This was the first snow of the year, coming a full half month earlier than the earliest predicted date.
The priests could calculate the solar terms, but they couldn’t predict the abrupt climate change caused by the birth of a Demon King. The cold wave caught them off guard. For the demons, this was destined to be a tough winter.
Before long, the hoofbeats of the royal court’s messenger grew louder as they approached the Cliff Moon.
The young king and the high priest asked the king to return as soon as possible in the letter.
In the wooden house, Hun Yao held the letter tightly, watching the snow outside the window grow heavier.
The messenger didn’t dare to rush him, anxiously wiping the sweat from his forehead, waiting by the door with his tail between his legs.
Langmuir advised in a low voice, “My King, please go back. The royal court must be in chaos now. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent a messenger specifically to ask you to return.”
Hun Yao looked at him with a complicated expression, “What about you?”
Langmuir: “I can’t move anymore.”
“…”
Hun Yao fell silent. He knew that given Langmuir’s current condition, he indeed couldn’t travel back and forth with him anymore. But leaving Langmuir alone on the Cliff Moon, he was even more worried.
Hun Yao put away the letter and said to the messenger at the door, “You stay here and take good care of him.”
The messenger quickly replied, “Yes!”
So the Demon King stood up and walked out. Pushing open the wooden door, the cold wind brought a few snowflakes into his face.
He looked back at Langmuir, “Wait for me here, I’ll be back soon.”
Langmuir: “Be careful on the road.”
Hun Yao took a step forward, stepping into this first snow. Suddenly, a familiar voice called him from behind, “My King.”
The Demon King immediately turned around. He saw Langmuir sitting on the bed, his cheeks as white as the broken snow accumulating by the window.
“I want my harp,” the human said softly, “Remember to bring it for me when you come back, okay?”
And so, the Demon King left on his steed. He left in a hurry, because that way he could return sooner.
Inside the small wooden house, the messenger was diligently lighting the stone stove.
“Lord, are you still cold?”
“A little bit.”
“Oh… How about now?”
Langmuir looked at the messenger with gentle eyes.
He was a sturdy demon youth, about sixteen or seventeen years old.
When he realized Langmuir’s gaze, his dark face flushed. So he quickly lowered his head and stoked the fire even harder.
The demons had hated humans for two hundred years, but it only took seven years for a demon child to believe in a human again. What an incredible thing.
Langmuir got up from the bed, taking something from the drawer as he did.
His toes creaked on the floor. The youth turned around in surprise, “Lord, what do you need?”
“A wildebeest.”
Langmuir thought for a moment and said, “You rode a horse here, didn’t you? Please lend me that wildebeest.”
After a few seconds of silence, there was a clink.
The iron rod used to stir the stone stove fell from the youth’s hand.
He exclaimed, “You…You mean–”
Langmuir, leaning on things along the way, took one step, then two steps towards the wooden door.
“Lord Langmuir!”
The messenger hurriedly stopped him, “Where do you want to go?”
Langmuir: “I heard that a new Demon King was born in the tribe of Guleilong. I’m worried and need to go see.”
He was not good at lying, so he often told the truth.
But clearly, such truth scared the youth.
“But, but,” the youth was incoherent, his hands gesturing wildly in mid-air, “I mean, my King–”
Langmuir: “He doesn’t know.”
If he really couldn’t tell the truth, he would avoid it with silence, or take other measures.
For example, at this moment, the young human put his palm on the shoulder of the demon child and calmly said, “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“If you stop me, I can only subdue you by force. But with my current body, once I use my demonic breath, I will die quickly.”
“So… I hope you won’t stop me, okay?”
The youth was completely confused. He had never heard such a gentle threat in his life, and even began to doubt his own comprehension.
But Langmuir’s actions quickly confirmed this threat.
He walked past the stunned messenger, step by step, and pushed open the wooden door.
“No!” The youth rushed over in a panic, “Lord! You can’t, you’re sick, no…”
His voice abruptly disappeared.
The north wind blew his silver-gray hair, Langmuir leaned against the wooden door, looking down at his right hand…a small black flame was jumping in his palm.
The messenger opened his mouth, but as if being cursed and became a statue, he dared not move at all.
So Langmuir took off the cloak hanging by the door, quietly looked at the Cliff Moon in the distant sky, and walked into the snow without looking back.
…….
Perhaps, Hun Yao’s suspicion was the correct one.
The moment the wildebeest galloped against the wind on the ground, Langmuir suddenly thought so.
He was not a truly obedient slave. He couldn’t say how much of his obedience over the years was due to guilt, how much was due to indifference, and how much was due to a desire deep within him–a desire to gain the trust of the demons, to open the barrier of Gasuo, and to end this two-hundred-year-old mistake.
Langmuir clenched the hard object in his sleeve, his eyelashes wet with snowflakes fluttering in the wind.
But Hun Yao still left the honey-gold dagger to him.
The wind gradually became sharp. The hooves of the wildebeest were burning with flames, leaving traces of melted water on the hard snow it stepped on.
Langmuir had once drawn a map for Hun Yao, and he knew the location of all the tribes like the back of his hand. It was not difficult to take the shortest route to the Guleilong tribe.
The difficulty was his physical strength. He really didn’t have enough strength to ride a horse, and he had to stop and rest several times halfway.
In the end, Langmuir simply gave up riding and chose to walk step by step, leaning on the trees along the way.
When night fell, he dragged his almost numb body out of the wild forest.
The view suddenly opened up. Scattered fires began to appear in front of him, which were the patrolling soldiers of the Guleilong tribe.
