My Best Friend and I Transmigrated: Demon Lord & Immortal Foremost
Synopsis
My best friend and I transmigrated together. He became the Supreme Lord of the Demonic Path. I became the Foremost of the Immortal Path.
I transmigrated.
Good news: my best friend Su Lie came through with me.
Bad news: I landed in an immortal sect, and he fell into the demon abyss.
Worse news: the whole cultivation world is waiting to watch us tear each other apart.
What they do not know is this — we grew up together. We took beatings together, skipped class together, jumped off a fifth-floor window together and broke a leg doing it.
In this life, he is the Supreme Lord of the Demonic Path, and I am the Foremost of the Immortal Path.
Who dares raise their voice at the two of us now?
Yeah.
Chapter One
My name is Chen Yu.
Twenty-three years old, no job, and my only hobby was drinking late-night beer with my best friend Su Lie.
That night we drank too much and went over the railing of an overpass. We were not jumping. We were drunk and climbed up there to fool around, and then one foot found nothing.
And then we transmigrated.
When I came to, I was lying face down on soft grass, my head still ringing, the taste of liquor not yet gone from my mouth.
First thought: that is it, I fell and died.
Second thought: I am not dead, but where the fuck is this.
In front of me stood a Mountain Gate reaching into the clouds. White stone steps ran upward from where I lay, cranes on perches to either side, incense mist drifting through the air.
Before I worked out what was going on, someone came over.
White Daoist robe, hair pinned under a crown. The first thing he said to me was: “Are you the one who is fated to come, drawn here by the calamity?”
Me: “…Huh?”
He pulled me to my feet, smiling, and said: “Today the Tianji Sect is opening its gates to take disciples. You carry a Spirit Root. This is the working of fate.”
I blanked out for about five seconds.
Then I started spinning in circles where I stood, hunting for Su Lie.
“Su Lie! Su Lie!”
Nothing.
For a hundred meters in every direction, I was the only one there.
The white-robed Daoist followed me two turns, a little lost, and asked: “Whom do you seek?”
I said: “My friend. He came here with me. One meter eighty-five, close-cropped hair, a scar on the web of his left hand.”
He went quiet for a moment, looked off toward some far direction, and his expression turned odd.
“That man of whom you speak… fell eight hundred li east of here, in a place that is…” He paused.
“…the Blood Abyss Demon Domain.”
I froze right where I stood.
The Blood Abyss Demon Domain.
A Demon Domain.
Demonic.
Fucking hell.
I learned later that this world is called the Cangxuan Realm, split into four currents: the Immortal Path, the Demonic Path, the Demon Race, and the Rogue Cultivators.
The immortal and demonic paths are like fire and water. They have fought for nobody knows how many years.
The Tianji Sect is one of the five great sects of the Immortal Path. The Blood Abyss is first among the six great demonic sects of the Demonic Path.
I transmigrated into Tianji Sect land. Su Lie transmigrated into the Blood Abyss.
Fate played one goddamn joke on the two of us.
That white-robed Daoist was called Cui Changfeng. He was an Outer Sect Elder of the Tianji Sect, and the man who took me in when I joined the sect.
His reason for taking me was simple — I carry a Chaos Spirit Root with all five elements present.
He said an aptitude like that comes along once in a hundred years.
I said, then help me bring my friend back first.
His face changed at once.
“That friend of yours, if he truly fell into the Blood Abyss, is already a demonic cultivator. The immortal and the demonic do not share a road. I fear that in this life…”
“You fear what?”
He did not finish. But I read what was in his eyes.
He feared that the next time we met, we would be enemies.
I did not argue.
But I knew one thing clearly — Su Lie grew up beside me, lost both his parents, and got to today on nothing but a streak of pure viciousness.
Wherever he landed, he would not die.
Absolutely not.
I put down roots at the Tianji Sect.
I started cultivating.
I started waiting for news.
Chapter Two
The cultivation system of the Tianji Sect is called the Five Elements Return-to-True Art.
The first step is called Drawing Qi In. Most disciples need three days to seven days.
I took two shichen.
Cui Changfeng went still where he stood, and said with a shaking hand: “A hundred years… in a hundred years this old man has not seen an aptitude like this…” I had no mind for marveling. I asked him: “Can you help me dig up news of the Blood Abyss?”
He went quiet for a moment, then said: “Deep in the Demon Domain, the spies of the Immortal Path go in and never come back. This old man’s reach is limited, but…”
He paused.
“In three months there is a gathering of the immortal and demonic paths, in neutral ground: Xuanshui City. Every sect of the Demonic Path will send someone.”
“Then I will wait three months.”
I said.
The look Cui Changfeng gave me was complicated.
He had probably never met a man who transmigrated three days ago and was already planning the next leg of the trip.
For those three months I stayed put at the Tianji Sect and cultivated.
This Chaos Spirit Root really is a strange thing. Other people need a year to reach Foundation Establishment. I spent less than two months.
