The scene turned back.
The years flowed on, and time returned to thirteen hundred years ago. By then, Fallen Dragon Ridge already dominated a million li of the Wilds, and the Twenty-Eight Yao Grottoes walked the world, their name synonymous with the strongest power on the Heavenly River's outskirts.
In a Yao Stronghold ruled by the Angsu Yao Grotto, a Lesser Yao who had grown up suffering every kind of bullying began to rise from humble beginnings.
After enduring such episodes as humiliation by a Demoness, and beating the young only for their elders to come knocking, the Lesser Yao finally stumbled into a deadly forbidden place during a life-and-death crisis and brought out a Demon Sword.
The sword was utterly unremarkable, save for the mysterious bloodstain on its tip, which could not be wiped away no matter what.
At first, it attracted no attention either. But through a chance coincidence, the Lesser Yao eventually discovered that the sword possessed the mysterious ability to devour the Demon Race's blood essence and feed it back into its Yao Body. The price was that it had to provide a share of spiritual nourishment as well.
Thus, relying on this sword, the Lesser Yao cautiously slaughtered members of the Demon Race and gradually grew stronger. At last, during a life-and-death battle, the longsword, nourished by its spirit for so long, finally gave birth to a faint trace of intelligence.
By then, that Lesser Yao had also become a lofty Great Yao.
But that life-and-death battle had left it at death's door.
Seeing intelligence born within the longsword on which its life depended, it "sacrificed" itself to that intelligence, allowing it to be fully born, while its own life and cultivation came to an end.
Much of what happened in between, along with many