Having departed the mansion of Vice-Marshal Xuan, Mo Lihai’s eyes sparkled with delight, his tongue tripping over unspoken words. Yet, he remained silent until they reached the gates of his own estate. There, Mo Lihai drew a deep breath, clasped his fist in a gesture of respect towards Wang Lin, and with genuine earnestness in his voice, declared, “Brother Wang, I beseech thee, lend thy strength to Mo in the coming contest of Demon Generals. This boon shall be forever etched in my memory!”

This was the first time Mo Lihai had addressed Wang Lin with such deference. In his heart, Wang Lin was no longer an equal, but a force capable of driving a Vice-Marshal back with a single, devastating spell.

With such an ally at his side, Mo Lihai was confident he could sweep through the ranks of the Demon Generals. He understood the power of Wang Lin’s spell better than most, and his mind was still reeling from its might. All the way home, he had replayed the encounter, envisioning himself standing against it, only to be defeated time and again.

Wang Lin, never one to flaunt his strength, remained composed. With a calm smile, he replied, “Brother Mo, having given my word to aid thee in this matter, I shall not fail.”

Mo Lihai roared with laughter, clearly overjoyed. “Brother Wang,” he boomed, “I have a cask of wine, aged for over five centuries. Tonight, let us drown our throats in its vintage embrace!”

Wang Lin’s eyes lit up, and he nodded with a knowing grin.

Meanwhile, in the heart of the Sky Demon City, within the Imperial Sword Pavilion, a figure cloaked in golden robes stood with his back turned, gazing upon the Emperor’s Sword enshrined within a complex array of arcane symbols. He chuckled softly, “Have you had your fun? It is time to cease your torment of the Crimson Prison. Seek tranquility for a spell.”

From within the array, the silver blade hummed with a fierce and restless energy, as if protesting the command.

“Continue your mischief, and I shall cast you into the Dragon’s Maw,” the golden figure warned, his voice still laced with amusement.

The Emperor’s Sword fell silent, its fiery spirit momentarily quelled. Yet, its resentment for the “morsel” who dared to challenge it only festered deeper.

Within the Crimson Prison, now undisturbed by the Emperor’s Sword, the blood-soaked depths began to recover. Fresh prisoners were cast down, and soon, the cycle of carnage began anew.

Amidst the endless crimson pools, a dark-haired man sat cross-legged, a constant stream of murderous intent flowing from the blood into his very being. The aura of slaughter thickened around him.

Occasionally, he would lift his head, and a fleeting spark of clarity would pierce through the crimson haze in his eyes.

“I… I must escape this place, as he did!”

The slaughter erupted once more, the condemned souls rising from the pools to engage in a frenzied, desperate fight. The dark-haired man moved among them like a god of death, his eyes blazing with murderous intent. His attacks were merciless and precise, and he tore through the chaos like a bloodthirsty dragon.

As the day drew to a close, only the dark-haired man remained standing beneath the crimson sky. The newly reborn in the blood pools below paid him no mind.

A blood-red mist, hundreds of feet thick, enveloped his body. He drew a deep breath, and a rare moment of lucidity flashed in his bloodshot eyes. Driven by this spark of hope, he charged towards the exit.

But as he reached the edge of the prison, a silver flash descended from above. The Emperor’s Sword, in the form of a colossal silver dragon, struck with a thunderous blow. A wry smile twisted the man’s blood-caked face.

In a voice barely audible, he whispered, “Detonate.”

The word unleashed a cataclysmic force. His body erupted in a blinding explosion, the crimson mist around him expanding violently to meet the dragon’s claw.

The Crimson Prison echoed with the thunderous blast. The silver dragon roared in fury, recoiling from the explosion with its claws rent and torn. Its hatred for Wang Lin was reignited.

Meanwhile, the dark-haired man awoke in another blood pool, his head bowed in despair.

The silver dragon, its eyes burning with rage, fixed its gaze on the reborn man. With a roar that shook the prison, a beam of pure sword energy shot from its maw, striking the blood pool.

The pool shattered, and the dark-haired man died.

And so the cycle repeated. Each time the man was reborn, the silver dragon hunted him down and slaughtered him. Eventually, the dragon, weary of the game, shook its head with smug satisfaction and vanished into the sky.

It had decided to take out its frustration here, since the Demon Emperor forbade it from destroying the Crimson Prison further and forced it to rest a few days, forbidding it from chasing down the irritating morsel.

The matter of the Crimson Prison would have to wait.

With the Demon General Tournament a mere fortnight away, an atmosphere of intense anticipation gripped Sky Demon City. Demon Generals from every city within the Sky Demon Prefecture were frantically preparing, both openly and in secret. Paths were sought, bribes were offered, and shadowy deeds were plotted. The reigning Emperor of Sky Demon City turned a blind eye to it all.

The Demon Lands might have an order of sorts, but beneath that veneer lay utter chaos. This was an age of turmoil.