After Foundation Establishment, Cui Changfeng recommended me to the Sect Lord.
The Sect Lord of the Tianji Sect: Jiang Xuan.
He looked fifty-something, hair and beard gone white, but his eyes were sharp. A hard man, plain to see.
How he looked me over was not far off from looking over a piece of goods.
In the end he said one line: “Good stock. Take him into the Inner Sect, under Qingxuan Peak.”
Among the disciples standing nearby, some envied me and some resented me.
I did not care about any of it.
The only thing I cared about was what would come out of Xuanshui City three months later.
Life in the Inner Sect was easier than the Outer Sect. A cave residence of my own, a cultivation technique of my own, a Senior Brother to drill me.
My Senior Brother was called Song Yan. He had joined the sect ten years before me, and his cultivation base had reached the Late Stage of Golden Core.
Pleasant on the surface. Underneath, his eyes sat high on his skull.
The first time we met, he looked at me and smiled. “I hear Junior Brother’s gifts are outstanding. Foundation Establishment in two months. You really are something.”
I said: “I will take Senior Brother’s kind words as a good omen.”
He went on: “But the Tianji Sect has always set store by steadiness. In cultivation, haste is the thing to avoid. Junior Brother has only just joined the sect. You should ask the Seniors for guidance more often.”
I heard it.
Translated, it meant: do not stick your head out. Keep your head down and follow the rules.
I nodded and said nothing more.
What I thought was: once I find Su Lie, I do not want any part of this nonsense.
Three months later.
Xuanshui City.
The gathering of the immortal and demonic paths was, at bottom, a political show.
Everyone sits at one table, drinks tea, says a great deal of nothing, then goes home.
But this year was different.
This year the Blood Abyss had sent a new face.
He stood on the Demonic Path side. Black robe, hair in disorder, a thin long scar on the web of his right hand.
One meter eighty-five. The cropped hair had grown out past his ears. Eyes cold as a blade.
I froze where I stood.
Three months.
It was fucking Su Lie.
Su Lie saw me at the same moment.
He stopped for a second. Then he pulled one corner of his mouth and gave me a thumbs-up.
Me: … Song Yan beside me dropped his voice and said: “That is the new core disciple of the Blood Abyss. They say he went from a Crippled Spirit Root to demonic true essence in three months. Broke the three-hundred-year record of the Blood Abyss outright. The Demon Lord of Blood Abyss thinks very highly of him.”
A Crippled Spirit Root.
Something in me pulled tight.
When Su Lie first came into that world, he was a Crippled Spirit Root.
I did not know how he had gotten through those three months.
But I saw that he was all right, and the stone in my chest hit the ground.
During the gathering, the immortal and demonic paths were not to meet privately. That was the rule.
Su Lie never gave a damn about rules.
That evening I came out of the guest hall, and someone stopped me in an alley.
It was him.
We looked at each other for a moment.
Then we spoke at the same time.
I said: “Are you fucking all right?”
He said: “How the fuck are you doing?”
Then neither of us said anything. We clapped each other on the shoulder.
Silence for about ten seconds.
Su Lie spoke first: “A Crippled Spirit Root drops into the Demon Domain, and they nearly refine you as a sacrificial offering.”
Me: “…” His tone was flat, as if he were telling someone else’s story: “Later I got out on my own. Three days with nothing to eat. I found the Mountain Gate of the Blood Abyss, got down on my knees and knocked my head on the ground, said I wanted to take a master and learn.”
Me: “On your knees? You?”
He turned his head to me: “Staying alive beats everything else.”
For a moment I had nothing to say.
Su Lie never bowed to anyone.
To get him down on his knees, he must truly have run out of road.
He went on: “I trained the cultivation techniques of the Blood Abyss for two months. Beat demonic true essence out of a Crippled Spirit Root by sheer force. The Demon Lord of Blood Abyss said he had never seen anything like it in his life.”
I said: “How do you cultivate out of a Crippled Spirit Root?”
He lifted his eyes. “When you cultivate, have you ever felt a limit?”
Me: “No.”
He said: “I have been sitting on the limit the whole time.”
I said nothing.
I knew what he meant.
That feeling is a line drawn between dying and living.
Most people cannot hold it. Su Lie held it.
Because he has lived on that line his whole life.
I said: “What do we do next?”
He said: “You walk your Immortal Path. I will walk my Demonic Path.”
“And then?”
He glanced at me. His tone was flat, but what I read in his eyes was clear enough — then we stand at the very top, and nobody lays a hand on us.
Chapter Three
Back at the Tianji Sect, I cultivated faster than before.
Cui Changfeng came to find me and asked how Xuanshui City had gone.
I said: “I saw that friend of mine.”
He was quiet for a moment. “He…”
“He is fine.”
I said. “Better than me, even.”
Cui Changfeng did not know what to say. In the end he sighed and left.
Song Yan’s manner toward me turned subtler after that.
After the gathering at Xuanshui City, he must have heard how fast I reached Foundation Establishment, and he started measuring me again.
