Chapter 24: The Demon Sect Summit

The Northern Continent’s scenery was striking: a thousand miles of red maples, clouds drifting endlessly.
A crisp autumn breeze stirred, scattering withered leaves from treetops, spiraling to the ground.

Xuanyu Continent’s climate was peculiar.
The Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Continents followed spring, summer, autumn, and winter, respectively.
Central Continent split into seasonal zones and an eternal frost region.
Skilled cultivators, with flying treasures or cloud-riding, could traverse all seasons in days.

Zong Ji came from Central Continent’s icy wastes, stepped through Eastern Kingdom’s blazing summer, visited the seaside, and now arrived in the Northern Continent’s crimson autumn.

The air here was noticeably cooler.
After guiding the black cranes to a remote Northern spot, Zong Ji pulled out his spirit beast plaque, releasing the seven cranes one by one.

He hadn’t bonded them with a contract, merely stashing them temporarily in the plaque.

Zong Ji’s spirit beast plaque was lavish.
From the outside, it looked like fine jade, exuding high quality.
Inside, it was a paradise for spirit beasts.
But, lacking a beast to match his show-off vibe, this top-tier plaque sat unused, awaiting its destined occupant.

The freed cranes barely breathed, obediently clutching the black silk ribbons Zong Ji gave them.
They hurriedly carried the black-clad man skyward, eager to finish this job and return to Illusory Sea Flower City for a long nap.
Midway, Zong Ji received a message, redirecting him to the Northern Continent’s west.

Meanwhile, things were livelier elsewhere.

Deep in the endless desert, towering skeletal remains loomed, surrounded by countless venomous snakes and insects that dared not approach the bone pile.
This place was infamous, its skull-laden bones legendary, a dragon’s den in cultivators’ tales.

The Ten Thousand Demons Sect.

Founded by a demon clan ascendant, the sect was built over an underground river, solving the desert’s water scarcity.
It thrived, a blazing force.
Its name screamed menace, and its headquarters delivered—buried underground, carved from deep-sea ice stone, naturally cooling the desert with a chilling drip of water, reflecting eerie light.

Not only was the sect surrounded by venomous creatures, but its interior was a maze of traps—every three steps a mechanism, every five a snake pit.
Even Saint-tier justice warriors who ventured here often vanished, fertilizing the sands.

The sect had a new leader, and to celebrate, they hung a human-skin lantern at the gate.
(Wait, something’s off.)

The new leader was Yi Mo, son of Night Demon Venerable Yi Jue.
A prodigy, Yi Mo followed his father, masquerading as Sword Demon and his top disciple at Tai Shu Sect for decades, playing good cop, bad cop, deceiving all.
If Yi Jue hadn’t rushed to possess Jing Zhe and been exposed, their cover wouldn’t have broken so soon.

Night Demon Venerable despised his second disciple.
His Sword Demon persona was meant to spark human-demon conflict, but he was outsmarted by the “useless” Jing Zhe, forced to slink back to the Northern Continent with his son to regroup and resume his demon lord duties.

Opposing the Ten Thousand Demons Sect was Eternal Night Valley, nestled in a valley on the Northern Continent’s other side.
Though both were demon sects, Eternal Night Valley was the weaker sibling compared to the notorious Ten Thousand Demons.

The Northern demon clans were internally fractured, split into western and eastern factions.
The west belonged to the Ten Thousand Demons Sect, the east to Eternal Night Valley’s six city lords.
They kept the peace, coexisting without interference.
This was Zong Ji’s firsthand intel post-world fusion.

After the fusion, Xuanyu’s inhabitants, influenced by the Heavenly Dao, glossed over inconsistencies.
But merging two stories meant more factions, signaling a continental reshuffle.

The righteous had sect tournaments, pitting young and old to rank power.
Demons valued bloodlines, sorting themselves by lineage into a clear hierarchy.

Demons couldn’t do that.
Everyone’s a demon, so what?

Demons differed from humans with their red pupils and a penchant for volatile tempers and fights.

They could settle disputes with brawls, but their fights were brutally final.

The Carefree Journey’s overall strength lagged behind One Sword to Immortality.
Eternal Night Valley’s people were weaker but fiercely loyal.

The Ten Thousand Demons Sect, however, was full of traitors.
Perhaps because Night Demon Venerable played too many double agents, even posing as a righteous Sword Demon, his underlings included spies from righteous factions.

For instance, one of the Dark Hall’s thirteen guards held a protector role in the Ten Thousand Demons Sect, undetected by Yi Jue, highly trusted, and feeding the Dark Hall heaps of intel.

