"Besides your routine duties, you have another, separate assignment."
"What assignment?"
"One of your senior apostles is conducting a dangerous test in the Abyss involving a Heavenly Demon. If it succeeds, it will be worth no less than finding an intact Dragon Bone."
"What do I need to do?"
"Go take a look. Make sure the test is safe."
"Where exactly?"
"...At a sect that disappeared three years ago. It was called the Seeking Demon Sect."
"How am I supposed to find a vanished sect?"
"If I knew that, would I need to send you?"
"..."
The vision ended.
Chen Gongxing's Butterfly Effect vision had shown Jiang Chen the ugly faces of those blessed with talent.
Fortunately, he had the system. He, too, could see the sights reserved for the strong.
At least he hadn't transmigrated for nothing.
Unfortunately, unlike Plot Simulations, the visions in the [Butterfly Effect] tab offered no way to move the camera, zoom, fast-forward, rewind, or sharpen his five senses... He couldn't pinpoint the Liyue Branch's location.
Jiang Chen then opened the second vision in the [Butterfly Effect] tab: Tian Mingye's Ambition.
The view shifted to the Heavenly Demon Sect.
The first thing Jiang Chen saw was the enormous Ginseng Fruit Tree standing at the sect's center.
Southwest of the Ginseng Fruit Tree rose a tall building like a watchtower.
The lotus-shaped palace perched at its top was Tian Mingye's residence, Heavenly Nether Palace.
Heavenly Nether Palace had nine lotus petals. Its terraces stood a few yards below the Ginseng Fruit Tree's crown, close enough to pluck its leaves by hand, with the entire Heavenly Demon Sect spread out below.
A circular blood pool ringed its outer edge. Clusters of black-stone palaces filled the center, while the space between held a garden of exquisitely wrought artificial hills... rocks and flowers, birds, zithers, chess, calligraphy, and paintings. Nothing was missing.
In the previous third ending, it was in a room of Heavenly Nether Palace that Jiang Chen had been tested in turn by seductive, wicked demonesses of every description.
There had been little pleasure in it, but it had left him with an indelible psychological scar he could hardly bear to revisit.
Now a Kun Demon swam over and descended into the gardens of Heavenly Nether Palace, slowly opening its cavernous maw.
Tian Mingye and a demon girl stepped out of its mouth.
As far as the eye could see, peace reigned throughout the Heavenly Demon Sect, as if nothing had happened.
Tian Mingye had gone to the Azure Mist Sect to bring back Qu Yang or his corpse, and to kill Reverend Guiqi along the way.
She had thought it would take no more than a wave of her hand. She hadn't even notified a third demon follower; she had simply brought a timekeeper and attacked the Azure Mist Sect.
Instead, she had run into the Form-Returning Formation and that old dog Chen Gongxing, who had even caused her to return to the form of a grown woman...
"That was the first time I'd met a Liyue walker who didn't even qualify as an apostle, yet I could do nothing to him!"
Tian Mingye's chest trembled with anger as surging Demonic Flame returned amid her fury.
The demon girl quietly reminded her:
"He's no ordinary Liyue walker. He's at the middle stage of the Spirit Severing Realm, and his Resonance Sword Technique is no small achievement. His combat strength meets the standard for a Liyue apostle, while Your Excellency is only at the early Nascent Soul stage..."
"You saw all that clearly?"
"That's what the Stone-Carved Bell recorded."
Jiang Chen had to hand it to the Stone-Carved Bell.
It could keep time, serve as a flying vessel, open spatial rifts, and even detect information about enemies... It was practically a robotic cat.
Tian Mingye nodded, then abruptly knitted her dark, purple-black brows.
"While you were above the formation, did you see anyone besides Chen Gongxing and that old man Guiqi?"
"Anyone... what do you mean?"
"Most of my demonic qi was converted into spiritual energy by the Form-Returning Formation and absorbed by that old man Guiqi. But a tiny portion was absorbed directly. The presence was so faint it seemed to belong to someone at the Qi Refining stage, not the old man."
Jiang Chen was stunned.
He had hidden so deeply that even Reverend Guiqi hadn't noticed him, yet this demoness had sensed something!
