Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1: Acquaintance

He was born in the royal family. That year, The Great Demon King Xuanye, leading personally, captured the last fortress of the Allied Forces, completely disintegrating the joint forces between human and other races.

The leader of the Allied Forces, Temujin, was slain in battlefield by Xuanye in person. His only daughter, Princess Leeran, had been married. But Xuanye was stunned by her beauty that he slain her husband in front of her and made her a royal concubine.

To commemorate this victory, Xuanye named his first child with Princess Leeran after his grandfather as Temujin.

When Temujin was eight years old, his royal father died. Before his death, he left an edict to appoint Temujin as heir, the thirty-second Great Demon King, which caused an uproar among the court officials.

Originally, among the dozens of Xuanye's sons, the second prince Yinreng had the most power, the eighth prince Yinsi mastered the strongest martial arts, but after multiple eliminations, the one who finally stood out was the fourth prince Yinzhen. He was clever and capable, had formidable tactics, and was adept with both the pen and the sword. He had been a part of the top level decision-making for the Demon Race back from a hundred years ago, publicly regarded as the heir to the throne.

Temujin was young, his mother being not the legal wife, and had no powerful backings to support him. The only thing he was better than the others was his martial arts. Although he was only eight years old, Temujin's talent was simply astounding. Having learnt martial arts for less than five years, he trained in the esoteric royal martial arts, the Heavenly Demon Skills, and attained the sixth stage. His father Xuanye and his brother Yinzhen, although they were widely regarded as martial art geniuses, it took the former one 100 years and the later one a whole 50 years to attain this stage.

One of the perks of being a demon was that strength means everything. As long as one had invincible martial arts, then regardless of age, birth origin, or backings from behind the scenes, one would immediately become a person respected by the populace. With the strong support of Yinzhen, Temujin took the throne, overriding all objections.

Having just succeeded to the throne , facing with the unfamiliar government affairs coming in a throng, Temujin felt a loss of a direction. After a ma.s.s campaign, he left the palace alone for a walk. It was at this time Temujin met the love of his life.

Temujin was meandering alone in a mountain path with neither attendants nor his armor. Being eight years old, aside from the horn on his forehead and his golden eyes, he looked nothing different from a common human child.

It had been two months since his enthronement. To show his court officials the tyrannical strength as a sovereign, following his fourth elder brother's suggestion, he had been fighting battles throughout the length and breadth of the country, vanquis.h.i.+ng each and every power dared to disobey him.

To avoid the liegemen's belittlement due to his young age, Temujin issued a gag order to his court officials as his elder brother Yinzhen advised. Everytime he showed himself in front of a crowd, he would wear the Black demon Divine Armor forged by Von Beethoven, the master artisan of the demon Realm, the day he was enthroned to hide his true appearance. Therefore, he was enjoying long absent fresh air.

Pacing slowly in a casual air, Temujin was recalling something that bothered him.

Moments ago, he spent half a s.h.i.+chen to captured a fortress. The master of the fortress was a human, and he was chosen to be punished as a warning to others for his public defiance of Temujin. Temujin led his men in a charge, breaking through enemy formations single - handedly. With his invincible Heavenly Demon Skills, it didn't take long before the defense army were totally slaughtered.

In accordance with the Demon Army's traditions, whenever laying siege to a city, if the defense refused to yield, a ma.s.sacre would be in order as retaliation when the city was captured. Now that the defense army had been destroyed, it was the time of the ma.s.sacre.

Scored victory, Temujin wasn't happy at all. In fact, his mood was extremely terrible at the time.

After he broke into the fortress and turned everything in his sight into scorched earth, Temujin walked in the street, having a look at his conquests of this time.

The Demon Army was burning, killing and pillaging outrageously. Anyway, since the idea was to set off a warning, it was naturally the more thoroughly the better. So they grabbed whatever they saw, killed whoever they saw. Even some civilians who were also demons met this miserable fate, too.

Growing up seeing and hearing constantly such things, Temujin was quite accustomed to these that he paid no mind to them. However, concerning his concept, rather than that he looked down on the horror of wars, he had yet to understand what wars were.

During his wandering around, Temujin saw a mother and daughter. The mother was a mediocre-looking woman, and the daughter was very young, quite the same age as he was. Besides them lying half a dead body of a male; this should have been the man of the house.

At this moment, the mother covered the daughter with her body in order to protect her, while several soldiers were kicking her like a sandbag. The utter cries of anguish and the flesh and blood all over her skin formed an extremely miserable scene.

”Everyone has done with her, right! This woman lacks flavours. Let's make the mother and daughter into barbecues.”

Four or five spears thrusted down together, and the mother died on spot without making a sound.

”Have the brat down there dead yet?”

”Who know. A few more thrusts would do the job.”

