God-Tier Villain

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

The continent’s heartland held over a hundred regional factions of humans, beasts, and demons, all locked in mutual check.

There was no shortage of factions itching to annex the Endless Demonic Domain, and no shortage the Domain itself wanted to swallow.

Soren had no intention of leaving one Great Demon Emperor’s shadow just to live under another’s roof as a hired dog.

With his strength as a Lower-Tier Demon Emperor, holding territory on his own was no problem, but nearly every demonic territory was guarded by a Great Emperor level powerhouse, building a faction on land already carved up would be snatching meat from a tiger’s jaws.

This required long-term planning.

His first choice was the notorious Black Dragon Mountain.

Black Dragon Mountain sat at the junction of three major factions.

A fan-shaped region, slightly smaller than the Endless Demonic Domain but still enormous, and a lawless buffer zone that all three sides had ignored for ages.

The reason they ignored it was a mysterious sonic wave that radiated endlessly from within the mountain, growing stronger from the outer edge toward the core.

Any living creature that entered would first feel a feverish, unbearable heat upon hearing the sound, listen any longer, and they would lose their sanity and die in agony.

Even Upper-Tier Demon Emperors could not stay inside for long, the time it took an incense stick to burn was their absolute limit.

Because of this, all three factions had written the territory off entirely.

A place everyone else despised was Soren’s top pick, for one reason: he had the Strategy Encyclopedia, and nobody else did.

The Encyclopedia could form strategies for anything under heaven. It could absolutely uncover the source of Black Dragon Mountain’s sonic waves and produce a method to counter them.

That mysterious sound was a natural defensive barrier.

If Soren built his camp inside Black Dragon Mountain, with the strategy as the only key through the door, then only confidants like Bruce and Arnold could come and go freely.

Anyone else would be driven back by the waves before getting anywhere near him.

What a fortress that would be, even sitting dead center between three major factions, he could build his forces in perfect safety.

Of course, a Great Demon Emperor could still endure one incense stick inside, and bombardment from outside would be devastating either way.

Soren wasn’t worried, cnce the World-Destroying Demonic Lotus was his, every one of those problems solved itself.

Black Dragon Mountain was the hub of three factions, detonate the Lotus there, and the destruction would swallow all three sides alike.

Would they dare risk it?

There was one more important reason, Black Dragon Mountain faced the Endless Demonic Domain across another territory entirely.

If the Great Demon Emperor ever lost all restraint and wanted total war, a full domain would sit between them as a buffer.

The land separating Black Dragon Mountain from the Endless Demonic Domain was the Violet Jade Immortal Domain.

Immortal Domain, it was called. Though in truth, Soren gave a wry smile.

Victoria, the self-proclaimed Enchanting Immortal, ruled the Violet Jade Immortal Domain, and that woman was a Great Demon Emperor through and through.

A problem for later.

Soren and Arnold traveled fast, tearing through the void again and again to cut the journey short.

The Ten Thousand Demons Cliff.

The name said everything, beneath the towering cliff lay the remains of tens of thousands of demons, and not just any demons.

Every one of them had been a Quasi Demon Emperor or a full Demon Emperor expert.

The World-Destroying Demonic Lotus had existed here for a hundred thousand years, and to this day no one had managed to take it.

The demon race had paid a bloody price trying, of all the Demon Great Emperors who had ever fallen, at least six or seven in ten died scheming for the Lotus.

Soren had been here once before, back then, he had only dared look from a distance beyond the cliff, he hadn’t dared go deep.

This time was different, he was going all the way in to touch the World-Destroying Demonic Lotus, pull its strategy, and carry it out with him.

Soren stood in the void, ink-black hair whipping in the wind, an aura of quiet evil rolling off him as he surveyed the ground below.

Beneath him spread a sea of purple miasma, energy dense enough to see with the naked eye.

The Ten Thousand Demons Cliff resembled a colossal bowl sunk into the earth, its rim towering into the clouds with a momentum that seemed ready to swallow the heavens.

The World-Destroying Demonic Lotus lay deep in the heart of that bowl.

Arnold gripped his skull-headed cane, eyes sweeping their surroundings.

"Master, please be very careful, beneath this cliff lies the Resentment Spring, a thing people fear to even mention."

"The Spring formed from the lingering resentment and massed demonic energy of Demon Emperor experts after their deaths."

"They say it has long since birthed a consciousness of its own."

"Once the resentment entangles you, it drags you to the bottom, and you never come out."

"Many Demon Emperor experts have failed this very trial."

Soren had heard the same stories, but with the Strategy Encyclopedia in his head, he wasn’t half as worried as Arnold imagined.

Seeing him so composed, Arnold let his worry go. It seemed the young master already had a countermeasure.

In the time it took Arnold to finish that thought, Soren was already charging toward the bowl’s depths.

Just as he closed in, a massive surge of power roared up from the Resentment Spring below.

Driven by the spring’s sentience, the drifting demonic energy condensed into a gigantic claw and raked upward to seize them both.

The claw solidified as it rose, radiating frenzied resentment. Its surface was gnarled, emaciated, hideous, as if woven from writhing snakes and coiling flood dragons, huge red eyeballs, dozens of feet across, rolled madly across its surface, locking onto Soren’s position.

Arnold, a Middle-Tier Demon Venerable, felt his heart seize at the sight, he clutched his skull cane and spewed a torrent of fierce purple flame.

The flames scorched the claw, the claw didn’t so much as slow.

In the next second, Soren threw a punch through the void and blew the entire claw apart.