The wind died.
On the Heavenly Sacrifice Platform, ashes still drifted lazily in the air.
Bai Lin stood rooted to the spot, chest heaving as though he had just broken the surface after drowning in the deep sea.
He could feel it—
his heart was no longer beating.
It was pulsing.
Every pulse carried the power to shatter bone and mountain stone,
yet it was restrained by some unseen law, prevented from fully erupting.
That law… was the Demon Emperor's heart now lodged inside him.
Bai Lin licked his cracked lips.
The taste of blood… had turned sweet.
No longer the rusty iron of human blood, but molten spiritual energy flowing as liquid through his veins.
He slowly clenched his fist.
With the slightest pressure—
the air itself twisted like cloth being wrung.
"This… is my power?"
He knew full well this was not something earned through cultivation.
It was the crimson-black heart inside him, now beating, now working.
The Demon Emperor's voice drifted lazily into his mind:
"Don't be naïve.
You're only borrowing scraps of what is mine."
Bai Lin's face turned cold. "What do you want?"
From the darkness came a half-smile:
"Your body."
Bai Lin fell silent.
The Demon Emperor's tone softened, almost coaxing:
"No need to be afraid. What I want is only… your completed form."
Then, in the next breath, the voice sharpened:
"But the half-finished thing you are right now had better leave—immediately."
Bai Lin's brow twitched.
The Demon Emperor spoke calmly:
"Did you really think no one noticed the anomaly on the sacrifice platform?"
…
Bai Lin's head snapped upward.
The night sky had been overcast, but now frantic spiritual winds screamed across it.
From the distant ridges, multiple figures in sect robes streaked toward him—patrolling disciples, their flying swords blazing with light that tore through the darkness.
Bai Lin's heart violently contracted.
—He could not be seen.
He had already died once.
Three hundred disciples had watched him turn to ash with their own eyes.
If anyone saw him standing here whole and unharmed,
the entire sect would descend upon him with everything they had.
A living sacrifice returned from the dead was a taboo far more terrifying than any demon.
The Demon Emperor drawled:
"You have about thirty breaths before they arrive."
Bai Lin forced himself to calm, inhaling deeply.
He scanned his surroundings. The edge of the platform ended in a sheer cliff.
Below his feet lay the ten-thousand-zhang abyss—a blackness that swallowed all light.
Jumping meant certain death.
Staying meant dying even faster.
He took two steps back, throat dry. "Jump? You want me to die a second time?"
The Demon Emperor chuckled low:
"If you don't jump, they'll tear you apart instead."
Bai Lin's throat tightened.
The Demon Emperor lowered his voice:
"Besides… do you still think you're 'human'?
After you died and came back, the heavens no longer recognize you."
Bai Lin gritted his teeth. "Meaning?"
The Demon Emperor spoke as casually as if discussing the weather:
"You can't die from falling."
Bai Lin's breathing stopped entirely.
"…I won't die?"
The Demon Emperor added lightly:
"Of course, it'll still hurt enough to make you wish you could."
Bai Lin cursed under his breath, backed up to the cliff's edge. The updraft from the abyss cut like knives.
He pressed a hand to his chest.
That crimson-black heart was beating in an unnatural rhythm.
Urging him.
Calling him.
Waiting for him to leap.
Bai Lin whispered, "Fine. Death it is."
He closed his eyes and let himself fall backward.
The world flipped upside down.
His body tumbled wildly through the screaming wind, the howl so sharp it felt like tearing silk.
No spiritual energy, no techniques—just a man thrown into a void.
Falling!
Falling still!
The abyss seemed infinite. He opened his eyes and saw only black.
Then—
BOOM!!!!
He smashed into something solid.
It felt like every bone in his body exploded a hundred times over.
Pain crashed over him in waves.
Bai Lin sucked in a ragged breath, convulsing.
"It hurts… hurts so much… I'm deformed…"
The Demon Emperor's voice floated lazily:
"Terminal velocity of three thousand feet per breath.
