Side Story: Demon Realm Journals - Two Wishes

"Among the six of you, there are only three talismans and one jade slip. The jade slip contains a concealment technique of my Rune Sect. With this technique and the aid of the talismans, you can mask the aura of your foundation-building and create the illusion of being demonic cultivators. Thus, those who obtain these two items can seize the opportunity to build their foundations once they are taken in by the demonic cultivators. As long as you are not spotted by a Deity Transformation expert of the Demon Realm, I, the Sect Master, guarantee you will not be exposed."

"The half-volume of the scripture snatched by the demonic cultivators is very likely still within the Heavenly Demon Sect. After passing through the 'Sky Veil,' you are permitted to use any means necessary. No matter how heinous the crimes you commit or how much blood you stain your hands with, once you obtain the scripture, contact me immediately via the talisman so I may bring you back. Not only will your past deeds be forgiven, but you will also be a great hero to the Daoist path, and Elder Jin, the Deity Transformation-level Xing, and I will never treat you unfairly."

Demonic beasts tore at the flesh and bone floating in the water, the stench pungent, as if I were submerged in a pool of blood in purgatory.

I opened my eyes to darkness. A blue streak of light cut across the sky, shattering into mottled points of light before vanishing on the sea not far away.

Where is this?

Someone tell me, is all of this around me real or an illusion? If it were real, I was clearly in the Mirage Temple just a moment ago—how could I have opened my eyes and crossed hundreds of years, returning to when I first arrived in the Demon Realm at the eighth level of Qi Refining? Yet, if it were fake, my body is currently soaking in water, sluggish, helpless, and bearing heavy injuries. Everything is exactly as it was back then.

There is only one explanation: I swallowed the "Water Overturned" on the final floor of the temple. It truly granted my wish, reversing time and sending me back to the moment before my foundation building, when I had just arrived in the Demon Realm.

Hundreds of years—those gains and losses, life and death, joys and sorrows—suddenly became my memories alone.

But what does that matter? I am back.

This is a gift from the heavens. Although separated by ten thousand miles and blocked by the "Sky Veil," she is truly alive in this world. She is alive!

Perhaps I won't have to wait as long as last time to see her.

To hear her speak, to see her smile... perhaps even to hold her, to feel her living body and warm breath, no longer dissipated and intangible. She cannot be found anywhere else in heaven or earth; how generous the heavens have been to me.

My heartbeat quickened, and soaking in this cold, bloody seawater no longer felt unbearable.

Before crossing the "Sky Veil," although we had all assumed the path ahead would be a desperate struggle, we never dreamed that the initial danger would come from our own companions.

Why did Dai Mingchi and Ji Youyun arrange things this way? I only had one talisman on me; who held the others, and who carried the jade slip, was known only to those who held them.

A moment ago, we were friends practicing together. In an instant, we became enemies fighting to the death.

Xie Yaofei and Leng Yu were quicker to react, shouting, "I don't have it!" Ji Nanpu hesitated for a second and was attacked; he was killed quickly, and we found nothing on him.

Why was Ji Nanpu the first to die? It was not because he failed to speak up, but because, aside from Lin Suoyue, he was the strongest among us.

The five of us then fell into a chaotic brawl. If not for the blood attracting a large swarm of demonic beasts, it might have continued until only one remained.

When I woke up in the seawater back then, injured and with no decent plan, I drifted and struggled for a long time. Eventually, for the sake of returning to the Daoist continent one day, I managed to infiltrate the Heavenly Demon Sect, tracked down the "companions" who had survived that slaughter, and demanded the technique from the jade slip from them.

Now, I naturally know that the ones who survived were Lin Suoyue and Qi Xiuning.

The talisman on my body carried Dai Mingchi’s spiritual sense. Last time, I didn't understand, nor did I have the resolve to cut off my own arm to survive. Now that I have decided to cultivate the demonic path, how could I keep it?

Erasing it was easy for me. To avoid alerting Dai Mingchi, I simply drifted with the current and found a suitable demonic beast to handle it.

In the minds of Dai Mingchi and the others, I must be a dead man. I wonder if the calculating Ji Youyun is surprised? From now on, my fate is no longer something you can easily calculate.

It is fated that I returned to fulfill two wishes. The first is to eliminate Ji Youyun, and the second is to be with her. Of course, eliminating Ji Youyun is also to be with her.

The second year after my "return," both my Daoist foundation and demonic foundation were built in my body on the same day.

No one had ever succeeded in dual-cultivating the Dao and the Demon paths. Her senior brother, Jian Hui, thought himself clever and tried to rely on the *Thousand Grass and Thousand Prescriptions Scripture* to form a void elixir and change his constitution, but he failed in the end. He was wrong from the start; the first step of dual cultivation is to find the critical point where the laws of the Dao and the Demon intersect.

