322: Entering the fairyland

Xiao Zhuo and Ban Xuanji drank Demonic Realm strong liquor until midnight, neither suppressing their intoxication, both getting completely drunk.

When Xiao Zhuo awoke, Yue Li had already brought him back to his residence in the Myriad Blood Demon City.

Ban Xuanji had already left the Blood Prison Abyss and returned to Eternal Tribulation.

Lying on the luxurious Blood Shadow Demon Gold bed, Xiao Zhuo felt a rare sense of relaxation in both body and mind.

Last night’s heavy drinking felt as if a thousand-pound burden had been lifted.

During his conversation with Ban Xuanji, he suddenly realized that although he had the panel’s assistance throughout his journey, making it smooth and unimpeded, his state of mind had been too impatient, too eager for success. This impetuousness had become a hindrance.

With the System upgrade still nearly a century away, Xiao Zhuo decided to put everything aside and go out to see the world.

He did not bother Hao Duo again; he simply bid farewell to Yue Li and quietly left the Blood Prison Abyss.

With his current cultivation, though not yet a true Devil King, he was still capable of defending himself against ordinary Devil Kings.

With such strength, he could go to most places in the Immortal-Demon Realm, as long as he didn’t provoke those unfathomable old monsters.

Xiao Zhuo concealed his formidable aura, transforming into an ordinary Loose Cultivator Demon General, blending into the vast, desolate, and perpetually warring lower strata of the Demon Realm.

For ten years, he did not display any astonishing abilities, but merely walked, observed, and comprehended.

He saw the Stone Demon tribe in a remote small city, locked in decades of struggle with the neighboring Shadow Specter clan over a barren Gilded Stone (Gilded Stone) ore vein.

Hatred was deeply ingrained, passed down and consumed through generations, yet neither side had the power to completely annex the other, only exhausting generation after generation of vibrant lives in endless attrition.

He witnessed a fortress town built along a lava river, whose ruler—a cruel and mediocre Flame Demon Lord—provoked a passing merchant caravan from a major clan due to a mistaken raid.

Overnight, his tens of thousands of years of foundation were reduced to scorched earth, leaving only broken walls and ruins to warn later generations.

In the wasteland, he saw small Human Race tribes who, for a mouthful of muddy Demonic Spring water, trekked a hundred miles daily, fighting for their lives against Vicious Beasts, living hand-to-mouth, yet still stubbornly multiplying, surviving in desperation in the most primitive manner.

He also stood in a massive Bone Market, watching Demon Race individuals of different species haggle over every penny for a few Saint-Grade Low Grade Artifact Refining Materials, engaging in schemes and deceptions, enacting the most naked Laws of survival.

These observations, at first glance, were nothing but Chaos, blood, and oppression.

But Xiao Zhuo calmed his mind, stripped away the superficial cruelty, and saw something deeper.

The conflict between the Stone Demons and the Shadow Specters, though a mere blink in his long life, was the destiny of those ordinary Demon Race individuals for their entire lives, even for several generations.

The insignificance and helplessness of individuals under the grand scale of time were shocking.

The downfall of the Flame Demon Lord showed that power was not eternal.

Impatience, recklessness, and wanton behavior, even with tens of thousands of years of accumulation, were like a castle built on sand, crumbling overnight.

The struggles of the Human Race tribes and the meticulous haggling in the Bone Market, however, presented the most authentic picture of survival.

There were no earth-shattering achievements, only day-to-day persistence and an extreme craving for resources.

This tenacity, erupting from desperation, exuded a primitive and shocking vitality.

These scenes, like fine sandpaper, silently polished Xiao Zhuo’s state of mind.

He no longer eagerly sought Realm Breakthroughs and explosive increases in power, but began to understand the accumulation of power, the inevitability of time, and the diversity of life forms.

His impetuousness gradually settled as he witnessed these slow and resilient survival scenes, replaced by a more peaceful, tolerant contemplation and deep thought.

He learned to see order in Chaos, survival in slaughter, and strength in insignificance.

These ten years of “slowness” were quietly making up for the “stillness” he had missed during his rapid advancement.

Ten years passed, and Xiao Zhuo’s state of mind had settled considerably, his obsession and urgency for power enhancement also diminishing somewhat.

The myriad phenomena of the Demon Realm made him understand that cultivating stillness was not stagnation, but for deeper accumulation and more stable progress.

Standing at the edge of the Chaos Nebula bordering the Demon Realm and the Immortal Realm, he looked back at that deep, chaotic, yet vibrant and obscure land, filled with a myriad of emotions.

“Ten years in the Demon Realm, though I witnessed much evil, I also glimpsed the faint light of humanity hidden deep within demonic nature,” Xiao Zhuo murmured to himself, his gaze turning towards the clear and ethereal world on the other side of the nebula. “It’s time to see what the so-called Upper Realm Immortal Court is like! And incidentally… it’s time to settle past Karma!”

His thoughts were clear, and he no longer hesitated.

His figure shifted slightly, transforming into an inconspicuous streak of light, silently penetrating the Chaos Nebula and flying towards the vast Immortal Realm, permeated with Immortal Qi.

The Immortal and Demon Realms were separated only by a layer of Chaos Nebula; crossing between them was not inherently obstructed.

