Chapter Forty-Five: The Nightmare Demon

In the celestial realm, there stands the Jade Capital, with twelve towers and five great cities.

At this moment, what appeared was Tianyong City, one of the five. Tianyong City manifested within the void, and behind it, twelve jade mansions rose in succession.

“It is said that the Jade Terrace is where the Dao Ancestor once expounded the Way,” spoke the Supreme Emperor of the Primeval Origin. “The Dao unfolds in the Jade Capital, and the Jade Capital itself is the Dao.”

“Ordinarily, the Jade Capital reveals itself only once every several centuries. The last time Tianyong City appeared was fifteen thousand three hundred years ago. This time, it would seem we are blessed because of your presence.”

Xu Zhong gazed up at the sky.

Tianyong City was not merely a single city, but an entire region with the city at its heart—mountain ranges winding like silk, rivers meandering in ninefold bends, sun, moon, and stars gracing the horizon, the very image of a celestial paradise.

Before the Supreme Emperor arrived, many had already entered Tianyong City. Yet as soon as they crossed its threshold, a mysterious force divided them, scattering each to their own path.

When Xu Zhong regained his balance, he found himself in another world altogether.

He now stood upon a vast sea of grass. Bitter cold swept over him from behind, and a lone daisy tumbled along the wind and sand, its destination unknown.

Xu Zhong reached out and caught the daisy, feeling the suffocating chill.

“So this is the true Jade Terrace?”

He looked to the sky, where light and shadow intertwined and merged, dividing day and night with Tianyong City as the axis. Xu Zhong now dwelled in the city’s daylight. Sunlight bathed his body, but felt far from warm.

With a frown, Xu Zhong left the grassy sea, careful not to disturb the many broken divine statues scattered across it.

Every ten steps, there stood a shrine, each holding a statue shrouded by black veils, immersed in an aura of decay and death.

Xu Zhong walked among the shrines, his unease growing with every step. It seemed as if the eyes of those statues followed his every move. He turned to look, but could not make out their faces—they seemed to have none at all.

“A strange and eerie place. I should not linger.”

Xu Zhong attempted to summon the winds, borrowing the force of heaven and earth, but though the gale howled above, it would not descend into the grassy sea.

Unable to ride the wind, Xu Zhong could only press forward on foot.

He walked for over half an hour before finally spotting another figure.

“You there…” Xu Zhong called out.

The figure turned; though it resembled a man, it was not human. Its face bore forty-eight eyes.

This sudden sight nearly made Xu Zhong lash out with a blast of metal essence, intent on cleaving the creature in two.

“Friend!” Xu Zhong managed, forcing civility. “Do you know how to leave this place?”

“How would I know?” replied the creature with forty-eight eyes, turning back. “It’s my first time in the Jade Terrace too.”

“My name is Dunxuan. And you are…?”

“Xu Zhong.” Glancing around, Xu Zhong offered, “Since it’s our first time here, why don’t we travel together?”

“I suppose that’s acceptable. But you’ll need to swear by the Dao not to plot against me,” Dunxuan replied after a moment’s thought. “After all, you human cultivators are notoriously cunning, and I’d rather not be tricked.”

Xu Zhong was caught off guard by Dunxuan’s bluntness.

And so, the two swore oaths to the Dao.

The moment the vows were spoken, Xu Zhong’s heart skipped a beat, and he looked up sharply. He sensed a gaze descending upon him from the heavens, sending a chill through his bones.

“This is the Jade Capital, the closest place to the Dao itself. Our oaths are now inscribed into the very laws of existence. Break them, and the heavenly tribulation will descend to smite you,” Dunxuan said with a peculiar look. “Didn’t your family warn you of this before you left home?”

Xu Zhong shook his head. No one had ever mentioned Dao oaths to him.

With the vow sealed, Dunxuan finally allowed Xu Zhong to approach.

“Then I suppose you have no idea where we are either.”

Xu Zhong nodded eagerly, waiting for enlightenment.

“This is what’s called the Nightmare Demon Grass Sea. The shrines and statues you see are all Nightmare Demons.”

“Legend has it, the Dao Ancestor expounded the Way at the Jade Capital to dispel ignorance among all beings. That ignorance, once cast off from mortal bodies and fallen to the Jade Terrace, became Nightmare Demons.”

“The statues you see now are mere clay effigies. But at night, these will grow flesh and blood and come to steal your immortal soul-light.”

Dunxuan began to regret teaming up with Xu Zhong, who seemed simple-minded and slow, nodding blankly at everything he said, as if he understood nothing at all.

“So we must move quickly,” Dunxuan pointed upward. “At most, we have two hours before night falls.”

Xu Zhong nodded dumbly, noting how Dunxuan’s eyes reflected the shifting stars and an hourglass, tracking both the sky and the passage of time. And these were just two of his forty-eight eyes; who knew what purposes the rest served.

Together, they quickened their pace.

“Do you feel as though your vital energy is slowly ebbing away?” Xu Zhong asked after a few steps.