For example, the Daoist *Great Tribulation Scripture* and the demonic *Great Heavenly Demon Tri-Eye Soul-Departing Scripture* share laws related to a powerful soul.

Life brings no reunion, moving like the stars Shen and Shang.

The longing seems to intensify day by day. I never knew that just thinking of her could be so soul-consuming.

Last time, when I was struggling here, consorting with demonic creatures, I didn't seem to have the heart to dwell on these things. Well, back then, I had no time to think of her; occasionally, a thought would flicker by: "That lucky little girl..."

Actually, her luck was no better than mine. A few years from now, a great upheaval will strike the Dan Ya Sect. It is a pity that I am here and cannot return, unable to change the fates of Jin Donglou, Ling Xuzi, or her grandmaster and senior brother.

I want to return. This thought is even stronger than it was last time.

To return, I joined the Heavenly Demon Sect once more. Whether it be Qi Xiuning or Lin Suoyue, as long as someone can take me back to the Daoist continent, that is enough.

Every word of the half-volume *Great Tribulation Scripture* sealed by the Heavenly Demon Sect is etched into my memory. If I still had the cultivation of a Deity Transformation expert, I could return immediately without hesitation, but as a mere foundation-builder, the time is far from ripe.

Back then, the three of us wasted a full sixty years in the Heavenly Demon Sect for this half-volume of scripture, and she spent just as long in that dark, sunless prison.

Tsk, tsk, what a poor little thing.

I am desperate to improve my cultivation, but every advancement is like walking on thin ice.

Finally, at the stage of forming a Golden Elixir, without any experience or lessons from predecessors, I was unsure whether to form separate elixirs for the Dao and Demon foundations or to merge them into one. Both options carried immense risks; I had been too simple in my thinking earlier.

Forming two elixirs would be less dangerous, but I could not imagine what would happen when it came time to form a Nascent Soul. Yet, if I merged them, would they reject each other?

This will be the biggest gamble of my two lives. Why is it that whenever I think of gambling, I think of that game that kept me mute for so long? I hope the outcome isn't as miserable this time.

After much deliberation, I chose to merge them.

Fortunately, in the sixteenth year of my return, I formed an unprecedented Golden Elixir without feeling any discomfort.

If my body does not suffer any further mutations, I can go back to find her. I have two wishes: first, to eliminate Ji Youyun; second, to be with her. Eliminating Ji Youyun is also so that I can be with her.

How should I start over with her? Although my physical body is still young, compared to her, I am actually very old. Will what I say no longer seem interesting to her? Will I myself no longer be someone she likes? What was I like back then? What should be the first thing I say when we meet? I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, my mind wandering wildly.

A demonic creature crawled over and tapped my arm gently. I picked it up and threw it off the bed.

Every time I wake up from a dream, I reach out my hand to observe and feel it, hoping that in return for my visit to the temple, the heavens might show mercy and let me return to her in one piece, to be with her.

Three years after forming the Golden Elixir, the demonic transformation arrived late.

The first signs did not appear on my palms, but on the elbow of my right arm—first numbness, then pain, spreading over a larger area, with signs of ulceration.

But I can continue to cultivate, and my cultivation is still rising rapidly.

Only a year later, I reached the mid-stage of the Golden Elixir. The other arm began to show the same symptoms, sprouting moldy spots.

No one has ever had this disease, so naturally, no one knows what prescription could cure it.

I know that as my cultivation grows higher, the various rejection reactions will only become more severe.

Although the demonic transformation shattered all my illusions, I found that I accepted it very calmly, as if I had been prepared for it through all the previous trials. Looking back now, I seem to have been waiting for this day all along.

I even had a plan to welcome it, creating an unprecedented technique so that I could continue to walk under the sun.

I named this new technique the "Mask of Life." Before the laws of heaven, this life I have lived again seems so illusory.

I cannot wait any longer. I intend to eliminate Lin Suoyue.

A mid-stage Golden Elixir cultivator of my age would draw attention in any sect. Once I kill Lin Suoyue and expose the Daoist conspiracy, with her corpse and the talisman as evidence, the old Sect Master of the Heavenly Demon Sect will surely make an exception to see me.

The rest will be how to convince that old demon. Since he is already on the verge of death, it shouldn't be too hard to make him contribute to the Demon Realm and the sect before he passes.

I am about to return. In the twenty-fifth year of my arrival in the Demon Realm, carrying the half-volume of the *Great Tribulation Scripture* written in demonic script, as a personal disciple of the Heavenly Demon Sect Master with late-stage Golden Elixir cultivation, I used the last talisman from Qi Xiuning to open the "Sky Veil" and return to the Daoist continent.

From now on, I will wear a mask to complete my two wishes: first, to eliminate Ji Youyun; second, to ensure she lives well. Eliminating Ji Youyun is to ensure she lives well.