THE DEMON EMPEROR REBORN AS A SERVANT

Chapter 1: The Fires of Greed in Skull Valley

The sky above Skull Valley had lost its color, replaced by a swirling vortex of spiritual energy so dense it could crush the bones of a Saintly Warrior to dust. At the bottom of the valley, a place riddled with bottomless ravines, the laws of space and time seemed to no longer apply.

On the edge of a steep cliff bordering eternal darkness, Xiao Chen stood.

His black robes were long since soaked with dried blood, torn in dozens of places, revealing deep gashes that glowed faintly with deadly residual Qi. His breath was heavy, ragged, yet his back was as straight as a sword that refused to break. Behind him stood his favorite disciple, trembling violently with a face as pale as a corpse, holding a legendary sword that quivered under the storm's pressure.

"Surrender, Xiao Chen! You've reached a dead end!"

A voice, booming like heavenly thunder, shattered the suffocating silence.

In the air, surrounding Xiao Chen from all directions, floated eight figures bathed in golden light. They were the masters of the Holy Realm. The Eight Emperors of the White Sect, figures revered by billions of mortals as gods of justice, pillars of virtue, and protectors of the universe. But now, behind their sacred robes and the halos of light encircling them, their eyes blazed with a single, disgusting mortal emotion: absolute greed.

Xiao Chen wiped the black blood from the corner of his lips with his thumb. He looked up, gazing at the eight entities who claimed to be heaven's representatives. A low, cold laugh full of contempt escaped his mouth.

"Surrender?" Xiao Chen's voice wasn't loud, but somehow, it echoed through the spiritual storm and pierced directly into the ears of the eight Emperors. "Three years ago, when I slaughtered ten Emperors of the Black Sect single-handedly at Death's Peak to avenge my late master, you hypocritical dogs hid behind your palace walls, trembling in fear. Back then, you called me Heaven's Hero. Now, when my body is broken and I have less than a third of my strength left, you dare to crawl out of your holes and surround me under the guise of justice?"

The Saintly Sword Emperor, the oldest among them with a spotless white robe, stepped forward in the air. His face remained calm, wearing a mask of false wisdom.

"Your sins are too great, Xiao Chen. You slaughtered ten Emperors, destroying the balance of the Holy Realm. But heaven is always merciful," the Saintly Sword Emperor said in a dignified tone. "Hand over the Scripture of 9 Hells and 5 Heavens that you took from the ancient ruins. Let the White Sect safeguard that cursed relic so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. If you obey, we will spare your life and your disciple's."

Hearing this demand, Xiao Chen's eyes narrowed sharply. A brutally murderous aura radiated from his wounded body, causing the temperature in Skull Valley to plummet to freezing.

So that was the real reason.

He once thought that by wiping out the ten Black Sect Emperors, the Holy Realm would find the peace his late master had longed for. A youthful folly he now regretted. Reality had slapped him hard. There was no black, no white. In the realm of cultivation, all warriors were essentially demons when faced with the temptation of limitless power.

The Scripture of 9 Hells and 5 Heavens. A forbidden and ultimate scripture that violated the laws of nature. Half of the book, the 9 Hells section, contained the most evil and destructive cultivation techniques, capable of shattering an enemy's soul foundation, granting unbeatable combat power at the cost of physical pain that surpassed the torments of hell. The other half, the 5 Heavens, contained absolute miracles in the form of divine healing techniques and alchemical recipes, created solely to neutralize the self-destructive effects of the 9 Hells techniques. Whoever mastered both, mastered life and death itself.

"You want this scripture?"

Xiao Chen reached into his robe. Slowly, he pulled out an ancient scroll that emitted a reddish-black aura mixed with a pearly white light.

In that instant, the eight Emperors in the air held their breath. The halos behind them flickered dimly. Their masks of virtue shattered instantly, replaced by the hungry gaze of a predator seeing its prey. Veins bulged on the White Cloud Emperor's neck, while the Saintly Sword Emperor unconsciously tightened his grip on his sword's hilt.

"Yes! Hand it over, Xiao Chen!" the White Cloud Emperor shouted, no longer able to hide the greed in his voice. "Only we are worthy of studying it for the well-being of all mankind!"

Xiao Chen looked at the scroll in his hand, then at the faces of the eight Emperors one by one. He recalled his centuries of suffering, the blood spilled, and the false promises of justice.

"I have seen the depths of hell," Xiao Chen whispered, his eyes glinting with the madness of a tyrant. "And I can assure you, the demons in hell are far more honest than all of you."

"What are you talking about?! Hand it over now!" the Saintly Sword Emperor snapped, realizing something was wrong with the vortex of Qi in Xiao Chen's hand.

"You want this scripture?" Xiao Chen grinned widely, revealing his blood-stained teeth. "Then you can have the ashes."

WHOOSH!

Instantly, a Black Demonic Flame, a pure Qi flame drawn directly from the essence of the 9 Hells, erupted from Xiao Chen's palm. The flame devoured the ancient scroll without mercy. The ancient paper, which could not be destroyed by any divine sword, began to curl, burn, and crumble into black ashes carried away by the strong winds of Skull Valley.

"NO!!!" the White Cloud Emperor screamed hysterically, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

"You madman! What have you done?!" the Saintly Sword Emperor roared in fury, his entire sacred image shattering into pieces. "Kill him! Mince his body! Extract his memories before his soul dissipates!"

Seeing the ultimate alchemy and martial arts scripture destroyed before their eyes, the eight White Sect Emperors lost their minds. A storm of spiritual energy erupted instantly. Eight pillars of Qi, each capable of leveling a continent, shot simultaneously toward the cliff where Xiao Chen stood.

The space around Xiao Chen shattered like a mirror struck by a sledgehammer. Dimensional fragments flew about, cutting through the air with deafening shrieks.

