No one truly wishes to sacrifice themselves. The higher you ascend, the more true this becomes. The fusion of the Heavenly Demon and the Human Race allows mutual acceptance of ideologies; however, it also makes them susceptible to human thoughts. Even Elder Long had not anticipated that the minds of his subordinates, whom he had trained for two eras, were more resilient than he had imagined.
His name was Huo Jianqiang. In that later era, few could bear such an ancient name, but there was no choice. For his family, demonstrating a bit of loyalty was necessary to stand any chance at all. Only by positioning themselves absolutely correctly could they garner support from some ancient families to have a shot at joining the upper echelons.