The Demon General Tournament was a pivotal event, a chance for each contender to ascend to glory. To miss this opportunity meant certain stagnation, a life spent as a mere Demon General, never again tasting the possibility of a Marshal’s rank.

The stakes were higher than ever before.

To become a Vice-Marshal was to claim the right to be a Marshal one day. For that right, any means were justified.

But even in this chaos, order remained. One commandment above all others: Demon Generals shall not engage in battles to the death. To do so would mean immediate disqualification.

Thus, all efforts turned towards the Generals’ allies. To kill an ally was to cripple a General, to rob him of his chance.

To target an ally was a direct declaration of war!

Yet, there was a second, darker path: assassination. While Generals were forbidden from engaging in direct combat, their allies, or those they hired, were not. Thus, assassins slinked through the shadows, seeking to thin the ranks of the competition before the games even began.
Though such actions rarely broke the explicit laws, they violated the unspoken edicts of the Demon Emperor. Thus, any who dared slay a Demon General within the walls of Sky Demon City, save for those whose power rivaled the heavens themselves, would find escape impossible… a swift and certain doom. For the death of a Demon General was a matter of grave consequence, a wound upon the very fabric of the county.

To describe such clandestine warfare as “walking a tightrope” would be a gross understatement. This dance of shadows, this war of blades both seen and unseen, grew ever more fevered as the grand conflict drew nigh. Mor Hai rarely ventured beyond his fortress-like manor, spending his days in near-constant seclusion, maintaining his peak condition while subtly evading the assassins’ daggers. He bolstered his defenses with arcane arrays and rallied his most trusted and powerful veterans to stand guard, day and night.

Amidst this swirling vortex of intrigue, only Wang Lin remained untouched, his spirit a serene pool reflecting a cloudless sky. His life continued without alteration, each morning bringing him to the riverbank, where he would sit and listen to the strains of the distant qin, sharing the brew of forgetfulness with the flowing water. All the stifled tensions and pre-war anxieties seemed to drift past him like wisps of smoke, their power undone by the ancient music that resonated within his soul. With each note, Wang Lin’s spirit was immersed, cleansed, and tempered in a strange and potent alchemy.

Whether assassins sought Mor Hai was of little concern to him. Mor Hai was no fool. His cunning was deep, his methods manifold, far exceeding the facade of weakness he presented. Wang Lin saw this clearly. He knew that a Demon General who had risen to the upper echelons could not have done so without a host of hidden claws and sharpened teeth. Survival demanded it.

Wang Lin sat by the river’s edge, his eyes closed in peaceful reverie, letting the distant qin’s melody wash over him. He reached for his wineskin, only to find it empty. He sighed, opening his eyes to gaze upon the heavens, lost in quiet contemplation.

Each note sent a tremor through his very being, a tremor that spoke of an imminent breakthrough, yet the path to enlightenment remained shrouded in mists, elusive as a phantom. He surrendered to the music, immersing himself in its depths, his immortal essence flowing inward, subdued, ever mindful of the Demon Emperor’s blade, ever vigilant, hunting for any who dared disturb the balance of power.

But at that moment, his brow furrowed, the spell of the music broken, the harmony shattered by a discordant intrusion.

“You… you are Mor Hai’s lackey, are you not?” a sneering voice sliced through the air, defiling the sacred space the music had created.

A hundred paces distant, a figure cloaked in shadows stood, arms crossed, a slender sword circling him like a venomous serpent. Impatience flickered across his features.

“Draw your blade. Killing you is as good as crippling Mor Hai!”

Wang Lin remained seated, unmoving, unseeing. His right thumb flicked out, unleashing the silent fury of the Finger of Extinction. A black ray of utter annihilation coalesced, striking with blinding speed.

As the black ray tore through the air, it left behind a trail of desolation, a dark scar upon the earth. The verdant grasses that dared to brush against its passage withered and crumbled, their essence consumed by the growing power of the destructive force.

The cloaked figure, startled, stumbled backward. His serpentine blade lashed out, seeking to intercept the deadly ray. But the moment the steel touched the darkness, it began to unravel, the tip dissolving, the edge crumbling, until only the hilt remained… and then, even that was reduced to dust.

The assassin’s eyes widened in disbelief as he scrambled back. But he was too slow. The black ray, unimpeded, struck him square in the chest.

His body arched backward in a horrific arc, a fountain of blood erupting from the wound. He crashed to the earth, a trail of crimson hanging in the air like a morbid flag. His eyes, filled with a fleeting flicker of regret, dulled, and then faded into eternal night. A wisp of grey mist emerged from his orifices, spiraling towards Wang Lin, disappearing into his outstretched hand.

The assassin was not a foreigner, but one of the Demon Spirits, a puppet, thought Wang Lin. Someone of a relatively low rank, perhaps a test sent by a Demon General who did not know him well.

Wang Lin turned his attention back to the river, listening to the echo of the qin song in the air.