“You’re really bold—how dare you break into even the residence of Demon Lord Meiyan?”

Hearing the conversation of the demonic cultivators in front of him, Lin Mo was momentarily stunned. Had he really killed his way into Demon Lord Meiyan’s home territory? Along the way, he had been crazily harvesting the lives of many demonic cultivators, perhaps increasing his future regret value. He hadn’t expected that he got so carried away in the slaughter that he ended up here. But it didn’t matter—he had planned to come here anyway.

“Go call out your Demon Lord,” Lin Mo said.

“You—just you wait!” The demonic cultivator, knowing he was no match for the white-robed man before him, scurried into the residence with his tail between his legs. Lin Mo noticed that quite a few other demonic cultivators were still observing him from a distance. With a flash of his figure, he instantly appeared before them. Realizing his strength, this group of demonic cultivators—whose cultivation was below the Soul Splitting stage—immediately panicked and begged for mercy: “We’re just watching, that’s all—we didn’t mean anything else!”

Lin Mo smiled warmly. “Oh, so you’re just here for the drama.” Seeing his smile, the group all breathed a sigh of relief. But then his cold laugh echoed in their ears. “But you know, even watching isn’t allowed—watching is a crime too.” Many of the onlookers collapsed one after another. Their final thoughts before dying were simple: if they could do it over again, they would never choose to join the excitement.

The remaining onlookers, terrified by Lin Mo’s ruthlessness, hurriedly changed their excuse. “Um, I… we were just passing by.”

“Passing by?” Lin Mo sneered. “Even if you don’t know how to dance Love Like Fire, you still have to die.”

The demonic cultivators stared blankly—none of them even knew what Love Like Fire was. They died confused, their regret points credited, leaving Lin Mo very satisfied.

Just then, several surges of overwhelming demonic energy charged at him. As soon as he turned around, he was surrounded by five figures.

“Heaven has a path, yet you won’t walk it; hell has no gate, and you still force your way in,” one of them said coldly. “You really think no one from my Meiyan Clan can handle a little brat at the Divine Transformation stage like you?”

The speaker was a woman standing directly in front of Lin Mo. Clad in an ornate black armored battle robe, she radiated a domineering aura. The oppressive pressure she exuded far surpassed that of the other four, and with the distinct scar running across her face, Lin Mo had already guessed her identity.

“Demon Lord Meiyan?” he asked.

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Being able to see through my identity—you’ve got a decent eye.”

“It’s not that I have sharp eyes,” Lin Mo replied with a smile. “It’s just that my daughter told me—the one who tormented her—was an ugly woman with a scar on her face.”

At these words, Demon Lord Meiyan’s face filled with fury. The scar that ran from her forehead down to her chin had been inflicted during the great immortal-demon war a hundred years ago, left by a rogue cultivator who suddenly appeared in the midst of battle. As a demon, she should have been able to heal from any injury, even the loss of limbs, so long as she wasn’t dead. But that cultivator’s sword technique had carried a force akin to the laws of nature themselves, making the wound utterly irreparable.

“Deliberately provoking me—you really aren’t afraid of death, are you?” she snarled. Though her anger was clear, she did not immediately strike. Instead, she was still intent on questioning Lin Mo about the whereabouts of Yan Ruyu’s child.

“You say she’s your daughter… don’t tell me you’re really the man my cousin liked?”

Meiyan’s cousin was none other than Yan Ruyu. During this period, Lin Mo had heard quite a bit about Yan Ruyu from Qiqi. At the time, he was puzzled—since Yan Ruyu belonged to the Meiyan Clan, why, after the sealing of the Demon Realm’s Ancestor, wasn’t the clan given any special protection? Qiqi’s explanation was that after Ancestor Chu Tiange was sealed, in order to maintain balance in the Demon Realm, Yan Ruyu was not allowed to show favoritism toward any of the three major demon clans. Otherwise, if the balance were broken, chaos would erupt across the Demon Realm.

Moreover, from the moment Yan Ruyu was chosen as the Saintess, she could no longer be considered a member of the Meiyan Clan. If anything, she only obeyed the orders of Ancestor Chu Tiange.

Lin Mo admitted openly, “That’s right, I’m the one who left a lasting mark on your cousin. Any problem with that?”

“So, you’re here to save her?” Meiyan asked.

“You can think of it that way,” Lin Mo chuckled. “But strictly speaking, I’m here to collect a debt.”

“Oh? What kind of debt could you possibly collect?”

“A debt of love,” Lin Mo said. “Back when I was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, she took a liking to my good looks and talent, drugged me, and tried to do something improper to me. Now I’ve come to collect that debt—what’s the problem with that?”

Meiyan’s face darkened. “The way you’re saying it, it sounds like you were the one wronged?” Even she couldn’t stand listening anymore. To her, Lin Mo’s words were absolutely shameless. After all, Yan Ruyu was the Saintess of the Demon Realm, always known for her purity and innocence. No one in the entire Demon Realm had ever been worthy of being with her. For a mere Foundation Establishment runt like him to have had such fortune—it was clearly her cousin who lost out more.