“Is it? I don’t feel anything,” Dunxuan replied, examining himself, but soon two of his eyes compared his past and present vitality. “It’s true—my essence has diminished a little. Perhaps since mine is abundant, a bit lost is of no consequence. But you humans have such little life force, even a small loss is noticeable.”

Eight eyes flashed, surveying every direction.

“It’s those Nightmare Demon statues—they’re absorbing our vitality.”

Dunxuan promptly locked down his internal energy.

“Damn, I’ve yet to unlock the Water Luminary’s hidden reserve, so I can’t seal my essence. If this goes on, these statues will sap me until I’m helpless.”

Xu Zhong drew down rays of solar essence from the heavens, weaving them into a protective aura around himself, keeping his vitality from seeping away—though at the cost of his inner energy.

They pressed onward.

Soon, Xu Zhong made a new discovery.

“These statues, after absorbing enough blood-essence, seem to be growing flesh.”

Crimson cracks appeared on the surface of the statues—veins, through which fresh blood flowed.

“It must be that those ahead, unaware of their own vitality being drawn, failed to seal it, thus feeding the statues without end.”

Xu Zhong’s unease grew. “Maybe they don’t even need to wait for nightfall; the statues can transform simply by absorbing enough blood-essence.”

No sooner had he spoken than a fierce wind arose, driving dark clouds to shroud the sun.

“Are the demon statues afraid of sunlight, or do they have a fixed time to transform?” Xu Zhong asked Dunxuan.

Dunxuan’s eyes that watched the stars now showed night, while the hourglass in another had run out—night had fallen.

“Some Nightmare Demons have awakened early and conspired to change the heavens!” Dunxuan exclaimed, then saw two jade-like moons rising behind Xu Zhong.

“When did there become two moons?”

As Dunxuan pondered, a piercing shriek rent the air, and a pitch-black claw lashed out at Xu Zhong.

A beam of sword-light burst from the gourd in Xu Zhong’s hand, slicing the claw in two.

He and Dunxuan fled, never pausing, their feet treading starlight. Sword-qi burst forth from Xu Zhong’s gourd, cleaving shrieking Nightmare Demons in an instant. As they fell, their shrines shattered too.

But more and more Nightmare Demons, now fleshed, emerged from their shrines and swarmed towards the pair under the pale, jade moons.

As the twin moons swept overhead, Xu Zhong realized they were not moons, but eyes—eyes refined into moons by some cultivator or monster.

With rabbit-leap and wild-duck stride, Xu Zhong unleashed rivers of sword-qi, slaying Nightmare Demons under the blaze of his blade.

Dunxuan pressed close, his eyes shining with divine light, covering Xu Zhong’s blind spots.

“I didn’t expect someone as daft as you could wield such sword-arts. But—where’s your sword?”

“I don’t practice swordplay, only sword-qi!” Xu Zhong admitted, embarrassed he had no true sword.

Back to back, they fought their way onward.

As they battled, other survivors came into view. They too looked battered, caught off-guard by the sudden shift in the heavens.

Their methods differed, but their cultivation was much the same—all in the realm of the Five Luminaries.

It seemed the Jade Terrace distributed cultivators and monsters by their level of attainment.

Nightmare Demons were endless, swarming as densely as locusts.

Some of the so-called Night Demons resembled bats, their arms reaching from the void, eyes shining like moons, murmuring words of temptation.

Xu Zhong, protected by his divine aura, was immune to their lure. Dunxuan’s eyes were like bright mirrors, seeing through illusion to the heart of things.

The Nightmare Demons swirled through the sky, dense as dark clouds between moonlight and snowfall.

Suddenly, Xu Zhong saw one Nightmare Demon seize a human cultivator. With a single motion, it peeled the skin from the flesh, swallowed the body whole, refining it into blood-essence, then donned the skin like a garment.

Sword-light flashed in the darkness as that Nightmare Demon transformed into a young swordsman, brandishing a blade, even rescuing a captive from another demon.

The rescued man showered his savior with gratitude, never realizing his rescuer was a demon in human skin.

But before long, the Nightmare Demon swallowed him too.

Moments later, it spat him out, but now he was no longer a man, but a statue.

That statue was then stuffed into the demon’s shrine.

In that instant, it seemed he found release.

From that shrine, another, weaker Nightmare Demon was born.

Xu Zhong and Dunxuan exchanged troubled glances.

“Nightmare Demons… they have such abilities? Why didn’t you mention this before?” Dunxuan read the question in Xu Zhong’s eyes.

“Tianyong City hasn’t appeared for over ten thousand years. In that time, the Nightmare Demons may have changed,” Dunxuan replied.

As they spoke, Xu Zhong struck quickly, unleashing a great river of sword-intent that reduced the demon to a cloud of blood-mist.

“The real question is: how can we tell who is human and who is demon? Who is friend and who is foe?”

Xu Zhong’s words left Dunxuan silent.

Yet within both their hearts, a darker suspicion took root.

If a Nightmare Demon could seize a human body, then the one who altered the heavens above the Grass Sea—was it truly a Nightmare Demon?

Before Xu Zhong’s eyes, a pair of moon-bright eyes seemed to gaze back at him.

Whose eyes could those be?