”Stop.” Temujin shouted out of instinct to halt his men. Even himself was a little surprised at his own words.

Such things… Aren't they normal? Humans are lowly creatures with no right to survive. It's okey to slay hundreds or thousands of them for sports as one pleases- that's what everyone does. Why did I ask them to stop?

When he was wondering, his soldiers flipped the mother's dead body to find out that the daughter that should have been riddled with gaping wounds was actually unscathed. She grabbed a stone and spared no effort to throw it to Temujin.

”Devil! You ruthless being. Give my mum back!”

Needless to say, the moment when the stone left the girl's hand, she was chopped into a pulp, lying together with her mother in a pool of blood. However, the stone she thrown landed solidly on Temujin's helmet, giving out a clear sound.

There's neither powerful internal energy nor undodgeable throwing techniques. This ordinary piece of stone surpa.s.sed any other hidden weapons in the world and hit the n.o.blest and majestic Great Demon King. The soldiers around were too scared to make a noise.

If they were to be shocked, the shock in Temujin's mind was way more than theirs. Why could the little girl survived? Poked by seven or eight spears, even three more little girls were down there, they would have been pierced through. Why was she still alive?

It turned out that the instant when the spears thrusted, the mother tensed the muscles all over her body to cancel the attack, so that her beloved daughter beneath her would be unharmed. A thing was even hard for a martial art expert was achieved by a mother.

Temujin could not understand a bit that a lowly creature was able to do such a thing. For the first time in his life, he felt confused about human beings.

The look in that little girl's eyes made his heart beat athrob. Contained in it, was the grief, the despair, the scare, the anger… The girl was devastated, as if she saw the most terrible monster in the world.

Am I so terrible? But under the armor, his appearance did not differ much from the girl's! Why. Why did the girl looked at him like that.

Turned around, in a closer observation, Temujin surprisingly found that the way his soldiers looked at him was no different from that of the girl's in her last moment.

The soldiers were afraid of him. Temujin didn't like this feeling. This might be the way how the Great Demon Kings of generations ruled his subordinates, but Temujin didn't like it.

Before he was appointed the successor to the throne, Temujin used to sneak out of the palace to play with the civilian children in the capital. Among them there were quite a few human children. They built sand castles,  played hopscotch, and got along quite well. The children liked him, while their parents looked at him with the same terrible looks. Later on, as long as he was nearby, the children would disperse in an uproar.

Why were people so afraid of him? Why did the children run once they saw him? He did not want to harm anyone! Why?

Wandering in the field, Temujin was pondering. Several questions circled round in his mind, making his mood worse, and also clouded him from noticing the surroundings.

”d.a.m.ned demon. Go to h.e.l.l to atone for what you did!”

With a shout, a tender and pretty girl a.s.saulted diving from above. When her body was yet to arrive, the fierce shock wave from the finger stabbed towards between Temujin's eyebrows.

In the moment of encounter, Temujin stood spellbound.

The girl's appearance was quite outstanding. Her light blonde hair was like soft golden threads, flowing gently. Although her expression was full of anger, he face was not twisted. Instead, she had a certain lively vibe that made a fresh impression.

The girl was beautiful, but not as much as the beauties in the Demon Palace tributed by the va.s.sal states. Nevertheless, Temujin found something vaguely familiar about her bearing, that as if he had been waiting for her for many years only to meet her right here.

Dazed, Temujin forgot to evade and stood still, letting the finger reach right before him.

”Ah! It's a kid… d.a.m.n it...”

Realising that she picked a wrong target, the girl gave a cry. She used full strength in this attack that it was too late to retract her finger instantly, so she had to turn her body down a side before she turned a few somersaults in the air. It appeared that she overexerted and could no longer control the movement of her body. In a crash, she fell into an adjacent pond and splashed the muddy water sky high.

”d.a.m.n it… d.a.m.n it… G.o.d d.a.m.n it...”

Why do I have such a bad luck. Eris erased the mud on her face, inwardly frustrated.

After all that trouble she finally learned the whereabout of that person. She wanted to go find him, but she also wanted to go with a present, to show him her capability. She went through hard and thin to find out the information that there were Demon Army fighting nearby, and this was the road they had to pa.s.s. Ambus.h.i.+ng here, she might have a chance to a.s.sa.s.sinate one or two high ranking officers when their guards were down.

Therefore, she suppressed her fear of killing someone for the first time and hid in the tree fighting creepy flies, mosquitoes, caterpillars and the urge of falling asleep for an entire afternoon. What she got out of all the efforts was only a little kid, causing her almost killing the wrong person and ending up in embarra.s.sment.

Eris scrambled to her feet, looked carefully. The kid's face was full of astonishment. He'd better not have been injured by her mistake!

