The Seventh Year the Demon King Captured the Holy Monarch

“Once, the elders of the temple told me, and told my people… The demons, due to their inherently evil and cruel nature, were punished by the Goddess of Light. Evil was imprisoned in the eternal darkness of the abyss, and thus under the sun, there was no more sorrow and war.”

“That year, when I drew the bow of light from the temple, I truly wished to eliminate evil and protect the world.”

“Later, when I realized that the truth was not what I thought, it was already too late.”

“My King.”

On the cliff, under the barrier, Langmuir looked up with his clear purple eyes.

He said softly, “My bloodline, my brethren.”

Hun Yao covered his mouth with his hand.

“Stop talking.”

The broken horn Demon King in front of him didn’t look at him, but looked at the gray mountain outline with a complex expression, and said gloomily, “Langmuir, sometimes, I really want to simply kill you, once and for all.”

Langmuir pulled down Hun Yao’s wrist. “My King, I was once the son of god with the surname Brett, although I have lost my Mana, I am still the most proficient human in the entire continent in the light array used by the Gasuo barrier.

“As long as you are willing to believe me, I can break the Gasuo barrier for the demons, let the abyss be bathed in sunlight, and flowers bloom——”

Hun Yao suddenly raised his eyes and kicked Langmuir to the ground.

Langmuir opened his eyes in confusion, and the coarse wooden harp slipped from his hand, making a light sound as it rolled down the cliff. He said sadly, “My King…don’t you believe me?”

“Nonsense,” Hun Yao sneered, “Of course I don’t believe you, I will never believe you.”

“Why?”

“What else? Your Majesty, I only ask you one thing: you claim to be willing to break the barrier for the demons, where is the evidence?”

Langmuir frowned unwillingly, thinking that it was a fact, there must be evidence.

He was about to answer subconsciously, but he stopped abruptly as if struck by lightning just a second before he spoke!

“Do you understand?” Hun Yao lifted his eyelids, looking at him as if looking at a fool.

Langmuir belatedly realized something, his face turned pale in an instant, and he was trembling.

He found that what Hun Yao said was right.

There was no evidence.

The abyss and the human world were separated by the Gasuo barrier. The demons inside couldn’t get out, and the humans outside couldn’t get in. Only suspicion and hatred spread wantonly.

As long as Langmuir was in the abyss for a day, every word he said, every story he told about the human world, anything that the demons didn’t know and couldn’t verify… would be attributed to unfounded words.

Thinking about it, if a demon came from the abyss to the human kingdom and said with a smile: Come, give me the barrier, I will help you seal the abyss completely.

Who would believe it?

Who dares to believe it?

Who is to blame if the belief is wrong?

“Go down the mountain.” Hun Yao suddenly said.

“Wait…” Langmuir was a bit flustered, “Wait, my King…”

Hun Yao turned around and left without saying a word.

Langmuir seemed to be stunned by the blow, and he even wanted to turn around and pick up his vertical harp. However, a burning pain in his neck, that was the forbidden lock urging the slave to follow his master closely.

The human didn’t dare to pick up the harp, turned around and wanted to leave. But the body that had just recovered from a serious illness was not up to it, he couldn’t take two steps, he was sweating profusely while leaning on the cliff.

Langmuir was in pain and took a light breath, he was suddenly drowned in boundless sadness.

Is there a way to prove one’s innocence in the world that is harder than standing in front of a group of people who doubt you, trying to prove that “I have not done evil”?

That might be the predicament Langmuir was in now: he has to stand in front of a group of hostile races and prove that “I will not do evil next.”

What’s more, it was to prove that “the good deeds I did before were not disguises for doing evil.”

Langmuir realized that he had made a serious mistake: he crossed the boundary of “slave” and exposed his ulterior motives—.

But he couldn’t prove that it was kindness to the demons, not cruelty.

The neighing of the wildebeest sounded in his ears.

The pain on his body slowly subsided, Langmuir struggled to raise his head, and saw the Demon King sitting on the horse looking at him, his eyes had a gloomy vigilance that he had never had before.

“Don’t move that kind of thought anymore, Langmuir.”

“Two hundred years of imprisonment, two hundred years of frost and fire. Today, there is only hatred left between the demons and the human race. Do you think you can change anything?”

“…”

Langmuir closed his eyes, hoarsely said, “I should do my best. Whether it can be done or not, I am also at ease.”

“Want to be at ease?” The Demon King sneered, “…Humans are also worthy.”

Langmuir closed his eyes, his sad expression could not be concealed.

He said softly, “I didn’t consider it carefully.”

