Shi Yan reacted quickly. She promptly grabbed the breakfast shop owner who was about to abandon his stall and flee, paid him for her meal, then rushed back home.

Her disabled father Shi Qianlü was still at home! Though he wasn’t her biological father, and he always looked at her with disappointment and harbored resentment toward her original self, they had lived together for several years. Even if their relationship was merely that of landlord and tenant, she couldn’t just abandon him at a time like this.

On her way back, she saw the chaotic scene near the distant city walls. Illegally constructed high-rise buildings collapsed with thunderous roars, dust billowing everywhere. Half the sky was filled with densely packed ferocious beasts—it was said that the Winter City Demon King raised all sorts of strange creatures. He had quite a few such ferocious beasts under his command and used them to attack cities, showing off his wealth and power.

If these ferocious beasts entered the city, it would be like throwing a cat into a school of fish. She could imagine how brutal the scene would be.

The ruler of Crane Immortal City was Master Crane, a veteran city lord in the Demon Realm. Having maintained control over Crane Immortal City for so many years, one could imagine how powerful the outer barrier must be. However, in just this short amount of time, Shi Yan saw a section of the city wall being pushed down.

A black giant snake, thicker and taller than the city wall itself, raised its head. Its ferocious snake face carried a naturally savage air, and its blood-red eyes flashed with cold cruelty. It was this prehistoric beast-like monster that had forcefully crashed through Crane Immortal City’s barrier and walls with its body. Shi Yan could see it even from a great distance.

Although this was her first time seeing it, Shi Yan knew the background of this black giant snake. It was the Winter City Demon King Sima Jiao’s pet and mount. The giant snake had no name, but its reputation in the Demon Realm was as renowned as its master Sima Jiao. Everyone referred to it as the Demon Dragon out of respect.

Seeing it roll over, instantly collapsing half of the northern part of the city, Shi Yan drew in a sharp breath. She was genuinely afraid of snakes, and an enormous one like this terrified her even more.

The giant snake writhed in the dust, stirring up clouds that made it seem as if it were riding the mist and clouds. The demon cultivators in Crane Immortal City watched with pounding hearts and bulging eyes, while some of Winter City’s demon generals who had come to attack Crane Immortal City remained behind the giant snake, not entering the city—they all knew that at this moment, they had to wait until this snake ancestor had its fun before they could make their move.

In Winter City, this enormous black snake held a special status. Their Demon Lord Sima Jiao was capricious and ruthless; no one wasn’t afraid of him. Over the years, countless demon generals under him had been killed by him, yet there were still innumerable people willing to serve him in succession.

After all these years, the only one who had been able to remain by his side was this black giant snake.

Even though this giant snake wasn’t very intelligent and enjoyed playing around, they had to serve it well. This time the Demon Lord hadn’t come personally, but the black snake had, and if anything happened to this black snake, they would likely face a terrible fate upon their return.

Who would have thought that despite their glorious appearance outside, when they returned to Winter City, they all had to be subservient, not even comparing to a snake with barely awakened intelligence?

Numerous demon generals led large groups of ferocious beasts and demon cultivators with impressive presence, putting on a threatening posture, ready to charge into the city to kill and burn as soon as the great snake had its fun. However, not long after, Crane Immortal City’s lord, Master Crane, came out with his demon generals. The two sides met in the sky, and Master Crane simply surrendered, declaring his willingness to pledge allegiance to the Demon Lord.

Winter City’s demon generals: “…”

Damn it, how could he surrender so quickly! They had hoped for a battle. That way, they could enter the city to burn, kill, and plunder—wouldn’t that be better than the current situation?

But since the surrender had been made, and they would all be colleagues in the future, it truly would be inappropriate to turn on them immediately. Master Crane noticed their displeased expressions and hurriedly invited the demon generals into the city, preparing to entertain them well.

Although the great battle had been averted, Crane Immortal City was still in chaos, with many residents feeling anxious and uneasy.

Shi Yan returned to her courtyard to see her father and brother both there, discussing something with grim expressions. The aunt, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing Shi Yan, Shi Qianlü immediately said coldly, “Pack your things. We’re preparing to leave this place.”

Shi Zhenxu explained briefly, “Sima Jiao’s people arrived faster than we expected. Although we’ve learned that he didn’t come personally, we can’t risk being discovered, so we’ll have to leave this place.”

