The Legitimate Son

The setting sun spilled thick red light over the enormous city of the Yin Clan City-State. Under the sunset's bloody glow, the Blood Mist Barrier above the Yin Clan City-State reflected a grotesque blood-red radiance that made people want to vomit.

In the dark bluish-red sky, the Demon Race's sky-patrolling treasure, the Blood Parrot, forged through secret arts transmitted by inter-realm immortal magic, drifted slowly across the heavens. The three-hundred-meter-diameter spherical Blood Parrot had a blue-black surface polished smooth enough to reflect light, while the layers upon layers of Demon Talismans covering it occasionally flashed with a vivid crimson glow. It resembled the eyeball of a legendary demon, coldly and arrogantly looking down upon the earth.

It likewise looked down upon the hunting party that had just returned to the Yin Clan City-State.

Led by six Flying Magic Chariots cast entirely from metal, these enormous chariots, wrapped in bloody radiance from head to toe, slowly swept across the earth under the pull of dozens of Night Netherblood Leopards, raising trails of dust. Behind the six chariots, countless ragged men and women, old and young, were bound to long ropes. They hurried along in panic and disarray, struggling to keep up with the chariots.

Surrounding these disheveled commoners, hundreds of Yin Clan Warriors rode Unicorn Blood Beasts raised through Demon Race secret arts. They stood in neat ranks, warily scanning their surroundings. Bringing up the rear of this enormous procession were another twelve Flying Magic Chariots.

At the entrance to the Yin Clan City-State, enclosed by metal walls a hundred meters high, two tiered pyramids more than a li tall stood on either side of the city gate, which was several hundred meters wide. Each pyramid had nine levels from top to bottom, and now every level was occupied by groups of three or five Yin Clan Warriors.

The lower-status Blood Slave warriors held Magic Artifacts activated by crystals of various colors. Dressed in dark-red, fully enclosed battle armor, they vigilantly looked around. The high-status Yin Clan members, meanwhile, wore blood-red robes of archaic design, carrying an air of mysterious, demonic strangeness. With their arms folded across their chests, they arrogantly swept their gazes over the men and women of all ages running miserably behind the chariots.

"What a bumper harvest!" A blood-robed youth who looked no more than thirteen or fourteen stood atop one of the pyramids. He narrowed his eyes and sneered, his sharp gaze repeatedly sweeping over the tender faces of the girls around his age among the crowd. His pupils were faintly red, and a strand of baleful power circulated within them. Even from a distance of two or three li, he could clearly pick out the pretty girls in the crowd.

"That one in the black windbreaker, and the one in the red miniskirt. Clean them up and send them to my room!" In the space of a few breaths, the youth had already found prey to his liking. He laughed with delight.

An elderly man with white hair standing behind the youth gave a few sinister, cruel chuckles, then bowed deeply.

Amid a low roar, the Flying Magic Chariots slowly descended at the city-state entrance. Several doors soundlessly split open across their smooth, spotless bodies, without a trace of a seam. Large groups of Yin Clan Warriors in dark-red armor emerged from the chariots, and shouts and curses immediately rang out without end. The people bound behind the chariots also fell into chaos, crying out for their sons and daughters, their fathers and mothers.

"Everyone, listen carefully! Form up here!"

"Don't make a mess! Don't make a mess! Form up here according to your family relations!"

"You lowly wretches, your good fortune has arrived!"

"This is the blessing bestowed upon you by the Yin Clan! Don't make a mess! Everyone, form up!"

"Hold tight to your chance! Anyone who dares move or shout—you know what will happen!"

An emaciated old man in a tattered black robe, filthy beyond measure and with a greasy face, screamed at the top of his lungs. The ropes binding him had only just been removed when he waved a palm-sized silver cross and charged out of the crowd, shouting.

"My children, don't believe these demons! They're bloodthirsty demons! They're tempting you to fall with sweet, poisonous fruit! Don't believe these demons! You'll become their food, their sacrifices! Never believe them!"

