Zhang Sanfeng’s vision caught the face of the Heavenly Demon.

It was twisted horribly like a goblin’s.

That was what one would call a fury that seemed ready to burn the world.

From that vicious, demonic-looking marred face of the demon, there was no trace of his childhood visage left.

The child who once hid behind his mother’s skirt, the Crown Princess’s hem, peeking at Zhang Sanfeng furtively. None of that remained.

It had been swept away by the cruelty of time.

But Zhang Sanfeng already knew that.

Long ago, he had felt the world’s and time’s mercilessness keenly.

Zhang Sanfeng’s Supreme Ultimate Technique was called Flowing Mountain Pierces Rock.

Just as water flowing along a mountain eventually wears through rock, softness overcomes all.

Zhang Sanfeng’s steps slowed the time around him.

It could not be denied that he had taken the technique from recalling the Sword Emperor that Yi-gang had met.

‘Zhao Guang.’

He could not entirely fail to understand the Heavenly Demon’s rage.

However, swornly, Zhang Sanfeng did not wish for things to turn out that way.

It had not been intentional.

He was certain…….

‘It must be something I have to finish.’

No, he had no mind to make excuses.

Words rarely resolve matters in this world.

Zhang Sanfeng resolved to shoulder a great karma.

He would stop the Heavenly Demon Zhao Guang here.

Even if he had to kill him.

The Heavenly Demon’s hand grew endlessly slow the moment it passed through the transparent barrier.

And Zhang Sanfeng moved his hand.

Burning rage.

A sense of betrayal.

Zhang Sanfeng had felt those emotions in the Heaven-Slaying Demon Valley as well.

“Call the Heavenly Demon.”

The Lord of the Northern Dipper who had appeared suddenly showed no emotion on his slate-blue face.

Zhang Sanfeng hesitated for a moment.

The Northern Dipper Lord was a high-ranking heavenly immortal.

Even as an earth-immortal who had ascended from a human body, Zhang Sanfeng could not be compared to the Northern Dipper Lord.

Zhang Sanfeng remained bound by his human shackles, while the Northern Dipper Lord was a heavenly immortal who governed the dead and a great heavenly immortal.

Nevertheless, the Northern Dipper Lord addressed Zhang Sanfeng.

“Do it quickly.”

Zhang Sanfeng ultimately obeyed the Northern Dipper Lord’s words.

He called the Heavenly Demon outside into the interior.

It was at that moment, the Northern Dipper Lord waved his hand as if annoyed.

“You shall withdraw to the Heavenly Realm for a while.”

“What do you mean by that…!”

It took only one gesture from the Northern Dipper Lord.

Zhang Sanfeng, who had abandoned his immortal body and descended to the lower world, was ‘banished’ back to the Heavenly Realm.

It was utterly terrifying.

If he had not become an immortal, he would not have been banished so easily.

Although his rank had fallen, Zhang Sanfeng had still been a seeker aiming for transcendence.

But he had already belonged to the Heavenly Realm as an immortal.

The moment he fell under the order of the Heavenly Realm, there were limits to what a mere Earth Immortal could do.

In that moment, everything filled him with painful regret.

He regretted becoming an immortal.

For what had he become a Taoist and mouthed the path?

Zhang Sanfeng was able to return to the surface only much later.

There was no one left within the Heaven-Slaying Demon Valley.

Only the traces of a fierce battle remained.

Fortunately, the Heavenly Demon did not seem to be dead.

Clearly a lethal amount of blood had spattered the floor, but there were signs that a body had been dragged away.

Zhang Sanfeng’s eyes followed the trail of blood the Heavenly Demon had left.

Would the Heavenly Demon return here?

That he could not know.

Zhang Sanfeng began to linger in the Heaven-Slaying Demon Valley.

The Heavenly Demon did not come.

A hundred years passed, and another hundred years after that.

And more time continued to pass…….

Then one day, a young man appeared.

He was a young man named Yi-gang.

To Zhang Sanfeng, who had mastered the Dao, Yi-gang’s fate seemed pierced through.

He had been born with a constitution that would die young.

Still, he had struggled so much that he reached an extraordinary realm not fitting his age.

He roamed the Central Plains alongside him.

He even finally met the Heavenly Demon.

A Heavenly Demon born with the Heaven-Slaying Star, destined to paint the world with blood. Knowing that, Zhang Sanfeng suppressed the Heavenly Demon’s resurrection.

