In Nightfall Forest, Ouyang stared at a landscape he didn’t recognize, shadows pooled like ink, and doubt rose like cold mist in his chest. If not for several familiar auras drifting like lamp smoke, he’d have sworn he took the wrong path. He’d only been gone a while, yet this grim forest had shed its skin like a snake.
Annoyance first, decision second—he’d found the vampire job thankless, like hauling water in a sieve, so he’d cut it short and sprinted back like wind over reeds.
He followed the route in his memory, feet ticking on cobbles like rain on river stones, and saw both sides blooming with riotous color. Thick trees stood in neat ranks like soldiers, lining the road in living columns. The path was laid with rounded pebbles that gleamed like wet fish; every so often a stone pavilion rose like a resting crane, offering a cool perch.
What was this, had those guys been high on something, stars in their eyes and dust in their brains? Or had someone swept his base clean like a tide, then rebuilt it into this garden dream? If anyone told him the Demon Kings did this, he wouldn’t buy it—no way those troublesome bastards suddenly grew taste like a sculptor’s chisel.
One plant fiend only knew how to sow Man-eating Flowers across every slope like a bloody carpet, and one skeleton would pave avenues with bones like winter fences. In short, Ouyang trusted a summer snow more than he trusted their “genius.”
As time trickled like sand, he drew closer to a cluster of buildings rising like stone waves.
So many structures looked familiar, like old songs in a new key. That double‑headed eagle in crystal—wasn’t that the emblem of the Vaan Empire, gleaming like frost? Ouyang had heard the continent’s top empire kept one in its palace like a caged star. Was the statue before him a knockoff, a mirror image without a soul?
He stepped closer and felt time on it like moss; the crystal breathed a thousand years, not some cheap copy cut last month. Which idiot had nothing better to do than break into a palace and lug this thing here like a thief hauling a moon?
Farther out, a blaze of red trees burned like sunset. A Mapleleaf Grove. Nothing strange—until he saw the old caretaker moving under the boughs like a slow river. Ouyang had lived in Canopy City, had walked that Mapleleaf Grove, and had stamped that old man’s face into memory like a seal.
“Smart move,” he muttered, voice flat as a blade. “You move a whole Mapleleaf Grove, and without a caretaker it withers like silk in rain. So you grab the ‘butler’ too, and the leaves keep their fire.”
At the center of this “Demon King City,” a dreamlike fountain glittered like fish scales under the sun. On one stone pillar, an inscription said plainly it came from the Annan Principality, like a thief leaving his calling card.
“You idiots,” Ouyang hissed, anger like flint, “ever thought to erase the evidence?”
A wind sighed through like a cool hand, and several green leaves landed on his head like soft coins. He felt life humming in them like a heartbeat, looked west along their fall, and saw a colossal tree spearing the sky, hundreds of meters tall like a mountain’s spine. If he wasn’t wrong, that was the elves’ Tree of Life, a green flame against blue.
All right. He knew exactly what his lot had been up to while he was gone, like children left with matches.
Hand to his brow, Ouyang walked a road paved in obsidian that gleamed like night water, and he noticed a pattern: workers everywhere, a tide of busy ants. Humans, dwarves, elves—hands and tools moving like wings. Some raised houses like stacked clouds, some tended street trees like nurses with herbs, and some held paper and charcoal, sketching the town’s future like cartographers of tomorrow.
“Shorty, you. Over here.”
He waved at a dwarf plucking weeds from a street tree, fingers quick as sparrows. He wanted answers. The dwarf shot him a glare sharp as flint and ignored him like a stubborn rock. That tracked—dwarves hated the word “shorty” like smoke in the eyes, and the fact they didn’t swarm him with hammers meant their tempers were saintly today.
Ouyang saw a dwarf defy him and heat snapped like a bowstring; he flared his black wings, and black lightning crackled like thorny vines.
The dwarf read the sky at once; this was bad wind. With force like that, who else here but a Demon King?
“L‑Lord Demon King… please, stay your wrath,” he stammered, voice like clattering pebbles.
“Little shorty, talk,” Ouyang said, pointing around with a shadow like a spear. “I left for a while. What the hell is this? Explain it clean.”
Head down, sweat sliding like summer rain, the dwarf spilled what he knew drop by drop.
At first, the Demon Kings only moved over what looked good, cherry‑picking buildings and sights like magpies. That explained the Vaan Empire’s double‑headed eagle, the Mapleleaf Grove, the fountain—pretty trophies piled like shells.
But the heap of strange beauties warped the layout like mismatched tiles. Each piece shone, yet forced together they looked ugly, like pearls strung on rope.
So Wutong, the chief executive of Demon King City, proposed stealing talent from all races, ideas as sharp as knives. The Demon Kings thought it over—if they could kidnap a few weak creatures to serve them, to craft a better home like bees build comb, why not? At the seventh council of Demon King City, they voted yes with a thunderclap.
