The Demon’s Gate - Chapter 286
Yao Jun brought Guo Luo and his parents directly to the floor that was shaped like a massive city, the other four floors were designed for Demonic beasts so they could leave them for later. Guo Luo and the others hadn’t expected the tower to hide such a vast city, their eyes opening wide as they marveled at the sight around them.
Yao Jun carefully carried Yao Xuelian, placing her on his shoulders so that she could freely move her head to inspect the city around them. His face carried a soft smile as he looked at the amazed expressions of the others, his gaze eventually landing on the eyepatch covering Guo Luo’s left eye, a twinge of guilt striking him. He stretched out his right arm, his hand softly cradling her cheek while his thumb carefully traced the bottom of the eyepatch.
“I’ve been a bit delayed again, but I promise that I’ll fix it as quickly as possible.”
The main reason behind Yao Jun joining the Ascending Dragon competition was to get his hands on medicine that could regenerate her eye. But now that he had left the competition he was considered to have dropped out, he couldn’t join it again to get his hands on the medicine. Guo Luo placed her hand on Yao Jun’s, leaning her face against his palm while closing her eye.
“There’s no need to run yourself ragged about it, it’s just an eye, I’m managing just fine without it.”
Yao Jun’s parents slowed their steps a little upon seeing the interaction between the two of them, giving them a bit more space while smiling at them. Yao Jun merely smiled softly in response to Guo Luo’s statement, sending a message to Ba-Shei through the God Gate.
“Ba-Shei, I want you to keep an eye on the competition, I’m guessing it should end soon. Find the people who managed to enter the top 10, see if you can get one of them to trade away their medicine. If one of them ends up being one of our enemies then there’s no point in being polite.”
He quickly received an affirmative response from Ba-Shei, one of the shadows on the planet growing a little darker as Ba-Shei entered it and then vanished to perform his duties. With Ba-Shei leaving, Yao Jun brought Guo Luo and the others on a casual stroll through the city, entering the gargantuan tower at the center and bringing them to the core of the tower.
He placed several Spirit Stones into the heart-shaped array that served as the core, speeding up time inside the tower by a factor of 75. Yao Jun put in enough Spirit Stones to last them for a while, clapping his hands once and then playing with his daughter’s nose once he was finished.
“There, now we’ve got all the time in the world.”
With the Time-Altering Spire, they could turn the one to two years that Yao Jun planned on spending here into multiple years. They were unlikely to spend all their time in the spire, they would definitely wander around the planet as well, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they still ended up spending around 20-30 years inside the spire.
After activating the time altering ability of the tower, Yao Jun proceeded to settle in with his family, spending his time in relative peace for once. Sometimes he would cultivate his body or soul, sometimes he would spend his time deepening his understanding of his laws or fusing them, but most of his time was spent with his family and friends.
Yao Jun quickly found out that he underestimated his daughter’s desire for exploration, the empty areas within the Time-Altering Spire were far too boring for her. As such, they ended up spending far more time wandering the planet than Yao Jun originally anticipated, slowly starting to explore every inch of it.
Two weeks after they reached the planet, Yao Jun received the news that the Ascending Dragon competition had ended and that the top 10 were announced. With the original contender for the number 1 spot, Luosho Li, dead, and the man who killed her having left the competition, the number 1 spot ended up going to Mascheny Materius. Baam Noctris ended up getting the second spot while Berius Daeman got the third spot, the seven other people were also rather famous but Yao Jun had never encountered any of them.
To his surprise however, the name of Ren Shuren wasn’t present anywhere in the final rankings, he seemed to have left the competition just like Yao Jun had. But whether or not this meant that the Sebettu were going to lower their interference in this universe, Yao Jun had no idea, nor did he care too much at the moment.
Ba-Shei performed his duty admirably, but the situation after the competition was different from what Yao Jun expected. The people that managed to enter the top 10 rankings immediately retreated to their sects or clans, or even joined ones the moment they left the competition. But the reason behind it was simple, they had acquired a lot of treasures after winning, if they didn’t acquire a strong backer where they could hide then there was a good chance that they would be hunted and robbed.
This temporarily forced Yao Jun to halt his plans to acquire one of the regenerative medicines from them, he could only get one through other channels. He gave Ba-Shei another task, having him head to the Heaven’s Secrets Company to put out a bounty for a specific person and then allowed him to do as he pleased. He thought this would be the only outside matter he had to pay attention to in the coming days, but half a year after they reached the planet, he felt a change inside his God Gate. He temporarily excused himself and entered his God Gate, arriving in the forest that was the first to be created inside his God Gate.
He made his way to the southern end of the forest, quickly reaching a clearing that Little Gray and the others had created there. There were currently tens of thousands of corpses stacked up in the clearing, the bodies of all the people that Little Gray and the others had killed during the final battle in the war, as well as the other people they had killed and yet to eat. This place had become the de-facto dumping ground for all the corpses that they acquired over time, the sheer amount of blood seeping into the land had already turned the earth a light red in color, a bloody smell lingering in the air.
Yao Jun walked over to the mountain of corpses, in front of him rippling as several of the corpses were teleported to the back of the pile. Yao Jun crouched down on bloody earth where there had just been several corpses, wiping away the blood on the ground to reveal a small green sapling with one leaf growing on it, thin red veins running throughout both the leaf and the sapling, pulsating slightly.
Yao Jun’s lips curved up slightly when he looked at the sapling, which was actually moving in a rather rhythmic pattern as he crouched by it. He could feel a faint lifeforce from the sapling, scattered thoughts and words from it entering his mind through his God Gate. Yao Jun gave the single leaf a soft stroke, quietly talking to the sapling.
“What do you say, Little One, do you want to follow me around? I’ll give you all the blood in the world to feast on, I’ll let you grow into something fitting of your name.”
Yao Jun knew what sort of plant had just been born inside his God Gate, the first plant-type Demonic beast to be born inside since he acquired his God Gate. The dense Qi and vast amount of blood had gathered together and formed the perfect environment to birth a Demonic beast he had heard about but had yet to personally encounter, a Devil Vine. It was a horrific Demonic beast that could drain the life-force and energy of other living beings and use it to fuel its own growth.
Most living beings would avoid even a weak Devil Vine, scared that it might drain away part of their lifeforce and lower their lifespan. The newborn Devil Vine shuddered slightly in response to Yao Jun’s words, joyful words echoing out in his mind. The Devil Vine was too young to even produce any sounds it could use to talk, so the God Gate had to use this method to allow them to communicate. Yao Jun nodded his head with a smile, giving the leaf a few more soft strokes.
“Alright, then from here on out you will be known as Yama. You can take your time and eat your fill here, you can meet the others later on after growing a bit.”
Yama, the greatest devil and the ruler of the ten courts of hell, was there a name more fitting to a being known as a Devil Vine? The sapling shuddered once more after being named, its roots wriggling slightly as they stretched further out to absorb more blood. Yao Jun stood up and placed several corpses right by Yama, vanishing from within the God Gate after he did so.
The birth of Yama ended up being the last outside event that Yao Jun had to focus on, allowing him to return to his leisure life of spending time with his family while occasionally cultivating. Time slowly passed in this manner, countless eyes pensively focusing on the planet and the black castle, anxiously awaiting the next move of Yao Jun.
But there were no moves from within the castle even after one and a half years passed, some people slowly starting to assume that Yao Jun had decided to hide away for a bit to ride out the storm that his previous actions caused. But two years after the destruction of God Piercer planet, a faint fluctuation rippled through space within the black castle, none of the observers noticing that the King of Demonic Deities had left his hibernation.