Inside one of Dong City's most prestigious restaurants, a place once filled with the chatter of nobles and the clinking of jade cups, there was now only silence. The golden lanterns swayed slowly, casting eerie shadows on the ornate walls, and the smell of roasted spiritual beast meat still lingered in the air. But not a soul stirred… except one.
A young man sat cross-legged on the cold marble floor, far from the polished tables and silken cushions. He wore plain red-white robes, blood-dried patches barely noticeable in the dim lighting. His long black hair hung down, covering most of his emotionless face. The boy was Li Wei.
With his bare hands, he picked pieces of meat from a plate placed carelessly on the ground. Every bite was mechanical—chewing not for taste, but survival. His eyes stared at the food, but his mind was elsewhere… buried deep in thought.
"Just a little more…" he muttered to himself, barely audible.
His cultivation had reached the peak of the 5th stage, the limit of what his body and soul could endure in their current state. He could feel it—like a locked gate pressing against his ribs, just waiting to burst open. But to pass through it… he needed something terrifying.
"The second stage of body cultivation…" he whispered. "And the other half… of the demonic body art."
He closed his eyes, and a storm of memories rushed back.
Blood. Screams. Mountains of corpses—both human and beast. Villages left silent, forests left dry. The rivers had turned red, and the winds had carried the scent of death for miles.
"One lakh souls…" he breathed. "Gone… just for half of it."
His fingers trembled slightly—not from regret—but from the weight of power earned through absolute carnage. His body now held something far from human, something ancient, cursed, and drenched in demonic essence.
Outside, Dong City trembled.
The cultivators of the great clans whispered in fear. The Mo family licked its wounds, the Su family seethed in vengeance, and the Xun family remained in cautious silence. No one said his name aloud… but they all knew.
"He's still here… somewhere in this city."
And here he sat—in plain sight, in a famed restaurant where no one dared enter anymore. Rumor had it that anyone who crossed that threshold… never walked back out.
Li Wei took another bite.
A faint gust passed through the open door, fluttering the paper talismans that hung from the ceiling. The candles flickered and then—extinguished.
Darkness.
Li Wei smiled, his crimson eyes glowing faintly in the shadows.
"They know I'm still here," he whispered, amused. "And they should be scared."
He stood up slowly, his joints cracking faintly, like the awakening of a sleeping monster. The plate rolled away on the ground, hitting a nearby wall and breaking.
Outside the restaurant, several cultivators stood hidden in the shadows, not daring to enter.
"He's alone," one whispered.
"Don't be stupid," another answered. "He is never alone. His aura… it's like standing beside a graveyard."
And within the restaurant, Li Wei stretched his hand toward the air… and the blood in the cracks of the marble started to rise like mist, dancing around his body.
"Let the next massacre begin."
He just said this… and stepped outside.
The great double doors of the restaurant creaked open, echoing like thunder in the silence of Dong City's central street. The evening sky was painted with a blood-orange hue, but the street itself looked grey — as if color had drained from the world in fear.
Li Wei walked barefoot onto the sacred stones of the old market road.
His red-white robe fluttered gently in the breeze, but no spiritual aura surrounded him. He seemed plain — even ordinary. A young man with sharp but calm features, long hair trailing behind him, and a presence that felt... deceptively human.
But something was wrong.
Everyone could feel it, even if they couldn't name it. Like staring into the eyes of a sleeping beast in the dark — you don't see its fangs, but your soul remembers them.
People froze mid-step. Merchants stopped their shouting. A child dropped his wooden toy. Silence ruled.
Those who had only glimpsed the demonic battle from a distance saw this figure and felt nothing but confusion.
"Just… a traveler?" they wondered.
But those who had watched from the cliff's edge, hiding during the clash of monsters — those few unfortunate souls who had seen Li Wei truly unleash — felt the hair on their necks rise, their knees weaken, and their stomachs churn.
One of them—a middle-aged cultivator hiding in a tea shop's upper floor—whispered, trembling:
> "That's… not possible. That's not him. That face… that presence… he looked different in the battlefield… monstrous… he—he had wings of blood and eyes like flame…"
Another one gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white.
"No, it's him. I… I recognize the way he walks… That's how he walked through corpses."
They didn't speak again. They knew.
And they also knew they would die if he noticed them.
Li Wei's eyes — now faintly dull, like cold steel — scanned the city.
He looked like a simple man, a peaceful scholar perhaps… until you stood too close.
Because once you did, something beneath your skin would scream.
Your soul would try to retreat into your spine.
Your instincts would betray your senses and scream at you to run.
His cultivation was sealed. Not by choice… but by will.
He had compressed his entire aura, folded it like steel, bound it within his flesh. The air around him did not ripple, yet even the birds refused to fly overhead.
He wanted them to see only a mortal.
He wanted to walk freely.
He wanted them to forget the name "Li Wei"... so that when it returned, it would return like a curse.
And as he walked, some cultivators passed by, giving him no more than a polite nod. Some street urchins looked at him, but their curiosity faded — their minds couldn't comprehend his presence.
