Chapter 13: Against the World (Part 1)

Meanwhile, Zi Shou's struggles continued. Wherever the seventh prince went, chaos and destruction followed, blasts of spectral flames erupting alongside his disordered emotions and spreading disasters across the city. Overnight, the seventh prince of Yin became famous, not for his martial talent, but for his advanced level of demonic cultivation. It wasn't long before Zi Xian, king of Yin, dispatched his personal guard to capture his rogue son.

The relatives of the fallen nobles also went into action, with many personally leading the chase for the seventh prince. As all this played out, out of mortal sight, Taotie and Huan Yi watched the tragedy unfold. With loving care, the Gluttonous Primeval massaged her master's shoulders, all while cushioning his head between her massive breasts.

"Remember, Taotie, the four most powerful human emotions are love, hatred, confidence and fear. Individually, they carry the ability to bring out the best or worst in people. Anything that is good stems from these four, and all that is wrong is a byproduct of them as well.

Used well, those four can lead even the most feckless of nuisances to accomplish deeds that they never thought possible. Control them and humanity becomes your plaything." With the tone of a senior elder teaching his young disciple, Huan Yi said.

"The reason why I let myself get imprisoned, why I allowed my original body to get destroyed, why I led the Demon Realm into learning and using the Heaven Rejecting Formation, was all so I could be reborn with a body capable of mastering Fate, and Causality.

By cultivating those two to the peak, I would have become the sole master of all living things, monsters, demons, humans, immortals and gods alike. From there on, getting back to the source of creation and capturing that person would have been simplicity itself. But the ritual malfunctioned, so now I not only have to get back items that should already be in my possession, but before thinking about Fate and Causality, I must first cultivate Karma to the peak. I'm close anyway...so hopefully, I can get it done here." Huan Yi sighed at his predicament.

Indeed, the "Huan Yi" form was only the second version of the Demon Child. In times immemorial, the Demon Child had roamed the universe in another corporeal shape; one more complete and infinitely more powerful than the one he had now. However, there was one key difference:

Potential.

In his previous incarnation, not only was his bloodline not as powerful, but Huan Yi didn't have the potential to become the one and only master of Fate and Causality. But by refining his new body from the Heaven Rejecting Formation, and uniting the bloodlines of demons and gods, he managed the impossible, blessing himself with potential that put all the primordials combined to shame.

What a pity that the human Huan Yi this ritual revolved around possessed a soul so powerful that he accomplished the unlikely feat of messing with the Demon Child's reincarnation. The more he thought about it, the longer he looked at the black star dot in the middle of his left palm, the more annoyed Huan Yi became.

"Don't worry master. Taotie is here to relieve you of all your stress." Thankfully, Taotie was here. And as long as he had her by his side, Huan Yi could give up on all three other Perils without a second thought.

He couldn't let go of the other Primeval Tools, and with them would have no problem controlling the three other Perils. But in the hypothetical scenario where he couldn't guarantee their allegiance, Huan Yi didn't mind letting go of the remaining Perils.

The mere fact that they didn't appear as soon as he incarnated himself was enough to tell that they were different from Taotie.

They no longer revered him.

Yes. Feelings of reverence and adoration, not the Manuscript of Forbidden Secrets, were the reason why Taotie appeared alongside Huan Yi. From time immemorial, Taotie had been in love with her master, and once her prison seal loosened up thanks to the Heaven Rejecting Formation, despite the billions of years that had passed already, she didn't hesitate to chase and reunite with him.

He didn't have to use the Manuscript to summon her.

The other Perils, however, didn't even consider joining up with their lord. Qiongqi was convinced that he had abandoned them. Taowu believed that he wasn't strong enough to lead them, whereas Hundun, the strongest of the four, now saw himself as being superior to Huan Yi.

If not for his indestructible immortal body and immeasurable means, Huan Yi didn't doubt that Hundun would have attempted to murder him already. Until he got his hands on the four Primeval Tools, the Demon Child couldn't count on those three.

But as said before, that was all fine. It was fine if they joined, and okay if they didn't. At the end of it all, he would always be in control.

"Even when it sets society back, no one judges 'Good.' Yet all unite to condemn Evil? Why? What's so wrong with 'evil?' They blame me for all that is wrong in their lives but refuse to give me credit for all that goes right. Why such bias? What is 'good?' It doesn't even have a concrete incarnation, yet from gods to mortals, they all want to prop up it up, even when its ideals do not match the actions that they carry out.

Has 'good' ever enabled anyone to establish a country?

Has 'good' ever led to the conquest of a world?

Has 'good' ever been capable of leading a society to a golden age?

'Good' is a shackle meant to keep the weak enslaved.

Humans, demons, monsters, immortals or gods, it doesn't matter, in one way or another, all that they hold on to was obtained thanks to at least one 'evil deed'.

Yet, they hunt me down, they try to imprison me, to destroy or control me. The audacity…is quite frankly sickening. Because of them, from the moment I was born, I had no choice but to be the strongest. If I am not, I will either die or become someone's slave.

So, I have to grow. I have to spread my wings, to be relentless in my pursuit of supreme power. I…do not have a choice." Huan Yi whispered.

Huan Yi had but one dream, to make all lives across the three realms…acknowledge their dependence on evil. First, he'd make humans recognize that, to evolve the way they did, they needed the blessing of evil. Then it would be the turn of immortals and gods, followed by all the existence that hid in the cosmos.

Evil would rise!

Evil would reign!

And force all existence to confront the vanity of their beliefs!

Or would it?

As his thoughts went wild, Huan Yi couldn't help but think that entities unknown till now would later rise to oppose his ferocious actions. That at the end of it all, it would be like a contest of dicks, with the biggest dick deciding what course the world had to follow.

"Yes…maybe it's all about dicks," Huan Yi said, bursting into loud laughter. Taotie, who always saw her master as a calm and collected man, couldn't understand the root of that outburst, flinching at his diabolical laugh. Still, she never stopped rubbing his back, as if no amount of character change could lead her to betray her master.

That was love. At its truest and purest. The true manifestation of unrelenting affection. If Huan Yi noticed it, he made no comment in that regard, letting Taotie indulge her love for him.

"Master, now that Zi Shou has put himself at odds with all his protectors, isn't it time for you to make your move?" Convinced that Huan Yi didn't cause all this chaos just to agitate the Yin Dynasty, Taotie asked in a low and reluctant tone.

"You're correct," Huan Yi said, and as Taotie's face beamed, the demon child stretched his right hand out, causing Zi Shou's silver karmic thread to rise and attach itself to his middle finger.

Huan pulled on the thread, and alongside Taotie, vanished from the sky, crossing the void to appear in a dark alley. There, a squad of five men had Zi Shou cornered. And while across the younger generation of the Yin Dynasty, the seventh prince had no rival, each of those five men put him under extreme pressure, individually dwarfing him with their cultivation.

And how else could it be, when these five belonged to the Blazing Tiger Battalion, men trained from the cradle to become the protectors of the King of Yin.