Wait a minute… Now was not the time to be thinking about this kind of thing. “I almost let myself be thrown off-track by you, brat,” Meiyan muttered before returning to the main point. “I’ll give you a choice. Hand over your daughter to me, and have Yan Ruyu pass on the Saintess position to her. I can guarantee that your whole family of three will live safely and peacefully. Otherwise, you’ll die, and Yan Ruyu won’t have any good days ahead either.”

It did sound like a rather good offer. But handing Lin Xiang’er over to her would mean she’d continue to be forcefully mutated by demonic energy as she grew.

Just thinking about how his daughter had endured such prolonged inhuman torment, Lin Mo’s expression turned cold. “Since you brought this up, then there’s still a debt I need to settle with you. You were the one who forcefully injected my daughter with demonic energy, causing her to grow rapidly—weren’t you?”

Meiyan laughed. “What, I used up my own demonic energy for your daughter, and you don’t think you should be thanking me for that? And you even dared to scold me? You truly don’t know what’s good for you.” She waved her hand, signaling to the four demonic cultivators nearby. “Take it easy—don’t kill him.”

With that said, Demon Lord Meiyan vanished from the spot, heading toward the place where Yan Ruyu was imprisoned. She wanted Yan Ruyu to come and witness what this human looked like while being tortured. Of course, her true goal was to make them torment each other in front of one another, to see who would break first and accept her offer.

Inside an exquisitely furnished room, Yan Ruyu’s wrists and ankles were bound by enchanted demon chains. And that wasn’t all—her body was also pierced from behind by four pitch-black hooks, completely sealing off her demonic energy.

Ziiip—with a sharp sound, the door was flung open.

“My dear cousin, are you doing well?” Demon Lord Meiyan’s voice rang out in Yan Ruyu’s ears. Yan Ruyu lifted her head and looked toward Meiyan’s mocking face, calmly saying, “I will not pass on the Saintess position—you may leave now.”

“Cousin, I’m not here just for that,” Meiyan replied. “Did you know? That old flame of yours from the human Realm has come looking for you?”

Yan Ruyu frowned. “I have no such thing as an old flame in the human Realm.”

Meiyan chuckled. “Right, right—not your old flame. Just someone who once spent a spring night with you. For your sake, he even stormed into my residence.”

Yan Ruyu grew more suspicious. The first person who came to her mind was Lin Mo. But only two and a half years had passed—no matter how talented Lin Mo was, there was no way he could have gained the strength to break into Demon Lord Meiyan’s estate in such a short time. And aside from Lin Mo, she couldn’t think of anyone else. The people from the human realm were all her enemies, and it was impossible for them to enter the Demon Realm.

“I don’t know anyone like that,” Yan Ruyu said firmly. “If you’re trying to play tricks, save your breath.”

“Tsk, tsk, your precious daughter was rescued—by her own father, no less,” Meiyan teased before waving her hand dismissively. “Fine, if you don’t recognize him, forget it.”

But the moment Yan Ruyu heard that her daughter had been taken, her composure shattered. “What did you say?!” she demanded. She was even more unwilling to believe that person could be Lin Mo. Her daughter had never seen Lin Mo before, and Lin Mo had never seen her daughter—so how could she possibly recognize him? “Take me over there to see for myself.”

Meiyan smiled without answering, leading Yan Ruyu to where Lin Mo was being held. Silently, she calculated, “By this time, that human should have already been taken down. After all, his opponents are my four strongest true demons, each at the Divine Transformation stage. Even with heaven-defying talent, it would be useless. At the same realm, true demons can practically crush human cultivators. Unless a human possesses extraordinary talent and top-tier cultivation techniques and weapons, there’s no chance they could defeat a true demon in single combat.”

For this reason, Demon Lord Meiyan was certain that Lin Mo had already been subdued.

…Meanwhile, after Meiyan had left, the four true demons surrounding Lin Mo completely looked down on him. “Just a mere human—letting us act personally is giving him far too much credit.” After a quick discussion, they decided that only one demon would fight him.

“Human, the ones you killed were just some lowly demonic cultivators. They are fundamentally different from us true demons. To deal with you, it only takes me alone.”

Lin Mo knew that if he faced all four at once, he definitely wouldn’t come out unscathed. But if he eliminated one of them first, the pressure in the following battle would be greatly reduced. Seizing this opportunity, the moment he clashed with the true demon, he didn’t hold back—his demonic energy erupted in full force. With a single strike of the “Seven Killing Sword Technique,” he seriously wounded the true demon fighting him one-on-one, leaving it incapable of battle.

The other three demons were stunned when they saw Lin Mo radiating an immensely pure and overwhelming demonic aura.