"Come on, you hypocritical dogs!" Xiao Chen roared.

He didn't retreat a single step. Ignoring his screaming meridians, he forced the remaining Qi in his Dantian to circulate the Hell's Explosion Sutra, a suicide technique from the first part of the book he had just burned. Xiao Chen's body was instantly enveloped in a fierce, dense black aura. His muscles bulged until his skin cracked, emitting a bloody light from within his veins.

The imbalanced battle that would be recorded in the dark history of the Holy Realm had begun.

The White Cloud Emperor descended from the sky like a meteor, bringing with him an illusory giant palm made of pure Qi, hundreds of meters wide. Xiao Chen didn't dodge. He swung his left leg, kicking the empty air. Boom! A black shockwave shot upwards, piercing through the illusory palm and striking the White Cloud Emperor directly in the chest.

"Gah!" The White Cloud Emperor coughed up golden blood, thrown backward through the clouds.

However, the attacks from the other seven Emperors came relentlessly. Three giant swords of light stabbed from the left, two destructive formation seals from above, and a whip of a fire dragon from the right. Xiao Chen moved like a ghost in the middle of an apocalyptic storm. He parried, punched, and kicked with pure brutality. Every time he clashed with an enemy, his own blood gushed out as his old wounds were forced open.

One against eight at the Emperor Realm was an impossibility. The laws of nature didn't allow it. No matter how powerful Xiao Chen was, his body was slowly reaching its breaking point.

CRAAACK!

A fire whip managed to wrap around his left leg, burning his flesh to the bone. Before Xiao Chen could break free, the Saintly Sword Emperor appeared in his blind spot on the right. The holy sword radiated an absolute killing intent, aimed directly at Xiao Chen's heart. The speed of the slash locked all spatial escape routes.

Xiao Chen's analytical brain worked in a split millisecond. If he dodged backward, he would fall into the abyss of Skull Valley. If he blocked the sword with Qi, his defense would be breached by the other seven emperors preparing their follow-up attacks.

The only way to win a life-or-death battle against a stronger enemy was to be crazier than them.

The instant the sword was about to pierce his chest, Xiao Chen deliberately twisted his body to the left in an extreme motion, leaving his right side completely exposed.

"Die, you vile demon!" the Saintly Sword Emperor shouted, his eyes flashing with victory.

JLEEEB! CRAT!

It wasn't his heart that was pierced. The holy sword plunged through the base of Xiao Chen's right shoulder at the speed of light, severing his collarbone, and with a brutal pull, Xiao Chen's right arm was sliced clean off and sent flying into the air. Fresh blood sprayed like a fountain, painting the air of Skull Valley a deep red.

The other Emperors held their breath. They thought the fight was over. No one could survive a full-powered slash from a Sword Emperor.

However, the Saintly Sword Emperor, who was less than half a meter from Xiao Chen, suddenly felt the hair on his neck stand up. A killing intent far darker than the abyss below them enveloped him.

Instead of screaming in pain from losing his dominant arm, Xiao Chen looked directly into the Saintly Sword Emperor's eyes with a wide, demonic grin. His teeth were red with blood.

"Perfect distance," Xiao Chen whispered.

Before the Saintly Sword Emperor could pull his sword back, Xiao Chen's remaining left hand shot forward with a speed that violated the laws of physics. His fingers formed a black dragon claw and plunged directly into the center of the Saintly Sword Emperor's chest, tearing through his divine protective robe, ripping through his ribs, and squeezing the Emperor's heart right inside his chest cavity.

"Y-you...!" The Saintly Sword Emperor's eyes widened in horror, feeling his life being forcibly torn away.

"Die!"

BOOM!

Xiao Chen detonated the black Qi in his left palm. The Saintly Sword Emperor's heart and entire Dantian were obliterated from the inside. His body exploded into a bloody mist in the air.

Using the momentum of the explosion, Xiao Chen caught the divine sword floating in the air with his left hand. Using the pain from his severed right shoulder as a catalyst for the power of the 9 Hells, he spun his body three hundred and sixty degrees, unleashing a Crimson Crescent Slash towards the White Cloud Emperor and the Thunder Emperor, who had just rushed forward to help.

ZRAASH!

The White Cloud Emperor, still injured from the first attack, failed to dodge the slash. His head was separated from his body with a frozen expression of shock. The Thunder Emperor and two other Emperors were hit by the edge of the slash wave, which instantly shattered their Qi armor. Their chests were split diagonally, and they were thrown against the cliff wall, vomiting blood, so severely injured that their cultivation foundations cracked.

In a single bloody breath, by sacrificing his right arm, Xiao Chen had killed the two strongest Emperors and crippled three others.

Absolute silence fell over Skull Valley. The remaining three White Sect Emperors floating in the air now drifted backward, their bodies trembling uncontrollably. They looked at the man in the black robe at the edge of the cliff not as prey, but as the personification of death itself.

On the cliff's edge, Xiao Chen stood panting. Blood seeped profusely from the stump of his right shoulder, dripping onto the blackened rocks. His face was deathly pale from blood loss and a fatal Qi depletion. His meridians were truly on the verge of total collapse. He knew his body had reached its final limit.

However, there wasn't a trace of fear in his eyes, only the arrogance of a tyrant who had once brought the world to its knees.

Xiao Chen looked up at the three Emperors now trembling in fear in the air. He laughed. At first, it was soft, then it turned into a wild laugh that echoed, shaking the cliffs of Skull Valley, overpowering the sound of the spiritual storm.

"Hahahaha! Is that all you've got?!" Xiao Chen roared, blood spraying from his right shoulder and lips. His eyes burned with a pure madness that would make even the gods bow in terror. "Is this the extent of your abilities, you fake Emperors?!"