Warmer on the surface. But I kept feeling there was probing in the warmth.
One day he came to talk, circled around it for a long while, and finally said: “Junior Brother, there has always been rivalry between the peaks of the sect. Qingxuan Peak has had the better of the other peaks these two years. Some people are bound to resent that. Be careful when you cultivate.”
I said: “Thank you for the warning, Senior Brother.”
He nodded, then said: “One more thing. I hear the Blood Abyss has produced a new figure. You traveled with him at this gathering. Was there anything odd about it?”
Something in me stopped.
I looked up at him.
His face was mild, his eyes calm, as if he had asked it in passing.
I said: “I had no contact with him.”
He made a sound in his throat and did not press.
But from that day on I knew there was more to this man than met the eye.
Among the disciples of the Tianji Sect there are spies for the Immortal Path whose whole work is watching the movements of the Demonic Path.
Song Yan was very likely one of them.
I started deliberately making myself small in front of him.
I never stopped cultivating. But on the surface I kept half a beat slow.
At the same time I went through an information dealer in the Outer Sect, and began asking after Su Lie anonymously.
What came back grew more explosive each time. Six months into the Blood Abyss, Su Lie went straight from the Outer Sect to the core of the Inner Sect.
Eight months in: in a trial held inside the Demonic Path, he alone slaughtered the squads of two other core disciples. Twelve people. Not one left alive.
Ten months in: the Demon Lord of Blood Abyss personally passed him the foremost Demonic Art of the sect.
One year in: the Demon Lord of Blood Abyss announced he was taking him as his last disciple, stepping over every senior brother and senior sister, and named him the future heir of the Blood Abyss.
Reading these reports, my feelings were complicated.
Complicated how?
In this: the road Su Lie walked was straight as a fucking arrow.
He just did it. Not a shred of hesitation.
I stayed at the Tianji Sect two years straight.
In those two years I went from Foundation Establishment to the Early Stage of Nascent Soul.
By the standard of this world, that speed is monster grade. A normal person needs twenty to thirty years.
But I made no noise about it. I kept my realm held down, waiting for the moment.
Once, the Sect Lord Jiang Xuan called me in alone and asked why my cultivation base had slowed.
I said: “My foundation is not steady. I dare not push forward.”
He looked at me for a long time. Then he said one line: “Being able to hold your breath is a good thing.”
I knew he saw through it. He did not call me out.
Jiang Xuan is a true power.
Between powers, there are times when nothing needs to be said.
On Song Yan’s side, he had started making small troubles for me in the sect.
He said there was something wrong with my cultivation method, and reported it to the elders.
He said my conduct back in the Outer Sect had been improper, and hinted to Cui Changfeng that he should warn me.
None of these things was large on its own. Put together, they were grinding at my foundation, grinding at my standing in the sect.
I took it.
Not because I could not endure it. The moment had not come.
Then news came from Su Lie, and the moment arrived.
The news said this: Su Lie had taken the seat of the Demon Lord of Blood Abyss.
That Crippled Spirit Root, in two years, had taken the seat of Sect Lord over the greatest sect of the Demonic Path.
His first order was a formal declaration of war against the Lingxu Sect, one of the five great sects of the Immortal Path.
The reason was four words: “Because I want to fight.”
The whole cultivation world boiled over.
Chapter Four
The news of Su Lie’s declaration of war exploded across the Tianji Sect.
The Sect Lord called an urgent meeting of the five peaks’ elders in the council hall.
I sat in the Inner Disciples’ section and listened to the people above the hall arguing back and forth.
Some argued we should reinforce the Lingxu Sect and resist together.
Some argued we should sit and watch the tigers fight, and decide after the Blood Abyss was done.
Others said this was a good chance to weaken the Blood Abyss: let the Lingxu Sect eat up its vital energy.
They argued for a shichen with no conclusion.
Song Yan stood to the side, silent the whole time. But I caught him glancing at me more than once.
When the meeting broke up, he caught up with me and walked alongside me for a stretch, then said: “Junior Brother, these troubled times breed heroes. The sect’s situation shifts and changes. What do you think?”
I said: “I will follow the sect’s arrangements.”
He smiled. “Too modest, Junior Brother. I know what your aptitude is. If you build a name for yourself in this war of the Immortal Path and the Demonic, who knows, you might take off and never come down.”
I knew exactly what he was doing. It was probing. It was nudging.
Send me to the front. Send me to the dangerous ground. They would sit in the rear and watch.
I said: “Senior Brother is right, but my cultivation base is still shallow. I need more tempering.”
He said nothing more.
I went back to my cave residence, shut the door, and began to lay out the situation all over again.
Su Lie’s declaration of war was definitely not as simple as “I want to fight.”
He had a purpose.
That purpose, I could guess at — he needed to make a name.
A new Sect Lord, his foundation unsteady, the fastest way to make a name is to fight one good fight.
The Lingxu Sect was not who he really wanted to fight.
