The Seventh Year the Demon King Captured the Holy Monarch

When the high priest Tada was summoned to the Great Stone Hall, the Demon King Hun Yao had already paced in front of the throne for countless rounds.

The overnight hustle and bustle could not soothe his restless heart. He stayed in the dungeon for most of the night, absent-minded throughout, and was finally persuaded to leave by Moduo.

It’s all because Tianpo’s suggestion was too tempting, Hun Yao thought to himself.

If he didn’t accept it, he would inevitably worry about it.

The Demon King was not the kind of guy who liked to suffer. When he realized his inner desire, he immediately summoned Tada to his side.

He cleared his throat and said nonchalantly, “Did you bring the bone chip? Cast a hexagram for me.”

Unexpectedly, such a restrained sentence immediately made Tada under the throne laugh with joy. “Ah, is it about Lord Langmuir? Oh my, the king’s court is finally going to have a queen…”

Hun Yao: !! ???

“Nonsense!!”

The Demon King rarely lost his temper in front of his subordinates, and was annoyed and angry, “Tada! I think you want to swallow a fire stone—”

Is it that obvious, is it!

Not only Tianpo, but even Tada saw it, so is it really that obvious!

Obviously, the Demon King’s stubborn mouth was of no use. After all, his relationship with Langmuir, ‘if you can’t cut it, it will become chaos’ relationship, was almost known to the entire royal court. Forcibly refuting it was just self deprecating.

(t/n: If you can’t cut it, it will become chaos-which means that you can’t make a conclusion and you can’t get a clue. It indicates the lingering and complicated emotions)

Before long, Hun Yao had to admit defeat under Tada’s kind eyes, and grumbled in agreement.

But one thing still needed to be clarified.

Hun Yao cleared his throat. “Cough, it’s not about proposing marriage.”

Tada still looked at him kindly.

Hun Yao: “…”

Damn it, what are you doing, it’s really not!

What he wanted to divine was clearly “If I return the Mana to Langmuir, will I be slaughtered by that guy” – this concerned the life and death of the king of the court, it’s very serious!

Tada put on a profound expression of “I understand, you don’t have to say it”, “Ah, it doesn’t matter what to divine, as long as the King is determined, it’s enough.”

The old priest’s scaly claws rummaged in his robe, and he took out his favorite bone chip, and asked, “But, how does the King want to divine?”

Tada’s divination technique was not only in the court, but also in the entire abyss.
He divined “the coldest day of the year”, could calculate the coldest day of the year; divined “whether or not”, could approach the truth in the fog; divined “good or ill luck”, could judge whether a thing could be done.

As for this time…

Hun Yao thought for a while and said, “Then let’s divine good fortune and avoid disaster.”

Tada “ah” for a moment, looked at the king somewhat unexpectedly.

Good fortune and avoid disaster, this name sounded similar to divination of good or ill luck, but it was actually completely different. When the priest prayed for mercy from the fate in the dark, the bone chip would lead the diviner to peek into a corner of the future: either rush to an opportunity, or avoid a disaster.

This was no longer in the category of “fortune telling”, but closer to the great spell of “changing fate”. Only old Tada in the entire court had mastered this divination.

A particularly important point was that the technique of “good fortune and avoid disaster”, each demon could only divine once in his life.

Hun Yao is still young and strong, and the court is thriving. How could he think of divining this?

However, the Demon King’s face was indistinguishable from joy and anger, and he calmly faced the surprised gaze of the old priest.

The old priest seemed to see through something, slowly nodded, “It seems that the King is determined, Tada obeys.”

There was no one in the quiet surroundings, Tada knelt under the throne, and arranged a hundred bone chips.

According to practice, he first drew one from it, which meant “leave a line of life”. The remaining bone chips were arranged in a circle. Tada cut his forehead with his claws, made a high-pitched sound in his throat, and stepped on strange beats under his feet, dancing in the night.

When the blood from the old priest’s forehead flowed to his jaw, he chanted an ancient spell in his mouth, and carefully poured the demonic breath into the bone chips.

Ninety-nine ivory bone pieces were stained with mysterious power and slowly floated into the air!

They jumped up and down at times, surrounding Hun Yao on the throne.

Tada’s voice came slowly:

“There are ninety-nine bone chips here. When their rotation stops, please choose one by heart, pour your demonic breath into it, and the spell can connect to the Tianji.” (TL: the secret like God’s design; sth. inexplicable like nature’s mystery)

“But, the King must remember one thing. Bone chips can only peek into a corner of fate, and the cause and effect are unknown. Therefore, who knows what kind of ‘good fortune and avoid disaster’ method it is.”

“No matter what the King sees… don’t be persistent.”

