Old Morgan's Legacy (Revised)

Late at night, a hazy purple moon hung high in the sky.

The entire city was steeped in a quiet, frigid atmosphere. Ordinary people continued their mundane, tedious lives, working hard during the day and sleeping peacefully at night, utterly unaware of the turbulent undercurrents hidden within the city.

In a villa near the outskirts, everything from the garden to the hall exuded desolation. Only upon entering the study did the scent of human presence suddenly emerge.

And there were two of them.

On the floor covered in expensive oak flooring, two "corpses" were illuminated by increasingly faint candlelight.

One of the bodies, that of a youth, suddenly twitched. An instinctive groan escaped his mouth as Tang Qi abruptly opened his eyes. An unfamiliar sensation assailed him, as though someone had savagely hammered his skull.

Everything before his eyes became double.

Even the body that should have been easy to control had become incredibly heavy. Raising a single hand was difficult.

Yet even so, Tang Qi quickly sat up. He first turned to look at the elderly black man's body beside him. Dressed in a butler's uniform, with a gloomy, ugly face and eyes closed tightly, the body's coldness and stiffness could be felt without even touching it.

A corpse. This was a real corpse, Tang Qi instinctively thought.

Still uneasy, Tang Qi turned back to look at the mottled, ancient bronze scale.

At its center, on the blood-soaked cross, a figure had indeed been restored. Though much smaller, its facial features retained the same expression of agonized wailing and were exactly identical to the elderly black man's corpse beside it.

"Hahaha... cough, cough, I really succeeded."

Tang Qi grinned and burst into laughter. But because he still could not perfectly control his new body, his handsome face twisted somewhat, tears and snot streaming down his face in an unsightly mess.

He had gone from a lowly devil to successfully taking over an evil old black man, reincarnating as a human. The process had not seemed long, but for Tang Qi, it had been a wild series of highs and lows. This loss of composure was perfectly understandable.

As he laughed, his head suddenly went boom, as if someone had punched it with a hammer again.

This time, however, fragments of memory surged into his mind like floodwaters bursting through a broken dam. Unlike the fleeting glimpse from before, Tang Qi now seemed to have completely become that youth, reliving more than a decade of his life.

When Tang Qi regained consciousness, he not only understood everything about the original owner of the body, but had also gained some understanding of this new world.

This was a world highly similar to Previous Life Earth, yet vastly different.

This planet was called Origin Blue Star. Its environment, languages, history, and everything else resembled Earth, except that it had some mystical legends that science could not explain.

There were not hundreds of countries here. The vast territories were mainly divided among several political powers: the Everlasting Celestial Dynasty, the Divine Eagle Federation, the Europa Alliance, the Ancient Seal Empire, the Maya Empire... along with some groups too small to matter. That was the political landscape of the entire Blue Star.

Tang Qi's identity was that of an ordinary resident of Messer City, Mihuang State, under the Divine Eagle Federation. At the same time, he was a rich second-generation heir who had just lost both parents.

Strangely enough, the original owner's name had also been Tang Qi.

His parents had founded Tang Steel Company. It was not a large company and only held a tiny share of Messer City's steel market, but it had still brought the Tang Family considerable wealth. Unfortunately, the two ambitious founders had both died in an accident.

Of course, the original owner had not died from overwhelming grief. He had been murdered by the old butler he trusted completely.

Old Morgan had worked for the Tang Family for over twenty years and was deeply trusted by both the original owner and his parents.

That was precisely why the original owner had been deceived by Old Morgan. He had actually believed that Old Morgan possessed Spirit Channeling Power and attempted to perform a Spirit Channeling Ritual to meet his deceased parents.

After drinking a suspicious cup of liquid, his soul had indeed left his body. But instead of seeing his parents, he saw Old Morgan, who had likewise become a soul. By then, however, Old Morgan had torn off his hypocritical mask and revealed his hideous True Appearance.

What they had performed was not a Spirit Channeling Ritual, but an evil Soul-Swapping Ritual.

That evil old bastard, Old Morgan, had coveted not only the Tang Family's wealth, but also Tang Qi's young, living body.

Unfortunately for him, Old Morgan seemed to have been performing the ritual for the first time and was not very familiar with it. At the very least, he did not know that the Painful Judgment Demon on the cross could temporarily leave the scale. As a result, Tang Qi, who had crossed over, successfully turned the tables.

