Early the next morning.
Xu Xian stepped into the desolate and barren Unowned Lands.
The sky was a somber gray, with layers of clouds stacked like ink stains. Beneath his feet was a parched earth, riddled with cracks everywhere.
Not a single blade of grass grew there.
Looking out, scattered withered trees were sparsely distributed under the dark sky, like dying old men embarking on a lonely, final journey...
The cries of a few circling jackdaws echoed across the wilderness, their caws seemingly tugging at the soul.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
An inexplicable sense of desolation arose spontaneously.
Xu Xian walked through the landscape with hurried steps. Strangely enough, even though it was midday, not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate the clouds above. It was a peculiar sight.
If there was no sunlight, why was this land so desolate, dried and cracked like a shattered mirror?
As he delved deeper, the sky overhead grew even gloomier. Without him realizing it, the ground beneath his feet was gradually replaced by yellow sand.
A mournful wind howled, swirling sand until it filled his vision.
The world before him was no longer merely desolate; it was deathly silent, devoid of all vitality. He didn't see a single bird, insect, or even an ant.
Even the withered tree stumps had long since vanished.
The world was dark and heavy, the sound of the wind eternal in his ears. Xu Xian trekked aimlessly through the black desert, transitioning from flying to running on the ground.
Until finally.
He chose to walk slowly.
Although he had been traveling for less than a day, Xu Xian could clearly feel the difference.
Though it was the same world, the laws of heaven and earth here had quietly shifted.
Qi was sparse.
The Great Dao was barren.
This was his most direct perception. It felt as if an invisible shackle was constantly tightening, suppressing his cultivation and draining his spiritual energy.
With his cultivation at the soul transformation stage, attempting to maintain sword control flight was actually extremely taxing on his spiritual energy.
Though surprised, he had expected this.
His Seventh Senior Brother had explicitly told him that the Demon Abyss was different from the East Desolation, the North Sea, the Central Plains, or the Northern Borders. It was more like another world entirely, governed by completely different laws.
Even the demon race did not rely on qi for their cultivation.
Instead, they used min qi.
Also known as demon qi.
This energy only existed within the Demon Abyss and was derived from the min water...
This energy was cold and tyrannical, possessing a nature that devoured life.
The reason the land beneath his feet had become what it was today was because, in the past, when the demon race opened the gates of the Demon Abyss to expand outward, the land was corroded by the demon qi from within.
Thus, life withered, and it became a fertile ground where the demon race could thrive.
Later.
The demon race retreated back into the Demon Abyss and closed the Blazing Fortress. The demon qi no longer leaked out, but this land had not only lost the favor of the world's spiritual qi but also the nourishment of the demon qi. Consequently, it became a barren wasteland.
Plants and creatures from the Demon Abyss could not survive on it.
Similarly, the plants and creatures of Fanzhou could not take root here.
As a result.
This place became one of the few dead zones and forbidden areas for life in Fanzhou, much like the far north.
The Black Sand Sea.
The only difference was that.
The far north was a gift of nature.
While this dead zone was a creation of the demon race.
The demon race.
They originated in the Nether Pool.
They grew powerful in the Demon Abyss.
Born warlike, they had long been expanding their territory, constantly encroaching upon Fanzhou to turn it into their own domain.
Long ago, it wasn't just the human race that resisted them; even the demon race and spirits held great hostility toward them.
In particular, the spirit races born from mountain roots and water fortune hated them to the core.
In the past.
Before the Sword Ancestor conquered the Northern Borders, the entire region was a chaotic battlefield.
The four races fought in a free-for-all, vying for dominance; it was never peaceful.
However, because humans were weak back then, they often became the prey of the other three races.
Furthermore.
To the three races, even ordinary humans were seen as great tonics.
They were like medicinal ingredients.
Some of the larger families and powers among the three races had even kept ordinary humans in captivity within the Northern Borders.
