Deadly cold enveloped Dark Demon City, one of the demon clans' primary defensive strongholds in the southern region of the Demon Realm. The city's buildings were made from the petrified bones of primordial beasts that had turned to stone over millions of years, emanating an overpowering stench of sulfur, ammonia, and dried blood. The sky above the city was never touched by sunlight; only two blood-red moons hung rigidly among the dark purple poisonous clouds.
Inside the magnificent yet terrifying main hall of Dark Demon Palace, a gigantic, muscular man with thick gray scales sat reclining on a throne carved from thousands of human and savage beast skulls. His blood-red eyes radiated an intensely murderous gleam, enough to crush an ordinary practitioner's spirit with a single piercing glance. He was Demon King Mo Zun, supreme ruler of the southern demon army who led the bloody invasion of the Tianyuan Continent.
"Kuang Sha is dead?" Mo Zun's voice boomed and trembled, making the thousands of demon soldiers kneeling along the main hall shake in mortal terror. "A senior Demon General in the Pure Soul Realm was slaughtered by a human boy from the mortal world who had only reached the Foundation Establishment Realm? What kind of joke are you bringing before me?!"
BOOOOM!
Mo Zun slammed his black iron staff, crowned with a demonic dragon's head, into the palace floor. A wave of pitch-black Qi laced with poisonous venom erupted violently in every direction, reducing more than a dozen enormous stone pillars in the hall to volcanic ash.
"Have mercy, Your Majesty, Demon King!" A subordinate commander knelt trembling, pressing his entire forehead against the cold stone floor. "According to the report from the frontline soldiers who escaped the massacre at the border, that mysterious young man possesses a unique purple-gold energy aura. His attacks are completely beyond reason; he was able to turn General Kuang Sha's sulfuric flame technique back on him and cleave through thousands of our Blood Demon soldiers with a single sword strike!"
Mo Zun narrowed his eyes, which blazed red like a furnace. His fingers, tipped with sharp horns, tapped rhythmically against the skull throne's armrest. "Purple-gold energy... Turning an attack back with immortal power... Could it be... that legendary Bloodline of the Ancient God-Demon Emperor has awakened once more in the mortal world?"
Before Mo Zun's commanders and subordinates could answer or even process the king's speculation, the enormous iron gates of Dark Demon Palace—three meters thick and covered in high-grade protective spells—suddenly exploded into shards of razor-sharp metal!
BOOOOM!
The deafening explosion echoed through the palace, splitting the silence. Hysterical screams and agonized roars from hundreds of the palace's elite guards rang out in unison beyond the hall. The scorching stench of fresh blood mixed with poison spread rapidly into the room. Through the towering black smoke and dust from the explosion, a young man strolled in across the wreckage of the gates.
His black robe, traced with gold, fluttered elegantly in the poisonous wind, while the God-Demon Sword in his right hand dripped with the thick black blood of the demon soldiers he had just sent to the afterlife. His footsteps were steady and measured, carrying a spiritual pressure that made the air around the hall feel even more frozen.
"You don't need to trouble yourself guessing who I am, Mo Zun," Xiao Chen's voice rang out coldly, cutting through the hall's silence and overpowering the demons' fearful echoes.
Mo Zun rose from his skull throne. The aura of his Peak Pure Soul Realm cultivation exploded like an erupting volcano, pressing down on everything in the room until the stone floor cracked and collapsed. Yet Xiao Chen, now at the Foundation Establishment, Fourth Level, stood firm with his gaze straight ahead, utterly unaffected and unburdened by the wave of murderous aura.
"Mortal brat..." Mo Zun sneered viciously, revealing rows of long, dagger-sharp fangs. "You truly have extraordinary courage, stepping into my palace alone without bringing a single soldier. Do you think that just because you managed to kill a worm like Kuang Sha through sheer luck, you can act so insolently and disrespectfully before me?"
Xiao Chen slowly raised his God-Demon Sword, directing its quivering, bloodthirsty tip straight at Mo Zun's chest. A purple-gold glow began to envelop his body, forming the vague shadow of a four-winged Ancient Emperor behind him.
"I didn't come to this foul-smelling place to test my courage against a monster," Xiao Chen said flatly, his golden irises flashing with absolute, unshakable dominion. "I came to take the Demon Energy Core you've hidden beneath your palace, fulfill my mother's fate, and make you kneel and beg for mercy before your True Lord!"
"You ignorant little brat, die here!" Mo Zun roared in overflowing fury.
With a single swing of his enormous iron staff, Mo Zun shot across the hall through the air, carrying a wave of dark flames so dense they burned through dimensional space, ready to crush Xiao Chen and reduce him to immortal dust! The decisive battle that would determine the fate of the Demon Realm had officially begun!