Western Region of the Demon Plane. Under the dark red sky, undead and demons were locked in a bloody struggle.
Skeleton swordsmen clashed with demon warriors. Bone dragons and hellhounds tore at each other in the low sky. Liches' clouds exchanged volleys with demon warlocks' meteor showers.
Cassius—the Demon Lord who had ruled the Demon Plane's Western Region for millennia—knelt half-bent in the scorched ruins. One arm was severed. His dark golden scales were shattered, revealing a body riddled with elemental thunder damage.
He looked up. His dark red eyes reflected the distant battle and the figure standing above the demon corpses. A bitter smile crossed his face.
"I never imagined the Demon Plane would come to this."
Huo Yuhao stood with his hands behind his back, not a speck of dust on him.
"Never imagined? When you first started plundering life energy from other planes, you should have seen this day coming."
Cassius was briefly startled, then murmured, "I see. So you're here because one of our Lords attacked your plane."
Before his death, Baru had only managed to send a brief message: foreign invasion, Alba's betrayal. Then silence. As for who had come and why, Baru himself hadn't known, and his death had been too quick—naturally, the message was vague.
So even after being attacked on his home turf, Cassius was still in the dark about Huo Yuhao and his group's specific situation.
Huo Yuhao's words now gave him a general picture.
Alba must have attacked another plane, been suppressed and subjugated, and then led these humans back for a counterattack.
From this perspective, this calamity was entirely Alba's fault!
Alba: "..."
I'll sue you for defamation! It was Wu Liao's fault!
But for Cassius, the whys and wherefores ultimately didn't matter.
Cassius's expression gradually calmed. He continued, "As you said, we should have seen this day coming. But we don't regret it. The strong preying on the weak is the universal truth. Those planes we invaded—ultimately, they just weren't strong enough. If we encounter a stronger plane, like yours, aren't we now paying the price?"
Huo Yuhao raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on his philosophy. He only said, "You've been stalling for a while. Is your trump card ready? According to Alba, you were the first Demon Lord to establish contact with the Plane Lord. Surely you have more than this?"
"He told you even that?"
Cassius frowned. His remaining arm slowly pushed against the ground as he rose. From the scorched wound on his severed arm, a dark red light surged, spreading along the gaps in his scales like ancient patterns being lit one by one.
"Alba, that traitor, really spilled everything."
He lifted his head. His dark red eyes were no longer pretending to be clouded—replaced by a nearly fanatical fervor.
"Without you, I couldn't have done this. At my level, I could never truly touch the Plane Lord's power. But because of you outsiders, I've achieved it! With the plane's power backing me, your level is not beyond my reach!"
As his voice fell, a black pillar of light engulfed Cassius. His aura surged, ultimately reaching a level comparable to the divine.
Huo Yuhao narrowed his eyes. He showed no panic at Cassius's power increase, nor did he rush to attack. Instead, he studied the other with a thoughtful gaze.
"You... exploited the plane's selfish desires?"
Cassius, now fully healed and having broken through to the divine level, smiled at this.
"As expected of a deity, to see through my method so quickly. Yes, as you say, I exploited the plane's selfish desires."
Having broken through to the divine level gave him confidence, and perhaps a desire to share his success. Cassius spoke at length. "When my cultivation hit a bottleneck, I constantly pursued the divine level. But the Demon Plane has its limits—here, I could never break through."
"So I started researching methods to reach godhood in other planes. That's why I began researching how to plant seeds in other planes. But when I actually went to other planes, I discovered their limits were similar to the Demon Plane's. The divine level seems to be the ceiling for most planes. My plan failed."
"But during this process, I noticed something. Every time I brought back life energy from another plane, the Demon Plane grew excited. Like feeding a dog—once it tastes meat, it wags its tail, waiting for the next meal."
"That gave me a new idea. The Plane Lord currently has only instinct, no consciousness. But instinct can be trained. Give it good things repeatedly, and it develops a desire for more. Desire is the seed of consciousness. With desire, true intelligence isn't far off. So I thought of another plan—Spirit Nurturing!"