Certainly, Eris wouldn't know that had her finger hit on the target, she would have been turned into a pile of dogmeat in a hundredth of a second by the responsive Heavenly Demon Force. That would be much more than merely injured by mistake.

”Little brother, are you alright? Did elder sister hurt you?” Eris asked out of concern.

She did not like demons. She detested those cruel and ferocious invaders. But this little brother was only a child! No matter what kind of disaster the war had brought, children were innocent.

She despised those specious knights who hid themselves like turtles tucking in their heads when the Demon Army ma.s.sively a.s.saulted, and then came out to kill women and children of the Demon Race after the army withdrawn, taking their heads and showing these off as their achievements. These sc.u.ms of the human race were hundreds folds more despicable than demons.

The boy was surprised and murmured : ”You… You are not afraid of me?”

”This kid has something wrong with his mind!” The thought instantly came into Eris's mind. The boy had bright eyes and graceful eyebrows, and despite his young age, he looked very pretty. Other than the horn on his head, there's nothing different between him and a normal human child. Not scary at all. He might've had either a persecutory delusion or that of a perpetrator.

Could it be that he was beaten dumb by me just now! Hmm… Judging by his dull appearance, maybe he's already a fool before I hit him, Wahaha… It's not my fault....

”What's there to be afraid of? You have neither a green face and ferocious fangs nor a giant split mouth. You want to scare people, maybe when you grow up!”

Said Eris unmindfully. According to the priests, grown up demons' corner of their mouths would split open to their jaws, and they would grew a pair of black wings. If that was true, it would've been a shame. The kid was so pretty, he would be very handsome when he grows up… Hmm! He can't be as handsome as that man anyway. Don't get any ideas.

Having casted away the inappropriate thoughts, Eris kissingly patted herself, and discovered that she was covered in mud, looking as ugly as a rattling troll.

”Waaa! I'm turned to a ghost. What to do… What to do...” Eris went around in circle, trying to get rid of the mud on her, when she did not expected that the mud she swinged away splashed on Temujin. His snowy white silk s.h.i.+rt was suddenly tainted a lot.

Temujin paid no mind to it. Obviously, this girl was not afraid of him at all, which made Temujin very happy. Vaguely, he seemed to feel some long absent relaxation and warmth.

”I'm sorry. Sister will help you clean it...” With her rubbing, the situation went worse; there appeared five or six more taints.

”Ahhh....”

How awful. How could I screw up everything today. Where did my lucky star goes? The divination from yesterday clearly stated, ”Super lucky if you go outside. Will meet an important person. Shall benefit from it your whole life.” What a palpable lie. The first thing when she went back should be throwing away that malfunctioned crystal ball.

Hmm! She'd better not to stand here forever. Looking at each other like this with a kid who only knew giggling, Eris regarded herself the dumbest.

The kid's clothes was made of cla.s.sy fabrics, and the handwork was also delicate. It should be very expensive. In this era of war, the commoners could hardly feed themselves. There's no way they could've had the privilege to wear such fancy clothes. Even among the Demon Race, there were gaps between the wealthy and poor. What the kid's wearing was not something a common family could afford.

In this way, the child's parents must've been high-ranking demons! They might've been of important positions and held some real power. Then catching him would be a real good bargain… Eris immediately gave up this thought. Anyway, all children were innocent. To use an innocent child to blackmail his parents, Eris could not do such things, even if they were demons.

”Little brother. Are you lost with your parents? Where do you live? You'd better go home!”

This area was unsafe. There was a fortress nearby that had been engaging the demons for a long time. It's said that there would be some Demon Race's leaders.h.i.+p coming to supervise the battle. A fierce battle was expected. Thanks to this piece of information, she came up with the idea to ambush on the road in order to a.s.sa.s.sinate a few high-ranking demons.

No matter what result came out of a battle, many souls would suffer. Vanquished soldiers fleeing and spreading to everywhere was the most terrible thing. They would thoroughly raid and slaughter the cities and towns nearby. If the kid ran into them, he would end up dead on spot.

Seeing him still being dull and unresponsive, Eris was a little frustrated. It's said that all demons were extremely cruel and ferocious, but she'd never heard that they were so tough to deal with when they were young.

”Hmm. This elder sister's name is Eris. Quite sounding, huh! What about yours?”

”We...” Temujin suddenly came to be, raising his head and speaking proudly: ”We are the n.o.blest, the thirty-second Great Demon King of the Demon Race...”

Before he could finish his sentence, he saw that Eris was looking at him with her mouth wide open as if she saw a ghost.

”She… She's afraid, too?” Seeing the look in her eyes, Temujin regretted deeply. He shouldn't have revealed his true ident.i.ty only to destroy the beginning of this hard earned friends.h.i.+p.