A Yin Clan Warrior dozens of meters away whipped up a gale. In one step, he crossed that distance and arrived beside the ragged old man. He drew a black longsword more than four feet long, no wider than a finger and thin as paper, then drove it without hesitation into the old man's chest. The keen sword soundlessly pierced through his body. The old man's already emaciated form abruptly withered and shrank, every drop of blood within him sucked dry by the sword in the space of a snap of the fingers.

The Yin Clan Warrior withdrew his sword and snatched the silver cross from the old man's hand. He weighed the antique, mottled cross of pure silver in his palm, then slowly walked toward the long tables lined up behind the city-state entrance.

Yin Xuege sat behind one of the long tables, his entire body cold as he stared at the old man's withered, shrunken corpse. The old man's face happened to be turned toward Yin Xuege, and a deep despair filled his blank, bewildered eyes. Yin Xuege had already seen countless faces that were as withered, shriveled, and desperate as the old man's, but he still felt cold all over—so cold that his body trembled faintly of its own accord.

The youth who had been standing on the pyramid, searching for his prey, had somehow arrived behind Yin Xuege. Seeing his shivering body, the youth, who was a head taller than Yin Xuege, shook his head. He took a python-skin whip as thick as a thumb from the hands of an Yin Clan member behind him and, without the slightest warning, viciously lashed Yin Xuege across the shoulder.

Severe pain suddenly struck. Yin Xuege's face turned deathly pale, the muscles twisting until his tender little face looked as hideous as a ghost's. The python-skin whip, made from the shed skin of the poisonous Three-Headed Blue-Spotted Python, was covered in raised, razor-sharp scales. It tore open a large section of Yin Xuege's blood-red robe, ripping a strip of thin flesh two feet long from his shoulder.

Blood slowly trickled from the wound, but after Yin Xuege took a deep breath, the blood flowing out began to stream back in, soon swallowed by the mangled flesh. His wound healed at a speed that would astonish an ordinary person. After three or five breaths, the flesh taken by the whip had already grown back.

He exhaled heavily, forcibly enduring the dizziness in his head and the lingering pain from the whip. His whole body stiff, he stood up. Gritting his teeth hard, Yin Xuege slowly turned around, his resentful gaze carrying endless icy malice as it shot toward the youth holding and fondling the long whip.

"Yin Xuejiao!" Yin Xuege spat out the youth's name one word at a time through clenched teeth.

Yin Xuejiao gave a strange, tight-lipped smile. He looked at Yin Xuege's pale face and still-trembling body, then disdainfully shook his head. Raising one finger, he viciously poked Yin Xuege several times in the chest before leaning close to his ear and laughing softly. "A bastard is still a bastard. You pity these wretches? You were born to mingle with them!"

After a few sinister laughs, Yin Xuejiao straightened and smugly, provocatively crooked his finger at Yin Xuege.

"I just picked out two pretty little things. I'm going back to enjoy them properly in a bit!"

Yin Xuege's face flushed crimson, and a faint thread of blood-red light rippled deep within his eyes.

Yin Xuejiao quickly retreated two steps. Several tall Yin Clan members behind him swiftly stepped between the two. One middle-aged man, whose entire body radiated an oppressive, sinister aura, pressed a palm against Yin Xuege's shoulder. "Young Master Xuege, please understand your position. Don't make things difficult for us! Heh!"

The middle-aged man gave a mocking laugh. His five fingers dug tightly into Yin Xuege's shoulder, squeezing until his bones cracked.

"Exactly! He's right! You need to understand your position!" Yin Xuejiao watched Yin Xuege with a cheeky grin. A deep wariness flashed through his eyes, followed by a deliberately affected arrogance. "Although you bear the name of the Yin Clan's legitimate son, you must understand that you're nothing but a bastard!"

Yin Xuege's body trembled violently. He tried to break free of the middle-aged man's grip, but the other's strength far surpassed his own. Under that control, his body could not move at all. The five fingers clamped around his shoulder, making his shoulder blade crack repeatedly beneath the strain.

