Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Can a god truly feel such passion?”

“What do you think…”

Cangyu, the War God whom all the gods look up to, spoke with a raspy voice. He hungrily caught my resisting hand and kissed my fingertips.

“Are you Xuanya, or Cangyu…”

Xuanya and Cangyu were born of the same essence. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if the man before me was the older or younger brother.

I had already slept with the younger brother in a daze; I couldn’t be so heartless as to mess with the older brother too.

“I’ve seen everything… between you and him.” He bit my fingertip in a vengeful manner.

My ears turned a deep, blood-red.

“Didn’t you say you liked me? Then why with him…”

Seeing my hesitation, Cangyu buried his head in the crook of my neck, sounding aggrieved. “If you don’t like this, then… I shall call Xuanya out.”

My face flushed a violent crimson in an instant, but Cangyu saw his opportunity and pinned me down beneath him.

“Be good. You need to reconstruct your immortal body, and Dual Cultivation is very helpful.”

I didn’t know how things had developed to this point.

It was just a case of sleeping with the wrong immortal, yet it had triggered such a strange plot.

I liked Cangyu, but I wasn’t worthy of him.

He was the greatest War God of the Heavenly Realm, while I was nothing more than a Peach Blossom Demon from the Ninth Heaven who couldn’t even face the light of day.

A thousand years ago, Cangyu fought a war against the Demon Realm.

He fell in battle, and his immortal body turned into this nine-foot-tall statue of the War God before me.

And I have guarded him for a thousand years.

His face looked as if it were carved by a chisel, cold and arrogant. His eyes were slightly closed, and his long hair was tied back with only a Pangu Wood Hairpin.

He sat leaning against the Boundary Stele between the Immortal Realm and the Demon Realm. A giant sword, as tall as he was, radiated an ancient and mysterious aura.

The only jarring thing was the massive hole in his chest.

Celestial butterflies drifted lazily through the cavity in his chest, proving that his heart was indeed empty.

That battle had been incredibly tragic, with half of the Immortals and Demons dead or wounded. The War God Cangyu had sacrificed his own Primordial Spirit Heart to utterly crush the Demon Race, but he suffered a backlash and fell here. For a thousand years, no one knew if he was alive or dead.

Immortal Lord Siming said his Soul Lamp had not gone out; he was merely in a long slumber.

That battle defined the spheres of influence for the Immortal Realm and the Demon Realm. The Demon Race slunk back to the lands below the Ninth Heaven, and for the past thousand years, the two races had not encroached upon each other.

The Empress of Heaven had sent many Celestial Maidens to guard the War God’s body, but they either longed for the mortal world or were lazy, spending those thousand years traveling the realm of men.

Now, I was the only one left to have him all to myself.

I secretly leaned against Cangyu’s body, my eyes crinkling into slits as I smiled.

I liked him, but no immortal knew this.

Likely, even Cangyu didn’t know.

My first meeting with Cangyu was when he descended to the mortal realm to suppress the Hundred-Demon Rebellion.

Back then, he wasn’t a War God yet; he was a rising Immortal.

That was the day I had just learned transformation. I was swept up in the Demon Tide of the Hundred-Demon King’s rebellion, tumbling pathetically toward the Laughing Corpse Mound.

Dark clouds piled up in the sky, staining half the horizon like spilled ink.

On the left, black clouds pressed down on the borders; on the right, a sliver of heavenly light remained.

On one side was the leader of the Monster Race, the Hundred-Demon King. Leading a hundred demons, he pointed his sword at the sky and questioned the high-and-mighty Cangyu:

“The Laughing Corpse Mound Sect has never opposed the Ninth Heaven. Why must the Immortal Lord drive us to extinction?”

I craned my neck, struggling to see the Immortal who stood with golden light at his back.

So that was Cangyu. He truly was beautiful.

As if looking down on this motley crew, Cangyu wasn’t even wearing armor. His dark immortal robes whipped in the wind, accentuating his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His golden eyes, which made even the sun pale in comparison, caused me to lose myself for a moment.