He had become something that didn't belong in the human world, a figure that no longer cast a shadow of aura, but instead… cast a shadow on memory.
One beggar, old and blind, sat by the road and chuckled softly as Li Wei passed.
"He walks again... the red wind walks again…" he mumbled, not knowing why he was afraid.
Li Wei paused.
He turned toward the old beggar and gave him a faint smile.
"You're not blind," he said softly.
"You just see too much."
Li Wei's footsteps halted.
The faintest smile had just left his lips as he turned to continue down the deserted street, but then —
"You are just acting to be blind."
The words slid through the air like a dagger dipped in ancient venom.
Li Wei froze. Not out of fear — no, that emotion had long since withered in him —
but from genuine surprise. And that was rarer than any immortal treasure.
The beggar still sat slumped on the roadside — filthy robes, white beard twisted into knots, hands covered in cracked skin like dry bark. He looked like death's forgotten servant.
But his voice… his voice now carried clarity. Timelessness. Confidence. Like someone who had watched countless gods rise and rot.
"You too… are not a mortal," the old man continued, chuckling, eyes still looking at nothing — or perhaps… everything.
"You're just acting."
Li Wei turned back, slowly.
His smile vanished. His eyes sharpened. There was no bloodlust, no aura, not even killing intent. But for the first time since his transformation… Li Wei felt seen.
He stared at the man, silently.
"What are you?" he asked softly, like someone whispering to a ghost.
The old man did not reply. He simply stood.
And then something horrifying happened — he moved his body…
And in that single moment, Li Wei realized this man wasn't old at all.
The hunched spine straightened. The sagging skin tightened. The milky white eyes gleamed with dangerous light — silver, like twin moons. His robes still hung loose, but now they billowed as if in a private wind. And his presence — hidden until now — bled out like a slow eclipse.
It was not the pressure of a cultivator.
It was something worse.
Ancient. Cold. Watching.
Like a spirit that had watched empires drown.
Li Wei did not move. He knew… if he made even the wrong breath, this being might erase him from existence, not out of anger, but out of casual dismissal.
"You refine blood," the man finally said, his voice still light, but no longer friendly.
"But do you know who first bled in this world, Li Wei?"
Li Wei's eyes widened for the faintest second.
He knows my name.
The man smiled now — not kindly, but like a teacher seeing a clever student finally realize he's still far behind.
"You carry the demonic blood... but it is still young. Loud. Arrogant."
He turned his back.
"Grow stronger. Hide better. Or next time…" he whispered, stepping forward,
"I won't just see you.
I'll remember you."
And then — before even a gust of wind passed — he vanished. Not into smoke. Not into light.
Just… gone.
As if he had never been.
Li Wei stood still for a long while.
The city's noise slowly returned. A dog barked in the distance. A bell chimed somewhere.
But inside him, something new had awakened:
Not fear.
Curiosity. And caution.
"So even in this world of beasts… older hunters still walk."
He clenched his fist. His red-tinted veins pulsed quietly.
And he walked on.
Li Wei walked forward… but his mind did not.
His steps were calm, even lazy. But inside his skull, storms raged.
"He was not a cultivator."
"Not a daemon either."
His breath slowed. His fingers twitched.
"What was he then…?"
That voice — it hadn't carried spiritual pressure, demonic essence, or even the divine stillness of an enlightened being.
It had been too calm.
Too sharp.
Too old.
Like it belonged to someone who had watched the heavens rot and new ones grow in their place.
Li Wei stopped in front of a quiet alley, where a lantern swayed gently in the wind. Its light flickered across his face, and for a moment — he looked human again.
But only for a moment.
"Was he an immortal…?"
He whispered the words aloud this time, as if by speaking them, they would make more sense.
But they didn't.
They only hung heavier in the air, like the fog of a battlefield after all sides were dead.
Immortals.
They were stories.
Even in this world of beasts and gods, immortals were whispers.
Too ancient to be tracked. Too silent to be named.
Even the most monstrous sect masters and bloodthirsty kings spoke of them in riddles and silence.
And yet… that old man — his voice, his gaze, the way he moved without reality bending around him —
he didn't belong to this world.
"He saw through me."
"Not just my disguise… but my path. My origin. My blood."
And worse — he had spoken not with judgment, nor approval.
But disappointment.
Li Wei felt something colder than fear stir inside his chest.
Not pain. Not even danger.
Insignificance.
"I have become a demon king of the battlefield," he thought, his eyes glowing faint red again,
"But to him… I am still a child."
The wind blew. A curtain flapped open in the empty street. Somewhere, a door creaked.
He resumed walking, but this time… there was weight in his steps.
He had seen what power looked like.
And now he had seen what truth looked like.
And they were not the same thing.
If that man was truly an immortal...
Then what is this world hiding under its surface?
And how long have they been watching me…?
Li Wei did not know.
But he knew this much:
The rules of the game had changed.
And he was no longer the only predator on the board.