Demon Master Huang Dao, Martial Force Shatters the Void

Mount Zhongnan.

The sun had passed its zenith.

On the rear slopes of Mount Zhongnan, a winding, twisting path up the mountain lay hidden, hard for the world to find.

Only the elite disciples of the Three Truths Sect and the local mountain folk had glimpsed its true face; ordinary people could scarcely know of it.

On both sides of the mountain trail, ancient trees towered into the sky, their branches and leaves dense and lush, and the sunlight was sifted by the thick canopy into mottled patches of light and shadow.

The roars of wild beasts in the forest appeared and vanished, chilling the heart and gall.

Together with the steepness of the mountain road, anyone without real ability would not dare take this way.

It made the place seem especially quiet and secluded, lacking the noise and crowding of the front mountain.

Only now and then did a traveler hurry past.

At this moment!

On this silent mountain path, however, two unusual figures appeared.

One was a youth, his build somewhat thin and frail.

Perhaps the climb had been too exhausting, for he had simply wrapped himself around a large tree with no proper bearing at all, eyes closed as he rested, his breathing slightly heavy.

The youth was not old, roughly sixteen or seventeen, his face still carrying childishness and faint freckles.

Yet he looked as though wine, women, wealth, and desire had hollowed him out.

Before the youth

stood a middle-aged scholar.

He was tall and slender, his skin crystalline as jade. Though his temples had already gone slightly gray, it only added a few more traces of mature masculine charm.

Deep wisdom and refined elegance showed between his brows. His bearing was outstanding, his presence radiant.

If noble ladies from the capital were here, they would surely have fallen head over heels for him.

"Sir, this mountain road is rugged and hard to walk. I really can't go on!"

The youth panted as he lamented, sweat pouring down like rain, his face full of exhaustion.

The middle-aged scholar, however, was calm and unhurried.

It was as though he were walking along a level avenue. Not only was his face not red and his breath not short, even his boots had not been stained by a single speck of mud.

He glanced at the youth and said with a smile,

"With that body of yours, you broke your primordial yang at eleven or twelve. Naturally your body is badly depleted. Walking more is a good thing."

"And now it is the Great Cold, with the stirrings of spring about to burst forth. Sweating a bit can even secure your kidney essence."

Seeing the scholar so composed, the youth said with a chuckle,

"How about you carry me for a while, sir?"

After the middle-aged scholar heard this, the smile on his face grew even warmer, like a spring breeze brushing one's cheeks.

"Fine. You can try."

When the youth heard this and looked at the kindly smile on the middle-aged scholar's face,

he seemed to think of something. His expression changed, and his head shook like a pellet drum as he hurriedly said,

"Forget it, forget it. Sir, you were joking!"

He knew very well that though this scholar seemed easy to get along with,

he was a true devil!

The youth was named Xie Mu. Originally, he had been a young master of the Xie Clan in the capital, ranked third.

The Xie Clan counted as fairly decent in the capital; those they associated with were all powerful ministers of the court.

But in the hands of this sort of devil, most likely, he would be pinched to death.

...and then he would simply be dead.

The first time they met, he had seen this man boating on the lake, with no one steering or rowing.

The boat drifted by itself!

He had been greatly curious, and had shouted for his house servants to throw silver onto the boat, yelling,

"Good act! It deserves a reward!"

Thinking back on it now, he only wanted to slap himself twice across the mouth.

Afterward, the two got acquainted. The middle-aged scholar had looked like a down-and-out bookman, yet his bearing was out of the ordinary. He frankly said that he had been wounded by women of the world and wished to go to his death in the lake.

When Xie Mu heard that, he mocked him, saying,

"With money, what girl can't you play with? This young master will take you to broaden your horizons!"

Thus, the two addressed each other as brothers.

Xie Mu took the scholar through every brothel, and the two had even shared one woman together, playing their way through the capital, indulging wildly and singing every day. They also got involved in gambling houses and took delight in it all.

One day,

the scholar suddenly became beside himself with joy, threw back his head, and laughed that he had understood.

Xie Mu shook his head and laughed. "Another one gone mad!"

After he won money, he also understood. Then the next day he kept losing money, and even fucking went all-in!

The scholar suddenly asked whether Xie Mu had any enemies.

Xie Mu casually mentioned an aristocratic clan disciple who was always winning his money, surnamed Sun.

Who would have thought!

The next day, a horrifying piece of news spread through the capital.

The Sun Clan had been wiped out overnight, every last member dead!

The Sun residence was surrounded by the prefectural yamen so tightly that not even water could leak through. The stench of blood surged to the sky, and everyone in the capital was terrified and in fear for themselves.

He had found it unbelievable, but had not thought of the middle-aged scholar.

Early that morning, he returned home after fooling around at a pleasure house!

The moment he opened the door!

One hundred and eight heads in his home had been laid out neatly, and Xie Mu even saw the heads of the Sun Clan brothers.

The middle-aged scholar was sitting at a table on one side of the room, eating plain noodles.

He ate with loud slurping sounds, and had even thoughtfully brought Xie Mu a bowl, as though none of it had anything to do with him.

