Chapter 1113: I Fell Into Darkness

Boom!

With a deafening explosion, dust swept across the ground and blood splattered everywhere. The early-tier Demon King Qinglin Jiao finally collapsed in death.

The strange boy, Yan Hong, quickly stored the beast's corpse and stepped into its lair. Inside lay the treasure he had sought.

It was a rare icy blossom, capable of advancing his Ice Emperor's Domain to the next stage.

He plucked the flower, excitement flickering in his eyes. His instincts had been correct. It was time to leave this cursed place.

Yet before he left...

A face rose in his mind. It was the image of a small, innocent girl.

Since his mood was unusually light today, he decided to return and visit that foolish little brat.

Although he refused to admit it to himself, deep inside he had already begun to treat that ordinary girl, who possessed no cultivation at all, as a friend.

Outside the Qinglin Jiao's lair, bright red flowers bloomed in clusters. Yan Hong gathered a small bundle. That silly child would probably like them.

A faint smile touched his lips.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Perhaps he had not even realized it, but ever since his defeat at Ling Feng's hands he had not smiled once.

Or perhaps, with his proud nature, he had never smiled at such trivial things before.

...

Before long, Yan Hong returned to the village. He had not even entered when the heavy stench of blood reached him.

The once quiet and peaceful village had become a sea of corpses. Everywhere he looked, lifeless bodies covered the ground!

"Stupid brat!"

His chest felt as if it were being torn apart. There was nothing crueler than watching something precious be destroyed before his eyes.

He had thought he had finally gained a friend. A ray of sunlight had seemed to pierce the shadows of his life.

But what he saw now nearly drove him mad.

"Little brat!"

He rushed forward like lightning, straight to the great tree where he had once healed his wounds.

Beneath it lay a small, frail body. It was Xiaohui, the ordinary girl, collapsed in a pool of blood. In her hand she still clutched a piece of flatbread.

The same bread she had once given him.

"Damn it!"

Yan Hong felt something inside him tear apart.

Hot tears burst from his eyes. He had believed himself incapable of crying.

Tears, after all, belonged to the weak!

Yet in this moment he realized that all his past pursuits, the glory, the prestige, the power, could not compare to that single piece of bread.

Because it had been a gift from a friend!

"Stupid brat!"

He dropped to his knees beside her. Xiaohui coughed blood, still clinging to a thin thread of life.

"Little one, don't die!"

Yan Hong wiped his tears and pressed a hand to her back.

His elemental qi was too cold and harsh. He restrained it as best he could, guiding it gently into her body in thin streams.

"Strange... strange man, are you crying?

Heehee...

Xiaohui caught you. You... you can cry after all!"

Her tiny body trembled with unbearable pain. A wound nearly split her torso in half, yet she still laughed.

That fool. She was still smiling!

Yan Hong's eyes turned blood-red. "You idiot, I will save you. Trust me, I can save you. I will!"

"

Oh?

That's wonderful. Then save me too. Hand me your body!"

Suddenly, her eyes turned pitch black. A torrent of dark qi erupted from her body.

The black mist twisted into a monstrous face and surged into Yan Hong's mind through his eyes and mouth.

Xiaohui had already been dead all along.

"

Hahahaha!

An innate Sacred Body! Compared to my former vessel, this is far superior!"

The black smoke spread wildly through Yan Hong's sea of mind, trembling with excitement at the immense talent of this body.

The

Devil's Love-Forgetting Art

was practically created for it!

The smoke was none other than a fragment of spiritual thought left behind by the Demon-Masked Lord, Lin Canglang. His body had been destroyed by Despicable Donkey, but his final trace of spiritual thought had escaped.

He had not expected fortune to favor him so greatly, granting him a perfect vessel in a place as remote as this.

"So it was you... you killed that stupid brat?"

Rage consumed Yan Hong. "Unforgivable. Absolutely unforgivable!"

A terrifying surge of spiritual consciousness erupted within his sea of mind, blasting away the black mist in an instant.

"What... what is happening!"

Lin Canglang's eyes widened with disbelief. How could a mere boy at the Spiritual Element Realm possess such overwhelming spiritual consciousness?

"No! No! I still have revenge to take! I want revenge!"

His furious roars gradually faded into nothing. Yan Hong's body went limp, and he collapsed.

He sat in a daze, staring blankly at the girl's lifeless body.

Time passed...

At last, the hunters returned from the mountains. What they found nearly drove them insane.

Dead!

Everyone was dead!

Parents, elders, wives, children, all the villagers lay shriveled in pools of blood, their faces ruined beyond recognition.

The furious hunters searched desperately, but not a single survivor remained.

At the edge of the village, beneath a tree, they saw a boy sitting in a trance beside a corpse.

"It's him! That demon! He did this!"

The enraged hunters lost control. Spears and knives flashed as they charged at him.

Steel forks pierced the boy's body. Blades tore his flesh. Blood sprayed across the ground.

Yet he never uttered a sound. He only gazed at Xiaohui's corpse and burst into laughter at the sky.

"If even the last light in life is gone, then what use is light? I will walk into hell. I will fall and become a demon!"

He rose to his feet and swept his arm. In an instant, every hunter was torn apart.

Within the blink of an eye, all of them lay dead.

Standing among the corpses, he howled to the heavens. "The heavens are dead!"

A torrent of information suddenly flooded into his mind. He froze, then understood. It was the remnant of Lin Canglang's spiritual thought.

"

The Devil's Love-Forgetting Art...

very well. The world has no love, so I too shall forget love!"

His eyes turned cold. His figure flickered, vanishing into the depths of the forest.