Just as the old patriarch forced me to my death, I achieved the unity of Dao and fruition.

The capital of the Great Liang Kingdom is a truly colossal city, with a permanent population of over ten million in the main city alone.

In an ordinary mortal dynasty, supporting such a large population would be a nightmare, as the sheer volume of food, water, and road infrastructure would be enough to bring the entire dynasty to its knees.

But there are martial artists here; it's not just a legend that high-level Qi and Blood martial artists can move mountains and open rivers.

Hundreds of years ago, when the capital of the Great Liang Dynasty was moved, dozens of eighth and ninth-level martial artists joined forces to flatten the mountains and bring in a tributary of the great river, creating a plain in the heart of the Central Plains large enough to accommodate millions of people.

In addition to the main city, there are eight garrison cities surrounding it from all directions.

Each acropolis was also home to a population of over a million.

Looking down from the sky, the nine cities are connected to each other, with roads, rivers, and farmlands spreading out in all directions, like a giant spider web of humanity.

This is also the place in the entire Daliang where the human spirit is most abundant.

The number of martial artists here is far greater than in other states and counties. It is not uncommon to see third and fourth-level martial artists on the streets, and there are even more seventh and eighth-level experts among the powerful families.

On the east side of the imperial city, there is a group of buildings that are even more magnificent than many of the imperial palaces.

That place does not belong to the royal family, but to one person: the Grand Preceptor of the Great Liang Dynasty.

At the very center of the palace complex, a towering black tower pierces the clouds, its spire reaching into the sky.

On a full moon, standing atop the tower almost gives one the illusion that one could reach out and pluck the moon from its lap.

The Grand Preceptor of the Great Liang Dynasty resided here year-round.

He is also the most recognized strongest human in the world today, and his cultivation has reached the True Martial Realm.

All the real people, or the emperors of the great dynasties, would show him great respect.

At this moment, at the very top of the tower.

An old man wearing a wide Taoist robe sat cross-legged in the void.

In front of him floated a transparent sphere of light, about ten feet in diameter.

Inside the sphere of light, mountains rise and fall, rivers flow, and tiny cities are scattered throughout.

That is not the real mountains and rivers, but a map of the world formed by the combined energy of heaven and earth, starlight, and human blood.

The old man extended a finger and gently flicked it, causing the entire sphere of light to slowly rotate.

The nine provinces of the Great Liang Dynasty swept past his eyes, and finally, his gaze settled on Yunzhou.

A faint gray light was faintly visible within Yunzhou, extremely weak.

If the old man hadn't been observant, it would have been difficult to distinguish it from the complex energy of heaven and earth.

"The Shen family's affairs, the changes in the Demon Suppression Division, and that slight distortion of the rules..."

The old man squinted.

The number of people guarding Yunzhou Town has been reported recently.

The disciple died mysteriously, the Shen family was wiped out overnight, and some inexplicable changes also occurred within the State Demon Suppression Division.

These things alone are not enough to make him truly take it seriously.

After all, Daliang is too large, and countless strange things happen every day within a single state.

What truly drew the old man's attention to Yunzhou was a brief fluctuation in the rules a few days prior.

Someone has altered the rules of this world, not by borrowing them, but by distorting them.

This feeling might be completely unfamiliar to other real people.

But the old man was all too familiar with it, because he himself did not belong here.

"interesting."

The old man chuckled softly.

"Something else has come in."

There was no one else in the room.

Only his voice echoed slowly.

The next moment, a dark vertical crack slowly split open between the old man's eyebrows, revealing no flesh or blood, only a swirling mass of black mist.

The Grand Preceptor of Liang, the pillar of stability that has suppressed dynasties for hundreds of years in the eyes of the human race, was never a person of this world from the very beginning.

He comes from the Heavenly Demon Realm, and his true form is a Heavenly Demon who has already stepped into the realm of True Immortal.

When a cultivator breaks through a realm, they will encounter inner demons; the higher the realm, the more ferocious the demonic tribulations they attract.

Many of those so-called inner demons and extraterrestrial demons come from the Demon Realm.