Who he wanted to fight was the face of the entire Immortal Path.
Three days later, the Blood Abyss army was at the gates. The Lingxu Sect sent out a distress signal.
The five great sects of the Immortal Path, the Tianji Sect included, all received it.
The Sect Lord Jiang Xuan made his decision at last: the Tianji Sect would march and reinforce the Lingxu Sect.
He named Song Yan to lead the force, with Inner Sect disciples accompanying.
My name was on the list.
I knew this had been Song Yan’s doing.
He had pushed me to the very front.
Chapter Five
When we reached Lingxu Mountain, the fighting had already been going on for two days.
The Lingxu Sect had taken real losses, but the Blood Abyss had not gotten off cheaply either.
We reached the front, and for the first time I saw a demonic cultivator on a real battlefield.
Black Demonic Qi everywhere you looked. Swords and blades dense as trees. The roar of combat shaking the ground.
Song Yan directed from the rear and put us Inner Sect disciples at the very front of the line.
I walked forward, toward the demonic cultivators’ line, feeling the Spiritual Energy of the Early Stage of Nascent Soul moving through my body as I went.
Then in the crowd I saw a familiar silhouette.
Su Lie stood among the Demonic Path’s ranks.
He had not come forward. He just stood high at the back, watching the field.
That posture was exactly the same as when he used to fight back in school — unhurried, unruffled, waiting for an opening.
Our eyes met across the whole battlefield.
He looked at me, then looked at Song Yan behind me.
Then he gave me a small nod.
I read him at once.
Next, Song Yan told me to attack a demonic cultivator stronghold. He said the flank was weak, and a breakthrough there would turn the battle.
I looked in that direction.
That was no weak point. That was a pocket formation.
If you went in, you did not come out.
I turned to look at Song Yan.
His face held a smile: warm, worried, urging.
“Junior Brother, the moment will not wait. If you pull this off, your standing in the sect will rise to a height you cannot reach on any ordinary day.”
I was silent for two seconds. Then I said: “Fine.”
I walked three steps in that direction. Stopped. Turned my head. “Oh, Senior Brother. Elder Cui came to see me in private a few days ago. He said someone had reported to him that there is a man in the sect who has been passing information to the Demonic Path in the capacity of a spy. He has already reported it to the Sect Lord.”
Song Yan’s smile froze for an instant.
I went on: “Elder Cui said they already have a specific suspect. They only need to confirm it.”
His hand tightened inside his sleeve.
I filed that small motion away in my eye, turned back, and walked toward the opposite direction.
I did not go into that pocket formation.
I circled for half a sweep, cut into the real weak spot, brought two Junior Brothers with me, and went straight at the demonic cultivators’ supply train.
No supplies, and the demonic army’s long campaign was cut at the root.
This stroke changed the face of the Blood Abyss strategist on the spot.
The field began to tilt toward the Immortal Path’s side.
The demonic army began to pull back.
But as they pulled back, Su Lie suddenly struck.
He did not pull back. He surged forward for a stretch, then stopped between the two lines and called out to the Sect Lord of the Lingxu Sect: “The Blood Abyss withdraws today out of boredom. Not because we lost.”
Then he turned, picked me out of the crowd, and tossed something my way across the air.
I reached out and caught it.
It was a jade token, dark red, with the patterns of the Blood Abyss carved into it.
The Immortal Path disciples around me all went still.
Song Yan’s face turned iron-grey.
Su Lie cocked an eyebrow at me, clapped his hands once, and led the demonic army away.
This jade token.
It was a Demonic Path safe-pass. Whoever held it, no sect of the Demonic Path could lay a finger on them.
Su Lie, in front of the whole crowd, had handed me a free-pass token.
Then he made sure the whole cultivation world saw it — an Inner Sect disciple of the Immortal Path knew the Demon Lord of Blood Abyss.
Chapter Six
The day after we got back to the Tianji Sect, the Sect Lord summoned me.
It was not a private summons.
It was in the main hall, with all the elders of the five peaks present.
Song Yan was there too.
He stood in line with the others. His face was well controlled: calm, with even a touch of idle ease.
But I glanced at him once, then took my eyes away.
The Sect Lord Jiang Xuan sat at the head of the hall and laid that dark red jade token on the table.
“Chen Yu,” he spoke, his voice not loud, but it carried through the hall, “is this jade token something the Demon Lord of Blood Abyss gave you in person?”
“It is,”
I said.
The hall went quiet for a moment.
Someone spoke up. It was the Elder of Hongchen Peak, his tone sharp: “The immortal and the demonic do not share a road. For the Demon Lord of Blood Abyss to give such a thing to a disciple of the Immortal Path — there must be a reason. Chen Yu, what exactly is your relationship with that demonic cultivator?”
“A friend from before I transmigrated.”
Another hush.
Then a brief stir.
A few elders exchanged glances. Some frowned, some wore complicated faces.
Song Yan spoke: “Transmigrated? Junior Brother, what do you mean by that?”
