Chapter Forty-Nine: The Demonic Arts of Nine Heavens and Ten Realms

“What lost demonic art? I have no idea what you’re talking about!” The words from the man before him made Ye Yun’s vigilance sharpen even further. He took a half step back, eyes fixed on the stranger, his hand gripping the hilt of the White Tiger Sword.

“Look how frightened you are! Still, it’s good to be cautious. If outsiders discovered you were cultivating that technique, who knows how many would try to seize it from you.” The man in blue, however, merely smiled as he spoke.

“You’re an outsider yourself!” Ye Yun replied coldly.

“If I wished to take it from you, do you think you could withstand me, the Demon Lord?” The blue-robed man seemed unimpressed. “Besides, I am but a lingering wisp of soul now. Even if I took your technique, I’d have no way to cultivate it.”

“I don’t understand your meaning. What exactly do you want?” Ye Yun remained on high alert.

“Since fate has brought us together, why not sit and chat with me for a while?” The blue-robed man chuckled. The scene around them shifted yet again, and the two found themselves in a pavilion on a small island in the heart of a lake. Before them stood a stone table and two bamboo stools, the fragrance of tea wafting in the air.

“Try my Immortal Heart Tea,” the blue-robed man gestured invitingly, then sat down, raising a cup of tea to his lips and taking a gentle sip.

“The tea is fragrant, but I can no longer taste its flavor…” He suddenly sighed with a look of wistfulness.

Ye Yun had no idea what his purpose was. Though he sat across from the man, he did not touch the tea, his guard still up.

“Such waste!” the blue-robed man muttered under his breath. “Immortal Heart Tea—few cultivators in the world ever get to taste it!”

“You asked me to stay just to keep you company over tea?” Ye Yun shrugged.

“Boy, being able to drink Immortal Heart Tea is a fortune earned over a lifetime of cultivation. Yet you don’t appreciate it?” The blue-robed man’s eyes widened.

Ye Yun merely shrugged again, leaving the man speechless. At length, he said, “You look to be about thirteen or fourteen years old. To reach the peak of Qi Refinement at your age is impressive. Your master must have told you about the different realms of cultivation, yes?”

“Refining Essence into Qi, Refining Qi into Spirit, Transformation of Spirit into Incarnation, Incarnation to Return to the Void, Return to the Void to Unity, Unity to Immortality—of course my master taught me,” Ye Yun replied.

“And what realm is your master at?” the blue-robed man inquired.

To his surprise, Ye Yun shook his head. “My master feared I’d become arrogant, so he never mentioned his own cultivation. However, I heard from a senior that my master has lived for at least seven hundred years.”

“Seven hundred years? It seems your master isn’t all that remarkable…” The blue-robed man curled his lip.

“A Nascent Soul cultivator can live at most about three hundred and fifty years. My master has lived over seven hundred. How is that not impressive?” Ye Yun protested. In his heart, his master was always the most formidable of all.

“Tch, you really are a country bumpkin. When a cultivator breaks through Nascent Soul and reaches the Spirit Transformation stage, their lifespan doubles—to seven hundred years. If your master has lived a little over seven hundred, he’s only a bit better than someone at Spirit Transformation.”

At this, the blue-robed man, who had been disdainful of Ye Yun’s ancestor, suddenly furrowed his brow and said in a low voice, “But in a backwater like this, where spiritual energy is so scarce, reaching your master’s level is indeed a sign of remarkable talent.”

The young Ye Yun did not quite understand the implication of these words, but he could hear the respect in the man’s tone.

“Enough talk. I won’t beat around the bush. I was once a cultivator in the Great Thousand World, known as the Lord of Limitless Evil. Beset by three thousand experts, I could not overcome them all and perished. After my death, a sliver of my soul entered the Limitless Divine Eye, traversing countless barriers of time and space, arriving in the world you now inhabit.”

The man in blue began to recount his origins. “Because I am but a remnant soul, I cannot wield the Limitless Divine Eye to use any techniques. At first, I was forced to merge with a black ape demon. If not for your arrival, I might never have found an heir.”

“What is the Great Thousand World?” Ye Yun asked curiously.

“The universe is filled with countless overlapping worlds, each with its own name. But the Great Thousand World—there is only one. It is the true gathering place of the strong!” the man explained patiently.

“I've read that our world is called the Four Extremes World,” Ye Yun said.

“Four Extremes World? I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before…” The blue-robed man pondered for a moment but could recall nothing specific, only that the name sounded familiar.

He did not dwell on this, quickly dismissing the thought. Gazing intently at Ye Yun, he continued, “My remnant soul cannot last much longer. I must find a successor to carry on the legacy of the Limitless Demon Palace!”

“In the Great Thousand World, the Limitless Demon Palace’s heritage stretches back to ancient times. Its lineage was always passed down to a single successor in each generation, and I cannot let it end with me.”

A surge of emotion welled up in the Limitless Demon Lord’s heart. “The Demon Palace possessed two supreme treasures: one was the Limitless Divine Eye, the other the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Demonic Art. Sadly, in ancient times, a predecessor passed down only the Divine Eye before his death. Most of the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Demonic Art was lost, with only a few fragments remaining.”

From the Demon Lord’s words, Ye Yun could surmise that the vertical eye in the black ape’s brow must be this so-called Limitless Divine Eye. As for the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Demonic Art, Ye Yun was at a loss.

Just as he was puzzling over this, the Limitless Demon Lord fixed him with a burning gaze and said, enunciating each word, “The very technique you practice is the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Demonic Art!”

“How could that be?…” Ye Yun was stunned.

“Though the demonic art is lost, many records of it remain. You are at the peak of Qi Refinement—tell me, has a strand of primordial flame grown in your dantian? If my guess is correct, you are cultivating the Crimson Flame Chapter of the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Demonic Art!”

“Crimson Flame Demonic Art?…” Everything the man said matched the technique Ye Yun cultivated, leaving him at a loss for words.

“Haha! Perhaps this is fate’s arrangement, for my remnant soul to encounter you and extend the legacy of the Limitless Demon Palace!”

Seeing Ye Yun’s expression, the Demon Lord burst out laughing. “The Crimson Flame Chapter is the first section of the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Demonic Art, the very part that was lost. If you hadn’t started with Crimson Flame, you could never master the later chapters, even if you obtained them!”

“From this day forward, you are the ninth Palace Lord of the Limitless Demon Palace!”

PS: The competition on the new books chart is truly fierce! Brothers, please send more flowers. For this book, I want to see the most genuine results. Even though all the accounts I could gather might add up to four or five hundred flowers, and hiring someone to boost the numbers would only cost a couple of hundred, I haven’t done it myself. So the fate of this book’s success depends entirely on you, the readers! A new week has begun, brothers and sisters. The battle has already started!