If the Ten Thousand Demons Sect and Eternal Night Valley clashed, demon tradition meant a fight to the death, wiping out the loser entirely.

But with Xuanyu’s murky situation and factions watching like hawks, if demons fought internally first, righteous humans waving justice flags—or the lurking demon clans—would swoop in for the spoils.

How could they stand that?

The six city lords rarely gathered but couldn’t sit idle.
Coincidentally, the Ten Thousand Demons Sect’s father-son duo had their righteous disguises exposed.
In talks, both sides agreed, each with ulterior motives, to hold a summit of demon sect leaders to discuss the demon clans’ future—unite against outsiders or close Northern gates for peaceful development.

The summit was set for a neutral city at the factions’ border, but a recent earthquake forced a change.
Night Demon Venerable graciously invited the six city lords to the Ten Thousand Demons Sect, showing sincerity.

The city lords weren’t scared.
All were peak ninth-tier or half-Saint; together, they could take on Night Demon Venerable.
So, the day before heading to the Northern Continent, Zong Ji got a last-minute message about the venue change and flew toward the desert.

By now, half the allotted time had passed.
The six city lords sat in the Ten Thousand Demons Sect’s hall, silent and tense.

Though underground, the hall had a skylight carved under a shadowed oasis hill, blocking all sunlight, fitting the demon sect’s grand, mysterious vibe.

Below was a massive “blood pool.”
A bridge led to a central throne.
The pool wasn’t blood but the underground river’s clear water, dyed deep red with twin-flower pigment to match the sect’s fierce aesthetic.

For a summit, sincerity was key.
Normally, the hall had one bone throne at its center.
Today, for the visiting demon leaders, nine were set out.

The nine bone thrones floated above the blood pool, facing each other.
The demon leaders sat, faces cold and grave.

“Everyone here?”

“One’s missing.”

Eternal Night Valley’s six city lords were flamboyant, their hair a rainbow—red, orange, yellow, cyan, blue, purple.
No green, for obvious reasons.
Each bore Eternal Night Valley’s signature tattoos, a glimpse enough to terrify.

But their looks were on point, spanning devilish, refined, cold, domineering, or suave—little wolf, little puppy, old dog vibes.

In contrast, the Ten Thousand Demons Sect was less flashy.
Night Demon Venerable embodied classic demon lord menace, clearly no saint.
Hearing the Dark Hall Master hadn’t arrived, his brow furrowed, his shadowed face darkening.

The six city lords had decent ties with the Dark Hall Master, but Night Demon Venerable had never met this reportedly unfathomable figure.

The Dark Hall’s rise was meteoric, stunningly swift.
In just seven or eight years, its wealth and intel network rivaled millennia-old factions, carving out a share among them.

The Dark Hall was an intelligence group.
Unlike the assassin group in The Carefree Journey, it was trickier, easily becoming a target if careless.

Fortunately, the Dark Hall played it safe, balancing delicately between factions to avoid united suppression.

“The Dark Hall Master’s not here yet?”

Night Demon Venerable disliked the Dark Hall.
No surprise—he had too many secrets.
No one with secrets wants another knowing them, so he subtly sowed discord to achieve his goal.

He wanted to oust the Dark Hall, ideally rallying others to crush it.

“The venue change was abrupt. Give it time.”

The six city lords spoke up, leaving Night Demon Venerable’s son, Yi Mo, speechless.
They had good ties with Zong Ji, often drinking and joking together.
Not backing him up would be wrong.

More crucially, it maintained the demon clans’ balance.

None of the city lords had reached Saint-tier, while Night Demon Venerable neared its peak.
They weren’t fools—if he took out the Dark Hall Master, Eternal Night Valley was next.
Better to keep the status quo, checking each other.

The thrones above the blood pool fell into scheming silence, the hall so quiet you could hear the underground river’s flow.

“He’s here.”

As the words landed, a dark-robed man in a crane cloak descended through the skylight on a black crane, silver ghost mask gleaming, exuding immense spiritual pressure.
His veils fluttered, as if sweeping away the hall’s scant light, plunging the Ten Thousand Demons Sect into darkness.

If not for the colors and setting, you’d think a sage was ascending on a white crane.

“Colleagues, I’m a tad late. Please forgive me.”

Arrogant. Too arrogant.
From entrance to opening line, he oozed a “come hit me” vibe.

Night Demon Venerable was livid.
This was his turf, yet this guy stole the show, infuriatingly so.