I, a Demonic Nascent Soul Patriarch, Begin by Snatching a Cheat

Half a shichen later, night fell.

The entirety of Four Seas City had been reduced to ruins. Shattered walls and collapsed ramparts lay everywhere. Countless corpses sprawled across the wreckage, their blood frozen solid, interspersed with unidentifiable chunks of flesh—a grisly sight.

Above the ruins, a pair of cyan eyes, cold to the absolute extreme, looked down calmly over the entire island.

Where those cyan eyes manifested, Jiuyou’s figure slowly emerged.

A stray spatter of blood stained his face. Jiuyou lifted a finger, wiped it away, and brought it to his lips for a taste. The metallic tang spread across his tongue, and a mocking glint flashed in the depths of his eyes.

As if the massacre that had lasted over a full shichen, leaving not a single survivor, had been nothing but a game to him.

Tonight, the Heavenly Abyss Sea was destined to know no peace.

Jiuyou’s ”rent collection” was far from over.

Earlier, while walking through the city, he had pieced together the truth of those past events from the scattered words of others.

No sooner had the Blood Mist crisis settled than those people, learning his whereabouts were unknown, eagerly set their sights on his Soul Wraith Island.The most impatient of them all had been his own former allies: Black Fiend Island, the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect, and Spiritual Cliff Cave.

These three factions lay closest to Soul Wraith Island, making the division of spoils highly convenient. The ugly dwarf he had killed earlier was one of Spiritual Cliff Cave’s two Supreme Elders.

Taking advantage of his disappearance, they had massacred every last disciple on Soul Wraith Island, leaving not even its foundations. The three factions then joined forces and built this Four Seas City on the very land where his bones were supposedly not yet cold.

Jiuyou had no prior grievance with these people.

In fact, during the duel in Yi Feng Valley, under the dumbstruck gazes of numerous Nascent Soul cultivators, he had slain a Middle Nascent Soul Stage expert in a single strike. That might, that battle record—even his subsequent flight from the battlefield could not erase the great merit he had established.

Yet those people acted as if they had seen nothing.

They never spoke of his achievement in slaying an enemy with one blow, nor the blood he had shed for the Abyssal Sea allied forces. They seized only on the phrase ”fled before the battle,” made a massive fuss over it, repeated it endlessly, and nailed him to a pillar of shame.

Behind all that, the instigation of those three factions had been indispensable.

Now, Jiuyou—once the patriarch of Soul Wraith Island, now a Nascent Soul Late Stage Grand Cultivator—had returned.

He wanted to see just how long those faces could keep smiling.

He would make these ants learn that a Grand Cultivator’s dignity could not be insulted.

The night wind howled, carrying the bloody stench of Four Seas City thousands of li away. And riding upon that wind was the owner of those cyan eyes.

Spiritual Cliff Cave, a mid-sized faction in the Abyssal Sea, had originally been overseen by two Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators; now, only one remained.

The mountain gate was shut tight, the night wind bleak and cold.

”What in the world is going on?!”

A furious roar erupted from deep within the mountain gate.

Master Demon Wind shot to his feet, slamming a palm onto the stone table. The tabletop disintegrated into dust, scattering stone fragments in all directions.

He paced back and forth inside his cave dwelling, his face livid and a storm raging in his heart. His junior brother might have been inept, but he was still at the Nascent Soul Early Stage. For someone to kill him before he even had time to send a distress signal—the attacker had to be at least at the Middle Nascent Soul Stage.

Who could it be?

Countless names flashed through his mind, only to be dismissed one by one.

”Someone!”

He barked the order toward the outside of his cave dwelling.

Footsteps approached from afar. A Golden Core disciple hurried over and knelt on the ground.

”What are your orders, Martial Ancestor?”

”Is there any news regarding Four Seas City? Has the culprit been identified?”

The disciple pressed his forehead to the floor, his voice trembling. ”Reporting to the Martial Ancestor... not yet. We only know that Four Seas City was turned into an ice tomb overnight, with not a single living soul left on the island. Cultivators in the nearby sea regions dare not approach, so the exact details remain unclear...”

Master Demon Wind furrowed his brows and paced continuously around the cave dwelling, agitation written across his face. Suddenly, he halted. With his back to the disciple, he gazed in the direction of Four Seas City.

”Keep investigating. The moment there is word, report to me immediately.”

”Yes.”

The disciple rose at once, bowed, and retreated a few steps, just about to turn and leave.

Suddenly, his footsteps halted.

Master Demon Wind, who had lowered his head to look at the jade tablet in his hand, waited a few breaths. Hearing no movement, he frowned.

”Why are you just standing there? Does this Ancestor’s word carry no weight?”

No answer came.

He whipped his head around.

The disciple still held his bowed, retreating posture, frozen in place and utterly motionless. A respectful expression lingered on his face, but his pupils had dilated, all vitality gone.

A thread-thin crystal of ice spread silently from the center of his forehead.

Master Demon Wind’s pupils contracted sharply. He sprang up, his Divine Sense sweeping out frantically.

Aside from himself, the entire cave dwelling held not a shred of life.

How had that disciple died?

He hadn’t detected a thing.

