Qingqiu

Two Mad Princesses Shen Shuangci

Jiang Wanyin, The Sect’s Little Junior Sister Just Won’t Let Her Out: Extra, The Demon Emperor’s Realm

Heavenly Court. Lingxiao Hall. Late at night.

The scolding was over. Everyone had left. Fewer than three hundred surviving soldiers had been quartered in the most remote barracks in Heavenly Court. They hadn’t even been given decent healing pills. The elders had argued all day, but what they argued about was “who was responsible,” not “how to treat the wounded.”

Only Ling Jue remained in the main hall.

He sat on the jade throne. His golden pupils were unfocused. His Dao body was still crumbling. The cracks in his spiritual platform grew deeper by the day. The righteous Dao’s laws were like the dried mud crust of a riverbed, falling away in pieces.

The hall doors opened.

An old man walked in.

He wasn’t an elder. Ling Jue knew all the elders. He didn’t know this man.

He wore an utterly ordinary gray Daoist robe, without ornament or magical treasure. He carried a wine jug, took a sip, and burped.

But when he walked in, Ling Jue’s spiritual platform trembled.

Not from pressure. It was because this old man had no Dao resonance.

A cultivator who had lived for who knew how many years should have a spiritual platform deep within him piled high with Dao marks, laws, and innate Dao resonance. But this man had nothing at all.

Like a dry well. You couldn’t see the bottom, but you knew there was no water in it.

Ling Jue’s golden pupils narrowed.

“Who are you?”

The old man sat down across from him and set the wine jug on the table.

“Supreme Elder,” he said.

Just those four words, spoken calmly, as if he were giving his name.

But Ling Jue’s spiritual platform exploded.

Heavenly Court had a Supreme Elder?

Yes. But he shouldn’t still be alive.

Heavenly Court had been founded a hundred thousand years ago. After the first patriarch ascended, he left behind the position of “Supreme Elder.” Legend had it that the position was reserved for those who cultivated to the realm of “the Dao that cannot be spoken.” They didn’t concern themselves with worldly affairs, wield no authority, and never showed themselves.

For a hundred thousand years, that position had remained empty.

Everyone thought it was just a legend.

But now this man was sitting in front of him, drinking and burping.

“You…” Ling Jue’s voice trembled.

“I secluded myself for eighty thousand years,” the Supreme Elder said. “When I came out, I heard you’d been blown to pieces by a demon.”

Ling Jue’s Dao body shuddered violently. It wasn’t from injury. It was shame.

The founder of Heavenly Court. A Dao heart honed for a hundred thousand years. Blown to pieces by a demon. And now even the Supreme Elder had emerged.

“That demon…” Ling Jue gritted his teeth.

“The Demon Emperor,” the Supreme Elder cut in.

He set down the wine jug. His gray eyes turned to Ling Jue.

There was no emotion in them.

“Xuanjizi,” he said. “The Demon Emperor’s true form is that of a Nine-Tailed Fox elder. When the Demon Court fell millions of years ago, he sealed the Demon Emperor’s origin inside his own spirit, and lived on as the Demon Emperor.”

“His realm…”

The Supreme Elder paused for a breath.

“You righteous cultivators call it ‘Tribulation Transcendence,’ ‘Great Ascension,’ or ‘Ascension.’ It’s all bullshit.”

“Those realms were made for people like you who follow the Heavenly Dao. The demon race doesn’t follow the Heavenly Dao. The demon race follows its own Dao.”

“Xuanjizi’s Dao has no name.”

“Because he reached a place where there was no path left. No Heavenly Dao. No demonic Dao, either. He made the path himself.”

“What do you call that?”

The Supreme Elder looked at Ling Jue.

“You call it… Burning the Dao.”

Ling Jue’s golden pupils trembled.

“Burning the Dao isn’t a realm,” the Supreme Elder said. “It means giving everything up.”

“Giving up your Dao body. Your spiritual platform. Your origin. Your life.”