”The Great Demon King? who are you kidding!” Unexpectedly, Eris heavily slammed him, ”Lying at such young age, if a kid like you were truly the Great Demon King, the Demon Race should've been doomed long before.”

Eris didn't believe it a bit.

The Great Demon King is the highest leader of Demon Race, sovereign of the three realms. He had exceptional demonic strength that was unbeatable in the world. It's a horrifying character that could stop babies from crying. It's said that among the Demon Race, no matter how strong one's martial arts were, how ruthless one usually was, a demon would be frightened to groveling on the ground and shaking whenever one saw him.

The previous Great Demon King pa.s.sed away two months ago. The new Great Demon King's true features were unknown. Rumors has that he was an incomparably cruel and ruthless character. He always wore a black armor, roaming the battlefield, spreading fear to everybody. Such a character was a callow kid? That's the biggest joke ever.

Eris almost had a stomachache from laughing. The kid was not only a fool, but also a lunatic. She wondered how his parents educated him.

”You… You don't believe me?” Knowing that Eris was not frightened, Temujin was quite pleased. But being depreciated to such extent was not that funny.

”I do… I do believe… Wahahaha… I'm laughing to death...” Without the slightest bit of decorum, Eris held her belly and laughed so hard tears flowed from her eyes. She didn't have much to say about this final-stage-paranoia kid. She just took it as coaxing a child, to do a daily good turn! Wait… Was paranoia contagious? That's something to be careful with.

”Your Majesty the Great Demon King. Shall this little woman escort you back to your palace?” Holding back laughter, Eris planned to take him to a safe place. A child wandering around danger was not safe and not something she could look on and let alone. What never crossed her mind was that to take the child back home necessarily involved the Demon Race, and it was rather dangerous to her.

Just when Temujin was about to reply, an annoying uproar, together with several howls from dying, came from behind.

Flags fell, the army was scattered, running towards all directions with no discipline as if they were the vanquished.

Temujin frowned his eyebrows. What's coming was the Beastman Army. They were ordered to siege the fortress together with Temujin but arrived late. They didn't show up until the end of the battle and acted like the victors, demanding spoils of war.

The Beastman Army was composed of demi-beasts, trolls, etc… such kinds of demons. Relying on their tough bodies and hurricane-like destructive power, they were a strong force in battlefield. Despite their low intelligence, their destructive brute strength alone was more than enough to turn the knight orders of many countries into vestiges in the dust.

What Temujin detested was the cruel and merciless way the Beastman Army conducted. They tortured for fun. The places they went through were turned into ruins. It would've been better if this only happened to human, but the Beastman Army didn't have much rationality. Whenever they went on a rampage, they targeted people on their own side, killing casually to amuse themselves. There were precedences that they sneak attacked friendly armies to make fun of them.

Eris was taken aback. Taught by an expert, her martial arts were sufficient for self-protection, but she'd never had experiences in actual combat, not to mention facing a small force alone. The Beastman Army ahead consists of hundreds of soldiers, each was more than two-and-a-half-meter tall and had hideous aspect. If she ran away at once, she should've escaped, but...

”Little brother. Hurry up. Run away. Sister will hold them for you. Run as far as you can. Do not look back.” As she finished, before Temujin could object, she pushed him far away, landing him in tall gra.s.s.

The gra.s.s was very tall and thick. With this as cover, plus my holding the enemy back, the child should manage to get away! Eris thought to herself.

Though she had yet to witness the cruelty of the Demon Army, she had heard a lot about it. She dared not to imagine how such an innocent and lovely child would end up if he fell into their hands.

Seeing living people, the Beastman Army rubbed their fists and licked their lips; their excitement was unable to hide. They naturally killed s.a.d.i.s.tically for fun. A human female, although covered in mud, her graceful shape was hard to hide. It's a first-cla.s.s beauty. They were gonna have some real fun with her. As for that kid, although they didn't see his face clearly, he looked quite delicate. He must've tasted good, should've made a nice meal. For these two top-shelf preys, they roared and approached.

”Hey! You bunch of big idiots. None of you shall not pa.s.s as long as this princess is here.”

Although she was still kind of frightened, Eris held back the urge of shaking, tightened her lips, raised her head and managed to act fearless. Herself alone blocked the Beastman Army's advance.

The battle then broke out, but carried on in a surprising way. Eris fought the Beastman Army alone using finger techniques. Although her internal energy was still shallow, but her moves was compact from which a masterful demeanour could be faintly seen. She's clearly taught by a good teacher.

”It's the Minor Stellar Finger.” Despite his young age, Temujin was called a martial art genius for a reason. He recognized it at a glance.

The Minor Stellar Finger was a signature technique the ”Star Sage” Kadar was famous for when he was young. It's transformed from ceremonial dances. Eris was quite good at lightness skills in the first place. When these two worked together, the effect was even more

wonderful.