Demon Merin watches Gu Silan being carried away—expression unreadable, gaze quiet but sharp.
A moment later, a fragment of his consciousness detaches from his soul, forming a subtle, invisible projection. It slips after her—silent, undetectable—ensuring she will not vanish from his observation.
Only then does he move.
---
After completing his breakthrough to the Saint Realm, Merin returns to the ridge—the same place where the Black Yalong once slept.
Breaking through does not make him untouchable.
Not here.
Not in the Battlefield Realm.
This place is a war scar across reality, where countless geniuses once fought and fell. Saints walk here. Great Saints sleep here. Saint Kings have bled here.
And no one knows when the realm will fully open to the outside world.
For now, a Saint Realm body grants power.
But not safety.
"There are Saints stronger than me," he murmurs. "And they can join forces."
Especially because he is a demon.
Humans, beasts, yao, spirits—they all fear demons.
And anything feared is hunted.
So he sinks deeper into the ridge.
Not running.
Strategically disappearing.
He moves toward the sealed cave that the Black Yalong once blocked.
Inside, the air is stagnant—old, untouched for centuries.
But something pulses in the darkness.
Life force.
Not natural life.
Manufactured.
Taboo Blood Puppets.
Six of them.
Once meant to stand at the Great Saint Realm's strength.
Now decayed—unmaintained for thousands of years—barely functioning.
They move when they sense him.
They attack.
He destroys them effortlessly.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
Just cold, precise efficiency.
When they collapse, silence settles again.
Behind where they stood, glyphs faintly glowed beneath layers of dust and decay.
A space transfer array.
Ancient.
Damaged.
Dormant.
Merin studies it, expression composed.
Space arrays are delicate structures—part art, part law, part intention. Most would lack the skill to repair such a formation.
Merin, however, is a master of arrays.
And now, a Saint.
Rune by rune, he restores the array—repairing damaged channels, rebuilding energy pathways, replacing broken nodes with Saint-level runes crafted from his own Dao.
When it is complete, the formation hums to life—quiet at first, then deeper—like a heart awakening after ages of silence.
Light twists.
Space folds.
The array activates.
Merin steps through.
In an instant, he had arrived somewhere else.
A demi-plane.
The moment his feet touched its soil, a subtle yet overwhelming pressure settled over him—neither hostile nor suppressive, but vast.
Ancient.
Complete.
A Supreme Dao permeated this realm.
After careful calculation and deduction, Merin confirmed what instinct had already whispered:
This demi-plane was created by a Supreme.
The realisation had been unexpected—yet fortunate.
If he could comprehend the Dao lingering in this place, he could stabilise his foundation, deepen his Saint realm, and push his Dao toward the Budding Stage.
That alone could allow him to leap several levels beyond what ordinary Saints could ever hope to touch.
With that goal clear, he began searching for a suitable place of cultivation—somewhere the Supreme Dao was thickest and easiest to perceive.
Eventually, he found one:
A mountain where the Dao resonated like a heartbeat.
But it was occupied.
A sect stood upon it—the Spiritual Transformation Sect.
His first instinct was simple:
Destroy it.
Claim the mountain and cultivate.
But he stopped.
If this sect existed in a Supreme's personal plane, then their origin was likely tied to that Supreme. They may possess methods or restrictions able to kill trespassers—even Saints.
So he did not attack.
Instead, he withdrew and observed.
---
Not long after, he came across Gu Silan.
And she surprised him more than anything else in this plane.
Her very existence resonated with the Supreme Dao—more strongly than the sect, more strongly than the land.
She was not merely touched by it.
She was marked by it.
Chosen.
A future heir.
At first, Merin assumed she was some kind of protagonist—someone whom the plane itself nurtured.
But as he continued observing her miserable daily life—the abuse, humiliation, suffering—another possibility emerged.
And so he investigated.
Carefully.
Patiently.
Ruthlessly.
What he uncovered changed everything:
Her family was not her real family.*
Her suffering was engineered.*
The Spiritual Transformation Sect was orchestrating it all.*
They were not protecting her.
They were breaking her.
Shaping her.
Preparing her for something.
Something hidden and deliberate.
Something planned over many years.
---
This was no accident.
This was cultivation through cruelty.
A Supreme heir being raised in misery.
Why?
Who ordered it?
What were they waiting for?
The questions hooked Merin's curiosity deeper than any treasure could.
So he remained near her—not out of pity, nor kindness, but calculation.
And opportunity.
Through proximity to her, he could better comprehend the Supreme Dao she carried.
And should she awaken or ascend, he would witness it first.
He subtly nudged fate along the way:
* Influencing her collapsing will.
* Stirring her resentment.
* Guiding her despair to ripen.
And when the moment came, he manipulated the river current, steering her unconscious body toward the underground cavern—the perfect place for transformation.
There, he taught her the Resentment Battle Body—a seed meant to ignite her path.
Then he left behind a fragment of consciousness—quiet, hidden, patient—to observe how events unfolded and to unravel the Spiritual Transformation Sect's intentions.
Once Gu Silan vanished into the distance, Merin withdrew deeper into the demi-plane.