However, the conspiracy seemed deeper and more damp than what the Earth Immortal Zhang Sanfeng knew.

The heavenly path opened.

The Evil Cult revived and the Heavenly Realm intervened in the mortal world.

In this situation, Zhang Sanfeng did not want to expose Yi-gang.

As an Earth Immortal, Zhang Sanfeng could not be free from the Heavenly Realm’s orders.

He hid deeply to avoid pursuit, but even that reached its limit.

‘The Taoist Priest. The priest must not be seized.’

Yi-gang was special.

Zhang Sanfeng at first thought he had seen through his fate at a glance, but he had not.

Even before the world changed like this, Yi-gang could handle possession.

That meant he could digest the burden of causality to a quarter or less.

That could not be possible for an ordinary human.

Yi-gang clearly possessed a special soul.

He might be the only person able to change the flow of great fate.

Though he thought himself beyond humans, Zhang Sanfeng was still subject to the Heavenly Realm’s laws.

He was no match compared to the Heavenly Demon bound by revenge and rage.

Zhang Sanfeng had to accomplish it.

Even if it meant killing that Heavenly Demon.

The skill that had deflected all attacks moved toward the Heavenly Demon’s chest.

The Heavenly Demon fell into Zhang Sanfeng’s trap.

From the moment he passed through that transparent membrane, Zhang Sanfeng’s Supreme Ultimate Technique activated.

The Heavenly Demon’s chest, almost frozen in place.

A gentle palm neared that chest.

A hand capable of bursting a heart.

Zhang Sanfeng was in a state beyond self.

「…in!」

Yi-gang’s voice rang in his head, but he could not hear it.

He had poured all his purification into this one move.

And the Heavenly Demon.

Before the approaching death, the Heavenly Demon’s pupils flicked.

Just as Zhang Sanfeng had a hidden move, the Heavenly Demon, too, had one.

His hand remained stiff, but not his toes.

‘Zhang Junbao!’

「…you damn… bastard!」

His mind blazed with murderous intent and rage.

Whatever Ha-jun said could not be heard.

The Heavenly Demon’s Reigning Step was a divine art born of his greed.

Each step wished to walk the path of a tyrant.

The throne and status he had lost.

To be that land’s rightful master, to reign over tens of thousands of demons.

He named this new Supreme Ultimate Technique ‘Ruler Descends to the World’.

A shockwave burst from his stepping foot, sweeping everything around.

The Heavenly Demon’s movements regained their speed.

That hand aimed for Zhang Sanfeng’s nape.

Conversely, Zhang Sanfeng’s hand was just about to touch the Heavenly Demon’s chest.

The moment murderous intent met murderous intent, when they would finally take each other’s lives.

「Seriously.」

Yi-gang’s voice thundered in Zhang Sanfeng’s head.

Yi-gang growled out.

「I can’t stand this any longer.」

These old, long-lived ones seek to kill the brothers.

Zhang Sanfeng seeks to kill Ha-jun, and the Heavenly Demon seeks to kill Yi-gang.

Yi-gang managed, at last, to regain control of his body.

Pushed behind consciousness, Zhang Sanfeng’s bodily sensations returned.

The flow of qi filling that body—

It was a complex, subtle, even beautiful manipulation of qi, but Yi-gang had no time to admire it.

He had two choices.

To evade the Heavenly Demon’s attack with full effort.

Or to pull back the palm that would smash Ha-jun’s chest.

He could not do both.

There was no hesitation.

Yi-gang ignored the Heavenly Demon’s move toward his nape and controlled his right hand.

He scattered the qi waves gathered at his fingertips into the air.

Making a fist, he changed trajectory and struck the Heavenly Demon’s face.

In return, his neck was not cut off.

The Heavenly Demon’s hand, which had intended to slice his throat with the edge, transformed into a fist identical to Yi-gang’s and smashed Yi-gang’s face.

Smack!

Instead of an earth-shaking noise, it was an ordinary impact sound.

Yi-gang and Ha-jun struck each other’s faces simultaneously.

They rolled backward from the recoil at the same time, but neither was dead.

Yi-gang sprang to his feet.

“Get lost!”

By an almost instinctive method he flung his Upper Dantian wide open.

The Soul fragment of Zhang Sanfeng that had possessed him was flung out.

And Yi-gang saw Ha-jun.

Ha-jun, who had lent his body to the Heavenly Demon, could not stand and writhed.