“I know,” Hun Yao closed his eyes, knocked on the armrest of the throne with his fingers, “Don’t worry, your divination is sometimes accurate and sometimes not, I won’t take it to heart.”

Tada bowed, “In that case, this old man will retreat first.”

Then, the old priest left the Great Stone Hall.

The surroundings were cold and deserted, and the Demon King, who was always decisive, closed his eyes and concentrated, bowed his eyebrows and clasped his hands, sitting on the throne and chanting the ancient language of the demon race’s sacrifice, surprisingly also showing a bit of piety.

He sometimes thought of the seven years with Langmuir in his heart, and sometimes thought of the vague future.

It was unknown how long it took, the jingling sound of the bone chips stopped.

Hun Yao opened his eyes and reached out to the quietly floating bone chip in front of him-

He was too lazy to choose, so he directly took the one in the middle and poured demonic breath into it. Suddenly, that bone chip glowed brightly, and the remaining ninety-eight also emitted a faint light in response to it, and finally connected into a piece of mysterious symbol-like light lines.

Hun Yao was hit by a head, and he only felt that his eyes had gone white, as if he was going to be blind.

The mind also strangely became chaotic.

Like falling into a dream, or like swallowing a poisonous hallucinogenic mushroom, everything was distorted and blurred.

In the confusion, those bright lights seemed to turn into flying snowflakes, and the throne under him turned into rugged stone walls, and a scene of winter snow mountains unfolded before his eyes.

Langmuir stood at the end of the cliff, with his white robe flying.

But that was completely different from the calm and gentle human slave that the Demon King knew. Langmuir’s body was surrounded by a rich and terrifying demonic breath, and new scales climbed onto his cheeks. The black flames swallowed the flying snowflakes, reflecting that person like a demon god.

“Lang…!?”

Hun Yao felt as if he had been hit by a heavy hammer in his heart, and for a while he was at a loss of the world. He opened his mouth to shout, but couldn’t shout.

The illusion became more and more distorted, more and more weird… It seemed that he was hugging Langmuir, and it seemed not. Only the snow was flying to block the line of sight. There was a strong wind first heard in the ear, or a gale.

Suddenly, Hun Yao felt a light around his waist.

A slender and pale palm took away his bronze scimitar!

In an instant, the snow light illuminated the blade out of its sheath. Hun Yao couldn’t see Langmuir’s expression, he could only see the white sleeves fluttering sternly, the human hand holding the curved knife, falling towards his head——

Clang!!

The familiar pain overlapped with that of fourteen years ago.

His only remaining left horn let out a crisp cry of unbearable burden.

Creak…The deeply embedded blade was slowly pulled out, accompanied by the pain of bone cutting.

…——!!

Hun Yao forcibly suppressed the painful cry that almost came out of his throat, his eyes were almost bleeding, and he looked up in disbelief.

And Langmuir swung the knife for the second time.

Clang!!

It hurts…it hurts so much.

Clang!!

How many times has this sound rang?

The Demon King of the Abyss had never felt that the winter of Gasuo was so cold, as if to freeze all of his bones and blood.

Until the long sound of “crack——” vibrated.

“——Ah!!”

Hun Yao couldn’t tell whether it was the cracking sound of his left horn being cut off, or the sound of this illusion finally shattering. When he came back to his senses, he had fallen from the beast bone throne, knelt on the ground, pressing his left horn hard, and large drops of cold sweat fell down.

In front of him was still the empty and silent court of the Great Stone Hall, and the bone chips scattered all over the ground. There was no snow, and no one was swinging a knife at him. The Demon King’s eyes were red, and he was panting deeply.

“…Langmuir.” He murmured.

“…Langmuir.”

****

A moment later, the high priest Tada saw the Demon King slowly walking out of the Great Stone Hall.

He hurriedly greeted him and asked with concern, “My King, how is it?”

Hun Yao walked out as if nothing had happened, saying, “Not so good, I didn’t see anything.”

“Ah, that is neither good fortune nor disaster, calm and tranquil, it is also a good thing.”

“Maybe it’s just that your skills are not enough, and the bone chip is not accurate again.”

The Demon King laughed, paused, and suddenly asked, “What about divining again?”

Tada was scared and waved his hands again and again, Hun Yao also knew the rules of the priest, so he didn’t mention it anymore. Just as he was about to part ways, he suddenly stopped.

“Tada.”

The Demon King asked, “When is the next snowfall near the court?”

Tada: “Oh… Does the King want to ask about this year’s extreme cold day? Yes, there is winter this year. This old man has not had time to calculate, but it is probably in two or three months.”

Hun Yao “hm” for a moment, his eyes were a little vacant.

He looked at the sky and said, “I see.”

…..

