In the memories Chen Changsheng had recreated, he became Demon Venerable Zu Yuan, seated high in High Heaven, coldly watching the Cultivation World turn into a wasteland.
The real Zu Yuan, meanwhile, became him, barely clinging to life amid that wasteland.
This strange reversal of positions felt rather peculiar to Chen Changsheng.
It gave him the illusion that the executioner and the condemned had exchanged identities.
He had lived through the destruction of his Sect, his master's death, and the slaughter of his fellow disciples.
He and Eldest Senior Brother had been lucky enough to escape.
The extraordinarily gifted Eldest Senior Brother had fought his way out of the encirclement, taking his useless self along.
Clad in a blue-green robe, with a single longsword, he had carved a path to survival for him.
For that, Eldest Senior Brother had lost an arm.
What followed was an endless pursuit, as though all of Heaven and Earth no longer held a place for the two of them.
There was no time to catch their breath. The slightest rest would see them surrounded by endless ranks of the Devil Race.
Back then, he had been a useless wretch who had only just reached the Nascent Soul Realm, able only to hide beneath Eldest Senior Brother's wings and scrape out a miserable existence.
He had watched Eldest Senior Brother suffer injuries to save him time and again, falling into danger for his sake over and over.
Even when the mountains and rivers ended and every path was exhausted, Eldest Senior Brother still wore a smile, reassuring him that everything would get better.
How Chen Changsheng had hated!
He hated the Devil Race that had committed boundless slaughter, hated this world, hated his powerless self.
Suddenly, Chen Changsheng's body began to move against his will.