After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Beside the artillery position, the intelligence center tent set up by Chen Ya was brightly lit, with jade slips and military manuals piled up like a small mountain.

Lin Qingxue sat on a low stool outside the central tent, wrapped in an old down jacket that Chen Ya had brought from Blue Star.

The clothes had become pilled from the deathly and demonic energy of the demon realm, but Lin Qingxue looked exceptionally quiet wearing them.

Her remaining magical eyes continued to operate, feeding back the spatial frequency changes of the entire demon realm to the data panel of the intelligence center in real time.

Zhou Ran stood on the high place for a long time.

The wind blew from all directions, carrying with it demonic energy and the acrid smell of burning demon cores.

His graying sideburns fluttered wildly in the wind, and the scabbard of the Taihuang Black Blade gently tapped against his spine behind him, one tap after another.

"That's about it."

He turned and walked downstairs.

The military council convened at noon.

The main hall of the Devouring Heaven Demon Palace was packed with people: generals from the four regions, the personal guards of the three empresses, the logistics team led by Ming Cang, and three women from Earth standing in the front row.

Zhou Ran did not sit on the throne.

He stood in front of the stone platform, drew his Taihuang Black Blade, and slashed it down in the center of the platform.

The blade was embedded three inches into the stone platform, and the light from the seven patterns on the surface illuminated the faces throughout the hall.

"The Imperial Court gave me the title of 'Abyss-level Wanted Criminal'."

The hall was so quiet that the sound of gunfire from the distant drill ground could be heard.

"This is the fourth one in 30,000 years. The first three died, the fourth one played dead. I am the fifth."

Zhou Ran looked around, his gaze sweeping from Qin San to Gu Ji, from Gu Ji to Ming Cang, and finally across the faces of the six women.

"I don't intend to die, nor do I intend to play dead."

The bloodthirsty gun barrel struck the ground with a sound.

"Three months later, the First Judge of the Imperial Court arrived with tens of thousands of Mahayana-stage elite troops and twelve main warships. Even with a head-on confrontation, we still couldn't withstand it."

He gripped the hilt of the Taihuang Black Blade and pulled it from the stone platform.

"So I don't plan to let him come."

Huan Yin's dark red pupils narrowed slightly.

She understood.

"Are you going to call?"

Huan Yin's voice returned to its usual languid tone, beneath which lay a fighting spirit that even she herself could not control.

"Taking the initiative to attack the Imperial Court?"

"Let's go back to Earth first."

Zhou Ran placed the tip of his knife on the coordinate system diagram drawn by Xiao Hongli on the wall panel.

A commotion arose inside the hall.

"There is something on Earth that is a forbidden object sealed by the Imperial Court 30,000 years ago."

Zhou Ran's knife tip landed precisely at the point marked "White Pagoda, 3000m underground" on the coordinate map.

"The Seal of Judgment. The authority to enforce the rules of the first generation of the Imperial Court. With it, I will be qualified to sit at the same table as the First Judge."

"What if we can't reach an agreement?"

Qin San raised his hand and asked.

"If we can't reach an agreement, we'll flip the table."

Qin San's lips twitched twice, and he withdrew his hand.

"From today onwards, defense is over."

Zhou Ran's voice echoed throughout the main hall.

His early stage of Void Refinement cultivation delivered every word into the ears and bones of everyone present.

"The Demon Realm is preparing to launch a preemptive strike."

The seven patterns on the Taihuang Black Blade bloomed simultaneously as his words fell.

Black and golden light burst through the roof of the palace and shone straight into the sky.

Soldiers of the four-region allied forces simultaneously looked up on their respective training grounds.

A black-gold blade of light swept across the sky from east to west, slicing the leaden-gray sky in two.

That blade of light was not an attack.

It is a declaration.

The officers inside the hall were silent for a moment, then erupted in a roar that nearly lifted the roof off the hall.

"Obey the Emperor's command!"

"Obey the Emperor's command!"

Bloodlust raised the Ancestral Blood Spear above his head, the fire in his crimson pupils burning to a point where it could almost ignite the air.

The killing intent of 300,000 Blood Demon soldiers poured into the sky from the tip of her spear, merging with Zhou Ran's blade light.

Huan Yin leaned against the pillar, her dark red lips curving into the sharpest arc in thirty thousand years.

