The Demon Lord Qi Yan had been sealed for thirty thousand years. Now he was awake. His first order of business: find the enemy from all those years ago.
His enemy was hiding in Canglan Sword Sect. Qi Yan stormed in and killed the sect leader with one strike, only to freeze: the sect leader wasn't the one he was looking for.
His true enemy was a new disciple in his early twenties who looked a little foolish: Sikong Jin.
Qi Yan made a decision. He killed Sikong Jin's senior brother, peeled off his face, and, wearing it, set off with Sikong Jin.
He called him junior brother and took blows meant for him. At night, he watched him clutch an empty wine gourd and weep. "Senior Brother, once I've avenged our master, I'll go back to the sect and farm."
He smiled and answered, "All right." In his heart, he counted the days: How much longer until the demonic essence was fully mature?
Sikong Jin knew nothing. He didn't know his master's killer was sleeping next door, or that the man had been calling himself his senior brother for three months. All he knew was that his master was dead, his senior brother was still here, and he had to avenge his master, even if it meant facing the Palace of Ten Thousand Evils and braving a mountain of blades and a sea of flames.
But this journey of vengeance had never been laid out for him.
When Qi Yan was sealed thirty thousand years ago, a wisp of demonic essence escaped and slept beneath the Palace of Ten Thousand Evils for all that time. It had no body, and could only slowly grow by absorbing the aura of demonic essence. It was called Yuan. It was the one who led Qi Yan here after thirty thousand years, the one who made Qi Yan retrieve the complete demonic essence with his own hands, and the one waiting for the two of them to wound each other so badly that neither could fight back, before closing the net.
One went looking for him; the other raised him. Which one became whose bait along the way?
In this life, only one of them is destined to survive.