His tone was confusion, was concern, was seemingly helping me explain, but underneath it he was digging deeper.
I turned to look at him.
“I mean it in the literal sense, Senior Brother. I came from another world, and so did Su Lie. We have known each other twenty years.”
He had nothing to say.
The hall went into an uproar again for a stretch.
The Sect Lord Jiang Xuan raised his hand, quashed the voices, and said: “Chen Yu.”
“Here.”
“How do you regard this object?”
I walked forward, picked the jade token up, looked at it for a moment, set it back on the table, and said: “The Demon Lord of Blood Abyss gave me this pass to tell the cultivation world one thing: he knows me, and he is also telling me he will not move against me on his own. For the Tianji Sect, this jade token is a trouble, and it is also a guarantee.”
“How so?”
“The trouble is that a sect disciple has private ties to the Demonic Path, and the reputation does not look good. The guarantee is that the Blood Abyss is the strongest sect of the Demonic Path, and its Demon Lord has said on his own word that he will not move against me. That means the Tianji Sect now has one more buffer at the Demonic Path level.”
Jiang Xuan said nothing, but I saw the tea cup by his hand give the smallest tremble.
Song Yan spoke again, his voice soft, but there was a sting in it: “Junior Brother has a point. But when the fight between the immortal and demonic paths shifts, one tug moves the whole body. If your tie to that demonic cultivator becomes known by the other sects, the Tianji Sect’s position…”
“Senior Brother,” I cut him off, “you just said that in the battle at Lingxu Mountain I changed tactics on my own and did not follow your instructions. Is that right?”
He froze for a beat.
“The deployment I gave had its reasons—”
“I know,” I said. “That stronghold was a pocket formation. Anyone who went in would have died inside.”
The hall went quiet again.
This time it was really quiet.
The smile on Song Yan’s face stiffened.
I went on, my tone flat, every word clear: “I went into the real weak point, destroyed the demonic army’s supply train, and turned the battle. All the elders here saw what happened.”
“But,” I paused, “had I followed Senior Brother’s deployment and gone into that stronghold, I would not be standing here now.”
One elder stood up, his voice heavy: “Song Yan!”
Song Yan’s face changed for good.
He tried to defend himself. The pocket formation, he said, was a judgment error, not on purpose.
But while he spoke, his eyes wandered, and his hand trembled inside his sleeve.
I said nothing more.
I left the floor to the Sect Lord.
Some things did not need me to seal them.
Jiang Xuan announced in the end that the findings on Song Yan would be reviewed by the Sect Lord personally within three days.
When the meeting broke up, Cui Changfeng came up beside me and said in a low voice: “That information about Song Yan. Was it you who fed it to him?”
“It was.”
“How did you know he was a spy?”
“I was not sure,” I said. “But he was asking questions he should not ask, and looking in directions he should not look. That was enough.”
Cui Changfeng was quiet a moment. “You are a deep little thing.”
“Mixed in with a pile of fish,” I said. “You cannot afford to be shallow.”
Chapter Seven
The Sect Lord took five days on Song Yan, not three.
Five days later he was dragged into the main hall and made to kneel on the ground. Every hint of polish was gone from his face.
He was a piece on the board among the five great sects of the Immortal Path, charged with collecting internal intelligence from every sect and passing it on to some third faction.
Not the Demonic Path.
It was another faction hidden inside the cultivation world, called the Dark Abyss Pavilion.
This faction flipped either way. Whoever was useful, it served them. It made its money on information.
Song Yan had been at the Tianji Sect ten years, and the intelligence he had sent out was enough to ruin the sect.
He was stripped of his standing and taken to the sect’s prison, to await his sentence.
When they were leading him away, he stared at me. There was hate in his eyes, and unwillingness, and something else I could not quite name.
“You are nothing but a transmigrator from another world. What gives you the right…” I said: “What gives me the right?”
I walked up and crouched in front of him. “What gives me the right is that I did not betray anyone.”
Then I stood and walked away.
After this, my standing in the Tianji Sect changed.
Not because the Sect Lord praised me. Not because I exposed Song Yan.
It was that the disciples of the Inner Sect began to look at me in a different way.
That look was real recognition.
Not the old tangle of envy and wariness — this was simple: this man is worth knowing.
Cui Changfeng came to find me, his old eyes brimming with tears. “When this old man took you into the sect back then, it was the most correct decision the sect has ever made.”
I said: “Elder, please wipe your tears first.”
He wiped them, and kept on: “Your future achievements will be immeasurable—”
“Elder,” I cut him off. “I have one thing I want to ask your help with.”
He straightened at once. “Say it.”
“I want to investigate the Dark Abyss Pavilion.”
Chapter Eight
The Dark Abyss Pavilion, the oldest intelligence outfit in the cultivation world.
It had been around longer than the oldest sects of either the Immortal Path or the Demonic Path.
It never took sides, never raised a hand. It only did one thing: sold information.