Xie Mu fainted on the spot from fright.

From then on, he no longer dared call him brother.

Seeing that he was dressed as a scholar, he dared call him "sir."

Xie Mu asked the scholar's name? While they had been fooling around together before, he had always been the big brother.

Now he only wanted to be the grandson.

The scholar smiled and said,

"Huang Dao."

"The Huang of 'Yellow Heaven above,' the Dao of 'the great Dao of Heaven and Earth'!"

Xie Mu had never heard of him.

But he was truly afraid.

This time, Huang Dao wanted to come to Mount Zhongnan. He did not want to go, but he did not dare say he would not.

Afraid that Huang Dao would serve up a "Manchu-Han banquet" in the Xie Clan, he bit the bullet and went.

And so, the two of them came all this way!

Huang Long looked at Mount Zhongnan, both hands leisurely clasped behind his back.

Suddenly, he asked,

"Xie Mu, who do you say is the strongest on Mount Zhongnan?"

Without even thinking, Xie Mu said,

"Of course it's Lu Chen, Junior Protector Lu."

"Back then, when he retired to Mount Zhongnan, I was so heartbroken that day I drank away my sorrow at night and called over two untouched courtesans before I finally recovered!"

Huang Long burst into laughter despite himself.

"That man can indeed count as one of your so-called heroes, but he is still a mortal. If I want to kill him, he will die beyond all doubt."

"Whether Lu Chen or the so-called imperial nobles, in my eyes, they are no different from fish and shrimp in a river."

Xie Mu could not help saying,

"You want to kill Junior Protector Lu?"

Huang Dao shook his head.

"He has no grievance or enmity with me, so I will not kill him. If you hate him, though, I can help you kill him."

Xie Mu hurriedly said,

"Let's not. Junior Protector Lu is a good man."

Huang Dao spoke lightly, his voice carrying a few notes of vicissitude and indifference.

"Good people and bad people are merely definitions the world forcibly imposes. In some people's eyes, they are nothing more than an anthill. Ants do not harm people, but when a foot steps down, even if the ants lose their lives, to those people, it is no more than a trivial matter."

Xie Mu climbed down from the tree and stood to the side, asking curiously,

"Then, sir, what did you come to Mount Zhongnan for?"

Huang Long smiled, his tone utterly unconcerned.

"I came here to slay a dragon."

Xie Mu's face changed drastically at once.

Naturally, Mount Zhongnan had no dragons, but next spring, Emperor Qing was going to pray for blessings for all the people at Mount Zhongnan.

"You're going to kill the emperor!"

Xie Mu frightened even himself with his own words and hurriedly covered his mouth.

Huang Dao nodded indifferently.

Huang Dao lifted his head and looked at the light filtering through the dense forest. The dome of heaven could not be seen clearly, and he said without taking it seriously,

"So what if he is the emperor? He is still merely one among these ordinary mortals. In my eyes, he is no different from common people."

"If what he does goes against the Heavenly Dao, then I naturally have my reason to behead him."

Xie Mu said cautiously,

"Goes against the Heavenly Dao?"

Huang Dao smiled. "I am the Heavenly Dao."

When Xie Mu heard that, his whole face turned mournful.

"No, then why did you bring me?"

Huang Dao was rather grateful as he said,

"If not for you, I would most likely have had to wait fruitlessly in the mortal world for several more years."

"And thus missed this—change in the heavens!"

"Naturally, I must thank you."

Xie Mu collapsed inwardly. You son of a bitch, you're harming me!

If you killed the emperor, with us together, no explanation would work anymore.

I treated you as a brother and invited you to eat, drink, whore, and gamble.

You're going to get your brother killed!

Huang Dao, however, paid no attention to Xie Mu's expression. Instead, the corner of his mouth hooked into something like a smile.

"Of course, those three have most likely sensed it too!"

"This is truly a change unseen in a thousand years."

"In our Sacred Sect, for three thousand years, countless brilliant and peerless ancestral masters ultimately grew old and died in this place."

"The thing they spent their lives seeking has finally appeared!"

The supreme treasured canon of the demonic path, the Heavenly Demon Strategy.

It not only recorded countless cultivation methods researched and improved by successive generations of demonic path grandmasters,

it also carried the highest heart technique of the Demon Sect—the Dao Heart Demon Seed.

This cultivation method was mysterious and unfathomable, its power boundless, but the difficulty of cultivating it was also extremely high. In history, only a small number of people had been able to succeed.

The middle-aged scholar was none other than Huang Dao, the great grandmaster of the Demon Sect from thirty years ago, who had nearly gone simple-minded in order to cultivate the Dao Heart Demon Seed.

Now, he had already mastered it.

However, apart from these cultivation methods, on the final page of the Heavenly Demon Strategy, there was hidden a prophecy written with painstaking, solitary effort:

countless ancestral masters of the Demon Sect had all yearned for it until their hearts and souls raced.

"Spiritual energy returns."

"Martial force shatters the void."

The next chapter has a bit of a little car started, and it'll only be translated and posted tomorrow. Everyone, don't be anxious!