There, beneath the lingering will of a Supreme, he resumed his comprehension.
Even a sliver of understanding here was precious.
Comprehending only the faintest trace of the Supreme Dao, he began to perceive the laws composing this realm. There were many, far beyond the structure of mortal or Saint enlightenment. If one counted every layer and refinement, there were well over ten distinct Laws present.
But at the core, the framework of the Supreme Dao rested on three pillars:
Law of Transformation*
Law of Matter*
Law of Energy*
These formed the foundational structure upon which all other laws intertwined and evolved.
For Merin, two of them held priority above all:
Matter and Energy.
If he could deepen his mastery of these two, his Devouring Dao would evolve. The power of consumption, refinement, and assimilation would become exponentially greater.
Another motive lingered beneath his study:
He wanted to integrate the Abyss Supreme's Dao into his own.
Both Daos shared the same core principle—Devouring—but the foundations beneath them were built differently.
Demon Merin's Dao: Emotion + Five Elements + Space → fueling Devouring
Abyss Supreme's Dao: Space + Gravity + Time → fueling Devouring
Two paths.
Same root.
Different architecture.
If merged correctly, the result could birth an unprecedented Devouring Dao—one capable of swallowing laws, not merely power.
But there was a limitation.
This realm only carried the imprint and influence of one Supreme. Without the Abyss Supreme's inheritance present here, further merging would be incomplete.
To complete his Dao, he would eventually need to return to the Battlefield Realm—the only place with remnants of the Abyss Supreme's path.
For now, he continued meditating beneath the resonance of the Supreme Dao, absorbing every subtle impression he could.
---
Meanwhile, the separated consciousness he left with Gu Silan entered the Spiritual Transformation Sect alongside her.
She was assigned the lowest role:
Servant disciple.
Her life improved marginally—she was fed regularly, given shelter, and attacked less.
But the burdens remained heavy.
Endless chores.
Relentless work.
Little rest.
Almost no time to cultivate.
From the shadows, Demon Merin observed—and grew confused.
A chosen heir should have been nurtured, protected, and educated.
Instead, Gu Silan was being restricted, suppressed, and burdened.
This made no sense.
Her body was unmistakably the Spiritual Blood Saint Body—a physique that could advance simply by absorbing high-level resources.
She did not need years of training or comprehension.
She did not even need to learn techniques.
Her path should have been effortless—guided by the sect.
Instead, the sect deliberately made her weaker.
Blocked her growth.
Ignored her potential.
Forced hardship upon her.
It felt less like training—
And more like sabotage.
As though someone wanted her to never awaken, never ascend, or perhaps—
Never reach the position she was destined for.
But Merin found no immediate answers.
So he remained silent.
Watching.
Studying.
Waiting.
Gu Silan, under his subtle earlier guidance, had already completed the first layer of the Resentment Battle Body.
Now, she could sense the emotional intentions of those around her.
Hatred.
Envy.
Fear.
Malice.
This alone would reshape her path.
Demon Merin's consciousness blended into the background—never seen, never sensed.
Quietly, it analysed the cultivation techniques the sect provided to her—methods suspiciously mediocre and limiting—and continued following her every movement.
Until the truth revealed itself—
whether through her suffering,
Here is your continuation, rewritten to match tone, pacing, and continuity:
---
…or her *awakening.*
Merin observes everything from within the Dream Space—silent, calculating, patient.
The Spiritual Transformation Sect's hidden machinations.
Gu Silan's slow shift from broken victim to something growing sharp beneath the surface.
And the faint tremors of destiny surrounding her path.
Part of him wants to exit seclusion now.
To step into the demi-plane's world and directly comprehend the *Law of Transformation*, for that Law resonates perfectly with his evolving Dao. It is the missing thread—an element that could refine his devouring path toward perfection.
But he restrains himself.
Because his Demon Consciousness is already outside—walking the world, comprehending, acting, killing, and evolving.
To interfere now would disrupt the natural growth of that reflection.
His true plan is simple:
**When the Demon Consciousness reaches a bottleneck—
He will devour it.**
Assimilate its comprehension.
Claim its experience.
Steal its growth.
And merge everything back into himself.
Not now.
Not while growth is still free-flowing.
He closes his eyes again.
Inside the Dream Space, runes shift like galaxies.
Laws weave, overlap, and refine.
His Dao—once merely structured—now continues its natural evolution.
It has already reached the *Blooming Stage*.
The Devouring maw within his Dao grows more defined—less concept and more entity.
The Five Elements rotate in perfect balance.
Emotion Law pulses like a living heart.
Space Law anchors the framework, bending and stretching reality around it.
Every refinement pushes his Dao closer to a living construct.
Not just an understanding.
A *self-evolving system.*
And still—the transformation continues.
His breathing stabilises.
His true spirit burns with focus.
His voice is a whisper—not spoken aloud, but in the core of his being:
"Not yet."
His eyes—closed in meditation—glow faintly from within, as if reflecting the Dao taking shape.
"Not until the Demon Consciousness reaches its limit."
Until then—
He continues building.
Refining.
Perfecting.