Li Xiang raised his eyes and swept his gaze over the nine people facing him.
The nine had split into two groups.
The five on the left barely retained human forms. Anyone who was not blind could see at a glance that something was wrong with them.
Their skin was covered in fine, dark-purple horny scales. The sides of their foreheads bulged, with short bone horns faintly protruding from them.
More unsettling still were their eyes. Their pupils were vertical slits like those of cold-blooded reptiles, filled with cruel, lofty indifference.
"Demonfolk."
Li Xiang reached his conclusion inwardly.
He had read extensively about them in the miscellaneous ancient texts he had obtained from Demon City's martial repository.
These beings, entrenched along the northern border of the Great Xin Dynasty, had arisen in much the same way as the Demonkin now clinging to life underground.
In an age long past, when humanity was weak, a group of pioneers had made a tragic sacrifice to defend this land against demons.
They had willingly fused demonic blood into their bodies, becoming half-human, half-demon shields at the very front of humanity's defense.
But time was the cruelest poison in the world.
As the river of years rolled on, the faith that had once driven them to protect humanity was warped by the insidious influence of demonic blood. They had long forgotten their ancestors' glory and original purpose.
They stubbornly believed the demonic blood in their veins marked their evolution into a higher form of life, while pure humans were merely feeble, lowly ants. They broke away from humanity and secretly came to regard humans as prey and food.
The four on the right, meanwhile, were dressed quite differently.
They wore rough, hard-wearing yellow-brown linen robes, with hoods concealing most of their faces. Their exposed