Yin Xuejiao lightly patted Yin Xuege's face, then turned around and swaggered into the city-state.

"Finish your chores properly, or you'll suffer in tomorrow's class. Ah, this is what happens to a wretched bastard. While I'm enjoying those tender, adorable Blood Slaves, he can only eat sand here and register those wretches into the records."

"Oh, tell me, isn't that a little too miserable? The hunting party brought back so many Blood Slaves today. He'll have to work until well into the night before he can rest, right? Then won't he lose his cultivation time tonight as well? Won't he fall even farther behind?"

A wild, triumphant laugh drifted from afar. Yin Xuege watched Yin Xuejiao's arrogant back recede, his eyes almost bleeding from their sockets.

Only after Yin Xuejiao had gone some distance did the middle-aged man gripping Yin Xuege finally release him. He gave Yin Xuege several insincere chuckles. "Young Master Xuege, you can't blame us for being discourteous! Last time you went berserk, you nearly bit Young Master Yin Xueao's neck through. We have to take precautions, don't we?"

The middle-aged man gave the utterly motionless Yin Xuege a strange once-over and said in a falsely earnest tone, "You really ought to recognize your position! Although you bear the name of the Yin Clan's legitimate son, as for your status... ha-ha! Why insist on opposing all the young masters? Just obediently beg for mercy. Kneel and kowtow to the young masters a few times, and won't everything be settled?"

"Ha, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha!" The middle-aged man threw his head back and laughed several times. Then he arrogantly lifted his chin, slowly clasped his hands behind his back, and swaggered away. Wherever he passed, the fully armed Yin Clan Warriors bowed, making his overbearing arrogance stand out all the more.

Yin Xuege stood where he was, breathing heavily.

But someone suddenly slammed a fist onto his long table. The Yin Clan Warrior who had just killed the emaciated old man impatiently pounded the tabletop. "Young Master Xuege, please don't waste our time! Register this for me. Today I killed one heretical believer of the Light God Cult and seized one heretical Magic Artifact. That's two merits!"

Yin Xuege stared blankly for a moment. Then he touched his injured shoulder and slowly sat back down.

He raised his head. His eyes, all blood-light withdrawn, looked coldly and mercilessly at the Yin Clan Warrior. Yin Xuege said icily, "Name, number, affiliation, and the merit earned. One heretical believer of the Light God Cult killed: ten family Merit Points. One low-grade heretical Magic Artifact, forged from Blazing Radiant Light Silver: twenty family Merit Points!"

The setting sun gradually sank, and a full moon silently appeared. The Blood Parrot had completed one sky-patrolling journey and once again drifted slowly across the sky. Its blue-black body emitted a faint blood-red glow as it silently swept over the moon's face. Set against the silver moonlight, the Blood Parrot appeared all the more sinister, grotesque, and savage.

From time to time, Yin Clan members raised their heads and curiously examined this sky-patrolling secret treasure that contained immense destructive power. In their vision, countless strands of moonlight as fine as hairs were continually swallowed by the Blood Parrot. Just like the Yin Clan members themselves, moonlight was also the source of energy for this Demon Race treasure!

Under moonlight, the Blood Parrot possessed a destructive power a hundred times greater than during the day.

Just like these Yin Clan members, beneath the moon and in the night, the Yin Clan members inhaled the essence of moonlight. Their combat power and cultivation speed were several, even dozens, of times greater than during the day. To the Yin Clan members, moonlit nights—especially nights of the full moon—were extraordinarily precious. Cultivating through any full-moon night was enough to let the Yin Clan's Juveniles advance by a great deal.

Yin Xuege was only eleven years old, a true Juvenile of the Yin Clan. Before he turned eighteen, the essence of moonlight on a full-moon night was just as important to him as it was to any other Yin Clan Juvenile.

The Blood Mist Barrier covering the entire Yin Clan City-State had already dispersed, revealing layer upon layer of buildings within the city-state. Atop those towers and high-rises, great groups of Yin Clan Juveniles occupied advantageous positions. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, they gulped down the essence of moonlight.