Shi Yan wasn’t surprised. The Shi family’s fear of the great Demon King Sima Jiao was practically written on their foreheads. They cursed him countless times normally, but when facing him, they would be scared into running away immediately. She asked, “Are we leaving now?”

Shi Zhenxu: “No, the situation is tense right now, and all the exit routes are guarded by Winter City’s demon cultivators. Leaving now would attract attention. We’ll wait a couple of days to see how things develop before leaving. However, you shouldn’t leave the house during these two days. Stay at home properly.”

Shi Yan agreed. She often changed her residence when looking for jobs, so relocating now didn’t bother her much. The only person she was reluctant to part with was her friend Red Spiral.

Red Spiral was her only close friend in this world. When she first arrived in this world, she had to adjust to many things, and her Shi family father and brother didn’t allow her to interact with others, watching her like a prisoner. There weren’t many suitable friends in the Demon Realm, so over all these years, Red Spiral was the only true friend she could talk to.

Now that she had to leave, she didn’t know when she would see Red Spiral again and felt she should at least say goodbye.

Shi Yan made up her mind, but unfortunately, her father and brother kept a close watch on her, making it impossible for her to slip out. She could only wait for an opportunity.

Although she had been somewhat lazy over the years, she had always been obedient. Seeing her stay at home properly for a day, sleeping in, Shi Qianlü and Shi Zhenxu stopped paying much attention to her, as they had other matters to attend to.

Shi Yan was used to them keeping secrets from her. She didn’t mind; after all, as she always said, they weren’t biologically related. On the morning of the third day, she successfully slipped out and headed straight for Rouge Platform.

The devastation in the northern part of the city had not yet been cleaned up, and most of the people from Winter City were still outside the city. However, inside Crane Immortal City, there were many unfamiliar faces, all arrogant and with tempers even worse than the locals. So throughout Shi Yan’s journey to Rouge Platform, she didn’t encounter any thieves or troublemakers—everyone kept a low profile and observed.

Rouge Platform remained the same as in previous days, seemingly unaffected by this sudden major event. The brother who cleaned up and collected corpses every day still had that deadpan face. Shi Yan greeted him with a nod as usual, when the brother suddenly spoke, saying, “Wait.”

Shi Yan looked at him in surprise. This was only the second time she had heard this brother speak since she started working at Rouge Platform.

“Is something wrong?”

The brother looked at her and said, “Follow me.”

His cultivation level wasn’t very high, and he was blind in one eye. Shi Yan didn’t feel threatened, so she followed him, then unexpectedly saw a corpse.

After leading her to the corpse, the half-blind man said, “Corpse swept up last night,” gesturing for her to take it away.

Shi Yan looked at Red Spiral’s corpse, blank for a while, before thanking him, then going to pick up Red Spiral’s body and leave.

The half-blind man watched her leave, his expression unchanging, then returned to processing the unclaimed corpses. Perhaps the reason he had specially kept that corpse waiting for someone to claim was because he remembered how these two girls had passed through this door every morning over the past few years, chattering away.

Shi Yan left Rouge Platform, walked outside the wall, then slowly came to a stop. She placed Red Spiral on the ground and crouched down to look at her cold, pale, swollen, and injured face.

Since coming to this world, she had seen many, many corpses. From initially feeling disgusted to later becoming accustomed, she thought she had completely adapted, no longer feeling nauseated no matter how repulsive a corpse was. But now, looking at her friend’s corpse, she suddenly felt a tightness in her chest, supported herself against the wall, and vomited.

An indescribable sickness.

Red Spiral had always been alone. When they ate breakfast together, she talked excessively. Much of Shi Yan’s understanding of this strange world came from her friend’s mouth. Her feelings for Red Spiral were even deeper than those for her original self’s biological father and brother.

Perhaps it was because Red Spiral befriended her for who she was, regardless of whether she was called Zhou Yan, Lu Yan, or Shi Yan. Whereas the two Shi family relatives interacted with her only as Shi Yan.

She leaned against the wall in the slightly chilly morning, suddenly remembering a morning a few years ago. On a similar dawn, she had come to work and seen Red Spiral at the window on the ninth floor of that magnificent red building. Red Spiral had been exhausted, and seeing her flying back and forth on the rooftop, had waved to her and said, “Hey, if I die here someday, could you collect my corpse? I don’t want my body to go unclaimed and be sold to those corpse refiners. Who knows what ghostly thing they’d refine it into.”

