The village was still soaked in the scent of sea wind and distant storms. On its crooked paths walked a hunched figure, clothes dusty, hair disheveled, and a wine gourd knocking against his hip with every step. His steps were lazy, unsteady, like someone who had long since given up on dignity.
No one recognized him.
And that was exactly how Mo Tianzun wanted it.
He had traded thrones for exile, traded his pride for silence, traded his face for one no one would remember.
For twenty years, the sky had forgotten his name. And for twenty years, he had been buried beneath it.
But fate had cruel fingers.
On this very day, far from any sect, any temple, or battlefield, someone stood in the same village. Dressed in traveling robes and a simple jade crown, the Crown Prince of Heaven's Domain—Longxuan—was sipping quietly from a cup of rice wine.
He did not come with guards. Not this time.
He had told no one.
The cliff's edge still haunted his dreams. He still woke with Lin Xuanji's name on his lips. Not a night passed that he didn't remember that bloody fall, the look in Xuanji's eyes, and the sound of his scream vanishing into the abyss.
He had known the truth. That his beloved was not just Lin Xuanji, but the fallen Demon Lord Mo Tianzun.
And yet, his love had never changed.
When Longxuan first saw the drunk old man with a crooked back and strange gait, he paid him no mind. But the second time—the third—the fourth—he began to feel something.
Something familiar. A heartbeat out of rhythm.
Today, he followed.
The man walked alone into the forest. He sang nonsense songs, spoke to trees, and threw stones at birds. But Longxuan knew. Beneath that facade was something hidden.
Then it happened.
A scream tore through the trees.
A family's carriage, broken on the road, was surrounded by a massive beast. A corruption-born creature, thrice the height of a man, its blackened skin glistening with acidic slime, jaws capable of crushing iron. A dark aura fumed from its breath, warping the branches it touched.
Longxuan rose to his feet, hand already reaching for his sword.
But then the old man moved.
He stumbled forward, still humming a drunken tune. No visible energy pulsed from his limbs. No formation circle bloomed beneath his feet. His steps were lazy, meandering—utterly human.
And yet the moment his foot touched the edge of the clearing, the beast stopped.
Its eyes, red and violent, trembled.
As if it had recognized something far, far worse than death.
Longxuan stood frozen, stunned. There was no Qi. No spiritual fluctuation. The man had not summoned his power.
'How could a mortal with no energy make a beast of chaos halt?'
The answer came a moment later.
With a flick of his wrist, the old man produced a blade. Thin. Silver. Ancient.
Not a weapon forged by any sect.
It shimmered like mist—unreal.
He whispered, barely audible. "You were loud. I hate loud things."
Then he moved.
A single step.
In that step, the trees bent. The sky rippled. The corruption beast lunged—and was already dead.
Its head slid from its body in perfect silence.
Longxuan could not breathe. That sword technique—he had seen it before.
On the battlefield.
In forbidden texts.
In the hands of the Demon Lord who had once split the Heaven's Gate in two.
"...Xuanji?" he whispered.
The old man turned, eyes dimmed by time and pain. "Shouldn't bring children out when the wind is wrong," he muttered, slinging his gourd back onto his hip.
He didn't even look at Longxuan.
But Longxuan stared at him, heart hammering.
'Why couldn't he sense anything?'
It was as if the old man was really a void.
Yet he had moved like thunder, and the corruption beast had died like dust.
It didn't make sense.
Unless—
He's hiding it. Every trace. Sealed away.
A pendant. A forbidden artifact, perhaps, capable of erasing all signs of one's existence.
Longxuan stepped forward.
"Wait—"
But the old man was already gone, swallowed by the rising mist.
Only the broken carcass of the beast remained, and a road that twisted into the distance.
And in Longxuan's heart, a name echoed.
Mo Tianzun.
Alive.
Hiding.
Right in front of him.
But why?
He had waited twenty years for this moment.
Now that it had come, he didn't know whether to run forward—
Or kneel down and cry.