Hence the workers, hence this hive of hands and plans.
From the first blueprints, Ouyang could see it clear as water: Demon Kings in the center like a heart; workers’ housing circling outside like ribs. He strode back into his long‑absent castle, old stones smelling like rain, and shouted into the magic array, voice like a drum: “Meeting. Everyone, assemble!”
A few seconds later, noise spilled out like a market square.
“Meeting? I’m sleepy. I’ll nap first…” A pudgy voice rolled like dough. In Ouyang’s memory, that fat bastard ate or slept, nothing in between, tides in his belly, clouds in his head. In the Demon King crowd, he’d won the eating contest and the lazy‑pig nap contest, a double champion like a crowned pig, and no one even hated him for it.
“No time.” A cold voice cut like ice. Only the plant demon talked that blunt, like a thorn straight to skin.
“I’m underground hunting a Primordial Deity’s treasure,” another voice bragged, echoing like a tunnel. Ouyang didn’t need to think—had to be that burrowing snake, head like a spade.
They wouldn’t play along, and Ouyang’s wings snapped darker; black lightning crawled over him like storm serpents, and the two from the Hericot Clan stepped back several paces, fear like frost on their necks.
“So your wings got stiff, huh? Fine. All of you—meeting, now!” He thrust his hand into a black hole like a well and yanked out a snake, scales gritty as sand. He tossed it to the floor like a rope. He reached in again and dragged out a black skeleton, bone glossy as lacquer, twin green flames burning in its eye sockets like swamp lights.
“Mm—” He hauled out a woman with hair the color of fresh leaves, a twig circlet crowning her like spring, blossoms tangled on her head. Each flower opened a fanged maw, ready to swallow him whole like a wet pit.
As Ouyang kept fishing oddities from the dark like a fisherman of monsters, the Hericot siblings’ awe swelled like a tide in a moon‑pulled sea. They’d come to this world to seek help, and now they watched him yank horrors like chicks from a basket—his power shouted louder than war drums. The stronger Ouyang was, the stronger the Hericot Clan could stand, roots sunk deep.
“Quiet, all of you,” Ouyang said, voice soft as velvet, edge like steel. “If you’re pissed, raise your hand. I promise I won’t beat you to death.”
Grumbling froze like water at dawn. Wrapped in black lightning, wings spread like night, he cut a figure no one wanted to test.
“Boss, did you turn on cheats? This power…” The dark elf held a half‑eaten apple like a moon bite, and forgot to chew, eyes wide as saucers.
“This guy’s definitely hacked. Creator‑level, or near it,” the fat one muttered, rubbing his eyes like fog from glass. “They say creatures from the Other Shore are the Supreme Law’s beloved sons. Looks like that rumor’s got bones.”
Beloved son? Ouyang’s cheek twitched like a caught fish. No blood tie there, not even a strand of hair.
“Ahem. First, credit where it’s due. Wutong’s plan shaped our Demon King City like a potter shapes clay. Stop hauling trophies. Bring back skill. Wutong’s the model.”
“Small thing,” Wutong said, disdain cool as rain. “In front of this herd of idiots, nothing worth praising.” Her words drew hatred like a blade draws blood. The plant demon stared, clutching a bouquet whose mouths snapped like wolves at Wutong.
“I’ll turn you into fertilizer,” the plant demon said, scarlet pupils bleeding killing intent like spilled dye.
Wutong didn’t blink. An aged Oil Paper Umbrella bloomed in her hand like a pale flower, the tip aimed at the plant demon like a spear. “Flower fiend, want a magical cannon shot?”
They were a heartbeat from exploding like tinder. Ouyang snatched the Oil Paper Umbrella and tucked it away like a confiscated knife, then grabbed the Man-eating Flower and pitched it out the castle like tossing trash over a wall.
Outside the castle, the avenue ran straight as a blade. Dwarven master Tulu paced with worry like ants under his skin, thoughts still boiling after Ouyang’s stormy return. A human handed him a jug; he lifted it for a long drink like a parched ox.
A shadow fell from the sky like a hawk stooping, closer, clearer, heavier. Thud—an enormous Man-eating Flower smashed the obsidian road like a hammer through glass. Gods above, Tulu gaped; that was obsidian, hard as night. He jolted awake and ran like a rabbit.
“Run! That thing eats people!” a human shouted, legs already flashing like oars. He’d just watched it swallow a sheep like a dumpling.
Most scattered like leaves in a gale, but a few braced themselves like rocks in a stream and stood to fight the plant. They couldn’t beat the Demon Kings, sure—but lose to a Man-eating Flower that wasn’t even a named character?
“Move, avoid the front, hit the rear—no armor on its back!” a human snapped, voice turning into a commander’s drum. “Elves, get behind and cast! Dwarves and orcs, up front and pull its eyes!”
A rare scene bloomed like spring after snow. Races joined hands again, an old alliance rekindled like coals—just to bring down one Man-eating Flower.