Whoever had the coin, the information they wanted got delivered to them.
Song Yan was only one of the pieces it had planted inside the Tianji Sect.
How many pieces like that exist in the whole cultivation world — nobody knows.
I wanted to look into it, because the Dark Abyss Pavilion knows too much.
If I could get a hold on them, I would be holding the information veins of the whole cultivation world in my hand.
Cui Changfeng helped me dig for three months and brought me back some threads. Then he told me: “Chen Yu, this thing runs too deep. This old man is advising you to stop at the surface.”
I said: “Elder, I know. I just want the map drawn out now. I am not moving yet, I am saving it for later.”
He sighed. “You and that Demon Lord of Blood Abyss really do walk the same road.”
Me: “…What do you mean by that?”
He said: “This old man hears that over in the Blood Abyss, after that new Demon Lord took over, the first three things he did were: first, he hit the Lingxu Sect; second, he cleaned house inside the Blood Abyss; third,” he paused, “he cut a deal with the Dark Abyss Pavilion.”
I blinked, and could not keep from laughing.
That bastard had already moved first.
Another half year went by.
Inside the sect, my cultivation base had already reached the Late Stage of Nascent Soul.
But I still had not let go completely.
During this stretch, more news came from Su Lie’s side.
After the Lingxu campaign, the Blood Abyss did not keep expanding.
The first thing Su Lie did was clean out three rot elders inside the Blood Abyss on the grounds of insubordination, strip their cultivation bases outright, and throw them out.
The second thing was redraw the faction map of the Blood Abyss. Under the banner of “courtesy,” he gave several disputed plots of land to the Rogue Cultivator factions around the border, and traded them for a new ring of outer forces loyal to the Blood Abyss.
The third thing was a public announcement: the Blood Abyss would no longer provoke any sect of the Immortal Path on its own, but if anyone came to its door, it would pay them back three times over.
On the surface these three moves looked like a pulling back. In truth, they were building a sturdier foundation.
Reading these reports, I thought: Su Lie is the real thing. He can fight, and the brain behind it is just as good.
His approach is the same as mine. Not unwilling to move. Just waiting.
Waiting for what?
Until we stand on solid ground. Until the moment is truly ripe. Then one strike that ends it.
Chapter Nine
The third year after transmigration. Mid-Autumn.
Xuanshui City held another gathering.
This time the scale was larger. All three races came: the Immortal Path, the Demonic Path, and the Demon Race.
I represented the Tianji Sect. Su Lie represented the Blood Abyss.
This was the second formal meeting between us since we transmigrated.
This time, no one dared stop us from talking.
That dark red jade token had already made some things very clear.
We found a place with no one around, on the bank of a river outside Xuanshui City.
Moonlight laid the river out bright and white.
Su Lie spoke first: “On the Dark Abyss Pavilion side, I have already signed a deal.”
I said: “I know.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You looked into it?”
“I had Elder Cui sketch the shape for me. You moved faster than I did.”
He leaned on the railing and tossed a pebble into the river. “You were used as a gun by someone in the Tianji Sect.”
“Song Yan?”
“Mm.”
He said, “A man like that should have been dealt with sooner.”
I said: “I was waiting for him to show more of his hand.”
“You are always like this,” he said. His tone did not rise, but I caught what he meant: too cautious. “You like to wait. Wait until every card is in the open, only then move.”
“You are always like that,” I gave back. “You like to charge. Get in there first, talk later.”
He laughed soundlessly.
We were quiet for a while.
Then I said: “In this world, have you thought about where we end up?”
Su Lie did not answer at once.
He stared at the water for a long time.
In the end he said: “Foremost of the Immortal Path, Supreme Lord of the Demonic Path, one for me, one for you. Nobody from nowhere comes to fuck with either of us.”
Me: “…That goal of yours is not exactly modest.”
“You think it’s hard?”
I thought about it. “Not hard.”
He turned to me. His eyes were serious. “How long?”
I said: “Five years.”
He said: “Three years.”
Me: “…Fine, three years.”
He tossed another pebble at the river. “It is settled.”
That was the pact between us.
No ceremony, no oaths. Two useless drifters from another world, standing under the moonlight of this other world, agreeing on something that would make the whole cultivation world tremble.
Chapter Ten
For the three years that followed, Su Lie and I each made our moves.
My first step was to take the cultivation base of the Late Stage of Nascent Soul and push through a direct breakthrough into Spirit Severing during a stretch of closed-door cultivation at the Tianji Sect.
The Spirit Severing realm. In the five hundred years of the Tianji Sect, only three people had ever reached it.
Sect Lord Jiang Xuan was one of them.
The day I left seclusion, the whole sect stood stunned.
Cui Changfeng wept on the spot. This time I did not stop him.
Jiang Xuan called me into his study, shut the door, sized me up for a long while, and said: “How long have you been holding it back?”
I said: “Two years.”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he said: “In all the disciples this old man has taken in this life, you are the one I cannot see through the most.”