However, at the borders of both Realms, peerless powerhouses had set up monitoring arrays and stationed heavy troops.

As soon as Xiao Zhuo penetrated the nebula, he detected an invisible barrier a hundred miles ahead.

This barrier’s function was solely for sensing, not obstruction, and it was naturally the Immortal Realm’s surveillance array. Although this array was extraordinary, it primarily guarded against Demon Realm powerhouses who were not good at concealing their aura.

Xiao Zhuo’s self-created Free and Natural Heavenly Art had no inherent attribute; it could transform into a Demonic Technique or an Immortal Art.

With a slight shift of his thoughts, his aura suddenly changed, all Devilish Qi receding, replaced by an ethereal Immortal charm flowing out.

His black robe also transformed into a wide-sleeved white robe, a white jade hair crown appeared out of thin air, binding his silver hair, and his face changed again, becoming that of a handsome young man of ordinary appearance, but his demeanor was as ethereal as an Immortal, truly an extraordinary disciple of an Immortal sect, without a trace of the Demon Realm.

To avoid trouble, Xiao Zhuo concealed his form, taking a single step, and silently crossed the perception barrier like a swimming fish.

A hundred miles beyond the barrier lay continuous hundreds of thousands of miles of majestic Immortal passes.

Only after nine layers of formidable passes did the cities of the Immortal Realm appear.

This place was permanently garrisoned by hundreds of millions of Immortal soldiers, constantly prepared, strictly guarding against Demon Realm incursions.

Of course, the Immortal Realm was vast and boundless; even with hundreds of millions of Immortal soldiers guarding it, its defenses could hardly be called impenetrable.

Large-scale Demon armies crossing the border would naturally be blocked, but small groups of Demon Race raiders always found gaps to infiltrate the Immortal Realm and plunder resources—this was one of the root causes of the enmity between Immortals and Demons.

The Immortal Realm was rich, while the Demon Realm was relatively barren, and the Abyss controlled over eighty percent of the Demon Realm’s resources, making it almost inevitable for small and medium-sized Demon Race individuals to raid the Immortal Realm for survival and development.

Xiao Zhuo’s figure was hidden in the spatial interlayer, like an invisible wind, rapidly moving through the gaps of the heavily fortified Immortal passes.

The Immortal passes spanned a million miles, and only after the ninth pass did the landscape of Xuan Continent, belonging to the Immortal Realm, slowly unfold before his eyes.

The Immortal Realm was divided into Four Great Continents, ten minor continents, and Three Great Sacred Lands.

Ostensibly, the entire Immortal Realm was under the governance of the Heavenly Court, but since the last Immortal-Demon War, when the current Hao Tian Immortal Emperor was gravely wounded and fell into slumber, the Heavenly Court’s authority had waned.

Many Heavenly Court Immortal Emperors had become independent rulers, carving out their own territories.

The Four Great Continents were still manageable, as many direct descendants of Immortal Kings and Immortal Emperors resided there, so the Heavenly Court’s decrees still held considerable sway.

However, the ten minor continents had completely stopped obeying the Immortal Realm’s commands.

The Three Great Sacred Lands were even subtly beyond the Heavenly Court’s control.

The complexity of the situation far exceeded that of the Demon Realm.

Nevertheless, even with the Heavenly Court’s prolonged weakness, it still boasted twenty-four Immortal Emperors on the surface, far surpassing the Demon Realm’s mere dozen or so Devil Kings, even with generous estimates.

After all, in the Immortal-Demon War a million years ago, the Demon Realm was the losing side; nearly a hundred Quasi-Saints died in that war, and even Saints disappeared because of it.

Hao Duo had warned Xiao Zhuo that the Immortal Realm was dangerous and advised him to be careful, which Xiao Zhuo naturally understood.

He quietly arrived at a small Immortal Realm city in Xuan Continent called Nanyu City.

The strongest individual in this city was only at the Profound Immortal level, posing no threat to Xiao Zhuo.

Xiao Zhuo’s purpose in coming to the Immortal Realm was primarily to broaden his horizons and temper his state of mind, so he acted very discreetly.

Upon arriving at Nanyu City, he paid one Spirit Stone as an entry fee, like any other Immortal, and entered the city.

Along the mist-shrouded streets, magnificent buildings stood in dense rows, and Immortal birds and Spirit Beasts gracefully soared across the sky, presenting a scene of peace and harmony.

However, beneath this Immortal aura, the mundane hustle and bustle and the strict hierarchy of the cultivation world were equally ubiquitous.

On the streets, there were both Cultivators with Immortal-like demeanor, flying on Magical Artifacts, and ordinary Mortals with no cultivation, hurrying along; they were either errand boys for Immortal shops or descendants of indigenous people who lived and reproduced there.

Xiao Zhuo, in his simple white robe, had concealed all his sharpness, appearing like an ordinary Loose Cultivator new to an Immortal city, curiously observing as he strolled down the main street.

His mind was calm; ten years of traveling in the Demon Realm had taught him to calmly observe changes amidst the clamor.

“Make way! Get out of the way!”

Suddenly, a boisterous shout and the commotion caused by spiritual energy fluctuations came from ahead.

The crowd parted like a tide, creating a path.