Hun Yao dismounted from his horse, walked past Langmuir, and bent down to pick up the harp that had fallen on the ground.

“Give up, the demons can be trapped to death in the abyss, they can be extinct, but they will not hand over the survival of their bloodline to a human.”

He stuffed the harp into Langmuir’s hands, then lifted the human onto the back of the wildebeest. “Sit tight, hold the reins well.”

“Whatever you said on the barrier cliff today, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.”

“You just be a slave, I can still treat you well, if you fantasize about being a savior or a god of light to interfere with the affairs of the demons…I will definitely not spare you.”

…..

After returning from the barrier cliff, Langmuir fell ill again.

Hun Yao was so annoyed that he couldn’t bear to really ignore it.

Nonsense, it’s been three years. He was already used to answering those tricky “whys”, used to being nagged by Langmuir about “wearing more clothes, drinking less alcohol, and committing less murder” and such nonsense.

He was also used to riding a horse with a human to hunt in the barren forest, to break open the ice lake in the Frost Horn Snow Mountain to catch fish, to listen to the sound of the underground fire veins wandering…

Even he didn’t know when he stopped looking for a merge partner other than Langmuir. The human’s performance at night was still very poor, but occasionally there would be a little progress, which made him very happy.

Hun Yao thought to himself, he had made it clear enough, as long as Langmuir didn’t do anything stupid, and didn’t mention “barrier” “hatred between the two races” and other taboo topics in the future, they could still be the same as before.

But Langmuir didn’t let him go.

At night, the human who could only get out of bed pulled him to the side of the copper lamp, sat upright, and looked serious as if he was going to start a debate.

“The barrier is of great importance, my King cannot easily trust a different race, this is reasonable. But I still have something I can do.”

Hun Yao’s face was ashen: “…I think you think your life is too long…”

Langmuir was quick and alert, and pushed a roll of sheepskin map in front of him before the Demon King got angry.

“I have nothing to do these two days, I used the way humans draw military maps to draw the direction of the fire veins near the royal court, which is different from what the demons usually use.”

He blinked and smiled. “My King, take a look, you will like it.”

Hun Yao opened it and immediately felt a chill on his back.

“Tsk.”

As the broken horn demon king who personally took down the royal court, he was too familiar with the map.

Hun Yao only glanced at it and knew that those crisscrossing lines, accurate symbols, and clear colors were all things that the demons couldn’t figure out.

The Demon King immediately cursed in his heart, what’s the use of drawing fire veins that wander in the underground, this technology should be used to——

“The movement of the fire veins is not without rules, it can be calculated and deduced by counting.”

Langmuir’s clear and bright voice sounded, and Hun Yao was startled to realize that he had spoken his mind.

Langmuir magically took out another booklet and placed it in front of him. “I have calculated it in advance, and I will leave it for my King to verify in the future. If it can be confirmed, the migration of the royal court will be much more convenient in the future.”

Hun Yao: “…”

“As for the map, what else do you want me to draw?”

Langmuir smiled, his eyes narrowed, “Are you interested in the twenty-three tribes in the abyss and the surrounding mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, my King?”

Hunyao: “…”

Langmuir: “There are twenty-four tribes in the abyss, and they can only briefly unite when the Demon King is born. As soon as the Demon King dies, the tribes immediately fall apart, and there must be battles accompanied by rivers of blood.”

“My King, have you never thought about completely ending such internal killings and truly unifying the abyss?”

It’s over, the Demon King squinted and gritted his teeth, thinking, he was caught.

In the first year, Langmuir was still naive. Two years later, the fox who had put on enough sheepskin finally revealed his cunning eyes.

It showed its claws and cleverly threw out the bait that the Demon King could not resist.

Like Hun Yao, this kind of demon, the desire to conquer was innate, how could he not have thought about it?

Langmuir: “If my King is interested, I can also help you count the number of your people, issue a unified currency, establish laws of reward and punishment, and control infectious diseases.”

“I also know how to limit the power of tribal leaders and how to educate the tribe with etiquette.”

“My King, I was once the monarch of the human kingdom, and now I am your captive.”

Langmuir bowed his head and gently kissed Hun Yao’s tail.

He calmly said, “Please use me.”

There were some facts that Hun Yao had to admit.

Holy Monarch Langmuir·Brett, blessed by the gods, the eldest son of the royal family, received the best education since childhood, owned a vast territory, and had a population far superior to the demons.

In terms of some knowledge and vision, let alone Hun Yao admitting that he was inferior to him, looking at the entire abyss, in this barbaric land where they eat raw meat and drink blood – there was no way that any tribal leader could compare to him.

