THE DEMON EMPEROR REBORN AS A SERVANT

Chapter 5: The Demon Emperor's Awakening

Pain.

That was the first sensation that hit Xiao Chen's consciousness when he opened his eyes. It wasn't the pain of a divine-level spiritual energy blast he was used to, but a mortal, pathetic sting from a cheap steel blade tearing through his lungs.

Xiao Chen's combat instincts reacted immediately. He tried to circulate his Qi to stop the fatal bleeding, but he was instantly horrified.

The Dantian in this body was completely empty. Drier than a desert. Its meridians were as narrow as strands of hair, stiff, and clogged with mortal filth. This body didn't even have the most basic Grade 1 cultivation foundation. It wasn't just a pathetic vessel; it was a trash can.

"Hah..." Xiao Chen opened his mouth, spitting out a thick clot of blood that was blocking his throat.

His brain, which had lived for centuries, processed this anomaly in milliseconds. The thin air, the absence of high-level natural laws pressing on his pores, and the strange-feeling gravity... he wasn't in the Holy Realm. He had fallen to a lower dimension. The Mortal Realm.

"I'm still alive," Xiao Chen thought coldly. "Or more accurately... my soul was thrown into a body whose durability is worse than a crippled stray dog in my world."

Realizing the incredibly absurd irony of his fate, from the strongest existence who looked down on emperors, to now being a living corpse with a hole in his chest, Xiao Chen couldn't help himself.

"Heh... hehehe... Hahahaha!"

A soft laugh that gradually grew into a mad cackle escaped the servant's lips. The laugh was hoarse, gurgling with blood in his throat, but its resonance contained a dark dominance that would make any assassin's instincts crawl.

The two assassins in the room flinched back reflexively. They glanced at each other, confused and horrified to see a servant with a sword wound through his chest laughing like a mad demon.

"What are you laughing at, you lowlife slave?!" the large assassin yelled. He pointed the tip of his sword directly at Xiao Chen's face to cover the tremor of fear that suddenly crept up his neck. "Looks like my stab missed your heart by a bit, huh? You were trying to provoke me so you could die a slower death?!"

Xiao Chen slowly stopped laughing. He turned his neck, which felt as heavy as iron, and looked at the two assassins with a flat gaze, the same look he gave the dust beneath his shoes.

"I'm laughing..." Xiao Chen's voice came out hoarse and heavy, accompanied by blood bubbling at the corner of his lips, "...because I realize how funny it is that heaven placed me in this trash can, and welcomed me with two mortal insects."

"What did you say?!" The second assassin flew into a rage, the veins on his neck bulging. "He's still got a sharp tongue! Let me cut his throat clean off!"

Xiao Chen's mental transition was instantaneous. An emperor's arrogance wouldn't save his life tonight. In this broken body, he was not an absolute being. He was crippled prey. And a true predator knows exactly when to suppress his ego and play dirty to survive.

His brain immediately mapped the enemies' anatomy, measured the swing distance of their swords, and calculated the remaining strength in the mortal muscles of this slowly dying body. The result: zero Qi. One hundred percent reliant on killing experience.

"Die, you bastard!"

The second assassin lunged, thrusting his sword straight for Xiao Chen's throat at full speed.

In his past life, a slow attack from a Grade 1 Warrior like this wouldn't have even been able to cut a single strand of Xiao Chen's hair. But now, his speed was shackled by a weak body. If he forced a wide dodge, his back muscles would tear completely. If he blocked with his mortal bones, his arm would snap.

Xiao Chen didn't try to dodge the sword tip completely. Instead, enduring the excruciating pain in his chest, when the blade was an inch from his neck, Xiao Chen tilted his head just slightly with absolute precision.

Trang!

The sword missed by a hair's breadth, scraping his neck before embedding itself hard into the stone floor beside his ear. The assassin lost his balance, his body lurching forward as his attack's momentum was momentarily locked.

Without wasting a second, Xiao Chen forced the last of his abdominal strength to sit up halfway, ignoring the widening wound in his chest. His left hand shot up, slapping the enemy's wrist hard so he couldn't pull his sword back. At the same time, his right hand shot forward, plunging his index and middle fingers with full force directly into the assassin's eyes!

"AAARGHH!!"

The assassin let out a heart-wrenching, hysterical scream, reflexively releasing his sword hilt. He staggered back, clutching his face, which was now gushing thick, fresh blood. His eyeballs were completely ruptured. He was instantly blinded.

The remaining assassin stood frozen in shock, witnessing a counterattack so deadly and efficient. 'How could a dying servant with no internal energy move with such precision?!' his mind screamed.

"Bastard! You're using black magic!" The large assassin, now blind, screamed as he swung his giant sword blindly from the side.

