The situation in the Polar Night Demon World was tangled and harsh.
The Devouring Demon God and the other seven great Demon Gods had been at their peak for hundreds of thousands of years, yet for the sake of their own races, they didn't dare ascend.
But everything has a limit.
If one day they failed to suppress their own power, they would be forced to ascend to the God Realm. When that happened, their races would surely be wiped clean. It was a fate that would always come.
Every time a Demon God ascended, the demon world flowed with rivers of blood.
Among the current eight Demon Gods, the Skywing Demons, the Devouring Demons, the Abyss Demons and the Nine Heavens Nether Demons had each raised new Demon Gods before their predecessors ascended. Because of that, those four supreme races could continue without collapsing.
In truth, tens of thousands of years ago, the demon world had ten Demon Gods.
Besides the four races that had managed to nurture successors, the other six Demon Gods never succeeded in raising new ones. When those six finally could no longer hold back and ascended, their races were slaughtered almost to extinction.
Those six wiped out supreme races have never been seen again. Maybe they were completely destroyed, or maybe they hid themselves so deeply that no one could ever pull them back into the light.
The other four Demon Gods at present, the Red Tail Demon God, the Purple Lightning Demon God, the Grim Demon God and the Illusion Demon God, were only born into power within these tens of thousands of years.
A single Demon God was enough to hold up a supreme race for hundreds of thousands of years. But once the green did not follow the red, the consequences could be devastating.
Within the mission system, Yun Jin had glimpsed the worry hidden within the heart of the Nine Heavens Nether Demon God.
He was the earliest among this generation to reach the realm of Demon God. His cultivation was already at its limit, yet the Nine Heavens You race had a secret art that could condense their surplus power into lakes.
The endless sea of blood in the Nine Heavens Nether Demon Domain was actually formed by those lakes joining together. That sea was the gathering of his own power. His leftover energy now covered the entire domain.
Yun Jin guessed that he was close to his limit as well. She feared that he would be the next to ascend.
Once he ascended, it was not just the other races that would move in. Even the remaining seven Demon Gods would swallow his territory in an instant, and the name of the Nine Heavens Nether Demons would vanish forever.
If it were any other Demon God, the outcome would be no different.
This was the brutal truth of the Polar Night Demon World.
In this world, Demon Gods watched each other with suspicion and schemed against one another.
Races fought and plundered each other.
Battles erupted constantly.
As long as those conflicts did not threaten their rule, the eight great Demon Gods would not even spare them a glance.
Strife was normal. Peace would be the real oddity.
Because of her experiences in various small worlds, Yun Jin suddenly thought of something strange. The internal conflicts within the Polar Night Demon World were sharp and endless. This acceleration plan was essentially turning those internal contradictions outward.
Before, the Demon Gods fought each other for advantage. Now, with this plan, they could profit, and their own races could grow stronger. At the same time, and this was the most important part, they could shift the entire attention of the demon race toward a small, unknown world.
Once every demon army was sharpening their blades for that outside world, they would no longer have time or energy to cause chaos within their own realm. The resources of a single small world were more than enough to keep them intoxicated for a long time.
Yun Jin also suspected that what the Demon Gods revealed was not everything. They might have other designs on the Vast Azure World.
She was far too weak now. Even though the Devouring Demon God thought highly of her, he would never tell her such things. But she could not simply withdraw from this plan. Only by joining it could she learn more details and find a way to answer it.
"Demon God Dàrén, is there really no other way? I want to help too." Yun Jin finally spoke.
The Devouring Demon God looked at her eager expression and laughed.
"Soon, the Devouring Demon Domain will form a separate foraging corps. Its commander will be a Zhenmo at the peak, and every squad leader will at least be a late true demon. If you can defeat any one of those squad leaders, you can take their place.
The authority of the foraging corps will be limitless for the next thousand years. If you get a squad leader position, the benefits will be beyond counting."
He looked at her with open encouragement.
"You can challenge whenever you want. If you win, you take office immediately. What do you say?"
It was easy to imagine how much resource would flow through the hands of the foraging corps.
With overwhelming military pressure and a new small world dangled in front of them like a prize, every demon race would have no choice but to follow the same direction, whether willingly or not.
The eight great Demon Gods had created a tide that rolled forward without stopping. Every living being in the Polar Night Demon World could only follow their rhythm. In such a situation, even a single squad leader would hold enormous weight.
"Alright." Yun Jin answered solemnly, "I will do my best."
"You can act freely. Things here will get lively soon." With that, the Devouring Demon God gave his parting words and stepped into the Demon God Palace.
The other Demon Gods also sent their projections into the palace and began discussing their next moves.
Yun Jin stood outside the palace, her gaze heavy.
She knew.
The Devouring Demon God was only giving her a direction to strive toward. But for her, gripping real power was something she could not avoid.
She needed to rise step by step, to become a squad leader and then the commander of the foraging corps. She needed to turn herself from the junior he admired into the trusted hand he would rely on.
Only then could she do far more than she could now.
The Devouring Demon God had been very clear. A squad leader would need to be at least a late Zhenmo. A position with that much profit would naturally be contested by the best among those late true demons.
At minimum, they would be prodigies who had mastered a Primordial Force. If she revealed all her cards, she could probably fight a Demon God on even ground, and any ordinary true demon would not trouble her.
But that was the problem.
She could not reveal all her cards.
The Primordial Yin Yang and the Primordial Five Elements were unusable here.
The simple truth was this.
In the river of law that flowed through the Polar Night Demon World, there was no trace of the Law of Yin Yang. If she used something that this world had never seen, she would mark herself as a foreigner and blow her own cover.
The Primordial Five Elements was incomplete within this world as well. For the same reason, she could not use it unless she wanted to expose herself. If she wanted to avoid suspicion, she could only use the forces handed down through this realm.
Yun Jin narrowed her eyes.
Primordial Devouring.
Primordial Darkness.
These two secondary Primordial Forces would have to be her next breakthroughs.
As long as she broke through either one and coupled it with the secret art Falling Stars in the Night, a squad leader position would be within easy reach.