She thought Red Spiral was joking at the time. This person always had lewd remarks streaming from her mouth, so she had made an OK gesture to her from a distance.

Today she had planned to say goodbye to Red Spiral, intending to tell her: I’m moving soon, so I might not be able to collect your corpse. There’s no help for it; you’ll just have to stay alive and live a little longer.

Now, well, no need to say anything.

After vomiting, Shi Yan wiped her mouth and searched through Red Spiral’s belongings, collecting what little remained. Usually, corpses like these would have been searched by the cleaners who collected them, but Red Spiral’s possessions were still there. It seemed that brother hadn’t touched her.

She burned Red Spiral’s body to ashes and placed them in a small cloth bag.

Shi Yan returned to Rouge Platform. Having worked there for several years, though her job was ordinary and unremarkable, she knew a few familiar people. Spending some demon stones, she quickly found out what had happened to Red Spiral.

Two nights ago, many demon generals and cultivators from Winter City had come to Rouge Platform. Red Spiral had died at the hands of a pair of twin brothers, though the reason for her death was unknown. But what reason could there be? This was how the Demon Realm worked. If someone with higher cultivation and greater power than you didn’t like you, you would die.

After clarifying their names and appearances, Shi Yan left Rouge Platform, not forgetting to resign from her position with one of the managers.

Crane Immortal City had now submitted to Winter City. The group of demon generals and cultivators who had come to cause trouble were very dissatisfied, feeling they hadn’t had enough fun, which just went to show that most people raised in the Demon Realm were this volatile. They left some people behind to handle other matters, while another group prepared to return to Winter City with the news and the extra personnel.

The brothers Zhi Hunji and Zhi Hunji were among those returning to Winter City to report. Both had cultivation levels at the Transformation Immortal stage. Although they hadn’t yet become demon generals, they had some reputation. Zhi Hun was a prestigious surname in the Demon Realm, and these two brothers’ service under a great demon general of Winter City was partly due to the glory of this surname.

The brothers had tiger-like backs and bear-like waists, following the path of demon body cultivation among demon cultivators. Their normal appearance was already quite large, but once they transformed into their demon bodies, they became like giants, impervious to weapons, with astonishing strength and defense.

The two were in the rear part of the procession, behind the demon generals’ mounts and in front of the ordinary demon cultivators. They were talking loudly, and after leaving Crane Immortal City, they pointed at the collapsed city wall, loudly mocking Crane Immortal City’s uselessness, their tone extremely arrogant.

Shi Yan blended into the demon cultivator procession not far behind them, her body wrapped in black cloth, listening to their loud laughter.

They said many things, including about the girls they had slept with in Crane Immortal City who weren’t excited enough, so they had killed a few when they got carried away.

Red Spiral was probably one of those.

Shi Yan remained silent as she followed them away from Crane Immortal City. They traveled without rest for two or three days before stopping for temporary rest, with everyone relaxing and finding places to eat and drink.

At dusk, everything was unclear. The mountains and waters of the Demon Realm were never bright and beautiful, as if overlaid with some other color. The trees weren’t green, the flowers weren’t bright; only the sunset was particularly beautiful to look at. And so was human blood—freshly spilled blood was especially vivid, the color just right.

Shi Yan wiped the blood from her hands and stood up. At her feet lay two corpses. The brothers Zhi Hunji and Zhi Hunji were lying there, both headless, their necks still gushing blood, soaking a large patch of yellow soil around them.

Two days of observation and tracking, along with the sudden eruption of killing just now, had left Shi Yan somewhat tired. She wiped her hands as she left the scene of the crime, her mind replaying everything that had just happened.

These two had been too confident in themselves. As some forgotten great figure once said, excessive confidence leads to destruction. They hadn’t even had time to use their demon bodies before they were killed.

Perhaps it was because she had suddenly reversed her spiritual power, using techniques of the immortal cultivators that caught them off guard. Overall, this encounter had gone quite smoothly.

Shi Yan had long discovered that she was different from other demon cultivators in the Demon Realm. She could not only reverse her spiritual power to become a demon cultivator but also do the opposite, using the spiritual power employed by immortal cultivators from the outside world.

She didn’t know why this was the case, but after quietly researching for a long time, she could finally use both types quite well. She was even more familiar with immortal cultivation techniques and could instinctively use many spells.

