Mountains rose and fell eight hundred li outside Candle Dragon City.
A great hall had appeared atop one of the peaks.
Inside the hall, numerous Demon Barbarian Half-Sage Incarnations stood on either side, leaving the seat of honor vacant. An enormous green serpent with red markings occupied the first position on the left. Opposite him sat someone who was not a Half-Sage Incarnation.
It was the Demon Emperor, clad in full armor.
The Demon Realm valued hierarchy over moral propriety, and none of the other Half-Sage Incarnations reproached the Demon Emperor.
The Plague Lord habitually flicked out his long, scarlet tongue with a series of hisses. Staring at the Demon Emperor with blood-red eyes, he asked coldly, "Who was it that boasted before entering Dragon City that he would seize the Ancestral Dragon's Light?"
The Demon Emperor sat cross-legged on the Flood Dragon Sage's remains and said calmly, "Had the Grand Shaman not been overconfident and rushed there recklessly, things would not have come to this."
"Oh, are you blaming the Windseer?" an Eagle Sage incarnation asked.
The Demon Emperor sat motionless and offered no explanation.
Seeing the Demon Emperor's imposing air weaken slightly, the Plague Lord seemed satisfied. "Before we came, the Grand Windseer gave us prophecies. Some of them concerned you."
The Demon Emperor straightened his upper body and gazed silently at the Plague Lord.
The Grand Windseer was the foremost of the Demon Realm's three Windseers. Highly respected, his powers of prophecy far surpassed those of the other two.
The Plague Lord said, "When you went to kill Fang Yun, you must have had another objective: to reclaim the Ancient Star River Tributary. Correct?"
"Indeed." The Demon Emperor lowered his head slightly, as though speaking to the Grand Windseer himself.
"The Grand Windseer said that it is