Cassius grew more animated, his eyes flickering with white light, radiating a near-fanatical pride.
"I couldn't become a god under a Plane Lord without consciousness. But what if it were a Plane Lord that could think and make deals? I give it life energy, it relaxes its suppression—that's a fair transaction, isn't it?"
"And how to make an instinct-only Plane Lord develop consciousness? Simple—use its desire. A dog is born only knowing hunger. Feed it once, it remembers. Feed it ten times, it starts anticipating. Instinct desire becomes. Tease it with a bone, and it learns to please, to wag its tail. Desire drives behavior."
"Using the Plane Lord's desire to gradually develop consciousness and behavior favorable to me—that's Spirit Nurturing."
Cassius paused, then continued, "After receiving life energy from other planes, the Plane Lord began actively cooperating with me to open planar passages. It doesn't know I'm using it—it only knows that cooperating gets it fed. That's its first step from instinct to desire."
"But relying on me alone to feed it was too slow. So I taught all the Demon Lords the method of 'plundering life energy from other planes.' Those fools, hearing they could grow stronger, rushed to do it. And the energy they plundered ultimately flowed back to the Demon Plane."
"So the Plane Lord tasted more and more sweetness, even granting us fortune's protection. That means it's developed preferences—starting to distinguish who's useful and who's not. That's not yet thinking, but it's the prelude to thought. Proof the plan was proceeding smoothly."
"But desire alone isn't enough. Desire can make it move, but not enough to wake it. It also needs fear. If a creature never fears, it will never truly think about how to survive."
Cassius looked up at Huo Yuhao, a cold smile on his face. "I should thank you for coming. You killed Lords, destroyed armies, crushed the plane's protection. It felt threat for the first time, felt the possibility of loss."
"Your existence made the Demon Plane experience fear for the first time. And I benefited from this—gaining its true trust and its power boost. Now, let me use this power to send you on your way, outsider!"
Before Cassius's words faded, two massive energy arms swung simultaneously. Dark red plane origin poured out like a raging tide, carrying the pressure of the entire world, crushing toward Huo Yuhao.
This single strike was enough to destroy cities.
Huo Yuhao watched this, smiled, and didn't even bother to dodge.
The two massive energy arms, carrying world-destroying power, crashed down—only to halt abruptly three feet from Huo Yuhao, as if hitting an invisible wall.
Cassius's eyes widened in disbelief.
How was this possible? His opponent's aura wasn't even at the divine level—he lacked the power from their earlier battle. How had he blocked this attack?
"Power truly is intoxicating, isn't it?"
Huo Yuhao's voice was soft, yet it reached Cassius clearly. "But you can't deny it was a beautiful dream, can you? Lord Cassius?"
"A dream?" Cassius's heart raced, a sense of unease creeping in.
Huo Yuhao didn't explain. He simply raised his right hand and snapped his fingers lightly.
Great Dream of Ten Thousand Ages, release!
Crack!
The scene before Cassius began to warp. The dark red plane origin collapsed like melting wax. The two massive energy arms shattered, dissolving into specks of light. Then, the surrounding ruins, the undead army, even Huo Yuhao himself began to shake violently, like a shattered mirror.
"No—"
Cassius tried to struggle, but found himself unable to exert any strength. His consciousness began to sink. Everything before him receded like an ebbing tide.
When the scene stabilized again, he froze.
He was still kneeling in the scorched ruins. One arm severed. His dark golden scales shattered, revealing a body riddled with elemental thunder damage.
No energy arms. No plane origin. No divine aura.
He was still the same gravely wounded Demon Lord, who had never stood up.
"When—when did you—" Cassius's voice was hoarse, filled with deep fear.
Huo Yuhao stood in the same spot, calmly observing him. "From the very start of the battle."
Did you think I'd give you a chance for a traditional villain comeback? Conversation works just as well in a dream.
"Your plan was indeed well-conceived. Without any interference, given the demons' long lifespans and your split-reproduction method, you would eventually succeed."
Huo Yuhao paused, his tone flat.
"But not today."
"The dream is over, Lord Cassius."
Cassius trembled—whether from fear or rage, it was unclear.
