Azure Cloud Sect, Enforcement Hall.
The sect master, along with numerous elders and personal disciples, stood gathered in the hall, their burning gazes fixed upon the center of the chamber where a young man in white knelt with lowered head, his entire body bound in heavy chains.
Four people stood nearby, comprising his three junior sisters and one junior brother.
"Master, today I saw Senior Brother's body once more surrounded by demonic Qi while he was cultivating! He must have been possessed by a fiend! Please help Senior Brother expel the fiend within him!"
Second Junior Sister Han Renxue spoke loudly before everyone in the Azure Cloud Sect.
She seemed desperately afraid that someone might not have heard that her eldest senior brother, Chu Yuan, was surrounded by demonic Qi during his cultivation.
"Master, I can testify. This hasn't happened just once or twice with Senior Brother, but many times!"
"The demonic Qi emanating from him is simply bone-chilling!"
Third Junior Sister Jiang Wanqing chimed in from the side.
No sooner had her voice fallen than the sixth junior sister, Yu Qiuqiu, spoke up:
"Senior Brother possesses peerless talent and is hailed as the rarest genius our Azure Cloud Sect has seen in ten thousand years. It is inevitable that he would catch the eye of those in the demonic path. Master, you must help Senior Brother! Do not let him fall to the demonic path!"
These words from the three women caused the crowd inside the Enforcement Hall to break into whispers and murmurs.
Their Azure Cloud Sect was the number one sect in the world, and yet the supreme prodigy of this very sect, Chu Yuan, was now being exposed by his closest companions as a practitioner of the demonic arts!
The gravity of this matter could not be overstated.
The demonic path and the righteous path were irreconcilable enemies to the death!
When they met, only one would survive.
If this were true, even as the supreme prodigy, Chu Yuan was bound to die without a doubt!
At the very head of the Enforcement Hall stood a peerless woman whose charm had not faded with age. At that moment, she slowly opened her eyes, a golden light flashing within her pupils. She was a super powerhouse, and also the master of the Azure Cloud Sect!
At the same time, she was Chu Yuan's master, named Xiao Junmo.
She looked down at Chu Yuan below and rebuked him coldly:
"Chu Yuan! Are the things your junior sisters say true!? Have you been practicing demonic arts?"
As soon as Master Xiao Junmo uttered these words, the entire Enforcement Hall fell instantly silent, every gaze locked tightly upon Chu Yuan kneeling in the center of the hall.
At that moment, Chu Yuan wore a desolate expression, head lowered in silence. It had clearly only been a single instant, yet he felt as though he had lived through ten thousand years of time!
"Have I actually returned to this exact moment when I was framed for practicing demonic arts?"
Chu Yuan quickly accepted the reality of his situation, understanding everything.
He had been reborn!
In his previous life, he was framed by several of his junior sisters for practicing demonic arts, after which his master Xiao Junmo ordered someone to use the Demonic Excision Technique on him, causing him to lose his cultivation entirely!
Yet he refused to resign himself to fate. To prove his innocence, he cultivated all over again to the absolute peak. When the demon race staged a comeback, he sacrificed his very body and Dao to seal the Demon God!
Although his cultivation had been completely lost, the demonic path had already been sealed, and he had believed he would win the understanding of his master and the others—that he was not a demonic cultivator, but a practitioner of great love with the world in his heart.
To his utter astonishment, when he returned to the sect, his master and the others no longer acknowledged him, while his own youngest junior brother usurped his title as the savior and enjoyed every last resource and honor.
Meanwhile, he was demoted to a menial laborer, forbidden for all eternity from stepping even half a step beyond the sect's back mountain.
In the end, as his life neared its end and he was dying of old age, he witnessed his junior brother sacrifice the lives of his master, junior sisters, and others to forge a ascension ladder, ascending to the Upper Realm alone.
The Chu Yuan of the past had believed himself to be the Child of Tianming, bathed in endless glory, bearing the heavy burden of saving the world!
Yet looking at it now, he was never the Child of Tianming at all; he was merely a stepping stone for the true Child of Tianming, Jiang Fan!
Endowed with the sole supreme physique—the Demonic-Sealing Immortal Physique—was his destiny truly nothing more than helping Jiang Fan seal fiends?
Chu Yuan sneered.