Jiuyou stood in the shadows of the corner, the deathly aura of the coffin spreading beneath her feet, freezing the entire corner of the hall into a black frosty field.

Her lips moved, but no sound came out; only two words escaped her lips at a deathly frequency.

With you.

three days later.

The Moon Path to Blue Star tore open in the void above Nine Nether City, the silvery-white passage shining brightly against the leaden-gray sky.

The stable operation of the Moon Path is achieved by Lin Qingxue using residual magic to lock the spatial frequencies at both ends of the channel, Huanyin using the Formless Domain to clear the rule interference inside the channel, and Jiuyou using the Coffin Burial Law to seal the monitoring nodes of the Imperial Court on the channel wall.

The three empresses coordinated more than ten times better than when they picked up people last time.

Chen Ya and Xiao Hongli stood on either side of the entrance to the passage, each holding a stack of jade slips and mineral slabs.

That was all the data reserves brought back from Earth, plus the Imperial Court intelligence and logistical plans newly compiled in the past seven days.

These things will come in handy when we get back.

Zhou Ran walked to the entrance of the Moon Path and glanced back at the Devouring Heaven Demon Palace behind him.

The black palace complex stood majestically in the morning light, while military flags from all four regions fluttered in all directions.

The city walls were filled with demon soldiers seeing them off, a dark mass, so quiet that not even a breath could be heard.

Bloodlust stood atop the highest point of the city wall.

Her ancestral blood spear stood upright beside her, and her crimson eyes met Zhou Ran's gaze from a distance of a thousand feet.

She raised her spear and pointed it towards the direction outside the city wall—the direction leading to the Imperial Court.

Go quickly and come back soon, don't keep your mother waiting too long.

Zhou Ran's lips twitched slightly.

He turned and stepped onto the Moon Path.

The silvery-white passage closed behind him.

Blue Star.

Jiangcheng.

4:17 a.m.

When Zhou Ran stepped out of the Moon Road exit, he was standing on the reinforced concrete rooftop.

The lights of Jiangcheng CBD twinkled in the distance.

The neon lights of the high-rise buildings are reflected on the surface of the Yangtze River, creating distorted ribbons of light.

The air was filled with the smell of car exhaust and cumin from barbecue stalls. This earthy, earthy scent, belonging to Earth, made his nose tingle slightly.

How long have you been away from Earth?

A few months would be the time flow in the Sixth Heaven, and roughly the same amount of time should have passed on Earth as well.

He stood on the rooftop, the April river breeze filling his lungs, damp and carrying the unique fishy smell of the Yangtze River.

He sheathed the Taihuang Black Blade behind his back, all seven of its patterns darkening, his cultivation aura compressed to the extreme using the Lunar Eclipse Compression Technique.

To the average person, he is now just an ordinary man with graying temples, injuries, and standing on a rooftop in the cold wind.

Chen Ya and Xiao Hongli emerged from the Moon Path one after the other.

Lin Qingxue was carried on Chen Ya's back, wrapped tightly in a down jacket, only her pale face was visible.

"The White Pagoda is located in the eastern suburbs of Jiangcheng, a straight-line distance of 37 kilometers."

Lin Qingxue's voice drifted out in the cold early morning wind, weak but clear.

"The judgment seal is located three thousand meters underground, with a defense level of..."

She stopped talking.

Zhou Ran's right hand pressed down on the hilt of the Taihuang Black Blade in the same rhythm.

Because a hard, cold object was pressing against the back of his head, making his skin tingle.

Round. Metallic.

muzzle.

"Don't move."

A male voice sounded from behind him.

He was young and spoke fluent Chinese, but his pronunciation rhythm was off.

The spacing between each word is so even that it's indistinguishable from the sound produced by a machine that has been calibrated according to rules.

"Imperial Court Cleaning Team, Seventh Sequence Executive Officer".

The temperature of the gun muzzle continued to drop on the back of Zhou Ran's head, to a level that defied the laws of physics.

The metallic feel has been transformed into a regular, tactile feel.

That's not a gun from Earth.

What poured from the muzzle of the gun was the power of the Imperial Court's rules.

"Zhou Ran, a wanted criminal at the Yuan level."

The male voice behind him paused.

"You've finally come to die."