Chapter 1: Young Master Jiang, Guilty of Countless Atrocities

Shengyuan Continent, Dongzhou.

Qianyuan Empire, Qianyuan City.

The city was bustling with prosperity, and streams of pedestrians passed through its streets without end.

Inside a crowded inn filled with diners, cries of shock kept erupting one after another.

“Hey, have you heard? A huge event happened in the empire today!”

The speaker was a burly man with a rugged face and a thick beard, his expression full of smug pride.

A diner beside him looked lost, but he could not suppress his curiosity and asked, “May I ask, brother, what exactly happened?”

That was precisely the question the burly man had been waiting for.

Only after he saw that the attention of everyone around him had been drawn over did he finally say, in a slow and measured tone,

“The Xuanyuan Sect is gone!”

Everyone froze.

It was as though they had heard something unbelievable, yet they did not dare trust their own ears, so they could only continue looking at the burly man in confusion.

The burly man repeated himself with extra emphasis, “The Xuanyuan Sect is gone! Early this morning, the entire sect was wiped out. Not a single person survived.”

“Is that true??”

“Who did it? Is the Xuanyuan Sect really gone??”

“That is far too shocking!”

“This cannot be a false rumor, can it?”

“Exactly. The Xuanyuan Sect may not have been a top force in Dongzhou, but it was not weak either! Besides, it did not seem to have any powerful enemies. How could it be destroyed in less than a day?”

“I do not believe it. This has to be some fake news from somewhere.”

The diners around them all voiced their doubts.

Although the Xuanyuan Sect was not a top-tier force in the Qianyuan Empire, it was by no means something others could casually crush.

How could it possibly have been exterminated in less than a day?

“It is true. It was destroyed by a demonic faction,” the burly man added.

In an instant, the surroundings fell eerily silent. All the noise from before vanished.

A demonic faction.

Those words lingered heavily in everyone’s mind.

That explained it.

If demonic forces were involved, then there was no room for doubt.

“May I ask... which demonic faction was it?”

Only after a long while did a weak voice timidly sound out.

The burly man grinned. “Who else? Jiang Xie and the Blood Demon Sect.”

A chorus of sharp breaths sounded at once.

“So it was Jiang Xie again! And the Blood Demon Sect too!”

“That Jiang Xie really is a great devil. As expected of the young master of the Jiang Family, one of the three great demonic powers of Dongzhou!”

“Practically every vile and merciless deed has his shadow behind it!”

“That wretch ought to be slain!”

...

Everyone in the inn loathed the name Jiang Xie to the bone.

They wished they could skin him alive and drink his blood.

Yet while the crowd was still arguing endlessly, the burly man had already vanished from the inn.

...

About fifteen minutes later.

At the borderlands of the Qianyuan Empire, on a remote path.

The burly man suddenly appeared there.

He raised a hand to his face and tore off a human-skin mask.

The bearded brute vanished just like that, leaving behind only the face of a middle-aged man with a scar running across it.

Not long after, a young man came into view.

At once, the middle-aged man’s face lit up with joy. He hurried forward, dropped to one knee, and said respectfully, “Young Master, the task is complete.”

“Is that so? Good.”

The young man’s voice was clear and magnetic.

Beneath the ferocious mask he wore was a handsome face, with sword-like brows, bright starry eyes, and long black hair tied high.

A few loose strands fell casually by his temples, and the corners of his lips always seemed to carry the faintest trace of a wicked smile.

Only... none of that could be seen at the moment, because he was wearing that savage mask.

Although his clothes were mostly black, their elegance could not be concealed.

Still, the skin he exposed was pale to an excessive degree, giving him a sickly air, and his temperament also carried a certain frailty.

He looked as though he were weak and chronically ill.

And in truth, that was exactly the case.

“Cough, cough.” Jiang Xie coughed lightly, and the sheet of paper he raised to his lips was stained with streaks of red.

The man beside him turned deathly pale at once and hurriedly asked, “Young Master, you coughed up blood again??”

“It is nothing.” Jiang Xie waved a hand, signaling for him not to make too much of it.

The man’s face filled with worry.

He wanted to say something, but in the end he held it back.

He understood Jiang Xie’s temper.

He looked frail, but in truth he was forceful to the core.

Looking at the bloodstained paper in his hand, Jiang Xie could only sigh inwardly.