They feed on the desires of living beings and are adept at eroding the world.

The ascension of a cultivator from the mortal realm to the immortal realm may attract the attention of extraterrestrial demons.

Not to mention the upgrading of an entire world.

At that time, the foundation of the world will be shaken, the great principles will be rearranged, and some of the old rules will be broken and then reassembled.

For the Heavenly Demon, it was practically a feast laid out before him.

Hundreds of years ago, the Imperial Preceptor sensed that a change was about to occur in this world.

So he came, not by forcibly breaking in, but by voluntarily severing a wisp of his origin and reincarnating in this world.

He was accompanied by a group of subordinates from the Heavenly Demon Realm.

Some were reborn as humans, cultivated step by step, and eventually became the guardians of their respective states.

As for the great demons and monsters who will drive the world's ascension in the future, they are all from the Heavenly Demon Realm.

Humans have their own people, and so do demons, as the seven Great Saints break through one after another.

The demons completely overwhelmed the human race, and then the human race's own pawns deliberately opened their defenses, accelerating the collapse of the old era.

The whole process didn't require their forceful intervention; just giving it a push in accordance with the natural order was enough.

The reason why the Heavenly Dao of this realm is increasingly biased towards demons is not entirely due to its own initial choice.

The world does indeed need an upgrade, and the old-era human race has indeed reached its limit.

What truly made Heaven so eager to tilt its fortune toward demons was the Heavenly Demons' repeated, silent manipulation of the rules over the past few hundred years.

The Way of Heaven has no true personality, let alone intelligence or stupidity.

It will only act on its instincts and choose the path that seems most beneficial to its own growth.

All the Heavenly Demon needs to do is make the path of demons appear more correct.

"Soon."

The Imperial Advisor looked at the ever-flowing energy of heaven and earth on the sphere of light, a smile appearing on his lips.

The first demon saint is close to breaking through.

As long as it successfully takes that step.

The upgrade of the entire world will then officially begin.

Then came the second, the third... until the seventh Great Sage appeared in the world.

The world's upper limit has been raised significantly.

At that time, he could use the seven great demon saints as nails and the human race's fortune as a rope to thoroughly embed his true demonic origin into the foundation of the world.

Take advantage of this moment when the world is upgrading and the rules are most vulnerable.

To usurp the very foundation of this world, the power to ascend to a complete world.

This is enough to allow his true form to take another crucial step towards the realm beyond True Immortal.

"We've waited all these years."

"The results are finally coming."

The old man gently tapped his knee.

However, the unfamiliar force in Yunzhou made him somewhat uncomfortable.

It's like a chess game that has been set up for hundreds of years, suddenly having an extra piece that doesn't belong to either side.

Moreover, after that piece was placed, several previously clear life lines nearby began to become blurred.

"check."

The old man spoke calmly.

In the shadow of the tower, a cloud of black mist slowly gathered.

"Don't disturb him."

"First, we need to figure out what it is."

"Yes."

The black fog dissipated.

The tower returned to silence.

……

Meanwhile, millions of miles away.

The world has changed.

The area north of Daliang is not part of Daliang's territory.

This place belongs to another dynasty, the Northern Dynasty.

Compared to the Great Liang, which occupies the central and fertile land, the Great Northern Territory, though not small, is much weaker in terms of national strength.

The three northern states, in particular, are crisscrossed by mountains and teeming with demons.

Many places were nominally under the jurisdiction of the imperial court, but in reality, no government official dared to send anyone in for many years.

Above a desolate mountain, ripples silently spread across the sky.

Gu Changjin took a step forward, and the traces of the illusory realm behind him quickly disappeared.

He looked down at the endless black mountain ranges at his feet.

The scenes in the river of fate quickly overlapped with the terrain before my eyes.

This is the place where the first great demon saint rose to power.

The six-armed demon ape.

The first demon to surpass the current limits of the world in the future.

It was from the moment it broke through that the three northern states completely fell, and from then on, a great wave of demons swept across the land.

Gu Changjin raised his head, his gaze falling on the deepest part of the mountain range, where he could faintly sense an extremely strong demonic aura.

"Found it."