"Brother, let me help you kill that damn servant!" shouted the other assassin, who had been stunned, as he ran in from the side, looking at Xiao Chen with pure hatred.

Xiao Chen's mortal body lacked the speed to jump or dodge. So, he used the dirtiest street tactic there was. Shifting his body, Xiao Chen kicked the blind assassin's kneecap hard, making the man scream and fall to his knees. Xiao Chen then grabbed the blind assassin's collar forcefully, using him as a living meat shield right in the path of his partner's sword swing.

CRASH!

The sound of tearing flesh and breaking bone echoed loudly. The enemy's large sword plunged deep into his own friend's ribs.

The moment the large assassin froze in shock, realizing he had just split his own partner's chest, Xiao Chen released his grip on the meat shield. He lunged forward through the gap like a starving leopard. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his chest, which was once again gushing blood, he jumped, locking the large assassin's neck in a left-arm chokehold from extremely close range.

"In my first life, you weren't even worthy of being the dust on the bottom of my shoes," Xiao Chen whispered lethally, right in his enemy's ear.

Xiao Chen had no Qi, but his soul was a grand library of the most powerful forbidden techniques in the entire universe. He used the most basic technique from the first part of the Scripture of 9 Hells and 5 Heavens.

The 9 Hells Purification Sutra: The Yin and Yang Absorption Technique.

A demonic technique that purely used the law of causal exchange, defying the laws of nature itself. From Xiao Chen's right palm, pressed hard against the enemy's chest, a terrifying suction vortex formed.

"Ugh... w-what are you... LET GO! LET ME GO!" The assassin screamed hoarsely. Pure panic took over his mind. He tried to raise his muscular arms to hit Xiao Chen's head, but his body suddenly went rigid like a block of dead wood. His eyes bulged, filled with red veins that were about to burst.

Pure life energy, blood essence, and the remaining internal energy in the assassin's Dantian were forcibly pulled from his pores, brutally converted into pure Qi energy. The energy flowed in like a wild river current through Xiao Chen's palm. The assassin's skin began to shrivel and dry up at a visible, unnatural rate. His hair turned a withered gray, and his eyeballs sank into his skull.

In just three short breaths, the giant man had shriveled into a dried-up, bone-wrapped corpse.

Xiao Chen released his grip. The assassin's body, now withered and desiccated, hit the floor with the horrifying sound of brittle, cracking bones.

However, this instant victory demanded a very high price.

As soon as the enemy's life force entered and clogged the fatal wound in his chest, Xiao Chen suddenly choked. He immediately vomited a mouthful of thick black blood and collapsed hard onto his knees.

His eyes widened in pain. The veins on his neck, face, and arms bulged a dark black and pulsed aggressively, as if dozens of large worms were crawling, tearing, and biting right under his skin.

"GAAAAARRGHH!"

Xiao Chen let out a muffled roar, biting his lower lip so hard the flesh tore and bled. Cold sweat, the size of corn kernels, instantly drenched his mortal body.

He had made a fatal mistake. He forgot to calibrate the suction power of his technique with the maximum capacity of his new vessel. The wild energy from the mortal's essence, although it felt like a mere dewdrop to his Emperor's soul, was like a volcanic lava flow injected directly into the veins of this slave's body.

His narrow meridians began to stretch and tear from the inside. His frail Dantian screamed, enduring the pressure of the rampaging energy looking for an exit. The pain shot mercilessly to the marrow of his bones, dozens of times more horrific and torturous than when his right arm was severed by a divine sword in his previous life.

"This damn body is rejecting the wild Qi!" he cursed internally, holding onto the last shred of his sanity. "If I don't meditate immediately and suppress this energy, my blood vessels and heart will explode! I'll die a ridiculous death for the second time!"

Before he could even calm his breathing, the sound of heavy footsteps and shouting warnings from dozens of other assassins echoed from the front corridor. They were clearly drawn by the death screams of their two comrades.

Staying in this room meant being slaughtered.

Forcing himself to swallow a pain that would make an ordinary person lose their mind, Xiao Chen grabbed the enemy's sword from the floor, planted it, and used it as a crutch. With a limp, dragging his feet, and a heavy breath that smelled of burnt blood, he forced his body to jump out of the corridor's back window.

Before him stretched a dense, endless forest, shrouded in a deep night shadow that swallowed all light.

"Just you wait... all of you..." Xiao Chen hissed. His blood-covered lips curved into a mad smile, taking a moment to glance at the fiercely burning residence before he completely melted his broken body into the darkness of the forest.

A new stage had been set, and the Demon Emperor had just taken his first bloody step in this mortal hell.