Of course, he had this demoness's original Heavenly Demon demonic qi inside him. It made sense that she might notice.
The demon girl had been outside the formation, so naturally she had seen nothing.
"Apart from Liu Ruyan's illusion techniques, this subordinate saw no one else.
"I simply hadn't expected Liu Ruyan, the one casting those illusions, to be a fox demon.
"In or around Fireburn Kingdom, only one fox demon possesses illusion techniques of that caliber: the Thousand-Faced Fox."
Tian Mingye seemed to have noticed this long ago.
"She was merely one of the humans the fox possessed."
Jiang Chen paused. Wasn't she a human clone?
If Tian Mingye was telling the truth, it meant the woman who had been flirting with him these past few days was the Thousand-Faced Fox possessing Liu Ruyan.
Jiang Chen had read about it in cultivation manuals: possession was different from seizing a body.
To seize a body, a powerful soul at least at the Spirit Severing Realm had to forcibly destroy a lower-level cultivator's soul through violence or a secret art, then take over the flesh.
Possession, on the other hand, usually required the host to be so despairing that they had lost the will to live, or for their soul to be under attack and on the verge of destruction. Only then could a master of soul arts possess them from afar.
A soul could seize only one body at a time.
But it could possess several people at once.
During possession, the souls of the original host and the possessor were usually fused.
So that was the Thousand-Faced Fox's method!
For some reason, learning this left Jiang Chen a little relieved.
It meant the Thousand-Faced Fox wasn't necessarily the one who had killed Senior Sister Liu.
And Senior Sister Liu wasn't entirely the Thousand-Faced Fox. She still retained a trace of her original personality, habits, likes, and dislikes.
Cradling the Stone-Carved Bell, the demon girl frowned and exclaimed in puzzlement:
"Who would have thought that thousand-year-old fox would hide in the Azure Mist Sect for years, all for a Return-Form Method!"
Tian Mingye said only:
"She can divine opportunities. Before she saw the Form-Returning Formation, how could she have known the method was useless to demons?"
The demon girl asked again:
"But I've heard the Thousand-Faced Fox never leaves empty-handed. Why would she have come all this way for nothing? Perhaps the tiny Azure Mist Sect conceals another opportunity..."
Something suddenly occurred to Tian Mingye.
"That little Qi Refining cultivator who secretly absorbed my demonic qi... Without the Thousand-Faced Fox's illusions helping him, I would certainly have seen his true face!"
A chill ran down Jiang Chen's spine. He instinctively checked whether he was at the Spirit Spring Inn in Xiyang City.
Fortunately, he had been hiding in the Burial Ground back then...
"But none of that concerns me. My sea of qi is too vast, slowing my advancement. I need to find the Dragon Bone to help me control my Heavenly Demon body. Then I can raise my cultivation and stand above all living beings," Tian Mingye said.
You're looking for the Dragon Bone too?
What a coincidence, Jiang Chen thought. I'm a descendant of dragons!
The demon girl nodded.
"My brother set off ten days ago to look for the Dragon Bone."
Tian Mingye frowned.
"Your brother is too obsessed with swordsmanship. I fear he'll jeopardize my plans."
The demon girl giggled and patted her not-yet-fully-developed chest.
"Now that Elder Qu Yang has been killed, there's no one else in our sect stronger than my brother, apart from Your Excellency... Besides, my brother keeps a low profile. He's stronger than Elder Qu Yang."
"Keeps a low profile? Suppressing his cultivation so he can show off his swordsmanship counts as keeping a low profile?"
Tian Mingye gave a cold snort, then tipped her head back and sighed.
"My Heavenly Demon Sect... is still too weak!"
Jiang Chen opened the third vision: the Thousand-Faced Fox.
Inside the bedchamber of a wealthy, powerful clan.
An elegant woman in sumptuous robes, her face touched by years of hardship, sat before a bronze mirror doing her makeup.
In the bronze mirror, hair white as snow framed a stunning face, cool and clear yet alluring as a fox's.
The young woman's gaze in the mirror met the center of the vision's view, looking straight at Jiang Chen.
"Someone's watching us."
Before you continue