But Huo Yuhao paid him no further heed. Having obtained the information he wanted, he turned and walked out of the ruins.
Behind him, a wisp of gray mist drifted past, and Cassius's body silently dissolved, as if he'd never existed.
The surviving demons, seeing their Lord dead, either fought to the death and were slain by the undead, lost the will to resist and scattered, or knelt in surrender.
In short, Huo Yuhao had control of this front.
Meanwhile, in other regions, Snow Empress, Gu Yuena, and the others' operations were also proceeding smoothly.
Northern border, Frozen Throne.
Snow Empress stood atop a ten-thousand-zhang ice peak. Below, the entire demon fortress had been frozen into a crystalline ice sculpture. Tens of thousands of demon troops stood frozen mid-charge, their expressions lifelike, yet devoid of any life.
Eastern region, Molten Abyss.
Gu Yuena hovered above the lava lake, her silver hair flowing like a waterfall, surrounded by a faint silver radiance. The last Demon Lord had already been slain and devoured by her Silver Dragon Spear.
As for the force led by Alba and Yuanen Zhentian, they faced Wu Liao's territory. With Wu Liao dead and his strongest forces depleted in Alba's territory earlier and in the attack on the Douluo Continent over a decade ago, they were no match.
Thus, aside from Alba, who had submitted, all other Demon Lords were dead. Their territories were initially occupied by Huo Yuhao and his group.
Though scattered remnants and demons still resisted in various places, they were no longer a threat.
With the war largely settled, the group held a brief meeting via projection—only Snow Empress, Gu Yuena, Huo Yuhao, and Alba attended.
At the meeting, Alba offered his congratulations. "Congratulations, Master, on becoming the new ruler of the Demon Plane!"
"Wrong."
Huo Yuhao frowned and corrected him seriously. "The new ruler of the Demon Plane isn't me—it's my teacher."
Alba was taken aback. Only after hearing Huo Yuhao's plan involving the Holy Spirit Cult did he understand. He fell silent.
So the only reason he'd been kept alive was to serve as a showpiece for someone else? If not for that, would he have met the same end as the other Demon Lords?
It felt like his reason for surviving was rather arbitrary.
His life suddenly seemed to have lost all meaning.
But then Alba shook his head internally.
No, he couldn't think that way. He could look at it from another angle.
The demon race was far worse than the Holy Spirit Cult Huo Yuhao had mentioned. After all, demons reproduced entirely through division. Every demon alive today had never been an innocent child—none were blameless.
Demons were an innately evil race!
Even evil soul masters of the Holy Spirit Cult were on the Douluo Continent's kill list. If Huo Yuhao hadn't needed him and some demons as showpieces, when attacking the Demon Plane, he would probably have said something like "Innately evil demon race, I shall now eliminate you all with my own hands" and slaughtered them completely.
From that perspective, his reason for survival suddenly seemed much grander.
Because it gave the demon race a glimmer of hope for survival from the brink of total annihilation!
"Master, thank you for your plan!"
Huo Yuhao gave Alba a strange look. Seeing the demon's sincere expression, he had no idea what Alba was so moved about.
Just then, Gu Yuena asked, "Yuhao, we've initially occupied the Demon Plane. What's the next step?"
"Prepare to return. Alba can handle the remaining cleanup—he's a Demon Lord, after all, and better equipped than us." Huo Yuhao looked up at the dark red sky and narrowed his eyes slightly. "As for the Plane Lord... I'll deal with it later."
The original plan had been to settle it in one decisive battle—take the Demon Plane and then deal with the Plane Lord. But with the plan moved up, he currently lacked the strength to use the Undead Plane to devour the Demon Plane. He'd need to wait.
But he wasn't in a hurry.
According to Cassius, the Demon Plane's Plane Lord had already gained enhanced spirituality. Though it hadn't yet developed true intelligence, if faced with a life-or-death crisis, its will to resist would certainly be strong.
Moreover, as an "outer demon" who had eliminated all of the Plane Lord's "feeders," he was already reviled by it. Dealing with it would take considerable effort. He needed to be fully prepared.
***
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