Li Chen guided the Wooden Soldier puppet through the air, determining his bearings from the terrain below while silently pondering.
Spiritual energy filled this world, and all manner of living creatures multiplied rapidly. Demons in particular were aberrant beings grouped under a broad designation alongside nature spirits and other supernatural creatures, often without regard for their original species.
Demons were natural sources of contamination. Wherever they existed, heaven and earth vital energy would continually be infected and assimilated, breeding ever more demons. Over time, even nature spirits originally belonging to the pure and numinous would turn.
This process was known as "demonization."
Ancient Cultivators, too, spoke of falling into demonic ways. When cultivators underwent demonization, their temperaments changed drastically, making them a great scourge upon heaven and earth.
Even humans, born with intelligence and counted among the seeds of the Dao, were subject to this-how much more so ordinary beasts, supernatural creatures, and nature spirits?
Throughout history, demons had relied on this trait to keep contesting territory with humans and all other living beings. The so-called Demon Domain was merely a collective term for the lands they had wrested away in ancient times.
As Li Chen flew through the air, he spotted the ruins of a Market District already becoming overgrown with wild grass.
It had once been a human settlement. For centuries, its inhabitants had lived and worked in peace, and it had sheltered many ordinary people. Yet demons had run rampant overnight, reducing every trace of life to nothing.
The wild forest was likewise eroding every trace of human activity, seeking to turn it into wilderness. Yet amid the growing vegetation, a certain indescribable vitality had emerged.
For the wild grass and forest, was the downfall of this human settlement not a victory of their own?
Humans and