As someone who had transmigrated here thirteen years ago, only heaven knew how he had survived these thirteen years.

In his previous life, one of his roommates had used a high-power electrical appliance in the dormitory, directly causing a short circuit in the power supply.

Then a fire broke out just like that.

It had happened so suddenly that no one had time to react.

And then...

That was how he died.

As for the others, he had no idea, but he himself had most certainly died for real.

Perhaps he had simply been lucky, and Meng Po had forgotten to make him drink the Soup of Forgetfulness before reincarnation.

That was why he still retained the memories of his previous life even while he had still been in his mother’s womb in this world.

He wondered what had become of those ill-fated roommates of his.

Had they been reincarnated too?

Or had they gone on to paradise?

A trace of reminiscence appeared in Jiang Xie’s eyes.

If he had been given another chance, he would definitely have reported that roommate of his first.

And then he would have warned everyone else never to use high-power electrical appliances in the dormitory!!

It was far too easy to get yourself killed that way!

...

After that...

Jiang Xie began a completely different life.

Born into a demonic clan?

That was no problem.

The distinction between the demonic path and the righteous path meant nothing to him.

Following his own heart was enough.

No system?

That was no problem either.

His father was a giant among the demonic powers of Dongzhou, and his family was one of the three supreme demonic forces of Dongzhou.

Hardly anyone dared provoke them.

As long as he did not recklessly court death and stayed in the family cultivating properly, sooner or later he would reach the pinnacle of life.

But... When he later learned that he had no talent for cultivation, he truly could not bear it.

He remembered only that he had cried miserably at the time.

Fortunately, when he was little, he had won over his parents with a mind far beyond his years.

Otherwise, just the fact that he could not cultivate might already have been enough for them to abandon him.

Fortunately as well, he had thoroughly subdued his own exceptionally gifted younger brother, who admired him greatly.

And even more fortunately, although he had no system, no mysterious old mentor, no dead parents, and none of the other bizarre things one might expect, there was a miraculous palace inside his mind.

There was also a treasured sword he had picked up by chance when he was young.

That was what had filled him with hope for this world once more.

The palace in his mind was enormous, yet what it contained was simple: only twelve statues.

Twelve human-shaped statues.

And it was precisely this palace that gave him, a person with no cultivation talent, enough confidence.

“Do you see them? The people from the Blood Demon Sect are almost here.”

Jiang Xie’s gaze locked onto a certain direction.

From there, sounds had already begun to drift over.

The man beside him immediately turned his head to look and, sure enough, saw a large group hurrying along the road.

They wore robes of black and crimson, and behind them were several prison carts, inside which many people were being held.

“Young Master, what important matter has brought us here today?”

“Nothing major.” Jiang Xie’s eyes suddenly brightened, and he smiled.

“This time, I am here to claim someone.”

“Someone?” The man did not understand, but Jiang Xie said nothing more.

After waiting for a while, the man finally seemed unable to hold back any longer and asked, “Young Master, there is something I do not understand.”

“Speak.”

“I do not understand this, Young Master. Those things clearly were not done by you, so why do you still order me to go around spreading that they were?”

He truly could not understand it.

In his eyes, not only had Jiang Xie never done those things, he had often even done kind deeds and helped others.

But now, probably the entire Shengyuan Continent knew that Jiang Xie was a great devil, and that his shadow was behind every wicked deed imaginable.

Of course, Jiang Xie had indeed killed people before, though most of the time he had ordered his subordinates to do it.

But those people had all been genuinely vicious and unforgivable villains.

...

Jiang Xie seemed to have expected that question long ago.

So he merely smiled faintly and said, “Sometimes a rumor can also serve as a protective talisman. As one of the demonic forces, I do not care how the righteous path sees me. What matters is how the demonic path sees me.”

“Besides, when I am outside, I never show my real face. They only know that the Jiang Family’s young master is steeped in evil, but they do not know what the Jiang Family’s young master actually looks like.”

“The ‘Jiang Xie’ they speak of is one thing. I am another. Do you understand?”

The man seemed to understand something at last.

Looking at Jiang Xie, who was only thirteen years old, his heart immediately filled with boundless admiration.

That was right.

As a member of the demonic path, it would actually be inappropriate for Jiang Xie to act too upright.

It was better to build the image of a great devil.

That was both a form of protection and a way to make others fear him.

“All right, Old Wu, it is time to—”