Chapter 4

Once there was no need to eat or drink, it seemed one really could sleep forever.

Sometimes I woke, ignored the Demon Emperor, turned over, and went back to sleep.

The more I slept, the wearier I became. And the wearier I was, why would I not sleep?

By the time even sleeping had exhausted me, he gave in. “I’ll send you out. Whether you free me afterward is up to you.”

“Someone like you will give me an answer if you ever manage to return.”

Someone like me? Someone so good at sleeping?

He really did teach me a way for mortals to cultivate. I could not follow the immortal path, he said. But after spending so long beside him beneath the Well of Gods and Demons, my body was already half demonic.

“This art is called the Blood Sea Reincarnation Art. Gather enough blood energy, baleful energy, death energy, resentment, killing intent, anger, and evil from the mortal world. Once they blend together, you can control that half-demon body. Though you began as a mortal, you will be something like an innate demon such as myself.”

To send me out of the well, he would use my mortal nature to deceive the seal and create one precarious chance of escape.

If I failed to seize it, I would truly be trapped here with him until the seas dried up and the rocks crumbled.

But passing through the well meant forever abandoning the mortal part of myself. I would become half demon, with no place in heaven.

Before leaving by the method he had taught me, I told him, “I will return.”

“If I never come back, consider me dead.”

He snorted. “Couldn’t you just be a treacherous mortal breaking her word?”

I did not answer.

“Don’t take too long.”

Perhaps it really would take a long time. Perhaps I would never be able to return.

But I could only try.

Beyond the swirling demonic miasma and terrible wailing lay a battlefield strewn with corpses.

It was dusk. Crows pecking at the dead made it especially chilling.

Even after the Well of Gods and Demons, this was my first sight of so many dead bodies. The heavy stench of blood and rotting flesh filled my nose, yet I felt no nausea.

Instead, my spirits lifted.

Death energy, resentment, baleful energy, killing intent—were they not everywhere?

Before accepting them, I hesitated.

There had to be a reason demons were called demons.

If I completed all seven levels of the Blood Sea Reincarnation Art, would I still be lucid?

And would an art taught by the Demon Emperor leave me under his control?

Suddenly, something stirred in my mind.

I turned and saw a crow on the battlefield.

The instant it met my gaze, it froze. Strangely, I could understand what it meant.

“High Goddess… has this humble spirit done something wrong?”

I shook my head. “Why do you call me High Goddess?” Was it because of my half-demon body?

The crow stared, then said, “Celestial energy shines so clearly around you. And our clan’s ancestral temple enshrines your portrait. How could I fail to recognize you?”

I finally understood. The celestial aura came from this cloud robe of the Heavenly River, which Cangxuan had made for me. When they threw me into the well, they had hardly bothered to strip me. As for ‘my’ statue, it was probably the Azure Empress of old, whom the Demon Emperor said resembled me.

I was lost, with nowhere to go.

Then an idea came to me.

I wanted to see what the spirit clans thought of the Azure Empress who had brought me to this.