Not being pulverized into dust already counts as good luck."
Bai Lin roared through the pain: "You—!"
Demon Emperor: "Relax. You won't die. Your core is no longer a human heart."
Bai Lin took several shuddering breaths. The pain slowly ebbed.
He realized he was lying on a massive boulder,
surrounded by swirling black mist—this was a natural cavern at the very bottom of the abyss.
Not a single ray of sky reached here,
yet his eyes could see every crack, every stalactite—vision unnaturally sharp.
"My senses…?"
The Demon Emperor laughed softly:
"After rebirth, your senses will gradually 'tune' themselves to my level."
A chill ran down Bai Lin's spine.
He forced himself to sit up.
Suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed his chest.
"Ugh…"
He pulled open his robes.
Around the crimson-black heart, dark sigils were slowly emerging—like an upside-down black lotus blooming.
From within the sigils came a murmur.
Not the Demon Emperor's voice.
Something far older, far more distant—
a whisper that seemed to stretch from beyond the ancient heavens:
"Observation initiated…
Host located…
Marking pulse…"
Cold sweat drenched Bai Lin. "What the hell is this?!"
The Demon Emperor's voice suddenly dropped, grave:
"Quiet.
This does not belong to me."
Bai Lin froze. "Doesn't belong to you? Then who—"
The Demon Emperor cut in coldly:
"What you're seeing… is an Eye Beyond the Heavens."
Bai Lin's heart lurched.
"Eye Beyond the Heavens?" His voice shook. "The one that appeared when the sky tore open?!"
The Demon Emperor was silent for several breaths before answering with two words:
"…Only one."
Bai Lin's teeth chattered. "Only one…?"
The Demon Emperor continued:
"The eye you saw in the sky was merely the lowest tier.
The Eyes Beyond the Heavens are not a single entity—they are an 'observational rule'."
Bai Lin instinctively backed away. "Why are they watching me?"
The Demon Emperor answered plainly:
"Because you no longer belong 'inside' the world."
Bai Lin's breathing grew rapid. "I don't understand…"
The Demon Emperor's tone turned icy:
"You died once.
And after death… you returned."
Bai Lin's pupils trembled.
The Demon Emperor said:
"You are an existence that defies fate.
A glitch the world cannot permit—yet cannot erase."
Bai Lin's throat went dry. "So… the Eyes Beyond the Heavens are monitoring me?"
The Demon Emperor did not deny it. Instead, he asked lightly:
"Do you think your death was an accident?"
A chill crawled over Bai Lin's entire body. "You're saying—"
The Demon Emperor:
"From the moment you were born, a gaze has been fixed upon you.
Even your 'wasted veins'… may not have been natural."
Bai Lin felt as though an invisible hand had closed around his heart.
Suddenly—
Rapid, heavy footsteps echoed from the depths of the cavern.
Not human.
Each step dragged, ancient, as if something that had slumbered for millennia had just been roused.
Bai Lin instantly held his breath.
In the darkness, a pair of ghostly green eyes ignited.
The Demon Emperor's cold reminder:
"Bai Lin.
Your current body…
is the most delicious prey in existence to every living creature."
Bai Lin's pupils shrank.
The green eyes drew closer.
Each footfall shook dust from the walls.
A thick stench of blood flooded the air.
The Demon Emperor whispered:
"Your first awakening trial after rebirth…
has arrived."
Bai Lin inhaled deeply and stood.
The crimson-black heart in his chest beat faster, blood burning like fire.
From the darkness stepped a gigantic wolf covered in bone spikes,
its gaze locked dead on him.
Bai Lin swallowed hard. "You… you're not planning to help?"
The Demon Emperor chuckled:
"You won't die."
Bai Lin roared in fury:
"But when it bites me—IT'S STILL GONNA HURT LIKE HELL!!"
The monstrous wolf let out a earth-shaking roar and lunged!
Bai Lin clenched his teeth, fists tightening:
"Fine—
let's see just how strong
this half-finished body really is!!!"