In his hand was the Demon-Hunting Sword that struck terror into the hearts of demons. Its gnarled hilt looked like a branch, with golden cracks running down from the grip. In his hair was a Pangu Wood Hairpin. I knew it was carved from the Pangu Axe Handle used by the Ancient God to open the heavens and earth. It was engraved with the flowing patterns of the Sun God Bird, a sacred relic of the Golden Crow Clan.
Cangyu lowered his eyes and pondered for a moment in the face of the Hundred-Demon King’s questioning.

At that very moment, the Hundred-Demon King launched a sudden assault. Countless waves of demon power, carrying a sharp, murderous intent, surged toward Cangyu’s face. The resulting explosion sent out a deafening shockwave.

The Hundred-Demon King’s accusations were not without merit. He claimed that Laughing Corpse Mound had always minded its own business and never offended the Ninth Heaven. He didn’t understand why the Ninth Heaven refused to let his people go, killing countless of his kin in recent years and refusing to even leave their demon cores behind-clearly denying them any chance of reincarnation.

Before the smoke from the explosion could dissipate, a golden light slashed down from the sky.

“To be born a demon is to be born in the wrong.”

Cangyu spoke with an air of indifference. The faces of the assembly of demons, led by the Hundred-Demon King, instantly turned pale.

To be born a demon was a mistake of origin, and a mistake was a mistake.

Who told you not to be born in the Ninth Heaven? Who told you to be born as a lowly demon beneath it?

Cangyu seemed to have grown weary of the encounter. He did not wait for the Hundred-Demon King and his followers to strike again.

He swung Leyao in a single strike. The Demon-Hunting Sword Strike caused countless demons and monsters to lose their souls, their demon cores rolling across the ground like marbles.

Wounded by Cangyu’s sword qi, the Hundred-Demon King collapsed. His Primordial Spirit was shattered. Before he died, he shrieked a curse at Cangyu:

“You dog of the Ninth Heaven!”

Perhaps accustomed to such curses, Cangyu ignored him, stepping nonchalantly over the Hundred-Demon King’s remains.

The demon army was routed, fleeing in a panicked frenzy.

At that time, I was greedy for those demon cores, so I busied myself following behind Cangyu to scavenge them.

My cultivation was insufficient; I was merely a spirit, far from reaching the threshold of immortality.

I stuffed the demon cores into my cheeks one by one, my eyes crinkling into slits from my smile.

Unexpectedly, while I was looking down and chasing after a Python Spirit’s Inner Core, I slammed right into Cangyu’s calf and fell flat on my rear.

Cangyu looked down and saw me, a tiny Peach Blossom Spirit, following at his heels to pick up the leftovers. His expression darkened.

I looked up at him, trembling with fear.

The pressure of his powerful cultivation forced me halfway back into my original form.

My first instinct was to flee.

I intended to turn my upper body into a tree and my lower body into human legs so I could run for my life.

To my horror, in my panic, I transformed backward. My legs turned into tree roots, pinning me firmly to the spot, rooted in place.

Meanwhile, my upper body had turned into a pretty, stark-naked woman.

“Am… am I pretty?” I forced an awkward, over-familiar smile.

He studied me with interest, his golden eyes reflecting a fawning little demon.

I stared back at him blankly. He lowered his gaze slightly, catching a glimpse of the spring scenery shimmering beneath my long hair.

“A honey trap from the Monster Race?”

He raised an eyebrow, looking as if he might scatter my ashes to the wind in the next second.

I shook all over under his gaze. In a panic, I tremblingly held the scavenged Inner Cores above my head with both hands.

“Great Lord! For you! They’re all for you! Just don’t kill me!”

To my surprise, Cangyu only looked me over playfully and laughed.

“Does the Monster Race truly have a beauty as stupid as you?”

I stared at him in a daze.

“You… you’re not going to kill me?”

“Are you… afraid of me?” he countered.

I cautiously watched his expression, carefully weighing my options before hesitatingly replying, “…No?”

“Then I won’t kill you either.”

He pinched a finger to cast a spell. In an instant, I was returned to my human form, now wearing a moon-white flowing immortal dress.

Seeing me still standing there like a statue, he looked back and flashed me a smile.

“Hey, Little Demon, keep up.”