Venerable Demon King & The Doting Immortal (QT)

The Demon King felt a suffocating pressure, a weight that wasn't physical. The Divine Emperor's presence, an invisible, crushing force, made his ancient soul tremble. He held his composure, a mask of defiance over a heart pounding with fear. But the Divine Emperor saw through the facade, a knowing glint in his eyes.

"How about this," the Demon King began, his voice a low rumble. "You give me my son's body, and I'll tell you everything."

The Divine Emperor remained still, a look of profound disgust crossing his face. "He is an insignificant ant in your world... Your Divine Majesty," the Demon King continued, his voice taking on a seductive, devilish quality. "For the price of this ant, you can know everything."

With a casual sweep of his hand, the Emperor adjusted his sleeve. "Which son?" he asked, his tone apathetic. "If I remember correctly, you had multiple." The Demon King's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"Actually," the Divine Emperor continued, a smirk playing on his lips, "I thought you would ask to replace your daughter."

The Demon King's calm shattered. A wave of fury washed over him, his eyes blazing with a dangerous light. He gritted his teeth, a low growl escaping his throat. "You wouldn't dare."

"You know what I find fascinating?" the Divine Emperor said, his voice quiet but sharp. "You had many children... too many to count. And yet you killed them all. Why is that?"

A heavy silence filled the space, an oppressive quiet that even made the Divine Emperor feel uncomfortable.

"Except for Peng Xiu," he continued, the words cutting through the air. "All your other children were discarded goods. There must be something about her that was special. So special, in fact, that her twin, who shared the same womb, was discarded like trash. I thought... maybe, just maybe you just wanted a girl, but you had killed three other daughters. So it couldn't be that."

The Demon King's composure finally broke. A look of genuine fear, of unsettled dread, washed over his face. He was a creature of ancient power, but the Divine Emperor's words, quiet and cold, felt like a crowbar prying open a tomb he had long sealed.

"That's when I realised," the Divine Emperor's voice was a low hum, a viper's hiss. "It wasn't about the child. It was about the mother."

He leaned closer to the mirror, his face a chilling mask. "Why would the Demon Lord of the North seek out a rotting flower in a brothel? Was it her beauty? No, it couldn't have been."

A sinister grin stretched across the Emperor's face, a look that made it impossible to tell who was the true demon. "It was because of her bloodline, right?"

The Demon King tried to retreat, to pull his soul back into the safety of the mirror, but an invisible force seized his throat. He gasped, a guttural choke, his eyes bulging as he struggled against a pressure that was not of this world. It was as if his soul was being scorched, a searing pain that was excruciating and relentless.

"Where do you think you are going?" the Divine Emperor's voice was a whisper of pure malice.The Demon King thrashed, a silent scream trapped in his ethereal throat.

"I couldn't help but find out her lineage," the Emperor continued, a note of grim satisfaction in his voice. "Who would have thought that woman's great-great-father was an ousted Divine Immortal named Lian Xueying?"

The name alone was enough to stir a deep, primal reverence in the Divine Realm. But then he fell in love.

Lian Xueying, a name that once commanded reverence in the Divine Realm, had broken the most sacred decree: he fell for a mortal woman. It wasn't a passing fancy. It was a love so deep he willingly gave up his immortality to be with her. He cast off his celestial robes, severed his ties to the divine, and descended to walk the earth as a man.

In time, she bore his child. He looked into her eyes and believed he had found a new eternity. But mortal hearts are not bound by the same truths. She betrayed him, her affection swayed by another man. The immortal, now stripped of his power, watched the world he had sacrificed everything for crumble.

He vanished after that. Some whispered he wandered the mortal realm, a ghost of his former self. Others claimed he perished in madness, a victim of his own broken heart. But only the Divine Emperor knew the truth.

In the silence of the sacred mountains, the Emperor had stood over the place where Lian Xueying's body had fallen. There was no grave. No monument. Only scattered fragments of a soul, drifting like ash on the wind.

Bound by duty and a deep, unspoken sorrow, the Emperor had sent a silent emissary to guide those remnants to the underworld, the resting place of forgotten immortals.

Lian Xueying's name faded from memory, but his bloodline endured. Generation after generation bore his mark, but none inherited his divine seed. It was as if the heavens themselves had sealed away his legacy, a final, cold punishment for a love that had defied the law.

The Divine Emperor's words hung in the air, a final, damning truth. The Demon King's soul throbbed with a mixture of rage and terror. He had toiled for centuries, searching for a way to break the celestial seal and take over the Divine Realm.

Someone even more terrifying than himself took interest in his cause and led him in the right direction. He was led to a brothel, to that mortal woman, a rotting flower in a garden of vice. He had seen the lineage in her eyes, a whisper of celestial blood that had long been dormant.

He had bedded her, not for love, but for a purpose. And from that union, Peng Xiu was born. The Demon King's joy had been immense. She had the potential to cultivate, to ascend, and become an immortal. A Trojan horse in the heart of the divine. But her power was a double-edged sword, tainted with his demon blood.

As for the other child, the twin, Xiang Yu, he was discarded like an unwanted side effect. A worthless afterthought, abandoned in the snow to die. What the Demon King failed to see was that the child he had cast aside was a true celestial, more powerful than Peng Xiu.

His divine power, dormant and yet to be awakened, was the reason he had survived the freezing cold. It was the reason he succeeded at everything he did, a natural leader who rose through the ranks of the Shadow Guards. It was the reason he had not only killed his father, but also became a revered figure in the demon realm.

Xiang Yu's demon core was weak, a flickering ember compared to the primordial force buried deep within him. With this power he didnt even know existed within him, he easily defeated his father and took his place as the Demon King. The irony was a bitter taste in the old king's mouth.

If his true motive was to take over the Divine Realm, Peng Xiu was never the right choice. She was weak, bound to be overtaken by her inner demons. As expected, she abandoned the plans she was raised to accomplish the moment a new obsession took hold.

If it weren't for the powerful entity behind them, a being content with the change in plans, Peng Xiu would have been torn to pieces long ago.