Yin Feixue waited for Xue Cuo to come and see him. But that wait lasted a full four years.
No precise news came from the South Sea, yet the mortal world grew ever more chaotic.
Plague. Drought. Flood.
Of Fangzhou’s sixteen cities, three now stood empty. Corpses lay strewn across the plains; white bones rose like forests. It had become a living hell.
War spread like contagion, sweeping across the two southeastern continents of Divine Lands in scarcely any time at all.
Though men sought to hold it back, the fiendish beast Swallowing Viper had already emerged. The great calamity of Heaven and Earth had begun, and it could not be averted.
Yin Feixue sensed the shift in the times. He swiftly recalled all the Tiandu Guard and ordered the city sealed in defence.
Human cultivators, coveting Tiandu City, once sent disciples to subdue it.
That campaign brought thirty-one of the Spirit Void Realm, fifteen Illusory Godly Realm, and one expert at half-step Heavenly God Realm.
The cultivator leading them declared, “This city reeks of demonic qi and brings harm upon the mortal world. We act by Heaven’s mandate to punish it. Yet Heaven cherishes life and does not delight in slaughter. Lay down your weapons and surrender with propriety, and we shall not pursue you to extinction.”
The Tiandu Guard stood upon the battlements. Behind them lay a city where humans and demons dwelt side by side.
Yin Feixue stood upon a banner snapping in the wind, a black blade resting in his hand.
He wore black armour and a soft helm. His silver hair streamed like silk in the gale. Beneath its shifting veil, his exquisitely handsome features appeared and vanished by turns. His golden eyes were calm and keen, like molten metal in flame. They were too bright to meet for long.
Resting the blade upon his shoulder, he asked mildly, “Is that so?”
The cultivator was faintly taken aback. Though a tiger demon, Yin Feixue bore himself like a man… dignified, composed, extraordinary in presence.
“Indeed,” the cultivator replied earnestly. “I know you must feel resentment. Why has the human race, since ancient times, stood above the demon clans?”
“When you still ate raw flesh and drank blood, when your kin knew no rites nor distinction, our human sages had already opened the path of civilisation, expounding Dao and Virtue, cultivating self, world, and spirit. The profundity with which we perceive Heaven and Earth is beyond your imagining.”
“The human race has houses of bells and cauldrons, clans of poetry and ceremony, immortals who dine on dew and drink the moon. In the hierarchy of the Dao, we stand far above you. It is the order of Heaven that the lower submit to the higher, that the good guide the lesser.”
“If not for the harmony of all living beings, why would we have travelled thousands of miles to this small city of Fangzhou?”
“Today we extend assistance, not coercion. We come to spread enlightenment, not to exterminate the demon race.”
Yin Feixue laughed.
He balanced the black blade lightly in his hand. Unlike the blood-maddened fiends of legend, he remained courteous, even smiling.
“Since you wish to discourse on the Dao,” he said pleasantly, “I have a question. Might you resolve it for me, fellow cultivator?”
The man stroked his beard, intrigued. “Speak.”
Yin Feixue cupped his hands in greeting.
“Dao Speaks is the first scripture human cultivators study. I recall a line within it: ‘Heaven does not give birth to the myriad things; the myriad things are born of themselves. Earth does not nurture sages; sages arise of themselves.’ How do you interpret this?”
The cultivator burst out laughing. The principle was elementary; even a child who had just entered the path would know it. He spoke with swelling pride:
“It means this: Heaven is possessed of virtue; all things have spirit. Yin and yang in harmony constitute the Great Dao. Sages and august emperors accord with the workings of Heavenly Dao, and are born only among races endowed with virtue. Our human race, of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, is Heaven’s chosen sacred lineage. Do you understand?”
Yin Feixue folded his hands behind his back.
“Interesting. Yet someone once told me that the so-called Dao Speaks is but a later corruption. There are passages altered, meanings forced, doctrines fabricated. In ages long past it read: ‘Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat the myriad beings as straw dogs. The sage is not benevolent; he treats the common people as straw dogs.’ The Heavenly Dao is merely the blooming and withering of flowers, following nature, abiding by cause and effect.”
“Heaven makes no division of high and low. The Dao knows no left or right. Living beings are not ranked noble or base. Gods are not measured greater or lesser—”
“Preposterous!” the cultivator cut in. “Utter nonsense!”
“If Heaven makes no distinction, what then of the Path of Longevity and the Path of Beasts? Why do I wear brocade and dine in plenty while you starve? Why do I cultivate and enjoy celestial bliss while you suffer the seven hardships and eight afflictions without release?”