Reborn into a new life, he wanted to see who else would bother fighting the demon race or sealing the Demon God!
"Chu Yuan! Your silence—does it mean you admit to practicing demonic arts!?"
Master Xiao Junmo's stern rebuke rang out, causing everyone in the hall to shudder.
"This disciple admits it."
Chu Yuan spoke indifferently.
Back then, even when he refused to admit it, hadn't they still forced the Demonic Excision Technique upon him, causing him to lose his cultivation completely?
It wasn't until later that he learned he possessed an unprecedented, peerless physique—the Demonic-Sealing Immortal Physique!
His very body was like a Human Emperor Banner, sealing countless ancient demonic entities within him that would occasionally riot, causing his entire body to be surrounded by demonic Qi.
Now, even knowing he possessed such a physique, he had no intention of explaining.
As for the business of sealing fiends, they could leave that to their beloved youngest junior brother to handle.
Yet Chu Yuan's admission of practicing demonic arts instantly caused a massive uproar. The numerous powerhouses in the Enforcement Hall gasped in shock, watching Chu Yuan with extreme caution.
Even the three junior sisters and one junior brother standing beside Chu Yuan stepped back several paces at that moment.
Chu Yuan was the rarest genius the Azure Cloud Sect had seen in ten thousand years, having cultivated to the Peak Heaven Realm before the age of one hundred!
One step further was the Saint Lord Realm, the same level as Sect Master Xiao Junmo!
Among his peers, the most talented junior sister or brother had only reached the Earth Realm—a full major realm behind him!
Naturally, they were terrified that Chu Yuan, a demonic cultivator, might suddenly go mad, as wiping out a few of them would be effortless.
"What! Eldest Senior Brother is actually a demonic cultivator!?"
"No wonder his cultivation advanced so rapidly—it turns out he was practicing demonic arts! Who knows how many fellow disciples he has secretly murdered behind our backs!"
"A grand demon at the Peak Heaven Realm! Could it be that the recent inexplicable slaughter of several cities was all the work of Eldest Senior Brother?"
Chu Yuan's three junior sisters wore expressions of shock, yet at the same time, a sense of relief washed over their hearts.
It seemed things were just as they had thought: Chu Yuan really had turned to demonic arts.
No matter how hard the three of them cultivated, they had never been able to catch up to Chu Yuan—no wonder.
"Sect Master! Although Chu Yuan is the supreme prodigy of our sect, since he practices demonic arts, according to the rules, his cultivation should be crippled and he should be expelled from the sect!"
The Enforcement Elder stepped forward and spoke, his tone shifting as he continued:
"However, I ask the Sect Master to first verify whether Chu Yuan truly practices demonic arts. After all, his cultivation is exceptionally high, and he is our Azure Cloud Sect's only peerless prodigy, suppressing countless prodigies from other sects and sacred grounds. If Chu Yuan's cultivation is crippled, perhaps our sect's younger generation will produce no one of his caliber..."
"Nonsense!" Xiao Junmo retorted immediately upon hearing this.
"If not for this sect master mobilizing the entire sect's resources and spending countless treasures to nurture him, could he have reached this day?"
"If this sect master wished, I could turn Jiang Fan into a peerless prodigy just as easily!"
At the mention of Jiang Fan, everyone turned their gazes toward the fair-skinned young man standing not far from Chu Yuan.
He was Jiang Fan, who had only recently become a personal disciple!
And he was Chu Yuan's junior brother.
"Indeed, Master. Junior Brother Jiang Fan's talent is no less than Senior Brother Chu Yuan's at all. At only fifty years old, he has already reached the Earth Realm! By the time he is one hundred, he will surely reach the Peak Heaven Realm!"
"I believe in Junior Brother Jiang Fan; in the future, he will definitely surpass Senior Brother Chu Yuan!"
"If Senior Brother Chu Yuan weren't practicing demonic arts, Junior Brother Jiang Fan would have surpassed him long ago!"
The words of his three junior sisters filled Chu Yuan with disgust.
With the advent of Jiang Fan, it seemed he had lost everything, but looking at it now, none of those things mattered to him at all.
"Enough, this sect master shall see for herself whether you have practiced demonic arts or not!"
Xiao Junmo motioned with a sidelong glance, and a bald elder holding Buddhist prayer beads stepped forward from her side.