Of course, Hun Yao hated humans, just like every demon in the abyss.

But when the choice of “whether to accept human assistance to benefit the tribe” was put in front of him, the Demon King thought alone for two days and made a decision.

Hun Yao said to Langmuir, “Once the bow is drawn, there’s no turning back.”

Langmuir then said, “If I make a mistake one day, my King can kill me.”

…Later he realized that the phrase “Once the bow is drawn, there’s no turning back” was not only referring to himself.

The Demon King began to learn human knowledge and technology from the slave.

He didn’t intend to hide this matter, let alone those things that obviously came from the human kingdom, no one would believe it if he said they came out of thin air.

Soon, Hun Yao’s subordinates came to admonish him in fear.

“How could a human pig truly help the demons, he must be harboring evil intentions!”

The Demon King sat lazily on the throne, “Then pick out his crimes, and I will punish him.”

The protesting demons were choked, they stared at each other, and finally shouted, “Even if we can’t find any evidence now, sooner or later——”

Hun Yao: “Then let’s talk about it when we find it.”

The Demon King actually began to heavily use the human slave to reform the royal court with human knowledge.

This shocking news spread outside the royal court like flying scraps of paper, angering countless tribes of demons.

By the end of the year, just half a year’s time, the royal court was in chaos both inside and outside.

Those who were originally loyal to Hun Yao one by one lost their hearts, including those old partners who had fought the world with him since before the establishment of the royal court.

Those eyes that once looked up at the Demon King with enthusiasm, from incomprehension to disappointment, from grief and indignation to hatred.

“Hun Yao, my King!” They cursed, “Have you forgotten the hatred of the race and the grievances of the ancestors for power!?”

Hun Yao didn’t bother to speak, just sneered. Langmuir rushed up, his thin body blocking in front of him, sternly arguing with the demons one by one.

At the same time, the number of tribes that had rebelled one after another reached eight.

Some tribes were very weak, attacking the royal court was like hitting a rock with an egg. But they still came over the mountains and ridges, and finally turned into a gathering of blood flowing into the river, it was unknown if they could flow back to their homeland one day.

Also, some tribes were very strong. The three major tribes of Watie, Zhenzan, and Heitor all have the foundation to compete with the royal court, and all three tribal leaders did not support the Demon King’s reform.

Among them, the leader Watie was arrogant and domineering, and had always had a tense relationship with Hun Yao; and the leader Heitor, after learning about the human slave incident, directly threatened to cut off the head of the broken horn Demon King to sacrifice to the ancestors; even the leader Zhenzan, who was originally most loyal to the royal court, also began to take a wait-and-see attitude.

The severity of this far exceeded Langmuir’s imagination.

“…I underestimated the hatred of the demons towards humans.”

He came to apologize to the Demon King, saying guiltily in a low voice, “My King, let’s postpone it for a while.”

Hun Yao showed his sharp canine teeth at him. “Wishful thinking, get out!”

Hun Yao was unswerving, the heart of this Demon King seemed to be made of iron.

If the tribes outside rebelled, he would go out to suppress them; if his own subordinates made trouble, it was even simpler, he would go out with his curved knife in the early morning, and when he came back, he was full of the smell of blood.

During that time, the number of assassins increased dramatically.

There was a time when a cold arrow was about to hit Langmuir’s chest.

Hun Yao actually reached out to block it, and the arrowhead pierced through his palm.

–The king of the demons, actually blocked an arrow for a human slave!

The assassin couldn’t believe his own eyes, he pointed at the Demon King’s nose and cursed.

But Hun Yao calmly pulled out the arrow, threw it on the ground and stepped on it, and then used his bloody palm to press the assassin on the ground, and strangled him to death.

Langmuir was watching on the side with a pale face, until Hun Yao ended the fight, and took him away like picking up a small animal.

…..

In the last month of this year, a demon general in the royal court had a different heart.

The general’s name was Muma, a great demon who had fought with Hun Yao for many years, as close as brothers.

At the same time, he was also Moduo’s childhood sweetheart and merge partner.

Even at that time, Hun Yao was already planning a marriage for Moduo and Muma.

On a thunderous night, the evidence of Muma’s planned assassination was sent to the Demon King’s palace.

Hun Yao was silent for about a quarter of an hour, then called Moduo over and threw his bronze curved scimitar in front of her. “Go and kill Muma, or come and kill me. You choose.”

Moduo took the knife and left, and came back after a while, holding Muma’s head in her hand.

Her eyes were red, as if she had cried, but her face was firm.

