Yang Yun really thought his luck couldn't get any worse.
Seriously!
Back then, when he was still a despised human-demon halfbreed, all he wanted was to survive. Then one day, that damn Demon Soul came knocking on his door, claiming it could help him rise to power.
Who could possibly refuse that?
And sure enough, with the Demon Soul's help, he did rise. He laid out his plans early, relying on the Demon Soul while secretly suppressing it. Everything had been going perfectly.
Until she appeared—Yun Jin.
She forced him into a corner, pushed him to the edge, and left him no choice but to fully cooperate with the Demon Soul. From that moment, he became nothing but its puppet.
These past few years had been hell for him, full of humiliation and torment. But finally, finally, he'd completed his last Nirvana.
The Nether Fire Phoenix looked like it would finally turn the tide for him.
Except—
It only looked powerful. He still couldn't beat Yun Jin. He couldn't destroy the Demon Soul. And after it took him through spatial teleportation back to the Demon Realm, that Fire Phoenix started running out of energy, half-dead before long.
A few days later, it completely dissipated.
When it vanished, it even glared at him with pure venom in its eyes.
Yang Yun was aggrieved too!
Was that his fault? How was he supposed to know the Fire Phoenix was that useless?!
And anyway, once another cultivator mastered the Nirvana Codex, the Phoenix would eventually be reborn. But what about him?
He was down to his last life!
Once the Fire Phoenix disappeared, the Demon Soul lost its suppressor. It had already forced him to absorb some of the Demon Clan's top elites, and now he had no place left in the Demon Realm. He was completely trapped, a puppet with nowhere to go.
And since he'd pissed the Demon Soul off so badly, it was constantly punishing him, tormenting him just to vent its rage.
After a few days of that, Yang Yun was already numb.
Only one thought filled his mind—When the hell was this nightmare going to end?!
As despair consumed him, the Demon Soul's cold voice echoed in his head.
"Now that Yun Jin leads the humans to invade the Demon Domain, this is our final chance."
Yang Yun didn't answer right away.
The Demon Soul immediately flared the demonic patterns across his body, biting into his flesh.
Grinding his teeth, he hissed in pain, "I got it, I got it!"
"When humans and demons clash, countless will die," the Demon Soul said coldly. "Forget quality, we'll take quantity. Wherever there's death, we'll go there to absorb spirit power. Once the battle ends, our strength will skyrocket. Then, when both sides are weakened, we'll devour them all—Yun Jin, Ji Wusi, everyone!"
The Demon Soul's voice dripped with venom.
Especially when it mentioned Yun Jin. Just thinking about that woman made its hatred boil. If not for her sudden interference, its plans in the Xuandan Region would've already succeeded. It wouldn't have to still be scheming in the shadows now!
Yun Jin's sword strike—though partially blocked by the Nether Fire Phoenix—had still hit them hard.
Now Yang Yun's current strength was barely that of a weak Mahayana cultivator. If he wanted to absorb spirit power, he had to do it secretly.
"Now, go find the human army and follow them in secret," the Demon Soul ordered coldly.
Yang Yun's tone turned desperate. "In our condition, if we get caught, we're dead!"
"Then what other choice do we have?" the Demon Soul snapped. "Absorb some low-level demons nearby first, recover a bit. After that, we'll have to target stronger ones. Otherwise, at your current pace, when will you ever open the spatial barrier?!"
That fragile hope dangling right in front of him—then shattering again—made Yang Yun want to scream.
The Demon Soul had once been calm. But after being given a glimpse of hope only to have it ripped away, even it was getting impatient.
When Yang Yun tried to speak again, the Demon Soul seized control of the demonic markings and tore at his body.
"I… I get it!" he gasped through clenched teeth.
The Demon Soul's attitude was growing crueler by the day. Yang Yun had no doubt that the moment he opened the spatial barrier would be the moment he died.
But what choice did he have? He had no power left to resist.
Dragging his wounded body, he staggered out of the cave.
First, he needed to absorb some lesser demons to heal himself.
Then, he'd sneak toward the battlefield.
The Demon Realm's hierarchy was strict. Low-level demons lived on the outer fringes, the mid-level races resided within the inner zones, and only the high-level ones occupied the core regions.
It was, in some ways, just like the Spirit Beast Forest.
—
The moment Yun Jin stepped into the Demon Domain, she felt her entire body recoil.
She looked up at the sky.
Hanging high above, a blood-red moon burned without ever setting. It was broad daylight outside, yet once inside the Demon Realm, the entire world turned dim and crimson. Under that eerie glow, demons thrived, feeling right at home.
Every other being, however, felt as if drenched in sticky blood. And that wasn't even the worst part.
Beneath the Blood Moon, their spiritual energy drained away little by little, even when unused. The demonic energy saturating this world could only be absorbed by demons. Everyone else had to rely on pills to replenish themselves.
The Blood Moon also slowly corroded the flesh. Stay too long, and even one's Nascent Soul and Primordial Spirit would be eaten away—death inevitable. That was why, even though the human race was stronger, they'd never truly invaded the Demon Realm before.
This time, they'd only dared because Yun Jin was leading.
It was her first time here too.
To prepare for this campaign, she made two plans.
The first was to address spiritual depletion. Thanks to many alchemists who'd mastered the Medicine Pill Codex, that issue was mostly solved. The real problem was the Blood Moon's corrosion.
If they couldn't neutralize that, her strategy was simple—rotate the troops. With the sheer number of beings participating, their army outnumbered the demons by dozens, maybe hundreds of times.
Once the corruption set in, the affected would retreat, and the next wave would step up.
For now, Yun Jin had only brought the first human division inside. The rest waited outside—the experts from the Boundless Sea and Nanlan Continent were still on standby.
As long as their numbers held, they could wear the demons down through sheer endurance.
To ensure mobility, Yun Jin had also brought An Tong along.
An Tong, the steward of Wushuang Sect's secret realm under Wan Dao Saint, could manipulate the space energy contained within the sect's realm. He'd already set up a teleportation array in their rest zone. Whenever they needed to rotate forces, he could build another on the spot.
Sure, constructing a teleportation array cost a ton of rare materials. But Yun Jin was rich—filthy rich—and she didn't care in the slightest. If wiping out the Demon Clan meant spending mountains of resources, she'd do it without hesitation.
That was one of her preparations.
The other was her simplified system.
If the system could analyze the Blood Moon's structure and find a countermeasure, they wouldn't have to rely on such cumbersome logistics. As soon as she stepped into the Demon Realm, Yun Jin glanced at the Blood Moon and gave a mental command.
"Analyze the Blood Moon."
Just one command.
And the system immediately demanded five billion Emotional Value points.
Yun Jin froze.
This Blood Moon…was clearly no simple thing.