No Need to Delude

However, the blow never came.

Lai Mingjie felt the sudden swish of freezing wind on his face. He tore his eyes open and caught a blur of Dunzhao escaping to the far side. A familiar ball of freezing wind found its way to Lai Mingjie's face, only to be imploded by the power inside the aviators he didn't lose on his roll.

A growl came from the other demon. He felt a deep threat from the depths of his heart as soon as the freezing wind came. He had to cancel his attack and evade, instantly enraged by the immortal that had come to Emodao's aid. Emodao's aid? He would spat if he had the time. Why did his proud king turn out to be like this now?

"Dunzhao of the Torn, surrender." An immortal descended with his company by the other end of the bridge, blocking Dunzhao's path to the Crimson City.

He was just walking around when he felt the presence of a demon by the edge of the city. To think that all the others had come made him feel like it was a strong demon. To see who it was made him feel a sliver of fear in his heart. However, some facts made him feel secured to engage in battle.

A blue sword formed through water converging on his palm appeared. He grabbed the handle and swiped it to the side before summoning another freezing water ball on his other palm. "Fall before the Laws of Heaven. I am General Radiant Serpent East, son of the Dragon King of the East Sea."

Lai Mingjie fell on his bottom, resting while trying to console the pain in his mutilated arm. Perhaps it was a good thing that these goons were keeping an eye on him.

A burst of laughter tore through the morning as the demon ridiculed Brother Blue at his face. He then pointed at the immortals. "You... making me surrender? You think that because you dulled demonkind's sharpest blade into a toy you can make everyone surrender?!" Dunzhao swiped his claw, the edges now glinting. "Watch me slaughter these clowns, and then I will let you die with your memories, Emodao!"

In the next few breaths, Dunzhao reached the immortals and swung his arms to get a clean slice. Brother Blue responded with a blast of his freezing water ball. The claws broke the ball with ease, but the mist blocked his view for a few seconds. The immortals began attacking while two had set up an illusion shield to keep the people from seeing them.

Lai Mingjie tried his best to crawl out of the place, avoiding conflict. Lucky for him, the energy in the aviators was easing the pain and the shock, the cold crawled along his mutilated arm as if trying to freeze the blood. He kept on looking back to see how their fight progressed.

Dunzhao was Emodao's second-in-command. He was locked in a fight with the first battalion the time General Xu killed Emodao. Based on what he heard from Botangca—years after Emodao died, heaven built a prison for the demon kings who would surrender or were captured by the Imperial Army. Dunzhao was caught as well as most of Emodao's sentinels. They were all locked up for eternity.

Finding Dunzhao here was surprising for Emodao, and the fact that Brother Blue was handling it without shock meant they all knew Dunzhao had escaped the supposed heaven prison. Also, Nuwa hadn't seemed to switch off their demon essence, rendering them powerless. It only meant that the Imperial Army hadn't branded Dunzhao yet ever since he entered the prison.

This begged the question: how many more of them had escaped and would come to see Emodao?

Emodao was the greatest demon king they had. He wasn't greedy towards his men and had always chosen the side of the demonkind. He killed humans like they were all equal and left out a few of them to be eaten by his followers. Never had he given up any of them to the immortals; neither had he made deals with these clowns. He was a textbook demon king, always relying on brute force to solve any problem in their way. He was a straight-up beast—not a conniving one or a coward.

These demon sentinels never found out that he was not sent to the Abyss... like the lie that they received. It took them a hundred thousand years to find out he was turned into a human, supervised by the Goddess Nuwa herself. In this time span, the demon sentinels had been all locked up. None of them knew.

Something's wrong.

If what they knew was that he was thrown into the Abyss... then why would they be looking for him here? In the mortal realm?

Emodao wasn't a thinker, and so thinking fast wasn't his specialty. Before he could form conjectures, something fast had shot out next to his hiding place. His eyes landed on the figure that was thrown away—shocked to see Brother Blue bearing fatal wounds on his body.

"Emodao! Show yourself! Prove to me that you're still the king I served my entire life! Face me!" Dunzhao started thrashing the other immortals, playing with them as he broke their bodies.

Lai Mingjie peeked from his hiding spot and saw the form Dunzhao had taken. It wasn't what he remembered; he was not supposed to have his spine looking like the teeth of a monster. His upper body was also bigger than he remembered—not to mention he had gone taller by half a meter. His skin had dyed maroon instead of gray. The demon king's eyes widened in frustration; this was not his Dunzhao.

The other immortals had to stand ground as long as none came as reinforcements. After the fight between General Xu and General Qilin, most visitors had been chased out. They couldn't send a signal to the sky; they had to wait for that one they sent to find another patrol unit. To think that they were lucky Brother Blue took most of the fire.

One of them yelled, "Stand your ground! We have to protect the city!"

Right, they had to. Crimson City was the only place they could be free without covering up their nature. They only needed to make sure the humans wouldn't catch them. Lai Mingjie reached for his phone and dialed Botangca's number. He needed to at least warn her about Dunzhao.

However, before he could even make the call, another immortal was thrown at his position. The barrier where he was hiding broke into pieces, and he was thrown away along with the dead immortal. His phone was also lost... as well as his aviators. Lai Mingjie only groaned and tried to get away as much as he could. He was only a shell now—no need to delude himself that he could still face Dunzhao in battle.

Dunzhao appeared in front of him and paid no more attention to the immortals. He grabbed Lai Mingjie's head and lifted him using it, causing Lai Mingjie's vision to suffer. "Emodao, I had been looking forward to seeing you. I see that it had failed. Too bad you had become worthless. It's time for you to perish."

The hold on his head tightened, and in another second, he could be dead. Lai Mingjie was left to this again, but he believed Nuwa wouldn't make a move this time. The only thing left for him now was to imagine how he could live for the next three years without a head.

"Ah! Look! That's—!" The immortals began calling out in the distance, the last few things Lai Mingjie could hear. "It's...! It's General Xu!"