IS the Demon Emperor!!!】

【The male lead got possessed! Where is this story GOING!】

【So there never was a Demon Lord Gu Chen in the original. There was only the Demon Emperor wearing Gu Chen’s skin.】

Cangming, borrowing Qin Lang’s body, raised his hand.

The formation eye shattered.

Demonic qi billowed up into a wall, splitting the battlefield in two. A force dragged me straight down toward the Demon Abyss Palace at the bottom of the chasm.

Before I was pulled away, I managed to send a voice transmission:

“Gu Chen! Don’t follow me! Hold the formation!”

“…This disciple obeys.”

Gu Chen stood alone beside the broken formation eye.

He knelt and laid his hand on the stone.

Then his face went white.

This formation didn’t just break the seal.

It was draining the spiritual power of every cultivator within a hundred miles, sending it flowing backward into the abyss to feed Cangming’s sealed true body.

The sect leader, the elders, hundreds of disciples were reinforcing the seal. The harder they worked, the stronger Cangming grew.

And his master was down there, facing him.

There was only one way to break the formation.

Use the Heavenly Demon Bone to draw the formation’s demonic qi into his own body, then use his spiritual power to reverse the flow.

It was exactly what his master had spent two years teaching him.

It was also exactly what his master had just forbidden him to do.

One wrong step, and his meridians would be shattered.

【Don’t!!!】

【If he absorbs the demonic qi, that’s exactly what Cangming wants! Once the demon bone is wide open, he can possess him!】

Gu Chen looked toward the bottom of the abyss, where the figure in blue had just vanished.

He closed his eyes.

“Master once said that how far you go depends on whether you’re willing to keep walking.”

He opened his eyes and pressed both hands down on the formation eye.

“This time, this disciple chooses for himself.”