The painted-faced demons quickly noticed him and shouted, “Stop!” “Shoot arrows!”
Langmuir stopped. A dozen patrol soldiers rode wildebeests, held torches in their hands, and carried short knives around their waists. They cautiously approached him.
“It’s him, the human slave of Demon King Hun Yao!”
“Did he come alone?”
“How dare he come alone!”
Several patrol soldiers approached with their knives while whispering to each other.
Finally, one of the demons pointed at him and said the key sentence, “Hey, he looks like he’s about to die!”
So, a few other guys also raised their torches and squinted to see.
The fire illuminated a pair of eyes that were calm to the point of having no emotions.
Langmuir looked extremely weak. His entire face was devoid of any color, and despite the freezing cold, cold sweat was sliding down his temples. Every time he exhaled, clouds of white mist came out.
He even took some time to focus his blurry vision.
Then he spoke, slowly saying, “I want to see the newly born Demon King in your tribe.”
The patrol soldiers were all stunned by his steady tone.
They were confused and dared not act rashly. They hurriedly went to report to the leader while surrounding this strange human with spears and arrows.
Soon, the leader Guleilong and his Demon King son rode over on a lizard, followed by about a thousand soldiers.
By this time, Langmuir had already sat down on the spot due to exhaustion.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the shouting of the patrol soldiers around him and the weapons pointed at him with caution.
Not until Guleilong shouted from afar, “Who is the messenger of Demon King Hun Yao!”
The silver-haired, white-robed human opened his eyes and said hoarsely, “There is no messenger here.”
“I only wish to meet the newly born Demon King in the Guleilong tribe in my personal capacity.”
As he spoke, Langmuir’s gaze swept over and landed on the leader’s side – on the back of that lizard, a demon youth with very thick and spectacular horns was riding.
The newly born little Demon King was full of red light, obviously immersed in boundless joy these days. As soon as he saw Langmuir, his eyes lit up and he muttered, “Oh my, oh my! Such a beautiful creature, I’ve never seen before…”
Langmuir: “Are you the newly awakened Demon King?”
Yinsha: “Not bad, I am Demon King Yinsha, the true king of the abyss in the prophecy!”
“I heard that if two Demon Kings of the same bloodline are alive at the same time, they are destined to duel until a winner and a loser are determined.”
“No, it’s the living and the dead.”
“Must it be a fight to the death?”
“Ha, I get it!”
Yinsha pointed at the human and laughed loudly, “You’re afraid I’ll kill Hun Yao!”
Hiss, this new Demon King’s brain doesn’t seem to work very well, Langmuir thought silently to himself.
He covered his lips and coughed twice, saying, “Demon King Yinsha, I have a request for you.”
Yinsha: “Want to stay alive? Unless Hun Yao kneels in front of me and kisses my scaly tail…”
“——Please lend me your demonic breath.”
Suddenly, an eerie silence fell all around.
Crack, the accumulated snow broke a distant tree branch.
“Of course, I think you won’t agree.”
Only Langmuir stood still as a mountain, his expression calm. “If you don’t agree, please accept my challenge to a duel.”
Outside the wild forest, it was terrifyingly quiet.
All the demon soldiers widened their eyes, some with their mouths open. They couldn’t believe their ears.
“…Ha, hahaha.”
After who knew how long, Yinsha came back to his senses from a blank mind, laughing out loud. “Duel? Ha, you said, duel?”
“Good, good, you have guts, hahaha!!” He laughed wildly, looking back at his own soldiers, “Hey, did you all hear that, this half-dead human, he actually wants to challenge the Demon King to a duel!!”
The leader Guleilong shouted from behind. “Be careful, the human has the demonic breath of the Broken Horn Demon King!”
“Broken Horn Demon King? That’s already a past Demon King! Soon, countless ancestors will witness him being trampled under my feet… At that time, maybe I can cut off another horn of Hun Yao.”
Yinsha waved his hand, “Someone, give him a weapon!”
This meant accepting the duel. According to custom, the soldiers of the Guleilong tribe retreated one after another, leaving an open space.
Nearby, a patrol soldier sneered and was about to throw his short knife to the human.
Unexpectedly, Langmuir said, “No need, I can’t handle weapons.”
“…”
Yinsha and the patrol soldier choked at the same time.
“Since you’ve accepted the duel, you can start.” Langmuir’s expression was serene, pointing to himself, “I’m sick, I can’t stand up.”
Just after he finished speaking, he started coughing violently.
After a while, his body trembled, and a mouthful of blood choked onto the snow in front of him.
“…..”
Yinsha’s face twisted briefly, then he became furious. “Human, did Hun Yao send you to humiliate me!?”
Langmuir: “Why think so? A duel is the most noble occasion for the demons, my King would not insult you with this, neither would I…cough cough cough…”
Yinsha had had enough.
He jumped down from the lizard’s back, his face twisted, laughing in anger, he directly stretched out his scaly claw, seemingly wanting to just grab the human’s long hair and pull him up from the ground!
Langmuir sighed silently in his heart.
It seems that this new Demon King, his skills are really not very good. He was nervous for nothing, as my King said, prophecy, you can’t believe too much…
Langmuir walked in a daze, clenching his fingers in his sleeve.
The golden blade easily cut open the palm of his hand, the moment the blood touched the metal, a familiar power surged towards him like a flood—
The Holy Monarch closed his eyes.
His pale lips murmured something lowly, his right hand raised, and the white sleeve slid down.
In the abyss that had never seen the sun, a light as bright as the sun lit up.
In the next moment, Yinsha was thrown out.
