393: Chapter 393 Giving someone face but not daring to retaliate

Everyone inside the hall focused their gaze on the backlit figure standing at the entrance.

Chu Sheng stood on the stone steps, his shadow stretched long and narrow by the light contrasting between the inside and outside of the main hall.

After a moment of silence, the Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons spoke first, his tone carrying a scrutinizing edge.

"Where did this Human Race Cultivator come from? Who are you?"

Chu Sheng stepped over the threshold and walked into the hall. He wasn't in a hurry to answer, first bringing himself to a steady stance inside.

His gaze swept across everyone in the hall, confirming the positions of the Withered Bone Devil King and Thousand Ghosts Overlord, before speaking up.

"It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is that the person you're surrounding right now is mine."

Chu Sheng raised his right hand, and a surge of dense black Devilish Qi gushed from his palm, spiraling once around his body.

Then it slowly settled back down, as if stating his stance to everyone present.

He had not come in his capacity as a member of the Human Race.

Yet the watchful gazes trained on him did not relax because of this; instead, they grew even more cautious.

"Are you Yu Rumeng's paramour?"

The Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons stared at the Devilish Qi and shook his head.

"The Devilish Qi is indeed pure Demon Race aura, but humans are humans. A Cultivator who fell into the demonic path Acquired-style will never compare to our pure Bloodline."

Chu Sheng didn't address that remark, merely shifting his eyes to the Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons, speaking in a casual tone like a neighbor discussing everyday matters.

"Seniors, Devil Kings, I think this whole thing is just a misunderstanding."

He paused for a moment, then continued.

"Yu Rumeng has sufficient strength, so naturally her position should rise. If you all feel she isn't qualified, then challenge her face-to-face. But if you think there's a problem just because her cultivation rose quickly, wouldn't that be a bit too unfair?"

Standing in the center of the hall, Yu Rumeng paused slightly when she heard his words, as if caught off guard that he would speak in such a tone.

She instinctively glanced at him. Chu Sheng looked back at her and tilted his head slightly, signaling for her not to rush to speak.

The expression of the Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons didn't change much, only looking at Chu Sheng with a scrutinizing tone.

"A misunderstanding? Four Devil Kings are dead, the Reverse Demon Tower has vanished, and she has the aura of the Inheritance of Wrath on her—and you call this a misunderstanding?"

Chu Sheng nodded. "It really is a misunderstanding. The four Devil Kings hunted her first, so she merely fought back. As for the Reverse Demon Tower, leaving it there unused was a waste anyway; it's better put to good use."

He paused.

"If you don't think that's enough, I have a proposal. Since the rule of the Demon Realm is survival of the fittest, why don't you simply yield a position to her? A one-on-one duel: if any of you can defeat Yu Rumeng fair and square, then the position of the Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons goes to you. How about it?"

Silence fell over the hall for a brief moment.

The face of the Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons flickered, his tone carrying a clear trace of displeasure.

"Are you joking?!"

Before his voice even faded, Chu Sheng turned his head and gave him a glance.

That glance wasn't sharp, nor was it particularly focused, yet the Hall Master of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons felt an invisible pressure surge toward him from all directions at once.

He involuntarily staggered backward, his feet carving two narrow grooves into the floor. He skidded back three hundred zhang before stopping when his back slammed into the hall's wall.

Under his impact, a cobweb of cracks fractured across the wall. Debris rained down, and the kicked-up dust left a greyish-white layer of powder on his robes.

His complexion turned pale in that instant. Embedded against the wall, it took him two breaths before he could regain his footing.

Most of the composure in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a shock that he was striving to suppress and unwilling to admit.

Withered Bone Devil King and Thousand Ghosts Overlord exchanged a look.

A brief silence passed between them as an extremely thin thread of Devilish Qi circled between the two, acting as a swift exchange.

Withered Bone Devil King slightly tilted his head, seemingly sending a brief voice transmission in the direction of Thousand Ghosts Overlord.

"I can't see through this person. Act with caution."

Thousand Ghosts Overlord also replied via voice transmission, his voice kept extremely low.

"I didn't understand the trick he pulled just now. Don't rush into a fight yet."

After exchanging those few words, Withered Bone Devil King looked back at Chu Sheng, his voice a notch lower than before.

As if confirming their shared pace through that quick exchange, he spoke up.

"If she wants a position, it's not entirely off the table. But first, you must hand over the Reverse Demon Tower and the Wrath demonic artifact. Those two items shouldn't have fallen into her hands in the first place. Put them in their rightful places, and only then can we talk further."

Chu Sheng looked at Withered Bone Devil King, his voice lower than before, carrying a flat tone of someone who had just confirmed a fact.

"You really take yourselves seriously, don't you?"

He took a step forward. The moment his foot landed, the aura on his body billowed out as if a switch had been flipped.

The air throughout the entire hall felt as though it were being squeezed inward from all sides by an invisible hand; even the candlelight was forced to bend to one side.

The faces of the Devil Kings who had been scrutinizing him all shifted simultaneously.

Some Demons subconsciously took half a step back; some opened their mouths without making a sound; others pressed their hands onto the Magic Treasures at their waists, only to let go again.

Under that pressure, the aura of Withered Bone Devil King and Thousand Ghosts Overlord also faltered noticeably for a moment.

"A Divine Ability!"

One of the Devil Kings blurted out in shock.

The hall fell silent as those gazes turned from scrutiny to shock, and from shock to a near-instinctive avoidance.

The aura of Withered Bone Devil King and Thousand Ghosts Overlord faltered noticeably once more under that pressure. They looked at each other, their faces no longer as calm as before.

They originally thought that coming here today would at most involve dealing with a Devil King who had gained an Opportunity, never expecting a Cultivator of the Divine Ability Realm to appear.

Withered Bone Devil King opened his mouth as if to say something, but his throat felt choked up, unable to speak right away.

"My Lord, it's a misunderstanding—this really is a misunderstanding!"

"Can we still talk this over amicably?"

The Demonic Qi of Infatuation was slowly spreading like an invisible mist, expanding outward from beneath Chu Sheng's feet to cover the floor of the entire hall.

The aura was not intense, but it bore a texture that subtly blurred the fringes of one's consciousness, as though something was imperceptibly seeping into the cracks of the surrounding senses.

Feeling the spreading Devilish Qi, Chu Sheng knew his newly mastered second Divine Ability had not been formally used yet, but he could sense that it was ready for deployment.

He thought to himself that this was the perfect Opportunity to see just how effective it really was.