I said: “The Sect Lord gives me too much credit.”
He said: “This old man wants you to take the seat of Peak Master of Qingxuan Peak.”
I said: “Not just yet. Wait until I finish a few things.”
He asked: “What things?”
I said: “The Dark Abyss Pavilion. There is still another one inside the Tianji Sect.”
His hand stopped for an instant.
“Have you evidence?”
“Almost.”
He took a deep breath. “Tell me what you need the sect to do, and I will do it.”
This was the first time Jiang Xuan had put that wall down completely for me.
From that day on, my room to maneuver inside the Tianji Sect was bigger.
Su Lie, on his side, took an entire year and did something that shook the whole Demonic Path.
He went through the five great demonic sects outside the Blood Abyss one by one, negotiating and applying pressure, using every means at hand, until the five sects signed a joint document naming him “Alliance Lord of the Demonic Path.”
Six great demonic sects, one banner.
There had never been such a thing in the history of the Demonic Path.
During that time the reports that came back grew more explosive each time.
The Sect Lord of one of the demonic sects slammed the table in Su Lie’s face and said he would not accept it.
Then Su Lie straight up fought him, beat him down in front of everyone with one line: “You win, you say what goes.”
No one beat him.
All six were united.
The Dark Abyss Pavilion, seeing this arrangement, came to Su Lie on its own to renew the contract and scale up intelligence cooperation.
Su Lie agreed, and at the same moment, taking it in stride, swept clean every single line of theirs in the Demonic Path.
He told the Dark Abyss Pavilion: from now on there are two-way arrangements. Intel is fine, but it has to run by his rules.
The Pavilion Lord of the Dark Abyss Pavilion reportedly fell silent for a long time on the spot, and then agreed.
Because he knew the young man sitting across from him was the kind who could toss the intel aside and just smash the Pavilion.
On my side, I spent a year finding the second Dark Abyss line inside the Tianji Sect.
It was an Outer Sect disciple. He had joined the sect even more recently than I had, but his credentials were forged very well, and he hid very deep.
I gathered everything on him, put it in order, and handed it to the Sect Lord.
Then I did the second thing. I joined hands with the two other great sects of the Immortal Path outside the Tianji Sect, and we worked through the Dark Abyss intelligence network across the whole Immortal Path systematically. In half a year we pulled out more than thirty nails.
During that time I built a relationship of trust with the core disciples of those two sects, and at the same time those sects’ Sect Lords started turning their eyes toward me.
The third thing was that I went out for half a year of tempering. In the field I fought more than ten hard battles. I killed Evil Cultivators. I wiped out a rogue chief of the Demon Race. My name got around.
Once the three things were done, I went back to the Tianji Sect and took the seat of Peak Master of Qingxuan Peak.
Then Jiang Xuan called me into his study, shut the door, and said to me: “This old man’s years are getting on. I mean to step down.”
I looked up at him.
He went on: “For the next Sect Lord of the Tianji Sect, there is no question. It has to be you.”
Chapter Eleven
Taking over as Sect Lord came half a year earlier than I had expected.
Jiang Xuan did not fully retire. He took the title of Grand Elder, but in truth he was still backing me from behind.
On the surface, however, I was the Sect Lord.
The day of the handover ceremony, the whole sect was present.
I stood in the middle of the main hall, accepted the Sect Lord token, and turned to face everyone in the seats below.
Elders of the five peaks. Inner and Outer Sect disciples. Several hundred people. The hall was so quiet a pin could be heard.
I said three things.
First, from now on, in the Tianji Sect, selection into the Inner Sect would be by strength. Not by seniority. Not by birth. Not by whose disciple you were.
Second, on the outside, the Tianji Sect would not stir trouble on its own. But if anyone came to our gate, we would strike back. Double.
Third, the Dark Abyss Pavilion, and any outside faction trying to infiltrate the sect. Find one, root one out.
After saying these three things, I put the Sect Lord token into my sleeve and said: “Anyone who objects, speak now.”
No one in the seats below said a word.
After about ten seconds of silence, Cui Changfeng was the first to kneel.
Then one after another.
Jiang Xuan stood off to the side, watching the scene. He pulled one corner of his mouth in. That smile held something I could not quite name, but my guess was satisfaction.
News traveled out faster than I had expected.
On Su Lie’s side, by that afternoon it had reached him.
He had a message sent over: “You are three months behind me. Three cups of wine as fine.”
I could not help laughing.
I sent a reply: “The three-year mark is not here yet. Do not start showing off.”
Chapter Twelve
The three-year pact. The last month.
I met Su Lie outside Xuanshui City.
This time it was not a gathering, not some diplomatic occasion.
It was just the two of us.
I got there first.
He was the time it takes to drink a cup of tea behind me.
Black robe, hair bound under a gold crown. Steadier and heavier than two years ago. The pressure rolling off him was a different animal from the disheveled, bloody Su Lie who had first transmigrated here.
But the thing in his eyes had not changed.