”Who is it?!”

He shouted the question as mana surged wildly inside him. His protective spiritual light flared instantly, sealing his body airtight.

Silence.

There was no response.

Only the faint chill in the cave dwelling was growing heavier. It was no ordinary cold—it was a chill that struck straight into the marrow and froze the soul.

Cold sweat beaded on Master Demon Wind’s forehead. He had lived for nearly a thousand years and had never encountered something so bizarre. For someone to kill a man right under his nose without him noticing—that level of strength far exceeded his imagination.

”Show yourself!”

He demanded again, his voice now carrying a barely perceptible tremor.

His words had barely fallen when two points of ghostly light suddenly kindled in the darkness deep within the cave dwelling.

It was a pair of eyes.

Cyan eyes, like two clumps of ghost fire burning in the dark, silently watched everything in the cave dwelling. There was no killing intent, no spiritual pressure, not even a shred of aura—as if they did not exist at all.

A figure in cyan robes stepped unhurriedly out from the darkness. He had a young face and a calm expression, and he stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Were it not for the fresh blood splattered across those cyan robes, one might have mistaken him for an elegant scholar.

Master Demon Wind stared at the figure. He retreated several steps in sheer terror and spoke in disbelief.

”You... who are you? When did you...”

He broke off mid-sentence. Looking at that somewhat familiar young face, his gaze shifted from terror to suspicion, before finally settling into absolute horror. His voice trembled uncontrollably.

”Jiu... Jiuyou?”

”How is this possible... you’re actually still alive?”

Jiuyou did not answer. He merely watched Master Demon Wind in silence, his eyes perfectly placid, as though observing the death throes of a struggling ant.

Master Demon Wind’s back was already drenched in cold sweat. He remembered the battle at Yi Feng Valley all those years ago, and the overwhelming might this man had displayed in slaying a Middle Nascent Soul Stage cultivator in a single strike.

He remembered his title within the allied forces: ”First Under the Three Great Cultivators.”

He remembered his disappearance a century ago, when everyone had assumed he had passed away in meditation.

But he had not. He had returned. And he might be even stronger than he was back then.

Just how strong was he? Master Demon Wind could not even sense the depth of his cultivation.

”What do you want?”

Master Demon Wind forcefully suppressed his fear and spoke in a deep voice.

Jiuyou finally spoke, his voice crisp and cold, utterly devoid of emotion.

”This seat has come to collect rent.”

His words had barely faded when Master Demon Wind felt an irresistible pressure crash down upon his head, as if the entire vault of heaven were collapsing. He frantically channeled his mana to resist, but his protective spiritual light shattered inch by inch like wet paper.

A Cyan Chain lashed out from the void, perfectly silent and swift as lightning.

Master Demon Wind tried to dodge, only to find his body seemingly nailed to the spot, completely immobilized. He could only watch helplessly as the chain pierced his dantian, locking his Nascent Soul securely in place. Cold spread along the chain, freezing his Nascent Soul in an instant.

Exhausting the last dregs of his strength, he screamed out hoarsely.

”Wait! I know why you’ve returned... it wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!”

”It was the Righteous Path Alliance... the Yuqing Sect! They have a feud with you! We only went along with it—everything was orchestrated by them!”

”They promised that if we carved up Soul Wraith Island, they wouldn’t touch anything on it, and they would even provide the cultivation resources we wanted... We... we were just following orders...”

Jiuyou’s face remained expressionless. He listened quietly to the very end before replying in a flat voice.

”Are you finished?”

Absolute despair filled Master Demon Wind’s eyes.

”You... you won’t kill me...”

”Hahaha, when did this seat ever say I wouldn’t kill you?” Jiuyou threw his head back and let out a manic laugh.

He exerted a slight force with his palm.

The screaming was cut off abruptly.

Master Demon Wind’s corpse slumped limply to the ground, his eyes staring wide open in death.

As for his Nascent Soul? Heh...

Jiuyou stood with his hands behind his back, his gaze indifferent.

Yuqing Sect. Zhou Xuanzhen, Zhou Xuanqing.

Back at Tianyuan Mountain, those two had crossed him. A century had passed; it was time to settle that account as well.

He turned and walked out of the cave dwelling.

Behind him, Spiritual Cliff Cave’s mountain gate collapsed with a thunderous crash in the cold wind, reduced to a heap of ruins.

That night, Black Fiend Island was annihilated.

The following day, the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect was exterminated.

The Nascent Soul cultivators of both sects never saw their killer’s face. They only remembered a cyan flash crossing their vision before they lost consciousness forever, suffering truly miserable deaths.

Spiritual Cliff Cave, Black Fiend Island, and the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect—all three mountain gates now lay in ruins.

Amidst the shattered walls and collapsed halls, corpses lay strewn about. Blood had congealed into dark-red ice crystals that gleamed eerily in the moonlight. The night wind whistled through the ruined palaces, wailing like a mourner, while the air hung heavy with the thick stench of blood.

The sea surface was completely still; heaven and earth lay in dead silence.

...

The news spread like wildfire through the entire Demonic Path Alliance.

Countless cultivators were shaken to their core.

...