“When someone reaches that place and looks back, they see nothing behind them. There’s nothing ahead, either. Nothing above, below, or to either side.”

“Then they say, ‘Fine. I might as well burn myself up.’”

“That’s Burning the Dao.”

“You had five Tribulation Transcendence cultivators, plus you, plus three thousand regular troops. Together, you couldn’t burn yourselves as fiercely as he did.”

A low growl rolled out of Ling Jue’s throat. It wasn’t anger. It was an uncontrollable tremor forced out from the deepest part of his spiritual platform.

Because he understood.

The Demon Emperor hadn’t won because “his realm was higher than yours.”

He’d won because he was ready to die, and you weren’t.

Righteous cultivators couldn’t let go.

They couldn’t let go of their Dao bodies, their spiritual platforms, hundreds or thousands of years of cultivation, immortality, or ascension.

Those things bound the Dao hearts of righteous cultivators, making sure you always held something back.

The Demon Emperor held nothing back.

He didn’t even hold on to his life.

One man. Millions of years of accumulated power. Burned away completely, then blown apart.

“What realm was he in?” The Supreme Elder repeated the question Ling Jue had just asked.

Then he smiled.

It wasn’t a mocking smile. It was the faint smile of someone who had seen too much.

“His realm was this: he dared to blow himself to pieces just to take you all with him.”

“Five Tribulation Transcendence cultivators. Heavenly Court’s elite. The foundation of the righteous path.”

“One man. He blew himself to pieces, and you were all crippled.”

“That was his realm.”

Ling Jue sat on the jade throne. The last glimmer in his golden pupils went out.

It wasn’t fear or anger.

It was despair.

Because at last, he understood.

Heavenly Court hadn’t lost to the Demon Emperor because it was weak.

It had lost because Heavenly Court’s Dao didn’t allow it to fight that way.

The righteous path cultivated survival. The Demon Emperor’s path was annihilation.

One side wanted to live. The other had given up on life entirely.

When the two collided, the side that wanted to live could never win.

Because the other side had no weaknesses.

The Supreme Elder stood and picked up his wine jug.

“You provoked someone you shouldn’t have,” he said.

“The Demon Emperor is gone. But he chose someone.”

“Jiang Wanyin.”

“Six dark-gold tails. A dark-red Daoist robe. The Three Purities Bell.”

“She’s at Mount Yingjie, establishing the Demon Court.”

The Supreme Elder walked to the hall doors and paused.

“I secluded myself for eighty thousand years. When I came out, even the Heavenly Dao of the Upper Realm was trembling.”

“Do you know why?”

Ling Jue didn’t answer.

“Because the laws of the Demon Court are growing again.”

“The Demon Emperor blew himself up, but his Dao didn’t vanish. Jiang Wanyin took it up.”

“Now the Heavenly Dao of the Upper Realm is afraid.”

The Supreme Elder left the hall. His gray Daoist robe disappeared into the night.

His voice drifted in from outside.

“You… can’t stop them.”

Lingxiao Hall. Late at night.

Ling Jue sat alone on the jade throne.

His golden pupils stared into the night sky beyond the hall.

Above Heavenly Court, for the first time in a hundred thousand years, dark-gold clouds had appeared.

It wasn’t demonic energy. It was the laws of the Demon Court growing.

From the direction of Mount Yingjie, across an unfathomably vast distance, dark-gold Dao patterns wove through the void, one strand after another, like roots, like veins.

They were growing toward Heavenly Court.

Deep within Ling Jue’s spiritual platform, the last trace of his righteous Dao heart shattered.

It wasn’t shattered by some external force. It shattered on its own.

Because he knew the Supreme Elder had told the truth.

Heavenly Court… couldn’t hold them back anymore.

[The Sect’s Little Junior Sister Just Won’t Let Her Out: Extra, The Demon Emperor’s Realm, End]

Theme: Yes