“It is because the Dao has its order. Heaven has its hierarchy. Men have their ranks; clans their nobility and baseness. If some lowly demon were to drink from the same pool as the ancient sage, to dwell in the Ninefold Heavens beside him, would not the world fall into chaos?”
“Who told you such poison? Speak his name, and I shall grind his soul to nothingness to bear witness before Heaven!”
Yin Feixue’s phoenix eyes slanted slightly as he smiled.
“You likely do not know the one who said it. But he has a shidi known as the Little Sword Immortal; a rather famous figure.”
The cultivator frowned. “Little Sword Immortal? Shidi? Who?”
Yin Feixue replied mildly, “In the cultivation world, within the Wendao Palace, the Tianyi Sect’s chief senior disciple, Gu Ruhui. He is that man’s shidi.”
“You cultivators share the same lineage. Surely you recognise the name?”
The man’s eyes widened; he tugged out several strands of beard in agitation. “You dare slander a disciple of the Sword Immortal? Today I shall kill you and roast tiger meat!”
Yin Feixue received his strike and pushed him back with a single motion. “You were discoursing so eloquently a moment ago. Why such anger now?”
“Spare me your glib tongue! Today you die!”
He flung out a magical treasure, raising it high. It clashed across the air with Yin Feixue’s black blade. At once the other cultivators moved.
Yin Feixue’s gaze remained tranquil. He neither retreated nor yielded.
His blade was swift beyond sight; his footwork peerless. Not even the half-step Heavenly God could match his speed, much less ordinary artefacts.
“He is but a petty demon, yet so formidable. He must have consumed some supreme heavenly treasure! Kill him and seize it!”
“Cultivators, form ranks!”
The Tiandu Guard rose upon clouds. “Your Majesty! We are here!”
Yin Feixue’s earlier discourse had merely bought time for their formation to be laid. Now the moment arrived.
Rows of spears, cannon, iron engines and interlocking arrays ignited at once, converging into a torrent of dreadful light like a beast that devoured flesh and bone.
Clutching his wounded chest, the cultivator spat, “Petty contrivances. You overreach yourselves.”
With a violent sweep of his horsetail whisk he unleashed countless gales of astral wind. Dozens of Tiandu Guard fell instantly… yet discipline held. None retreated.
The signal officer slashed down his banner.
“Kun.”
A cannon roared. White vapour billowed upward, spreading swiftly through the air. The astral winds, confused within the milky haze, turned back upon their masters, throwing the cultivators’ formation into chaos.
At that instant a black blade tore through the void, cleaving straight toward the half-step Heavenly God. His pupils shrank; he staggered back in shock.
“Impossible. Is he not only Spirit Void Realm?”
“The field report was wrong. Shixiong, take care!”
The Tiandu Guard pressed forward. Within the white mist, battle cries shook the heavens.
Demons and cultivators clashed in a single melee. Smoke and flame engulfed the city; the dead and wounded were beyond count, reduced to ash beneath the tide of the great calamity.
Yin Feixue had fought in countless bloody wars. Never one so brutal.
Half the Tiandu Guard were lost. More than half of Tiandu City lay in ruins.
He wielded the black blade, silver hair streaming wildly, like a demon god descending upon the mortal world.
A hundred years of relentless tempering had made him more than a match for the cultivators. Yet it had also forced him to watch half a lifetime’s labour crumble to dust, his people’s flesh and blood scattered beneath a collapsing nest.
Within the city, humans and demons had long lived side by side, no longer divided. Now they fought as one, staking everything to defend their home.
Yin Feixue had taken several blades; a heart-piercing sword ran clean through his back, front to rear. Dark red blood soaked through his armour.
His own blade moved in vast, unrestrained arcs. Bathed in blood, he fought on alone against more than a dozen high-ranking cultivators, his eyes burning scarlet.
“King! King! King!”
Lesser demons and human citizens alike threw themselves into the fray, trading ten lives for one, seeking mutual destruction.
The cultivators were held fast outside Tiandu City, unable to advance a single step. Even the elderly, the frail, the women and children refused to hide. Carrying infants in their arms, they stood at the rear and used what little magic they possessed to stir the winds, bolstering the city’s spirit.
Unable to overcome Yin Feixue, one cultivator shouted in fury, “Seize those lesser demons. Force him to take his own life!”
Another reacted swiftly, dragging a Tiandu Guard before him as a living shield.
The guard’s eyes split with rage. “To hell with you!”
He detonated his inner core. He burst apart in a spray of blood, choosing death over submission.
The act ignited the fury of the demon clans… and of the humans upon the walls. Curses rained down.
“You killed my brother!”
“Kill them!”
Yin Feixue’s gaze turned glacial. The great blade in his hand grew only more ruthless.