After passing by the priest Tada, Hun Yao didn’t know how he walked back to the palace.

The emotions in his mind seemed to be stirred into a paste, the Demon King was dazed and walked forward with his head down, thinking as if a knife were piercing his heart: Look, look, he clearly hates him, he wants to kill him.

And still pretending to be so good. It’s really a hypocritical human being, anyway, he has seen through Langmuir’s true face a long time ago…

But he suddenly stopped and thought: No.

Hun Yao closed his eyes and squeezed his eyebrows hard. He pulled out a thread of reason from the mess in his mind, twisted it like a knot, and then told himself: No.

Since he saw a clear scene, Hun Yao believed that the bone chip was 80% correct. But thinking about it carefully, there were too many strange places in that scene.

First of all, why did Langmuir want to cut his horn?

That action doesn’t look like it’s merciful, but if there is really a murderous intent, a knife to his neck can be a great success, why is he obsessed with cutting horns?

Hun Yao frowned and tilted his head, half believing and half doubting, pinched his left horn, thinking: Besides, this thing is not so hard that it can be chopped by his scimitar for several times and still stand still…

To say that it is to torture intentionally for revenge, it is not impossible to say, after all, it is indeed painful for a demon when their horn is cut.

But…

He and Langmuir had been together for seven years after all.

Hun Yao indeed doubted the sincerity of the slave, and even believed that Langmuir should hate him.

But to say that the Holy Monarch, who was so soft-hearted that he could be called merciful, would do such a thing as “torture” under the drive of hatred, Hun Yao absolutely did not believe it.

Thus, Hun Yao was in a daze and thought, could there be such a possibility: Langmuir actually…doesn’t want to kill him?

Or perhaps, could there be such a possibility: when he proposes to Langmuir, the Holy Monarch would say that he could not let go of the injuries of that year. After all, the Demon King is a cruel Demon King, who has made many mistakes against the slave; he also has had many partners, which is not clean in the concept of the son of god.

What should he do then? Unless the Demon King is willing to give up his only remaining left horn, to prove his repentance.

“…..”

Hun Yao felt that all the blood in his body was rushing to his head, and his face was burning hot.

He felt that he was so desperate to make up for it, and he was still comforting himself in a good direction even after his horn was cut off, which was really embarrassing.

But he couldn’t help but feel that this inference made sense.

Otherwise, why didn’t “he” always resist in the illusion brought to him by the bone chip?

If the truth was like this…it seemed that it’s not impossible. Hun Yao walked with one foot deep and one foot shallow, and his mind was extremely confused and self-destructive, thinking that it’s not impossible! It’s very possible!

(t/n: one foot deep and one foot shallow-walking unstably)

But why did Langmuir become enveloped in demonic breath, and his body was full of scales? His body, how can it withstand such a strong demonic breath?

Could it be that this is the root of disaster that the bone chip wants to remind him to avoid?

It’s so annoying, I can’t understand, my head hurts so much…

The Demon King walked back to the palace with his chaotic thoughts.

The guards saluted him. Hun Yao didn’t have the mood to deal with them, he waved his hand casually and walked in.

When he was about to step into the gate, the Demon King suddenly heard a light music.

It was Langmuir playing the harp.

He got the gift, it seems that he likes it quite a lot.

Hun Yao’s heart was filled with mixed emotions, he signaled the surroundings not to make a sound, made a gesture to let Liu Sha take the attendants away, and he lightened his breath and footsteps and slowly walked in.

It was still the position by the window, Langmuir was sitting on the soft chair and playing the strings in a daze, he was looking at the Cliff Moon in the sky, there was some worry between his eyebrows, it seemed that he was full of thoughts.

The song he was playing was still that song of the temple:

[My all-knowing and omnipotent goddess, my bright golden sun; Whenever a soul wanders in sin, it will rise up with light…]

After changing to a harp, this tune really sounded a lot more pleasant. Hun Yao stood far behind and watched, and he didn’t want to disturb for a while.

He originally wanted to wait until the song was finished before going in, but after Langmuir finished this section, the movement on his fingers continued without any hesitation.

Hun Yao was stunned, thinking: This song actually has a sequel?

He had never heard Langmuir playing later, and always thought it was a short song with only one small section.

But…

This tune, it seems…

Langmuir by the window was still in a daze, completely unaware that there was an extra demon behind him. The round and smooth tone slowly flowed on the strings, one section after another, composing a long song.

Hun Yao’s face froze little by little.

Ancient memories broke out of the ground. He had heard this song a long, long time ago.

That was a long, long time before seven years ago.

The young demon king broke the seal and stepped into the human world.

In that place where the sun shone, he had heard those humans who hated the demon race sang this song.