Cai Xuefang had run faster than he could have thought possible. Anger filled the forest. Spirits screamed in terror loud enough that they could be vaguely heard by the physical realm. The shadow and darkness attempted to suffocate everyone and everything. There was no saving them. No chance they would survive the wrath of The Calamity.

Spilling the tea along the way.

It had given Cai Xuefang a chance to escape. A moment of time before it released the anger it held in its chest for what he had given it. A cultivation level so high, even heavenly treats and sweets were nothing more than trash. Filth.

But escaping it might not have been the wisest choice.

"Tell me what happened?"

Cai Xuefang bowed lower. He cleared his parched throat and rehashed everything he had said already for the past five days. Not a single moment of rest. Not a moment of pause or anything different than what he was doing now.

Repeating the same exact story over and over again. Every time, giving as much detail as he could possibly muster up and remember. From the ink-like fog, the color of the forest, the absence of natural life at a certain distance from the Silver Mountain Gang. To the tea he had been given, the anger that had chased him because of the treats, until the very end when he was yelling at Shao Yating for having so little perception and survivability.

Every single minutiae he could recall. Without hesitation.

"My Son-in-law and I camped—" Cai Xuefang began again. Refusing to pick his head up and look at the monster before him.

No one truly dared to look Zi Zhen in the eyes. No one dared to refuse him a request or command when uttered by him.

There was power. Apocalyptic. Calamity. So far above him he would die without knowing what happened. An ending he would not feel. No torture for thousands upon thousands of years. No defilement into a crazed demon. Nothing he had to truly fear other than death itself.

He would simply cease to exist.

Then there was Zi Zhen. Cai Xuefang dared not twitch or flinch. He dared not be found disrespectful or uncourteous in any way shape or form. He dared not offer anything. Receive anything. Cai Xuefang had seen the horrors that Zi Zhen had inflicted on enemies.

All of which even he would not find the evil in his heart to commit to.

"—escaping the forest through jumping over the fog. Teleporting out once above the clouds."

"Repeat his words." Zi Zhen shifted in his throne seat.

Cai Xuefang could already imagine the hollow eyes that were Zi Zhen's. The skeletal frame. The tight skin that stretched over his bones. The gaunt look of a starving elder that had not eaten for centuries. His exaggerated form belying his immense power.

Zi Zhen the relic. Of a time before even the Great Seclusion. Standing toe to toe with Zhong An at their peak and his kin. Su Qui and her Flowered Sect. Peng Du, the greatest of his generation.

He cleared his throat again. "The Calamity said, 'Has this world fallen so low?'"

"Again."

"The Calamity said, 'Has this world fallen so low?'"

"Again."

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"Has this world fallen so low?"

"Again."

Cai Xuefang did as he was told. Repeating the same exact line for the next four hours. He sat there obediently. Confused maybe, terrified, definitely. But obediently nonetheless. He was not mad enough to voice his thoughts.

Zi Zhen stopped asking Cai Xuefang to repeat. Staying silent and thinking. Every once in a while the monster made a few inquisitive sounds. The floating ribbons of dark grey and black snapping back and forth around the massive cavern they were in. Cai Xuefang kneeled in front of the cliff that Zi Zhen sat above. His voice never echoed. Sounding directly in his ears when he spoke to Cai Xuefang.

The patriarch chuckled.

Cai Xuefang paled at the sound. He'd never heard him chuckle before. Nothing but a monotone voice for almost everything. To hear any emotion at all sent shivers down his spine. Was that the sign people received before being subjected to Zi Zhen's attacks? Or was it something else?

He gathered Qi. Doing his best to remain as discreet as possible. Cai Xuefang had already taken precautions to protect his daughter and her worthless husband. Both have already left the territory of the Heavenly Demon's domain. Its damage to the very world around them obvious and clear. His power left its mark on the world whenever it was activated.

The two of them would likely survive. Escape this whole thing. Cai Xuefang on the other hand did not like his chances. He had no fantasies that he could fight Zi Zhen. Much less beat him. His plan was to blast everything in an explosion of all his Qi and much of his cultivation as well.

Buy himself just a moment to escape injured, beaten, deprived of decades and even centuries of cultivation, but alive.

He could only hope it was enough—

Cai Xuefang froze.

Zi Zhen stepped next to him. His feet floating above the ground silently.

Qi vanished from the room. Cai Xuefang dropped to his face as he was pressed onto the ground by an invisible force. His body and core were forcibly drained quicker than he could fight back. Siphoned into a tornado of power and Qi. Directly into a single focal point next to him. Into Zi Zhen.

Cai Xuefang teeth chattered as he fought to look up at the billowing dark grey robes Zi Zhen wore. The ribbons that fluttered back and forth like long tails dozens of feet long. His small frame seemed tiny.

His throne, a flat, wide discus hovered from above the cliff and slowly made its way down.

Zi Zhen let his feet drop to touch earth. Walking slow, measured steps. Until he reached his discus and sat down on it without ceremony.

"If I desired your death, you would not have had the time to gather your Qi, Xuefang." Zi Zhen whispered directly into Cai Xuefang's ears. Even with the distance.

The old monster waved his hand. Qi flooded the room. Cai Xuefang felt his core and body fill back up with his own personal energy. Returned. A statement Zi Zhen was making very clear to him. He could kill Cai Xuefang at any moment. Though both knew it would not be a pleasant death at all.

"How do you wish for me to please you, Sect Patriarch?"

"I find," Zi Zhen said, the sound of him rubbing his hairless chin audible to Cai Xuefang. "Your rendition of the story is quite curious. Little Yating had quite a different tale he spoke to me—"

Cai Xuefang snapped his head up.

When? How did he speak to him? I was watching him the whole time! He couldn't have possibly gotten to them already!?

"—He does not care for you, Xuefang. Quite frankly. He called you a coward, running away from a difficult fight. Little Chi Chi was not pleased with his tone and words."

Cai Xuefang grit his teeth. As long as they were alive and unharmed he had no issue so far. They may be frightened, but not hurt. Though Shao Yating would regret speaking about him as soon as he could get to him. If he escaped this meeting with Zi Zhen.

"Your tale is also baffling. Or maybe you are lying out of your teeth. Are you lying, Xuefang?"

Cai Xuefang shook his head.

"I know. You were never a liar. Many things mayhaps. But not a liar."

"Thank you for the kind words, Sect Patriarch." Cai Xuefang said. He wanted to start complimenting Zi Zhen but he had seen it backfire too many times for him to start now. How many died because the old monster considered their words disingenuous.

"But you see. There are some strange inconsistencies. Like for example, I was there when the Hu Ancestor existed."

Cai Xuefang's eyes widened. He had lived in a time when someone so powerful that they would turn into a Calamity roamed the lands. Then again, he didn't quite understand what type of power the Hu ancestor had. Or if he was righteous at this point. No Demonic sect or lineage should exist if such a being existed to eliminate them.

Zi Zhen scratched his chin again. "That man, as I recall, was nothing but an insect. Built his entire clan on the back of his filial Twelfth Son. Then gave him no credit. Banishing him when the boy attempted to shed light on this. That boy, in a fit of rage, threw away his cultivation. Starting on the path of death and destruction. A demon. Killing the Hu Patriarch, now known as the Hu Ancestor. Do you know what that demon named itself?"

Cai Xuefang shook his head.

"Zi Zhen."

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