The cultivators, unsettled by the surging morale of Tiandu City, exchanged dark looks. Their leader said coldly, “Remove the core first. Then use them as shields. Let us see how he dares self-detonate.”
“Yes, Shixiong!”
This time they crippled the captive’s inner core before seizing control of his body, arranging a row of blood-soaked living shields before them.
A chill gleamed in the cultivator’s eyes. “Force him to kill himself! Otherwise he is neither benevolent nor righteous by abandoning his own subjects!”
Yin Feixue stopped.
Heaven and earth seemed to hold their breath. Countless eyes turned towards him.
His golden gaze remained steady. It was not frenzied, not wrathful, but piercingly lucid. Slowly, he raised his blade. Blood slid from its edge and fell in drops through the air.
“Those who die for this city are martyrs,” he said evenly. “They shall receive the eternal incense of Tiandu’s people. If they leave behind parents, the city will provide for them. If they leave behind children, the city will raise them.”
Then, before the faltering Tiandu Guard, before those who could not bring themselves to strike… he moved.
With his own hand he cleaved through the wall of flesh formed by kin and comrades, and in a single sweep slew the six cultivators cowering behind it.
The black blade, steeped in blood, shone cold as winter frost.
The leading cultivator recoiled in shock and shouted, “Savages! You slaughter your own!”
His words had barely fallen—
The black blade was already upon him.
That battle changed the colour of the sky and turned the earth to blood. The slain were beyond counting. By the end, the city was carpeted in corpses.
Yin Feixue stood grievously wounded. Yet he did not fall. His long silver-grey hair, dulled and matted with blood, hung loose down his back.
A Tiandu Guard approached and spoke in a low voice. “Your Majesty. The Demon Court sends no reinforcements. Only a message.”
“What message?”
“The Demon Court must plan for revival. One move affects the whole. They hope Tiandu City will not disgrace the Demon Saint’s name. That we sacrifice the city to preserve our honour.”
Yin Feixue’s eyes were sharp as blades. He closed them briefly.
“Honour,” he repeated.
The guard hesitated. “Before I departed, the Young Saint said we may lead the remaining demons to seek refuge at the royal court. But… the mortals of the city cannot enter the demon realm.”
Yin Feixue said nothing.
The Tiandu Guard understood. Humans and demons here had lived entwined; their bonds ran deep. To abandon their human brothers and survive alone was not a choice they could make.
“My King,” the guard asked quietly, “what do we do?”
Yin Feixue rose to his feet like an unscalable mountain.
“A blood debt,” he said. “Not one step back.”
When they had fought to the brink of ruin—
A great wind suddenly tore across the heavens. Thunderclouds rolled. Faintly, one could hear the roar of a dragon.
Rain crashed down between heaven and earth, wild and unceasing.
The cold wind cut to the bone. The cultivators drenched in that rain felt as though struck by some hidden curse.Missteps multiplied, spells faltered, movements went awry.
By contrast, the Tiandu Guard grew light of body, as though aided by unseen hands. Even the rain seemed sentient, bending away from them.
“Your Majesty! Someone aids us!”
“Strike while they falter. Tiandu Guard, with me.”
Yin Feixue wiped the line of blood from his lips. Though grievously wounded, he erupted with inexhaustible strength.
Upon his shoulder fluttered two small red talismans, bright and impish. One reads I run fast, the other You can’t catch me.
In the end, Tiandu City held.
The rain did not cease for three months. Only once the city had been rebuilt and its formations restored did the clouds finally part.
Yin Feixue’s wounds had long since healed. On the day of his recovery, he severed ties with the Demon Court, proclaimed himself king, and took in the homeless refugees of the mortal world… both wandering humans and stray little demons alike.
Affairs multiplied. He was seldom idle.
One night, drinking alone beneath the moon, he received a paper butterfly. It circled him once. Upon its wings were written eight small characters:
Great fortune and prosperity. May all who behold it be gladdened.
Yin Feixue gazed at it for a long while without speaking. The molten gold of his eyes softened, becoming like clear autumn water beneath the setting sun, rippling gently.
Xue Cuo’s voice drifted from the paper butterfly.
Yin Feixue leaned close. From amidst his silver hair, tiger ears slipped into view, listening as he replayed the words again and again.
Feixue. I have only just emerged from the secret realm and fallen into breakthrough. I cannot come in person, so I send you instead a rain.
Be well. Be safe.
Yin Feixue placed this butterfly beside the one he had received before. He wrote back, promising that when time allowed he would go to see him… and bring the wine Xue Cuo loved most.
He did not expect that when they next met, it would be in the shadow of life and death.
