THE DEMON EMPEROR REBORN AS A SERVANT

Chapter 4: The Final Prayer and Curse

The night sky over the Southern Continent was torn apart by the color of blood. The darkness that should have blanketed the earth was now replaced by the blaze of a fire that was consuming the magnificent Lin Noble Family Estate down to its foundations.

The stench of fresh blood and burnt flesh mixed with thick smoke, stealing the oxygen from the night air. In the front courtyard, dozens of bodies of guards in the Lin Family uniform lay scattered, their throats slit cleanly. The slaughter was silent, systematic, and merciless. A butcher's masterpiece from an elite team of hired assassins.

In the deepest corridor of the main residence, a young servant dressed in coarse cloth braced a pair of giant teak doors with his back. He was far too thin, his face smudged with soot, and his legs trembled so violently they were nearly numb from holding back the brutal assault from outside.

Brak! Brak! Brak!

Sword and axe blows slammed against the door from the other side. Sharp wooden splinters exploded inward, embedding themselves in the servant's arms and cheeks, gashing his skin. Blood seeped through his clothes, but he refused to budge an inch.

"Run, Young Miss! Take the Young Master through the secret passage, now!" the servant shouted. His voice was hoarse, his throat burned by smoke and despair, but his eyes shone with an unshakable, mad determination. "I will hold them here!"

A few steps behind him, Young Miss Lin Xuanyin, an eighteen-year-old girl in a silk dress now stained with dust and blood, stood frozen. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks. She tightly held the hand of her ten-year-old brother, Lin Tian, who was sobbing and clinging to her leg. The horror of this night had shattered their sanity.

Beside them, Head Guard Lei Tie, whose left arm was severed at the stump, leaned against a stone wall. Blood poured from his shoulder. He held his breath, supporting his weight with a chipped sword.

"We can't leave you! You'll die!" Xuanyin sobbed, her voice trembling with terror.

"Go, Young Miss!" The servant glanced back, looking at his mistress with bloodshot, strained eyes. "Advisor Zhao has betrayed us for the myth of that fake artifact! If you and the Young Master die here, there will be no hope left for the Lin Family! Go!"

The teak doors began to crack severely. The tip of an enemy's axe blade pierced through the center of the door, nearly splitting the servant's shoulder.

"Take the Young Miss, General Lei!" the servant yelled again. He sacrificed all the remaining strength in his muscles, pressing his back against the door until his bones creaked in protest.

Lei Tie gritted his teeth until his gums bled. As a veteran soldier, he knew exactly when a battle was lost. He swallowed bitterly, then pulled Xuanyin's arm forcefully. "I'm sorry, kid. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. Come on, Young Miss!"

"No! Let me go!" Xuanyin struggled desperately, but Lei Tie's strength was still far greater. The girl and her brother were dragged into a secret passage behind a giant bookshelf.

The very second the stone passage door closed, hiding them from view, the teak doors the servant was holding finally shattered into pieces from an internal force blow from the outside.

BRAAAK!

The servant was thrown backward like a worn-out rag doll. His back slammed into a stone pillar with terrifying speed, and the sound of his ribs cracking echoed loudly. He vomited fresh blood, his vision instantly blurred, and his whole body went numb.

From behind the cloud of shattered wood dust, five assassins dressed in black stepped in slowly. Their sword blades dripped with thick blood.

"A stubborn little rat," one of the large assassins sneered. Without wasting a second, he stepped forward and thrust his sword straight through the young servant's left chest, the blade pinning him to the stone floor beneath.

The servant convulsed violently. The pain that split his chest forcibly stole his sanity. His lungs instantly flooded with blood, and his breath caught in his throat. But, to the assassin's surprise, the servant's weak fingers rose and gripped the sharp blade piercing his chest, allowing his palm to be sliced open as well. He refused to let go of the enemy, hoping to buy time so they couldn't find the secret door.

"Tch, you piece of trash!"

The assassin swung his leg, brutally kicking the servant in the face. The servant's nose broke instantly, and the sword was yanked out with a spray of blood.

The servant's body was thrown onto its back on the cold stone floor. His vision began to be consumed by eternal darkness. On the verge of consciousness, a sense of helplessness, a burning rage at Advisor Zhao's betrayal, and the despair of being unable to do more to protect his masters exploded within his mind.

"Gods... Demons... whoever is listening up there..." the servant's mind screamed in the silence of his death. "Curse them all... I will trade my soul to the deepest hell, as long as I can still protect the Young Miss and the Young Master... Give me the strength to tear their throats out!"

That desperate prayer was not just a lament. It was a pure scream from the essence of a mortal forced to the edge of an abyss. A blood oath whose resonance accidentally pierced the boundaries of the Worlds.

In that same instant, the laws of space and time above the Lin Estate trembled subtly. A speck of golden light, as small as dust, carrying an absolute soul from a much higher dimension, fell through the burning roof and plunged straight into the center of the forehead of the servant who had just breathed his last.

Silence enveloped the ruined corridor.

Three of the assassins had already hurried off down another hallway to search for clues, leaving two behind to clean up the room.

"Check the damn servant's body. Make sure he's not hiding a key or a clue to a secret passage," the large assassin ordered, kicking the servant's ribs roughly.

The second assassin snorted dismissively. He squatted down, intending to search the coarse, blood-soaked clothes.

However, before his fingers could touch the servant's chest, the stiff, white fingers suddenly twitched.

The assassin frowned behind his black mask. "Huh? His heart was pierced through, but he's still alive?"

At that very moment, the servant's eyes snapped open.

There was no longer any trace of fear, innocence, or desperation of a mortal teenager. The pupils were now as cold as an eternal glacier, radiating an aura of arrogance and absolute cruelty that made the air around them suddenly feel empty and suffocating.

Inside that broken shell, the soul of Xiao Chen, the Demon Emperor, had taken complete control.