Inside Phoenix Cry Tower, the wine and food were flowing freely.
Xu Youxia considered it for a moment, then spoke first. "The Demon God Continent places enormous importance on bloodlines. Its hierarchy is strict. You know that, don't you, Junior Brother?"
Ji Yuan nodded.
It was no secret. Everyone in the cultivation world knew the Demon God Continent's rules: bloodline determined status, and ancestry determined everything.
Even at the same cultivation level, an ordinary Demon Beast and an Ancient Variant Species stood worlds apart in status.
Xu Youxia ate a bite of Flood Dragon tendon, tapped his chopsticks lightly against the table, and continued.
"But that's only the surface. Those high-ranking races don't just look at bloodline. They look at its purity too. They call it 'pureblood'—their people are absolutely forbidden from marrying outside their race."
He paused, his tone growing heavier.
"They can't even marry into another Demon Race, let alone the Human Race."
"Once another race's blood gets mixed in, they see it as a stain on the bloodline. No matter how gifted or powerful you are, you'll always be beneath the others in the clan. It's carved into their bones. They can't change it."
At those words, the hazy veil over Ji Yuan's understanding was finally pierced.
Dong Qian was a Human-Fox Hybrid.
One of her ancestors had been born of a union between the Heavenly Fox Clan and the Human Race. Among humans, that bloodline might be considered rare and noble. Within the Heavenly Fox Clan, it was a brand she could never wash away.
She had awakened her Heavenly Fox Bloodline, and the blood lotus on her forehead was a genuine Sky Fox mark.
But in the eyes of pureblood Sky Foxes, she would always be a "Human-Fox Hybrid"—"half an outsider tainted with the lowly