In the world of the Demon Realm, Shi Yan had killed many people. She didn’t enjoy killing, but there were times when she had no choice. Since no one around her treated her sincerely, it made her feel very insecure. So to live more comfortably, she could only rely on herself.

But after each kill, she still felt unwell. She quietly returned to the demon cultivator procession, alternating between thinking about when to find an opportunity to leave the procession and return to Crane Immortal City, and thinking about how her father would certainly scold her when she got back. At this moment, her post-killing syndrome acted up again, and she sat there not wanting to think.

She unconsciously wiped her fingers, lowering her eyes and strangely recalling the first time she had killed someone. Back then, she had encountered a pervert. Perverts in the Demon Realm weren’t the type who just groped someone’s buttocks on the subway or bus; they were the kind who would rape in the street while taking lives. So she had crushed that person’s skull as he approached.

To be honest, she still couldn’t understand why her instinctive method of killing in that moment of tension and mental blankness was to crush the person’s skull. She didn’t think she was that brutal, but because of that incident, she developed a trauma about having her hands covered in mush and never ate foods with similar consistency afterward.

During that period, every night after waking from nightmares, she would wonder if she had some strange hidden side to her inner self.

Moreover, at that time she had been extremely frightened, drenched in cold sweat and tears, and when she saw her original self’s father and brother, she heard that father say with a face full of disappointment: “Looking so useless even when killing someone, what’s wrong with you?”

So she truly felt heartache for the original Shi Yan—what kind of father was this? Perhaps the reason she couldn’t feel close to them later was because of this. A terrible example of wrong parenting methods leading to children becoming estranged.

As Shi Yan was thinking of all sorts of things, she suddenly noticed some commotion in the procession ahead. She immediately became alert and saw that the enormous black snake at the front, surrounded by a group of cautious people, was heading toward the scene of her killings.

“The Demon Dragon has detected the scent of fresh blood. Something must have happened. Everyone be careful!” a demon general riding a flying beast shouted in all directions.

Shi Yan: “…” Damn it! What kind of dog nose does this black snake have? No, wait, can snakes even smell? Is this snake mutated? To detect the bloody scent from so far away—she had already evaded all those demon generals ahead, and now things were going to fall apart?!

After cursing inwardly, Shi Yan quickly tried to hide herself.

Amitabha Buddha, please bless her so that the great black snake couldn’t trace it back to her!

Whatever deity she prayed to didn’t bless her. Before long, that ferocious great black snake excitedly flickered its tongue and slithered toward her.

Shi Yan: “…!” Don’t come over here! Go away!

Seeing the giant snake’s movements, others also sensed that something was wrong. A demon general shouted something, and chaos erupted all around. Shi Yan suddenly threw forward a “smoke bomb.” This was something she had made herself, inspired by various martial arts dramas throughout history—an essential item for killing, arson, and diverting attention.

She seized the opportunity to escape, but just as she leaped forward, she was caught precisely between the giant snake’s enormous jaws in mid-air.

Shi Yan: “…” Heaven wants to destroy me! My life is over!

She was stuck between the ferocious mutated teeth of the great snake, unable to move. The great black snake bit her and swiftly swam forward, causing a group of confused demon generals and cultivators, along with a large group of ferocious beasts, to chase after them. Shi Yan vaguely heard a demon general shouting: “Demon Dragon! Wait for us!”

The great black snake’s speed was incredibly fast. Shi Yan was bitten in its mouth, surrounded by various flying and running demon generals, cultivators, and ferocious beasts, all watching vigilantly. The situation did not look good.

It was not good!

Not only did she feel it wasn’t good, but the other demon generals also felt it wasn’t good because their Demon Dragon had directly carried that person of unknown identity back to Winter City, and with the speed of lightning, had crashed through Winter City’s inner city wall with a thunderous roar, swimming into the forbidden palace.

Inside the forbidden palace was the world’s most terrifying great Demon King, Sima Jiao. If he was angered by the Demon Dragon, it wouldn’t be the Demon Dragon who would die, but these poor subordinates. Subordinates, written as subordinates, are pronounced as punching bags.

In the Winter City forbidden palace, a black figure sat by the window. Hearing the thunderous commotion, his already furrowed brow wrinkled even more severely. With a body full of murderous intent, he turned his face to look at that stupid snake which had shrunk considerably after returning to the forbidden palace. Seeing it had bitten something in its mouth, he couldn’t help but curse:

“You little beast, what have you brought back?”