Three great sovereigns sat in the principal seats of the dao palaces—dean of monster spirit dao Miao, dean of demonic dao the demon god, and dean of pill dao Qi Hai.

Qi Hai’s strength recovered swiftly after he arrived at the Dao Academy. He returned to peak grand pure realm after only a dozen years—the equivalent of human king realm in the Primeval Era. This took him only half a step away from great emperor and rivaling the demon god as the two great powerhouses of the Dao Academy.

As he’d weathered countless reincarnation cycles and run the gauntlet of what life had to offer, his combat arts and methods were just as varied as a connate demon god from the great wilderness.

When it came to the demon god himself, Lu Yun had already returned his ultimate treasure—the black sickle from his past life as Ji Du. Lu Yun had first gifted the sickle to Tianqi, who’d returned it after reaching the chaos realm. It’d traveled back to the present with Lu Yun where it’d rested quietly until now.

The demon god’s strength leapt forward after regaining his greatest treasure from his past life, putting him below only the little fox in the Dao Academy.

With the three greatest experts of the academy personally overseeing the dao palaces, they marshaled the three structures into an inviolable line of defense in Witherdew Major.

After integrating into the Ichor Bog, the fur seals had turned blackish-red in color and were almost invincible. But when faced with the sheer might of three dao palaces and a hundred thousand constellation class fortress ships, they still blew apart in great masses.

“Those akasha ghosts must be out of their mind to want to use my own Ichor Bog against me!” Inside one of the dao palaces, the demon god glared darkly at the dense carpet of fur seals flooding their way. They were fearless and invincible, using their own bodies to obstruct the ships from advancing forward.

“Return!” The demon god suddenly materialized outside his respective dao palace and roared into the air. Beams of bloody light flared from his body and blasted into the depths of the major at the nearly boundless Ichor Bog.

The Ichor Bog didn’t belong to the demon god; it was something created by his master, the blood demon, to use against his disciple.

During the time of the great wilderness, Luo Houluo and Ji Du were a master and disciple pair that constantly plotted and schemed against each other. They never overlooked an opportunity to stab the other in the back, and Asura had only been born after Ji Du ambushed both Luo Houluo and Darkriver.

Asura had nursed a grudge after that, one that he didn’t give up even after Daoist Yuyu sectioned him to pieces and buried him separately. He would have his vengeance on his disciple and see him stumble his way through reincarnation, losing more of himself with each life!

Indeed, Ji Du had slowly turned into the demon god and one of the blood demon’s pawns. The Ichor Bog was refined out of the flesh and blood of countless beings, and had immediately turned the demon god into a puppet when he merged with it. But just as the blood demon was about to reel in the net and collect the results of all of his plans, Lu Yun appeared on the scene.

The blood demon’s undying hatred of Lie Shan was almost an internal demon of his dao heart in its own right. So even though Lu Yun hadn’t been Flame Emperor Lie Shan at the time, the blood demon had recognized him all the same.

Now that both the blood demon and demon god were Lu Yun’s subordinates, the various plans that the blood demon had laid on his disciple were transformed into the demon god’s personal strength.

The Ichor Bog to the rear of Witherdew Major shuddered violently, shaking out countless fur seals from its swampy depths. They smashed to the ground as misshapen blobs of meat. Once out of the Ichor Bog, the fur seals were like the akasha ghosts exiled from the immortal dao, bereft of a great source of their power.

It’d been an alliance of mutual benefit between the blood demon and akasha ghosts. The blood demon had created the Ichor Bog with their help; sacrifices had taken place on the altars within the Exalted divine tomb for the flesh and blood that the bog required. The akasha ghosts had also later visited the tomb to send the used altars into the Ichor Bog so that they could be refreshed.

In the present day, the blood demon had gifted the Ichor Bog to the demon god and the akasha ghosts banished from the immortal dao had no basis with which to vie for control over the bog. Therefore, it fell completely into the demon god’s hands.

“Master, mercy!” Ge Yanxia was also expelled from the Ichor Bog. Taking the form of a woman so rotund that she was more accurately described as swollen, she knelt in front of the dao palace and loudly begged for forgiveness.

“Where is your father, the big fur seal?” asked the demon god with a frown. He caught no glimpse of his most loyal subordinate in the bog.

“My father?” Ge Yanxia asked reflexively. “He tasted good, and fur seal penis is very nutritious.”

SMACK!

The demon god slapped the female fur seal into a quivering heap of unstructured meat onto the ground. With that, a hundred thousand fortress ships finally exterminated the fur seals down to their last member.

The demon god had wanted to reclaim the fur seals as his troops and turn them into a force for the Dao Academy. However, he couldn’t accept Ge Yanxia eating her own father and expressing such abhorrent sentiments. He’d killed her without a second thought.

If it’d been in the past, he wouldn’t have minded this as much, even though he didn’t care for it. He would’ve employed the fur seal all the same. But now as the dean of demonic dao, though he wasn’t affected by the merit system from the Karmic Tree, simple osmosis of morality had instilled a slight ethical fastidiousness in him.

He could no longer tolerate such actions, so he rendered the fur seals extinct without another word.

Upon doing so, his black sickle blossomed with a profound radiance. The demon god’s heart quailed as a terrifying surge of power descended from the immortal dao and filled his body.

Boom—

Black smoke rose from his body as a black cloak wrapped around him. Black sickle in hand and a cloak obscuring his features, the black smoke wafting from him depicted him like the Grim Reaper of Earth’s legends.

In fact, all of Earth’s legends about the Grim Reaper were based off of Ji Du. The demon god had suddenly returned to his true form and broken through to great emperor!

The first great emperor beneath the immortal dao!

Unusual ripples undulated from this part of the land and resonated with the demon god. Pristine white flowers drifted down from the immortal dao, similar to how the Dao Flower’s petals had once floated down.

“My, my deepest gratitude to you, fellow daoist.” Stunned for a very long while, the demon god slowly came back to himself.

He hadn’t thought that he’d be the first great emperor to appear beneath the immortal dao after the rebirth of cultivators from the Primeval Era. Upon slight contemplation, he quickly realized the reason for this.

A boost from the true spirit of the Exalted divine emperor that he’d absorbed!

Therein lay a strand of opportunity to become a great emperor, but the demon god had never located it. Who would’ve thought that his decision to destroy the fur seals would be met with the Exalted divine emperor’s approval? The divine emperor had released that opportunity so that the demon god could break through!

The first great emperor beneath the immortal dao!

After his ascension, his own true spirit budded and the one belonging to the Exalted divine emperor disengaged from the demon god’s soul, to drift aimlessly away into the air.

“The headmaster should be able to resurrect you,” murmured the demon god as he looked down at a speck of true spirit he’d quickly cupped in his hand.