While the mantis stalked the cicada, the oriole waited behind. Everything had fallen into Tang Qi's hands.

Now that he had gradually adapted to his new body, Tang Qi absorbed the memories in his mind while sorting through his spoils—Old Morgan's legacy.

Old Morgan's corpse had been tied up tightly by Tang Qi.

Tang Qi was utterly certain that he was dead, his soul captured by the scale and turned into the new Judgment Demon.

If no one initiated a Soul-Swapping Ritual, he would probably never have a chance to turn things around.

Still, Tang Qi's cautious nature made him add another layer of protection. He had considered destroying the corpse, but thought of another arrangement and decided not to act for the time being.

After dealing with the corpse, Tang Qi naturally searched Old Morgan and took everything from him.

There were six items in total, laid out before Tang Qi.

The first was the all-too-familiar Soul Exchange Scale, which Tang Qi placed directly to one side.

The second was an old-looking notebook.

As for the third, fourth, and fifth items, they were all crude-looking witchcraft creations.

The final item was a rolled-up piece of animal hide.

Tang Qi's gaze fell on the notebook in the First Moment.

He opened it and began reading.

What Came into View were yellowed pages that were clearly quite old.

Having inherited the original owner's memories, the writing of this world did not hinder Tang Qi's reading in the slightest.

And the contents recorded within immediately piqued Tang Qi's interest.

Witchcraft. Every page recorded a spell, but judging from the descriptions, they all seemed to be witchcraft from the Evil Faction.

Moreover, the requirements for each spell were complicated, and their effects did not seem as astounding as the legends claimed. At the very least, to reach the point of stealing wealth or taking lives required extremely harsh and cumbersome prerequisites.

For instance, there was a spell called Heart of Fear. To perform it, one first had to collect the target's blood, hair, and fingernails. Then, at a specific time and place, one had to arrange a complicated ritual to summon a Fear Demon to invade the target's dreams.

After several consecutive days, the target would suffer from nightmares for years on end and eventually go mad.

Or there was a spell called Uluru Puppet. Once successfully performed, it could create a puppet that obeyed its maker completely. But one first had to find a target with an inborn intellectual disability, soak them in special medicine, and then perform a Bloodline Transformation as precise as surgery before there was even a certain chance of success.

That certain chance was surely not very high.

Though these spells were both evil and cumbersome, Tang Qi still read them with great interest.

He had crossed over and been reborn in an unfamiliar world. Though he had already learned some information about this New World, it seemed to be a safe world highly similar to Previous Life Earth. This world had not even developed nuclear weapons, so it should have been even safer.

Yet judging from what had happened to the original owner, there were no nuclear weapons, but Supernatural Power did exist.

Tang Qi could not help but cautiously wonder whether this might be a Dark World where Demon Fairies and Ghosts roamed everywhere.

If that was truly the case, then the old black man's evil legacy might be Tang Qi's first resource for protecting himself.

Inside the study, aside from a tightly bound corpse and the flickering candlelight, only the rustling sound of pages turning remained.

Very soon, Tang Qi's finger suddenly paused on a certain page.

Compared to the other spells, this page was densely packed with text and accompanied by many exquisite illustrations. At the center, a diagram of a scale stood out clearly.

That was right. This page recorded the Soul-Swapping Ritual.

After carefully reading through the ritual's process, Tang Qi let out a long breath.

The last trace of doubt he had harbored was finally put to rest.

According to the notebook, once the ritual failed, its initiator would face only two outcomes.

First, they would be captured by the Soul Exchange Scale and become the new Judgment Demon.

Second, they would simply dissipate.

Clearly, unlucky Old Morgan had met the first outcome.

He had no idea that what he summoned was not a true Judgment Demon, but a soul from another world desperately struggling for rebirth. In the end, the evil old black man who had foolishly trusted a devil became a new devil himself, while Tang Qi took over all the benefits.

"Perhaps I'm about to begin a new life."

Tang Qi sighed, his eyes filled with complicated emotions.

Anyone who had experienced what Tang Qi had would likely be unable to calm down in a short time. Fortunately, Tang Qi's mental fortitude was fairly good, and the Witchcraft Notebook before him was enough to hold his attention.

But when Tang Qi turned another page and saw what came next, his relaxed expression immediately became solemn.

His eyes raced over the text, then he quickly flipped through several more pages. Tang Qi's face darkened completely.