The Netherworld trembled within the palm of Zoran's open hand.
The power of the magic spell seeped deep into its confines.
This authority, retrieved from another world, had been supplemented and enhanced by Zoran, allowing it to unleash its rightful and full potential. This was far from the first time he had done this; practice, it seemed, truly did make perfect.
As the familiar vibrations rippled through the air, the Water Demon, Bai Tza, kept her eyes closed, quietly waiting for her moment to arrive.
She vividly recalled it being exactly the same when Po Kong was broken out of her prison. She was merely waiting for the Netherworld to "expel" her. After being sealed away for so incredibly long, she had never expected her moment of freedom to arrive so swiftly.
All that was required of her was to wait. And waiting, as it happened, was what demons excelled at most.
At this very moment, she couldn't help but marvel at Tso Lan's wisdom. As the eldest brother among the eight Demon Sorcerers, one could sense a volatile, dormant power radiating from him just by perceiving his soul form. Perhaps he had already become the strongest among all the siblings.
His escape from the prison meant that the freedom of the remaining demons would follow, one by one.
Finally, as Bai Tza held her breath in rapt concentration, a faint sense of pressure and rejection washed over her. She offered no resistance whatsoever. The Netherworld pushed against her, expelling her from its depths.
When she opened her eyes once more, the vivid, pulsating reality of freedom was officially hers.
"World, I have returned!" Bai Tza proclaimed, throwing her arms wide. She surveyed her surroundings, uttering a raspy cry of admiration.
The tendrils flanking her cheeks writhed and danced wildly, perfectly mirroring her current state of mind.
Upon opening her eyes, she saw Zoran silently observing her.
"I have not been this exhilarated in tens of thousands of years, Brother Tso Lan!" she laughed uproariously.
The Water Demon, Bai Tza, ranked fifth among the eight Demon Sorcerers. In ancient times, alongside her seven siblings, she had been sealed into the Netherworld by Li Tieguai, one of the Eight Immortals. Today, she had finally returned to the land of the living!
She stood upon the earth, her powerful aura enveloping her entire body. However, for the time being, it still paled in comparison to Zoran's. Having been sealed away by the Netherworld for so long, both her strength and her wits had degenerated to their lowest points in history.
"I need water. So long as I am close to the ocean, I will restore myself to my full prime in due time!" Bai Tza closed her eyes, savoring the scope of the world as if basking in pure luxury.
The conditions required for each demon to return to their peak performance varied. For Zoran, it was his ascension to the moon; for Po Kong, it was her relentless feeding. As for Bai Tza, she needed to be close to the ocean, to find herself once more within the flowing currents.
"Go," Zoran said calmly. "Nothing in this world can obstruct you any longer."
Bai Tza nodded silently. In the next instant, her physical form dissolved, transforming into a pool of light-blue flowing water.
This stream of water behaved like a river carving its own path. Moving at an incredible velocity, it traversed thousands of miles in the blink of an eye. Within moments, she plunged headlong into the nearest coastline, submerging deep into the seawater.
The flowing elements of this world had officially welcomed back their master. The entire surrounding surface of the sea began to tremble in unison, resembling a boiling cauldron of water.
In the ancient past, the kingdom Bai Tza once ruled had long since been obliterated by the torrents of time.
Zoran hovered quietly in the air, his gaze fixed on the seawater below. There, the aura of the Water Demon was leaping and surging with absolute ecstasy.
Soon, Bai Tza's raspy voice echoed in his ears.
"Brother, the kingdom I once ruled... has been destroyed."
Her voice suddenly grew faint, stripped of any discernible emotion. Yet, the subtle, world-weary sorrow woven into her tone, the realization of how much time had passed, did not escape Zoran's ears.
The demons were creatures belonging to an old era.
She was unlike Shendu, who had escaped the Netherworld multiple times and possessed a far greater understanding of the modern world than his trapped siblings. Nor was she like Po Kong, whose mind was entirely consumed by feeding, utterly indifferent to anything else.
Bai Tza had legitimately possessed her own kingdom, her own territory, and her own subjects. In the past, tens of thousands of years ago, they had thrived in prosperity. In the present, tens of thousands of years later, they had vanished into thin air.
Obliterated by the currents of history, not even a speck of their dust could be found.
Demons were the remnants of an old era, and in certain aspects, they possessed subtle emotions not unlike humans. It wasn't that Bai Tza was currently weeping over the dissolution of her past. She was an immortal being. This was merely a passing lament.
Bai Tza's aura traveled swiftly through the ocean as she surveyed her former domain, covering ten thousand miles in a flash.
With a swift movement, Zoran likewise flew at an immense speed, hovering above the vast, billowing waves. Reflected in his eyes was the silhouette within the deep sea, darting about like a swift fish.
"Is this... enough for you to restore your strength?" he inquired.
Bai Tza could siphon and recover her power from water. If he recalled correctly from the original timeline, one of the reasons she had drawn a magical matrix in an attempt to submerge San Francisco was precisely to restore herself.
"It is very slow. It requires time," Bai Tza replied.
Zoran nodded thoughtfully. He figured as much.
The power of a demon was simply too immense, vast enough to turn heaven and earth upside down. Once such a power was eroded, regaining it was no simple feat. It was like a bucket that had been filled to the brim; once the water inside was drained completely, one had to refill it step by step to make it whole again.
More importantly, the power of water was merely one of the many rules governing this world. Compared to the overall source of the world itself, its proportion was still relatively low.
Zoran sighed softly and said, "It seems I have no choice but to unwrap your gift ahead of schedule."
"A gift?"
The shadow at the bottom of the sea immediately surged upward, and Bai Tza materialized on the surface of the water.
"Come with me to a place perfectly suited for restoring your strength," Zoran said, pointing a finger as a radiant, golden portal spiraled open. "When the time comes, you may reside there."
Bai Tza cast a skeptical glance at it, contemplating briefly before saying, "I want revenge."
She did not state it explicitly, but the target of the Water Demon's vengeance could only be one person.
Li Tieguai.
Since she had not yet returned to her full prime, the one-on-one counter-measure programmed into the back of the Syllables of Time had not been triggered. Consequently, Li Tieguai would not manifest at this moment.
"Of course. We will wait for that day. It will be very soon, I promise," Zoran assured her.
Bai Tza said nothing more. She simply transformed into a torrent of water, leaping out from the surface of the sea and plunging straight into the radiant golden portal.
Since it was a promise from Zoran, there was absolutely nothing to hesitate about.
Throwing herself into the otherworldly gate, her silhouette vanished from this world with absolute decisiveness.
Zoran glanced toward the horizon.
Shendu's aura flared up for a brief moment before slowly settling back into dormancy. He was signaling that he was already aware of everything.
Shendu had not shown his face during Bai Tza's release this time, and Zoran could roughly guess what his younger brother was thinking. Under Zoran's management, the release of their siblings was a foregone conclusion; Shendu likely felt there was no need for him to personally welcome them every single time. He only needed to exert his full strength when the Immortal Gods made their appearance.
Or perhaps, in that fellow Shendu's heart, even among siblings, there were degrees of closeness and estrangement.
Zoran shook his head with a silent chuckle, his form gliding into the portal.
He wondered which sibling that fellow Shendu considered himself closest to, and which one he found most distant?
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