The Quest for Immortality
This white-haired, childlike, fair-skinned cultivator is none other than Xuan Sanren, known as the "Mystery Demon Ancestor" of the Mystic Demon Sect.
Since the Ten Thousand Demons Gathering years ago, when a Mystery Demon Foetus was killed, Xuan Sanren suffered a severe loss of vitality and has since remained in seclusion.
But now, with the flow of cause and effect, omens are upon him, and Xuan Sanren feels it acutely, furrowing his brows.
"Where does this cause and effect come from...?"
Throughout his life, Xuan Sanren has cultivated the Mystic Demon Path, killing countless people, making numerous enemies, and at this moment, he couldn’t fathom which enmity could make him uneasy.
"I have never left any survivors; all cause and effect have been resolved... Or is there still a fish that slipped through the net?"
Xuan Sanren feels uneasy.
Killing must uproot, even the infant in the womb must not be spared to ensure everything is foolproof.
This is Xuan Sanren’s code of conduct.
Thus, even though his cultivation is not the strongest among the demon heads, his fierce reputation is widespread, which is why he is called the "Mystery Demon Ancestor," making others frightened.
"Exactly what time and place is this cause and effect...?"
Xuan Sanren traces the origin and reasons, but his mind is a blank with no clues.
Xuan Sanren originally wanted to give up, but couldn’t let it go; after contemplating for a moment, he decided to harden his resolve and took out a compass from a heavily sealed red box.
This compass is cast from white bone.
Inside it is sealed with a lock, dark blood soaking into the lock, engraved with primitive formation patterns, and embedded in the center is a demon eye, fierce and constantly blinking.
This is the Demonic Path Treasure: Nether Heavenly Mechanism Seal.
This mechanism seal, he hasn’t used for a long time.
Xuan Sanren bites his finger, wipes it across his forehead, leaving a blood mark, the blood mark writhing on its own, and Xuan Sanren’s divine sense becomes even sharper.
He forms a seal with his hand to activate the Nether Heavenly Mechanism Seal, attempting to deduce some past cause and effect with this seal.
But the next moment, the mechanism seal trembles, and the demon eye in the lock suddenly widens, bloodshot, trembling in fear.
Xuan Sanren is stunned on the spot, his pupils gradually constricting.
"The mechanism seal... dares not calculate?"
"It’s... afraid?"
"A demonic path treasure, what is it afraid of? And who is it afraid of?"
In just a moment, Xuan Sanren remembers the time outside Li Mountain City when besieging that person, the mechanism seal seemed to tremble like this.
The unease in his heart gradually amplifies.
In a trance, Xuan Sanren recalls, outside Li Mountain City, while deducing cause and effect, he vaguely sensed a trace of ominous sign.
The feeling of that ominous sign slowly surfaces in his mind again.
Just like inadvertently releasing a bunch of fry into the river.
But within those fry, it seems there was a young and vicious "crocodile."
Upon closer examination, the river is vast and indistinct, waves shimmer, utterly unclear, nothing visible.
Xuan Sanren’s brows furrow tighter.
"That person is dead, Back Ruins Heaven Burial, those related are either dead or scattered, the storm gradually subsides, and there’s no one worthy of attention..."
"This fish that slipped through the net, who could it be?"
"Will it threaten my Mystic Demon Sect?"
Xuan Sanren hopes he is overthinking, yet something still weighs on his heart, as if somewhere in the void, a little monster is gradually rising, growing bit by bit...
"Ten years have passed, the changes brought by Back Ruins Heaven Burial is starting to reveal, finally."
"Crisis and peril, are beginning to spread."
"The heavenly secret weaving, cause and effect interplaying, within the game of asking into Dao to become immortal, who in the end laid down this chess piece..."
Xuan Sanren sits motionless for a long while, feeling uneasy.
After a moment, his gaze becomes obscure, as he solemnly takes out an ancient book from the Bone Ring.
Xuan Sanren’s bone-colored white hand gently caresses the ancient book, murmuring softly:
"Hereafter, perhaps the life and death fate of the Mystic Demon Sect rests upon this..."
This is a scroll fragment, with wax-yellowed pages, showing signs of water damage and fire exposure. On the incomplete title page, six ancient, vigorous characters are inscribed:
"Planting Devil in Taoist Heart Great Technique."
...
Solitary Mountain City, within the Divine Temple.
Young Master Xuan also senses an inkling of trepidation, but his proficiency in divine thought does not match Xuan Sanren’s, so he merely feels a slight confusion and dismisses it.
Moreover, he still has to face the formidable Shen Tuao.
He needs to seize the Great Wilderness Heritage from Shen Tuao, and his other foundational element for cultivating the Mystery Demon Foetus—
That is, the flesh of the Fourth Prince of Great Wilderness.
Though the Great Wilderness Dragon Vein is good, it has a drawback, that being a royal inheritance, wherein the cultivation techniques, Taoist skills, formations, artifact refining methods, bone talisman methods, and even sacrificial skills, and various other secret techniques, cannot be mastered or driven without royal bloodline.
Hence, without royal bloodline, even obtaining the Great Wilderness Heritage is somewhat a "useless appendage."
This matter wasn’t mentioned by Shen Tuao and the Second Elder, but Young Master Xuan is aware.
To acquire the Great Wilderness Heritage, one must possess the Great Wilderness Bloodline.
Without the bloodline, everything is empty talk.
The royal family of the Great Wilderness is nearly extinct, with barely any flesh bodies left to find.
The one alive is Shen Tuao right in front of him, but he is too strong, with a very firm mind and immense ambitions, not easily controllable.
Even collaborating with him offers scant benefit.
Given this, he could only find the deceased, yet intact "Fourth Prince," refining him into his own "Mystery Demon Foetus."
Change the Mystery Demon Foetus, Supreme Demon Skill.
One body, two foetuses, indistinguishable from genuine to fake.
Once the Mystery Demon Foetus is refined, he becomes the prince of the Great Wilderness, able to act in the name of the "prince."
In the future, once the grand plan succeeds, the entire Great Wilderness will be in his grasp.