Chapter 1: The Demon God Falls… And Falls Further
The sky tore open.
Black lightning split the heavens as if the world itself had grown tired of its own hypocrisy. Mountains wept molten rock. Oceans frothed like beasts in pain. And in the heart of the battlefield, where the spiritual energy of the Three Realms clashed, a figure stood cloaked in obsidian flames.
Demon God Qi Feng—undisputed ruler of ten thousand fiends, corrupter of saints, slayer of celestial beasts.
His crimson eyes burned with fury as he faced them: the so-called righteous, trembling behind divine seals and borrowed courage. The Celestial Emperor, the Azure Dragon Sage, the Empress of Reincarnation… and a thousand trembling cultivators who once groveled before him.
"Qi Feng," the Emperor thundered, his golden spear glowing with laws of heaven. "Your reign ends today."
Qi Feng sneered, blood dripping from the corner of his lips as he flung a shattered divine halberd aside. "Ends? You worms couldn't end my nap, let alone my reign."
And then, he laughed.
It was a sound that made infants cry and dragons roll over in their graves.
He raised a single finger, already cracked with divine backlash, and pointed toward the sky. "When I rise again… and I will rise… I'll burn your heavens down to their last sacred scroll, and make the stars weep my name."
The Empress of Reincarnation moved first. Her lotus seal pierced through his chest.
The Dragon Sage followed—divine chains, forged from the bones of heaven's beasts, wrapped around his limbs.
The Celestial Emperor came last. He drove the spear of judgment into Qi Feng's heart.
Black and gold exploded across the world.
Qi Feng roared, the sound stretching across dimensions. Planets cracked. Spirits wailed. Time wept.
Then silence.
Sealed.
Buried.
Forgotten.
---
A thousand years passed.
A thousand years of emptiness, where only darkness and fragments of his soul whispered to one another. Time dulled the agony, but never the hatred.
Within the seal, Qi Feng meditated. Not for enlightenment. No, enlightenment was for sages.
He meditated to cheat the system.
To slither, claw, and rip even a fraction of himself out of the chains forged by heaven.
And then, after eons of nothingness—
Crack.
A breach.
A thread of consciousness slipped into the mortal realm, piercing through the veil.
---
Pain.
So much pain.
Qi Feng gasped, choking on… was that ginger water?
He sat up violently—only to be immediately blinded by sunlight and fall back, groaning.
The world spun.
Birds chirped.
A faint smell of tiger balm and failed ambition hung in the air.
"What… the hell…"
"Young master! You're alive!" a panicked voice cried.
Qi Feng's eyes slowly focused on a trembling youth in servant robes, eyes wide like saucers. "I—I'll go fetch the physician!"
"No," Qi Feng rasped, holding up a hand. "Wait."
His voice. Gods. It sounded like a drunk squirrel.
He touched his throat.
Slim.
Delicate.
Soft.
Where was his power? His divine core? His bone-deep might?
He tried summoning even a wisp of spiritual energy. What came instead was a noise that could only be described as a particularly judgmental fart of Qi.
And then, the memories hit.
Like a karmic donkey kick to the soul.
Seventeen years old. Qi Feng. Illegitimate son of Sect Leader Qi Zheng. Weak. Stupid. Mocked by elders. Bullied by juniors. Had failed the basic cultivation test four times. Couldn't even light a spiritual lamp.
Also… widely rumored to be a cut-sleeve.
"Oh… you've got to be kidding me," the Demon God whispered.
This was the vessel fate gave him?
A good-for-nothing, gossip magnet with the spiritual strength of a dead turnip?
"Are you feeling well, Young Master?" the servant asked, nervously wringing his hands.
Qi Feng turned to him slowly, eyes narrowed. "What's your name?"
"Li Bao, Young Master."
Qi Feng tilted his head.
"I feel like you're the kind of guy who gets slapped a lot."
Li Bao blinked. "Pardon?"
"Never mind."
Qi Feng threw off the thin quilt and stood, wobbled, and promptly collapsed like a soggy dumpling. Li Bao caught him with a yelp.
He could barely stand.
He, the Demon God of the Crimson Abyss, conqueror of realms, was now… being cradled like a toddler by a servant named Li Bao.
"I demand a refund," Qi Feng muttered.
"Pardon?"
"I said fetch me clothes. I need to bathe. And then I need to find a mirror and scream."
---
Half an hour later, after a humiliating bath, multiple existential crises, and one nearly traumatic encounter with a sentient comb, Qi Feng finally managed to drag his pale, undernourished body to the sect's outer courtyard.
His legs trembled like a new foal's. His hair was wet. His robe was too large.
And still, he walked.
Because if there was one thing Qi Feng knew how to do, it was walk like a god—even in the body of a twinkish disaster.
But as soon as he turned the corner, he heard it.
Snickering.
"Hey, look. The Young Master's out of bed. Maybe he finally cultivated a full cycle… after seventeen years."
"Be nice. Maybe he's just looking for a husband."
More laughter.
Qi Feng stopped.
He turned.
Two disciples, both in outer sect uniforms, blinked at him. One looked sheepish. The other, cocky.
"You," Qi Feng said, voice low.
The cocky one grinned. "Yes, Young Master?"
"You ever been set on fire?"
"…What?"
Qi Feng smiled.
It was not a friendly smile.
It was the kind of smile that made phoenixes molt prematurely.
Then he pointed a finger at the ground.
There was a faint pop.
And then…
Nothing.
The smug disciple blinked. "Was that supposed to—"
BOOM.
The ground erupted beneath him, launching him into the sky in a shower of dust and flaming leaves. His companion screamed and ran.
Qi Feng blinked at his own hand. "Huh. Still got it."
He then promptly passed out face-first into a bush.
---
When he woke again, it was night.
Candles flickered beside his bed. Li Bao sat nearby, chewing on a sweet bun and humming.
"You blew up the Fifth Elder's garden," Li Bao said helpfully. "And burned a disciple's pants off."
Qi Feng groaned into the pillow. "Tell him it was a failed alchemy experiment. Blame it on bad herbs."
"Already done. Also…" Li Bao leaned in. "There's something strange."
"What now?"
"The prestigious exchange disciple from the Heavenward Sword Sect came to visit you."
Qi Feng raised a brow. "Who?"
"Jin Xian. You know… that guy with the perfect face, deadly sword aura, cold personality, and enough inner pride to choke a golden dragon?"
Qi Feng searched the new body's memories.
Ah. That Jin Xian.
He remembered a distinct image of Jin Xian looking at "him" as one might look at a pile of rotting tofu.
"What does he want?" Qi Feng muttered.
"That's the thing," Li Bao said, eyes wide. "He… smiled at you."
Qi Feng sat up.
"What."
"And he called you—get this—'Ah Feng.'"
Qi Feng froze.
"Then he said, and I quote, 'If you're feeling unwell, I can personally assist your recovery.' And he left… a peach blossom."
Qi Feng stared into the void.
The Demon God had faced armies. Slain gods. Eaten a realm.
But nothing had prepared him for this.
"…I just woke up in a twink's body, in a sect full of idiots, and now a cold-hearted sword freak wants to feed me fruit?"
Li Bao nodded solemnly.
Qi Feng sank back into the bed, covered his face with the pillow, and screamed.