Yin Xuejiao was cultivating as well. He sat alone atop a three-hundred-meter-tall tower, with a formation composed of dozens of fist-sized blood-colored pearls floating around him. With the aid of this profound formation, vast amounts of moonlight essence were drawn over, circling around Yin Xuejiao. The dense moonlight essence even condensed into mist visible to the naked eye.

The wondrous and mysterious Innate Taiyin Qi continually poured into Yin Xuejiao's body along with the moonlight essence. His handsome face, carrying a haughty and vicious air, wore a satisfied smile. As the Taiyin Qi tempered him, his flesh grew stronger, his blood vitality flourished, and his soul power became increasingly robust.

But at the entrance to the Yin Clan City-State, twenty long tables stood in a row, with a blood-robed person sitting properly behind each one. Twenty long lines stretched out before the tables, countless terrified men and women, old and young, trembling in place as they slowly moved forward.

Behind the twenty tables, Yin Xuege was the only Juvenile, and he alone possessed the status of the Yin Clan's legitimate son. Everyone else was an adult, and all were external-affairs stewards of the Yin Clan. Yin Xuege alone was a Juvenile, and he did not even hold any position within the Lineage.

On this full-moon night, he had merely been temporarily "seconded" to help the Yin Clan's "External Affairs Hall," which was "short-handed," register the Blood Slaves captured and brought back that day. Unfortunately, the hunting party had captured an especially large number of Blood Slaves, while the External Affairs Hall had far fewer stewards than usual. Thus, without spending the entire night, there was no way to complete the registration.

A thick black register lay before Yin Xuege. Holding a slender writing brush, he rapidly copied down the names, identities, family relations, and other details of the new Blood Slaves standing before him in blood-red ink.

Yin Xuege wrote quickly, using the fastest speed he could to record the Blood Slaves' information. Yet, as on countless previous full-moon nights, the number of Blood Slaves captured that day was enormous. Even after his wrist had gone numb from writing, a long line still stretched before him.

Just after one girl had completed her registration with Yin Xuege, several Yin Clan Warriors roughly dragged the haggard-looking girl into a small gate beside the city entrance. They stripped her completely naked and blasted her body with icy, bone-piercing high-pressure water. White disinfectant powder poured down from above, and the irritating powder made her eyes burn with agony as she let out a shriek that tore through the heavens.

Like livestock in a slaughterhouse, after completing registration and having their bodies disinfected, each Blood Slave received a coarse white robe. Then they formed up and marched toward the deep, dark interior of the Yin Clan City-State.

Listening to the girl's shrill cries of pain, Yin Xuege raised his head and glanced at the full moon that had gradually shifted westward. Then he looked at the still-endless line before him and could not help sighing softly.

Though he was only an eleven-year-old boy, his sigh was filled with an inerasable air of desolation and sorrow. Yet if someone had watched carefully from nearby, they would have seen a blood-red light like seething lava flash through Yin Xuege's eyes.

Yin Xuege's left hand was hidden in his sleeve, curled beneath the long table. His left hand clenched tightly into a fist. Beneath his fair skin, blue veins and sinews bulged one after another. In his heart, his hatred had already reached its limit.

Before the first rays of dawn arrived, the Blood Mist Barrier of the Yin Clan City-State silently spread open once more.

An external-affairs chief steward of the Yin Clan had come to Yin Xuege's side at some point. Looking at Yin Xuege, who had worked busily all night, the chief steward, wearing a malicious smile, gently patted him on the shoulder.

"Young Master Xuege, tired? Hurry and wash up. You still have to attend the elders' lecture later!"

The chief steward's lips curled with blatant malice as he drawled, "You worked all night, so you certainly won't be deprived of those two family Merit Points! Hurry and attend class. Don't be late!"

"Oh, right. I heard Young Master Xuejiao and Young Master Yin Xueao broke through yesterday, so apparently the elders' lesson today will be a combat class!"

Yin Xuege's hand abruptly stiffened, and his eyes once again filled with crazed blood-red light.