It was still that thing: I know you, you see me, that’s all there is in my eyes for you, and everything else is shit.
He sat down. No small talk. His first words: “On the Immortal Path side, are you done?”
“Done,” I said. “Tianji Sect, Qingfeng Sect, Yuanyi Sect. Those three I have already opened up. The other two are neutral. They stay out of it.”
“The Sect Lords of those other two,” he said, “I have leverage on them.”
I said: “…Where the hell did you get it?”
He said: “The Dark Abyss Pavilion.”
I said: “…Fine, never mind.”
He poured two cups of wine, pushed one to me, and said: “Those two left, I will make them afraid to move. On your three, you make them not want to move.”
“Add in the Demon Race side,” I said, “did you talk with the Lord of the Demon Race?”
“Talked,” he said. “They want to mark out the East Sea for themselves. I backed their East Sea claim. They agreed not to intervene in the Immortal Path and Demonic Path business for three years.”
I nodded.
This board, this was set.
The three main Immortal Path sects were with me.
The six great demonic sects were with him.
The Demon Race was neutral.
The Dark Abyss Pavilion was doing business on both sides but could not get a read on our bottom line.
Rogue Cultivators read the wind. Wherever the wind blew, that way they leaned.
I picked up my cup, Su Lie picked up his, and we touched them.
I said: “Now, who still dares speak up around us?”
Su Lie tilted his head back and drank the wine down. The bottom of his cup cracked against the table. He said: “No one.”
Then he lifted his eyes toward the skyline. His voice was flat, but inside it there was a weight that came from twenty years of knowing each other. “And there will not be, either.”
I did not speak.
But inside me, the frames of those twenty years ran past one by one.
Two drifters in their twenties falling off an overpass, and opening their eyes in another world.
One a Crippled Spirit Root, one a Chaos Spirit Root. One walking the Demonic Path, one walking the Immortal Path. Cast as natural enemies by the whole cultivation world.
Then each of us climbed back up, from nothing, to the very top of this world.
It took three years.
I set my cup down and said: “I said five years, you said three. Three years is here.”
Su Lie said: “You owe me three cups of wine.”
“Fine, I will treat.”
“The fuck you will treat,” he said. “You are the Sect Lord of the Immortal Path. I am the Alliance Lord of the Demonic Path. I will treat. It makes me look generous.”
I said: “…When did you start giving a damn about looking generous?”
He said nothing, but his mouth had a curve to it, the same curve it had at twenty over late-night beer on a street corner.
That day we drank for a long time.
No politics. No talk of the immortal and the demonic. No talk of the things outsiders would call earth-shaking.
Just a mess of nothing.
We talked about which street in the other world had the best skewers.
About the time his dad beat him and he climbed in my window to mooch dinner.
About the first time I lost a fight and he went back to win it for me, only to get pinned himself, both of us walking into school the next day with swollen faces and getting yelled at by the teacher.
Years later, he said he had actually taken a worse beating that time than I had, but he could not bring himself to lose.
All his life, he could not bring himself to lose.
If he could not win, he trained. Until he could.
That, from twenty to transmigration, from transmigration to today, had not changed.
I am different from him.
I like to think it through before I move, like to see every card in the open, like to wait for the moment that fits best.
But one thing we share: we absolutely will not lose.
By evening, the wine was done, and the sun had dyed the river outside Xuanshui City an orange-red.
Su Lie stood, gave his sleeves a shake. “Off.”
I said: “I will be waiting for the next time you come smash the place up.”
He stepped back two paces. “Next time I do not smash the place up. It is no fun.”
Then he turned and walked off in the direction of the Demonic Path.
His back, in the sunset, walked further and further away, until it vanished into the same orange-red.
I turned around and faced the other direction.
Tianji Sect, in that direction.
The Immortal Path, in that direction.
The whole Cangxuan Realm, in that direction.
I tossed the empty cup out of my hand and walked forward.
The pace was not fast, not slow.
Later someone asked me: you came from another world and climbed to the very top here. Was it worth it?
I said: it is not a question of worth.
In this life, for Su Lie and me, anything we have said we will do, we have never failed to do.
That is all there is.
Someone else asked: between the two of you, one on the Immortal Path and one on the Demonic Path, are you not afraid the day will come when you turn on each other?
I thought about it, and said one line: “If he sells me out, I will buy him a drink. If he does me a favor, I will buy him a drink.”
“What is the difference?”
“The difference is, in the first case, I will wait until he finishes the drink, and then I will collect what he owes me.”
That man went blank for a moment and asked nothing more.
That is my story.
A twenty-three-year-old drifter who fell into another world and, in three years, took the very top of the Immortal Path.
No protagonist halo. No system buff. No memory of a past life.
All there was, was a good brother honed on the edge of his limit, and twenty years of friendship that never wavers.
Cangxuan Realm. Foremost of the Immortal Path. Supreme Lord of the Demonic Path. The two of you together — in this world, who still dares raise their voice?