Chapter 55: The Calamity of Man and Demon

“Master, why?”
Yang Xuan, already transformed into a demonic dragon, lay at Chen Yang's feet. Tears filled his dragon eyes, his heart full of confusion and pain.
Chen Yang sighed. “You are but a fragment of Yang Xuan’s shattered divine soul, created with a fabricated memory of my own making. Strictly speaking, you died long ago—this is merely your return to the origin.”
The demonic banner stirred without wind. In an instant, Yang Xuan’s soul was drawn out by its power, drifting toward the demon god within.
The demon god grinned wickedly, stretching out a claw to seize Yang Xuan’s soul, intent on devouring it.
Even at this final moment, the new Yang Xuan still could not believe it. Tears streaming from his soul, he cried out,
“Master.”
“Enough! No matter what, you did call me master.” Chen Yang sighed again; after all, he was not a heartless fiend, devoid of all humanity.
The demon god, thwarted, flew into a rage, his eyes upon Chen Yang now filled with murderous malice.
“And you dare rebel?” Chen Yang laughed coldly. With a flick of his finger, a blood lotus fell into the banner, instantly igniting in crimson flames that reduced the demon god to wails and howls.
After subduing the demon god and forcing him into submission, Chen Yang turned to Yang Xuan’s soul. Since this soul had been fused together with demonic magic, immediate reincarnation was impossible. For now, it could only remain within the banner, experiencing countless simulated lifetimes in the demon’s illusion. After a hundred or a thousand cycles, the true spirit might be reborn, ready to reincarnate.
Having dealt with these matters, Chen Yang began to reshape the demonic dragon’s form. Using the miraculous powers of the Celestial Primordial Water to harmonize all things, he reconstructed every imperfection in the dragon’s body. When the last of the sacred water was spent, the dragon’s appearance had been utterly transformed.
The dark magical markings faded from its scales, leaving behind a body of jet-black crystal, lustrous and beautiful.
The form was near perfection, yet the spirit was still lacking. After a moment’s thought, Chen Yang produced the Sea-Calming Pearl, which he had originally intended as a vessel for his second soul. He placed it within the dragon’s mouth, in place of the dragon pearl.
“Excellent, now the spirit is nearly complete.”
As the dragon’s whiskers floated, real water followed in their wake. Apart from its small size—no more than thirty or forty feet long—every other aspect was flawless.
Pleased with his own creation, Chen Yang was unconcerned by the dragon’s modest stature. When the time came, he could simply enlarge it a hundredfold with the water mirror technique.

In any case, these country bumpkin monsters had never seen a true dragon. With enough display and spectacle, there was no fear they would doubt the act.
Wielding the Mystic Water Control Banner, Chen Yang infused the power of the Blood River into the grand formation, setting up the Blood River Array. The two swords, Primordial Slayer and Formless, were hidden within the array, one overt and one concealed.
Chen Yang’s magical power was not especially high—a mere decade’s cultivation in his living body, inferior even to late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators of this world.
His ability to slaughter Transformation stage adversaries as easily as poultry came first from his profound cultivation, and second from his formidable spells.
He practiced only the most supreme Daoist and demonic arts, mastering the strengths of both Emei and Wutai, and his swordsmanship had reached the pinnacle of perfection.
Against such a cheater, no cultivator in this world could resist him one-on-one.
But that advantage vanished when beset by numbers. If they attacked together, bombarding him with powerful spells and treasures, he would be in dire straits.
If not for these constraints, why bother with such a scheme to lure the enemy? Why not simply storm the northern continent, sword in hand, and topple the demon stronghold in one fell swoop?
While Chen Yang set up his plans in the Crystal Palace, Zhong Shenxiu kept watch outside, pondering how to strike open the Eastern Sea’s Abyss with a single sword.
A few days later, Chen Yang completed his preparations and crushed a jade talisman. The Emperor of Great Tang, receiving the news, immediately set his own plans in motion.
As the saying goes, in a great forest, all sorts of birds reside.
Given the might of the demon race and the weakness of humanity, there were bound to be traitors among the humans—those who sought to preserve themselves by selling out their own kind.
Some of these traitors hid deep, others were already exposed. The Emperor used these self-deluded spies to leak word of the Eastern Sea Dragon Palace to the demon race.
Northern Continent.
The news that the Eastern Sea hid a Dragon Palace, and within it the remains of a true dragon, threw the demon race into uproar.
“The humans are devious. Who knows if this news is true or false? I say we should not act rashly.”
Gathered together, the demon lords deliberated. A burly man with a face of verdant green tore a child’s arm from its socket, chewing noisily as he spoke.
“If it’s false, so be it. But if it’s true, humanity already has a mysterious master on their side. Should they obtain the dragon’s remains, even if they cannot break the world’s limits with its blood as we can, just using it to refine corpses or treasures would spell our doom.”
A demon lord in scholar’s robes shook his head in dissent. Picking up a piece of heart, he ate with studied elegance.
“To stay idle is not an option, but to advance blindly is unwise. Let us instead feign a massive assault on the Eastern Continent and see whether, as the rumors claim, the mysterious master and Elder Ye have truly gone to the Dragon Palace.
If true, whether we seize the opportunity to break the continent’s defenses or make for the Dragon Palace, we shall be ready for all outcomes.”
Another demon lord, after some thought, offered this plan.
Such a well-balanced scheme won widespread approval, save for the scholar-demon, who shook his head.
“A direct attack on the Eastern Continent will not do. Even if we take it, there remain the Southern and Western Continents. Humanity, though wounded, would not be wholly defeated. If the dragon’s remains fall into their hands, we still face utter loss.”
“Still, the plan is sound—it only needs some refinement.”
When the scholar-demon, called Lord Azure Sky, finished outlining his revised scheme, the demons all voiced their admiration.
“Lord Azure Sky is truly the strategist of our kind—this plan is excellent.”

Compared to humans, who needed to build fleets and marshal troops to assail the demon lands, the sea had always been the domain of the demons. Most lesser beasts made their homes in the ocean.
As for land beasts? In humanity’s age of strength, no formidable demon beast could survive on their turf—they had long since been hunted and used as cultivation materials.
Though the demon race now ruled the north, it had only been six centuries—there were still few land-dwelling demon beasts.
Endless floods of demon beasts surged toward the Eastern Continent. With so many new reinforcements, the already besieged continent’s defenses were swiftly overwhelmed. Under the command of Nascent Soul demon lords, they began attacking the human strongholds along the shore.
From the very beginning, the war between humans and demons was plunged into its fiercest phase.
Countless demon beasts hurled themselves onto land, wave after wave, while the continent’s cultivators formed massive battle formations to hold them at bay.
Corpses, human and demon, soon piled in dense layers.
Rivers of blood flowed, staining hundreds of miles of coastline crimson.