It was clear Ha-jun was also struggling to drive the Heavenly Demon out.

However, Yi-gang’s younger brother did not easily succeed.

Then it was only natural for the brother to help.

“Ha-jun!”

The demonic infection had not lifted, Ha-jun’s face was flushed crimson.

Yi-gang approached and kicked that Ha-jun.

Of course, he did not pack it with internal energy.

Recalling the time he had slashed Mang-hon’s soul fragment long ago.

He kicked with that memory’s sensation.

「Kuhk!」

The Heavenly Demon’s Soul fragment popped out of Ha-jun as if flung.

He clearly had taken a hit, rolling on the floor and writhing.

It was the weakest form of the Heavenly Demon they had ever seen.

“Damn it, you okay!”

Yi-gang checked Ha-jun’s body.

Ha-jun blinked and then coughed violently.

Fortunately, there were no serious wounds.

All the injuries he had sustained had regenerated.

“How, how about you brother…?”

“I’m fine.”

After saying that, Yi-gang checked his own condition.

Thankfully, there were no wounds.

His body was tired and his head dizzy, but there were no major aftereffects of possession.

No matter how the world had changed, it was astonishing.

Yi-gang spun his body and glanced where Zhang Sanfeng stood.

Zhang Sanfeng, too, was kneeling on one knee as if injured.

Yi-gang strode over and grabbed Zhang Sanfeng by the scruff of the neck.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop!”

His anger echoed through the cave.

Zhang Sanfeng gave a hollow laugh.

“You laugh? Is it funny?”

「I am sorry… it’s just that you are grabbing my collar.」

Yi-gang flinched.

Zhang Sanfeng was a soul fragment, yet Yi-gang had remarkably easily grabbed his scruff.

He reflexively let go of the collar.

「I am sorry.」

Zhang Sanfeng bowed his body in apology.

「My eyes turned blind. I nearly gravely harmed your brother.」

“Either of us could’ve died! Me or Ha-jun.”

Yi-gang had wrested his body back from Zhang Sanfeng to stop Ha-jun from dying.

But only after regaining his body could he truly feel it.

With the power Zhang Sanfeng held in his hands, he could not have killed the Heavenly Demon, or Ha-jun.

Indeed, Yi-gang himself might well have been the one to die.

That fact cooled Yi-gang’s anger somewhat.

“You will never borrow my body again. And you, Heavenly Demon, too!”

Yi-gang said it to the Heavenly Demon without hesitation.

“If you so much as touch my brother or me again, I will not spare you.”

The Heavenly Demon, seeming pained, chuckled even while doubled over.

It was less mockery and more a self-deprecating bitter smile.

「So, it has come to this, then.」

He had truly intended to kill Zhang Sanfeng.

Even if it meant killing Yi-gang, the original owner of that body.

「So it has been.」

But the Heavenly Demon failed.

Its control over Ha-jun’s body was taken and it was kicked away by Yi-gang.

Kicked out, the soul fragment itself was flung away.

In short, the Heavenly Demon was defeated.

Not by his archrival Zhang Sanfeng, but kicked by young men born centuries later.

「I cannot hold my head up.」

「I am the same.」

The Heavenly Demon’s voice sounded very despondent.

Zhang Sanfeng’s spirit also broke.

He felt he could no longer seal Yi-gang or prevent him from taking action.

It was natural for the second wave to push away the first wave of the river……

A long silence followed.

“…It’s raining.”

Yi-gang looked outside the cave.

A torrential rain was pouring down.

Whether this rain would hide them, he could not be sure.

They needed to leave quickly.

As Yi-gang attempted to move, he felt a sudden vertigo.

A burning heat surged through his whole body.

“…Ugh!”

When he turned, Ha-jun had already collapsed face-first on the ground, unconscious.

Was it a delayed aftereffect of possession that had struck him?

No, it was clearly a different kind of affliction.

He looked at Zhang Sanfeng, who calmly explained.

「The Priest’s level has risen greatly. It was an experience to warrant it.」

Could it be because he had sustained possessions by beings beyond humans for so long?

「Rest for a while. When you wake you’ll feel refreshed. In the meantime, Zhao Guang and I will hide this place.」

Zhang Sanfeng rose with difficulty and gave a wry smile.

「I will not again interfere with the Priest’s path.」

Yi-gang let out a hollow laugh and then collapsed.

His vision went black.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep