novelraw Chapter 99 : Life Was Getting Better and Better
Chapter 99 : Life Was Getting Better and Better
Chapter 99: Life Was Getting Better and Better
Su Youwan arrived just as the demonic energy within Lu Changyuan completely erupted.
She too was gravely injured. Her five viscera felt like shattered jars, turning over and over in unbearable pain—naturally, she arrived a step late.
“Cough.”
The silver-haired girl froze in place.
She seemed to see that sword once again.
But this time, it was different.
This time, she saw it with startling clarity.
It was a Daoist with a platinum mask, holding a sword in hand, gazing up at the heavens.
The Daoist seemed to have spoken some words, but Su Youwan could no longer hear them clearly.
However, Heaven’s Dao appeared to be furious, as if it wished to strike him with lightning punishment.
The Daoist merely lifted his sword. In the only visible pair of eyes—still as an ancient well—Su Youwan heard clearly the second sentence he uttered.
“I borrowed a thousand years from you, Taiyi, to suppress the Desire Demon for a thousand years. Now that I wish to ascend, whether you permit it or not, I shall ascend.”
Then, the sword that made heaven and earth lose color left the Daoist’s hand and cleaved toward the sky.
The heavens were torn apart.
It hurt.
Su Youwan thought so. That sword seemed to slash through her own body, ripping her apart.
Thus, the sky that had once covered all beneath it now bore a massive hole.
What a powerful person.
Could a human truly be this strong?
Su Youwan fell.
Or rather, a part of Heaven’s Dao fell—falling to the mortal realm.
And the place where it fell was a dynasty where immortals and mortals coexisted, called the Glazed Dynasty. On closer look, it fell right upon the Upper Jade Capital of the Glazed Dynasty.
The vision receded like the tide.
Su Youwan had no time to think further; the scene before her left her trembling in awe.
Before the silver-haired girl were a pair of enormous black demonic wings. Those sky-shrouding wings protected Lu Changyuan within, obscuring whatever happened inside.
The demonic energy those wings churned up seemed as if it would turn the entire Nether Kingdom into a Demon Kingdom.
Bang!
Like a stone tossed into a lake, circles of demonic ripples spread through the air, violently shattering the surrounding space.
The tremendous demonic energy soon struck Su Youwan.
“Cough.”
Already gravely wounded, she was blown away like a kite with its string cut.
“Remember to thank me, dear.”
Someone caught Su Youwan’s body, halting her fall.
Su Youwan forced out hoarsely, “How did it become like this?”
Mei Zhao Zhao said again, “What’s with your birdcage? Your bird flew right into his body—then he turned into this!”
“My birdcage?” Only then did Su Youwan realize—her emotions had entered Lu Changyuan’s body and merged completely with him.
Mei Zhao Zhao shook her head. “Let’s go quickly. We have to leave now. Once he’s fully fallen into demonhood, neither of us will survive.”
She had been certain that Lu Changyuan could defeat Xiao Qingfeng—that was why she returned, hoping to gain a favor.
But now, though Lu Changyuan had indeed won, he had become an even greater demon.
Su Youwan’s expression remained unchanged. Though weak, her tone was firm. “I must save him.”
“Save him? We can’t even get close! If he stirs up the slightest wave, both of us will die.”
Just as Mei Zhao Zhao’s words fell—
The massive wings suddenly opened wide.
The one within was still Lu Changyuan, but it seemed to be no more than a Desire Demon wearing his face.
His eyes regenerated—both scarlet. From his back sprouted twin wings. His chest bore an exposed red-and-black heart, pulsing with every beat.
The whole Nether Kingdom seemed to tremble violently in rhythm with that heart.
Mei Zhao Zhao shook her head. “Scarlet eyes—he’s already been corrupted by the Desire Demon. Even immortals couldn’t save him now.”
In truth, there was a way to save him.
If someone used the Supreme Pure-Spirit Forget-Immortal Technique, combined with Lu Changyuan’s Demon-Extraction Method, and then defeated the Desire Demon within his body, he might be saved.
Thus, in this world, only the Lu Changyuan of the past could save the Lu Changyuan of the present.
“It’s over, it’s over—he’s looking at us. I should never have come back!” Mei Zhao Zhao cried out in panic.
Those blood-red eyes were locked tightly upon them both.
“Be quiet,” Su Youwan said. The silver-haired girl still remained calm.
Contrary to Mei Zhao Zhao’s expectations, Lu Changyuan did not go berserk and kill them. Instead, he raised his hand.
Something broke through the wind, turning into a streak of black light that flew toward them.
Mei Zhao Zhao stared in disbelief. “He’s still holding onto his reason? Impossible!”
Su Youwan extended her hand and caught that streak of light.
It was the Sun Dial—the Sun Dial conceals the heavenly secrets, while the Moon Dial traces the past.
Lu Changyuan had actually separated the Sun-Moon Sundial, sending the Sun Dial over.
A hoarse, weary voice came forth: “I’m fine. Take the Sun Dial, and go.”
Su Youwan sliced open her delicate arm. “Drink my blood—it can temporarily protect your mind. We’ll go to Cihang Palace; I’ll ask my Master to save you.”
What answered her was a blast of fierce wind. She and Mei Zhao Zhao were blown toward the exit by Lu Changyuan’s force.
In midair, Su Youwan saw a horrifying sight—Lu Changyuan thrust the remaining Moon Dial viciously into his own body. Scarlet blood, tainted with black miasma, surged out—it looked as if he was taking his own life.
Lu Changyuan had always had several questions he couldn’t answer.
What were the scarlet blood runes in his eyes?
If this world was not a game, where had those game memories come from?
Why had he been resurrected? What had happened before that?
That morning—bright and peaceful like any other—when Lu Changyuan washed his face, all he remembered was that he had completed the game, guiding Daoist Chang’an to slash the heavens, successfully wounding Heaven’s Dao, proving his own Dao.
After cultivating for one thousand and three hundred years, he finally ascended to the realm of Jade Radiance and became an immortal.
But clearly, something was wrong.
Because he had revived.
How could someone who had already become an immortal fall back to the mortal world and revive?
Thus, Daoist Chang’an had not ascended.
And some part of his memory had been obscured—by someone or something.
That conclusion was, in fact, easy enough to reach.
If not for tampered memory, he could never have revived in a mountain village.
But if one used that as the foundation and reasoned backward—
Then, from the moment Lu Changyuan left the village—
He had been guided all along.
Meeting Qiu Yuehan, then encountering Xia Lianxue, then naturally seeking the Heaven-Mending Pill, sending away Su Wu Xiang, arriving at the Jade Palace, slaying Ancestor Red Luan, and forcibly enduring the Heavenly Tribulation.
When he lost his last friend, Su Wu Xiang, in the Upper Jade Capital, Lu Changyuan’s Supreme Forget-Emotion Dao had shown its first crack.
Later, in the Jade Palace, Xia Lianxue gave him the Drunken Red Luan, and his heart of forgetfulness was almost completely shattered.
By that point, everything had already gone so far.
So Lu Changyuan simply abandoned the Supreme Pure-Spirit Forget-Immortal Technique, using his last trump card to forcibly protect Xia Lianxue.
Everything—every detail—had been as if orchestrated by unseen hands, unfolding seamlessly.
“How interesting,” Lu Changyuan thought.
Ever since his rebirth, everything he encountered was connected to him.
The cultivation world was vast—how could it be that everyone he met happened to be tied to him?
That was far too coincidental.
It was as though someone had designed everything.
Even the timing of the Nether Kingdom’s opening fell within that plan.
If even Su Youwan could sense his tangled thoughts, how could Lu Changyuan himself not?
And yet, though he knew something was wrong, he still came to the Nether Kingdom—to this place where life and death hung by a thread—because this was his domain. If something went wrong, it was still better here than elsewhere.
Besides, he wanted to see—who exactly had scripted this endless play.
In truth, there were very few in the world capable of such manipulation—no more than five fingers could count.
Lu Changyuan had already suspected a few.
Now that the Desire Demon had entered his body, the hidden hand behind everything was crystal clear.
“To have plotted against me with the Desire Demon for hundreds of years—life truly has gotten better. All that nonsense about ‘games’—what’s the point of giving me those false memories?”
The scarlet-eyed Lu Changyuan grinned, his tone steeped in mockery.
“When I realized this world wasn’t a game, did you think my Emotionless Dao would instantly collapse? Why go through such roundabout schemes to trap me—so petty. When I left that mountain village, I’d already given up on cultivating the Emotionless Dao.”
Ancestor Red Luan had suppressed the Painting Demon and herself became half a Painting Demon.
Daoist Chang’an had sealed the Desire Demon—stronger than the Painting Demon—beneath his sword for a thousand years. Could he have remained untouched?
The cultivator the Desire Demon knew best—and hated most—was him.
And now, at Lu Changyuan’s moment of unprecedented weakness, without the protection of the Supreme Pure-Spirit Forget-Immortal Technique, the Desire Demon descended—quietly, yet inevitably.