Chapter 14: The Supreme Heavenly Demon Banner, The Whole Family Gathered Together

“It is my fault…”
“Then die! Once you’re dead, I’ll just extract your soul and refine it into a little toy, bound to serve me for all eternity.”
Chen Yang interrupted the fat man with an icy sneer. With a wave of his hand, the Bone Demon drew forth the spinal dragons from all six Golden Core cultivators. Chen Yang spat a mouthful of demonic fire, fusing the six spines into a single eight-foot banner pole of white bone.
Xu the Fatty’s face flushed a deep crimson; he dared not utter a word. After a long silence, he finally muttered, “I still believe I have some use, Sect Master…”
“Then why are you still standing here? Get to work, unless you really want me to turn you into a plaything!”
“Y-yes… your servant takes his leave.”
Wiping cold sweat from his brow, Xu the Fatty stumbled away, half rolling, half crawling.
Chen Yang shook his head and sighed. If he truly weren’t so short on capable people, he would have already refined this fat fool into a trinket.
When Nangong Yan had fled in terror, Chen Yang had already planted a Shadow Demon Seed within him. No matter where he ran, he would never escape Chen Yang’s grasp.
Besides, since the Four Seas Trading Association sought to annihilate his entire sect, how could killing this single Nangong Yan suffice?
Naturally, one must repay violence in kind. He would have to wipe out their entire clan as well.
He fused the six Golden Core spines into the bone banner pole, extracted their spirits, and refined them into six Formless Demon Souls, binding them onto the soul banner. Then, mixing the blood essence of the ten thousand victims slain by Nangong Yan with cinnabar, he inscribed the Grand Curse of the Heavenly Demons.
With a slight shake, six streams of demonic light swept across the land. The heavenly demon’s enchanting melody echoed, and all disciples who had cultivated the Mighty Demon Divine Art began to dance uncontrollably, adding their own power to the banner’s magic.
The Bone Demon transformed into a bone-white bell and hung at the tip of the banner, while the Heavenly Demon Blood Blade was crushed in Chen Yang’s grasp, becoming a blood-red ribbon coiling around the banner pole.
His newly forged cauldron flew forth, its lid opening wide. A surge of primal energy swept the demon banner inside.
Chen Yang chanted a demonic incantation, forming seals with his fingers as he circled the cauldron in swift, urgent strides.
Demonic howls and roars surged, causing the cauldron to tremble violently…
…
Three days later, the cauldron soared into the sky, then inverted, suspended in midair. It spewed out a beam of demonic light that swept across the heavens, compelling the disciples of the Supreme Demon Sect to feel a maddening urge to slaughter themselves and leap into the light.
The Mighty Demon Divine Art advanced quickly—but it refined the practitioner’s own body into a demon, and without a true demonic lineage, the deeper one cultivated, the more their mind would become clouded.
With a cold snort, Chen Yang jolted those already preparing to kill themselves back to clarity. With a beckoning gesture, the demonic light descended, condensing into an eight-foot-tall banner.
This was the Supreme Heavenly Demon Banner, the greatest work of his demonic cultivation since coming to this world.
Though only a few months had passed, by indulging every dark desire and acting without restraint, his mastery of the demonic path had advanced by leaps and bounds—even surpassing all he had achieved in a hundred years on Mount Shu.
He shook the Supreme Heavenly Demon Banner, murmuring in the language of demons.

The blood-red curses inscribed on the Supreme Heavenly Demon Banner now gleamed with a wicked, seductive glow, radiating waves of scarlet light.
A force of demonic perception crossed space and time, descending upon Nangong Yan thousands of miles away.
At that moment, Nangong Yan was venting his humiliation with a beautiful female cultivator. Suddenly, his mind clouded and his body froze.
The woman, still writhing in pleasure, cried out, “My lord, please—love me harder!”
But Nangong Yan seemed entranced.
“I’ll be sure to please you,” he said, lips twisting into a strange, involuntary smile. His hands reached for the woman’s head; with a single wrench, blood sprayed, and her head came free, nestled in his arms.
“Of course I’ll cherish you. Don’t you agree?”
Clutching the head, Nangong Yan’s expression grew ever more bizarre and unfathomable.
Naked, cradling the beautiful head still frozen in ecstasy, he danced the Heavenly Demon’s dance and muttered in the tongue of demons.
He resonated from afar with Chen Yang, thousands of miles away.
A shaft of demonic light appeared out of thin air, manifesting as the ghostly image of a great banner, settling before Nangong Yan.
Grasping the spectral Supreme Heavenly Demon Banner, all traces of strangeness vanished from Nangong Yan. He seemed to return to himself, as if nothing had ever happened.
A few days later…
At the headquarters of the Four Seas Trading Association,
the upper echelons had all convened to discuss how to deal with the Supreme Demon Sect.
“Old Nangong called us here; why isn’t he here himself? It’s been hours already,”
grumbled the eldest among them, displeasure evident on his face.
“We’re not sure either—perhaps something delayed him. I’ve already sent someone to inquire. Please be patient, Elder Wu,”
another replied, a middle-aged scholar with the bearing of a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Elder Wu snorted and fell silent.
They waited a while longer. Suddenly, urgent footsteps echoed outside the hall.
A Golden Core cultivator stumbled in, bearing a wooden tray and looking terrified—he nearly tripped on the steps.
“Honored elders, a catastrophe has struck! The Nangong household… the entire Nangong household… every last one is dead, and the old ancestor… the old ancestor…”
He pulled back the red cloth on the tray, revealing a human skin lying silently atop it.
It was none other than the skin of Old Ancestor Nangong.
“What?!”

“This…”
“A divine cultivator?”
“A late-stage grandmaster?”
All thirteen Nascent Soul elders leapt to their feet in terror, staring at the skin on the tray.
It was lifelike, unblemished by any wound. The flattened face still bore an expression of utter disbelief, as if something wholly unimaginable had occurred in his final moments.
The middle-aged scholar strode forward with a sharp tone, “Are you certain everyone in the Nangong family is dead?”
“All dead, every last one,” the Golden Core cultivator replied, his face still stricken, as if haunted by the scene he had witnessed.
The scholar frowned, then turned to the others and said,
“Daoist Nangong’s power and divine arts were considerable. Unless a legendary Divine Transformation cultivator intervened, it would be impossible to slay him so silently. There’s something very strange here.”
Reminded by his words, the others returned to their senses and nodded in agreement,
“Indeed. Even a late-stage grandmaster would have caused a great commotion trying to kill Daoist Nangong. And there isn’t a mark on his body, yet his final expression is so inexplicable. There must be more to this.”
As they spoke, they dismissed the probability that a late-stage Nascent Soul grandmaster or Divine Transformation cultivator was responsible.
Divine Transformation needed no explanation—it was already the stuff of legend in this era.
Late-stage Nascent Soul grandmasters were already the most powerful beings in today’s cultivation world.
In the entire Baohua Continent, with tens of millions of cultivators and countless sects and factions, Nascent Soul cultivators were rare, numbering only in the hundreds; but among them, there were only five late-stage grandmasters.
Each of these five was renowned, their power and influence unrivaled. The Four Seas Trading Association, while a colossus to most, was nothing compared to these five.
Even if every one of them here joined forces, they would still be no match for a single late-stage grandmaster.
Late-stage Nascent Soul was the precursor to Divine Transformation. Though still Nascent Soul in name, their power had transformed utterly.
Moreover, a late-stage grandmaster could already refine world-shaking spiritual treasures.