To the demon race, humans could be used to refine elixirs. To the demon race of the abyss, human blood and qi could accelerate cultivation. To the spirit race, human essence could nourish one's foundation.
The fundamental conflict stemmed from this.
The law of the jungle was non-negotiable.
Many unearthed documents recorded that for a very long time before the human race dominated the Central Plains.
Humans had been suppressed by the three races, enslaved and slaughtered at will.
The reason why the human race was able to rise suddenly under such harsh conditions and eventually occupy the most fertile Central Plains of Fanzhou was largely due to their incredible reproductive capacity.
The demon race went without saying; for some rare bloodlines, a single descendant was hard to come by.
The demon race of the abyss took ten years to carry a child.
In that time.
Humans could have birthed multiple children.
The spirit race was even worse off; their numbers had always been small since ancient times, as the conditions for their birth were extremely demanding.
Of course.
There was another even more important point: unlike the three races, the human race did not rely on the inheritance of powerful bloodlines.
For the other races, if your parents were powerful, you might be powerful. If your parents were ordinary, you would be ordinary, and so would your descendants for generations.
Their legacy relied on bloodlines and genes.
But humans were different; human cultivation relied on spirit roots.
Even ordinary mortals could give birth to peerless geniuses.
Coupled with their large population base, over time, even under the hunting and captivity of the three races, they eventually caught up and surpassed them.
They occupied a corner of the continent and became the dominant power.
After the Wendao Sect emerged, the human race truly became the hegemon of all Fanzhou.
If the human race today were truly united, even the myriad demons of the North Sea would not be enough to block their path.
Unfortunately.
A human life lasts only a hundred years, and human nature is complex.
When weak, they progressed and retreated together, resisting powerful enemies. But once they became strong and the external threats vanished, internal strife began.
Dynastic struggles and millennial turnovers went without saying.
Battles for the Great Dao and ten-thousand-year fluctuations were everywhere.
Where did the so-called demonic cultivators come from?
They were a group of cultivators who took extreme measures, using the cultivation techniques of the demon race. Because they could not directly absorb the demon qi from the Demon Abyss, they found another way.
They used human blood, human souls, and human flesh as substitutes.
These were the original demonic cultivators.
Humans who practiced the techniques of the demon race were called demonic cultivators.
Later on, anyone who joined the Twelve Immortal Demon Caves, the thirty-six Heavenly Demon Gates, or the seventy-two Earthly Demon Grottoes was considered a demonic cultivator.
Anyone who committed evil in public or killed the innocent was also called a demonic cultivator.
In short...
In the Central Plains, if you weren't on my side and I killed you, you were a demonic cultivator.
The term had long since lost an accurate definition and was more about a difference in stance.
Furthermore.
Even within the Twelve Immortal Demon Caves, very few people practiced demonic arts anymore.
Mainly because the conditions didn't allow it.
In the words of the demonic cultivators, the current righteous path was too rampant.
They had long been beaten into seclusion.
Because they had no industries or territory, the Twelve Immortal Demon Caves could only wander through this dead zone, trading demon yin stones to earn money for spirit stones so they could practice righteous techniques just to make a living.
This was also one of the reasons why the Wendao Sect tacitly allowed them to trade with the demon race.
One had to leave people a path to survive.
If you blocked all the roads.
Even a rabbit would bite when cornered.
And the Twelve Immortal Demon Caves were no rabbits. If they truly went mad and disregarded everything, it would be the common people of the world who suffered.
Xu Xian trekked aimlessly, searching for the crimson hue within the dead zone that his senior brother had mentioned—the entrance to the Demon Abyss.
The Blazing Fortress.
Suddenly, he heard a commotion and spotted firelight through the gloom.
Carrying curiosity and a desire for knowledge, he slowly approached.
Besides the sound of the wind, other voices reached his ears.
"Let me go!"
"I am of the heavenly demon race, the goddess of the Crimson Demon Palace! If you touch me, your ten clans will be exterminated!"
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