“Moduo is a lowly demon,” Moduo laughed self-deprecatingly, tilting her head, “When my King valued me back then, those who opposed also had this look, I remember.”

…In the abyss, love was sacrifice.

That night, Langmuir finally broke down. He cried silently, just biting his arm and trembling.

Hun Yao held Langmuir in his arms and asked softly, “The decisions are made by this king, the killings are done by this king, you are just a poor captive being exploited by me, I don’t cry, why do you?”

Langmuir choked up and said, too many demons have died, maybe he was wrong.

Hun Yao mocked him, “You’re a monarch after all, you’re so afraid of killing, haven’t you ever killed your own kind?”

Langmuir closed his eyes and shook his head, the Demon King said, “There’s no king who doesn’t kill, if you haven’t killed, then someone else has killed for you, huh, you’re no cleaner than me.”

He was just habitually teasing the slave, but Langmuir suddenly shed tears, however his expression was very calm, just with red eyes saying, “My King is right, I am a sinner, it’s only right that I go to hell.”

Hun Yao had mixed feelings.

This person, he turns a blind eye to his own suffering, but as long as he hurts others, he cries.

“Hell,” Hun Yao asked softly, “Langmuir, what is the hell that your religion speaks of?”

Langmuir tried hard to recall the stories the elders told when he was a child: there was no daylight there, it was always hot or cold, demons were everywhere, sinful souls suffered there…

Unexpectedly, Hun Yao laughed, saying that it was just like the abyss.

“It seems that hell is nothing more than that. Since I can be the Demon King in the abyss, then in hell, all the demons will have to kneel down and kiss my tail.”

Hun Yao laughed and rubbed Langmuir’s hair, “As for you, you are still this king’s slave, just like now, what’s there to be afraid of?”

Langmuir laughed dumbly, tears rolling down from the corner of his eyes. He never thought that anyone could interpret “hell” in such a domineering attitude.

He pressed his forehead against the Demon King’s chest, hooked his feet around that long tail, and closed his eyes to sleep.

At that time, Hun Yao thought: this person, he still looks good when he smiles.

……

Also in the last month of the third year.

Langmuir not only taught knowledge and technology, but also began to get involved in the affairs of the demons.

Yes, Hun Yao, this person, oh no, this demon – had an unparalleled talent in being autocratic. Not only was he not scared off by the opposition, but he became excited and intensified.

Langmuir’s official identity was just a slave, but in fact, he took on a role similar to that of a Demon King’s staff.

He would present suggestions to the Demon King, and then the king would make a judgment: it could be adopted, or it could be partially referenced, or it was “wrong”.

If it was wrong, it would be executed immediately.

The demons in the royal court gradually began to discuss the name Langmuir.

Some said, “Human pig, he must have ulterior motives.”

Some said, “Liu Sha, that money-eyed fellow, actually said he was a good person last time! It made me laugh my teeth off, huh, good person!”

Some said, “Just wait and see, we will sooner or later find out his hidden evil intentions, let the King kill him!”

Some said, “But don’t mention it, the pig’s method is really useful, it actually cured my baby’s illness. If it’s just using the method…”

Langmuir was very clear about his situation.

Just as Hun Yao had pointed out to him, he was in the abyss, and any suspicion would lead to irreparable consequences, because there was no evidence.

Therefore, he became more cautious in his actions, many times he would rather suffer himself, and dare not say or do anything wrong.

Thus, the Holy Monarch entered the abyss for seven years, and got involved in the affairs of the demons for four years.

In such a situation where ten million pairs of eyes were staring at him, suspecting him, and trying hard to prove that he couldn’t possibly be a good person…

He didn’t leave a single stain, and even went from “human pig” to “Lord Langmuir”.

Until the abyss was unified, and the barrier cliff was full of wildflowers.

Unexpectedly, in the end, the harp tune quietly played on a certain night in the seventh year, turned out to be the only “conclusive” handle, the only “irrefutable” evidence.

But after all, it was just a song.

No wonder he was so sad, so angry. No matter how good-tempered a person was, after trying so hard for so long, he finally fell into a situation where he couldn’t prove his innocence, of course he would feel wronged.

So, saying something like “wait for me to die” is of course a very understandable thing… isn’t it?

……

“My King.”

The rain stopped, the night passed. Duogu tidied up the medicine box and came to the Demon King nervously.

He rubbed his hands, first said that the lord was temporarily out of danger, and then tentatively asked, “I don’t know if Lord Langmuir has already told my King…”

“The lord’s body is very weak, the remaining time won’t be too long.”