Jade-white towers and opulent halls soared into the sky, overlooking sprawling streets paved with bluestone slabs.
The city bustled with noise, its streets a ceaseless river of carriages and horses.
Merchants flocked here from all over, a testament to the ancient city’s prosperity.
Yongzhou was divided into Nine Mansions. The Yu Family presided over civil matters, while the Qi Family controlled the martial.
Among them, Anren Prefecture was under the jurisdiction of a Mountain God. Thus, within the Prefecture City, the sprawling Qiankun Academy in the city’s heart—with its red walls and green tiles—was held in higher esteem by visiting Cultivators than the stern and solemn branch office of the Demon-slaying Bureau.
Qiankun is another name for Yin and Yang.
The academy was split into two parts. The Qian Courtyard, representing Yang, was also known as the Martial Arts Academy. It gathered numerous experts to serve as instructors, and disciples from all families could enroll to further their training.
The Kun Courtyard, also called the Scholars’ Academy, was a place where all Immortal Descendants had to pass through before taking up official posts in the imperial court.
Here, they were to learn how to govern the people and serve as officials.
While they didn’t need to know how to handle mundane tasks, they had to at least understand the art of managing subordinates, lest they be deceived by them.
There wasn’t much interaction between the two academies, and the status of their students differed greatly.
But today, both the Immortal Descendants and the Cultivator Disciples wore strange expressions. Clutching copies of the prefecture gazette, they gathered in clumps of three to five beneath the ancient cypress trees. The clamor they made was so loud it carried over the red walls and green tiles to the long street outside.
Over the past ten-odd days, a series of seven or eight gazettes had gradually unveiled the truth behind the unusually tense atmosphere that had recently gripped Anren Prefecture.
"What those refugee Cultivators said was true. Yongzhou Pass has fallen."
"Those scoundrels from the Great Shun Dynasty! How dare they collude with Demon Evils and invade the territory of our Liang Kingdom!"
An Immortal Descendant student, his face contorted in anger, nearly crushed the newspaper in his hand.
A classmate beside him furrowed his brow. "Not only did they brutally murder Immortal Qiheng, but they also renamed Yongzhou Pass to Dragon Ridge? The audacity!"
"The Yu Family’s Mountain God Mirror is lost, too."
"Those constables posted the new Demon Slayer List. A Great Demon in the Border Region has been elevated to a Monarch! His title is Moon-Devouring!"
As soon as these words were spoken, the Qian Courtyard students erupted in an uproar.
A Great Demon Sealing Monarch! This meant it had attained Golden Core Demon Power and would soon bring disaster upon the mortal world!
Fear appeared on their faces. They all hurried toward the spirit screen at the academy’s entrance and looked up at the newly posted list.
This was the main Demon Slayer List. It recorded over a hundred names, and forget Scattered Demons, even ordinary Demon Generals could hardly get on it.
Even the very last spot on the list belonged to the top warrior serving under some Demon Monarch.
Because of this, the Demon Slayer List rarely changed. The last update had been several years ago.
At the very top remained the two glaring, scarlet names: Yuan Yuan and Su Xin.
But below these two Demon Kings, three unfamiliar names had suddenly shot up, pushing down the ranks of the other Demon Monarchs.
"..."
Seeing this, the many Immortal Descendants held their breath in unison, their faces filled with dread.
Every Demon Monarch had committed heinous crimes.
However, compared to these three brazenly seizing the pass, those past crimes seemed like mere squabbles.
This was the first time the Demon Evils of Yongzhou had truly invaded the territory of an Immortal Family—and they had actually succeeded in conquering it!
"Cloud Dragon Demon Monarch... isn’t that the one who fled the Liang Kingdom in disgrace after being severely wounded by Immortal Qiheng years ago?"
"I heard this Demon Monarch Hong Ling is a demon from the Shun Dynasty. Why have those two suddenly come to Yongzhou?!"
The crowd’s gazes fixed on the last name. "I know this one. It’s a local Great Demon from Yongzhou. A while ago, the Demon-slaying Bureau sent troops to the Border Region specifically to eliminate this fiend, but they returned in utter defeat. I heard six Vice Generals died in the Border Region, their bodies never recovered."
"It was most likely that one. Worried about the Demon-slaying Bureau holding a grudge, it called for reinforcements from the Great Shun."
"The Moon-Devouring Demon Monarch is the main culprit!"
The Border Region was simply too far from the Nine Mansions, and far too barren.
To these Immortal Descendants, even if they had once gone there for their trials, those were just a few insignificant years in their long lives. The memories had long since faded.
Their anger stemmed more from the fact that the prestige of the Immortal Families had been challenged.
"If you ask me, we should just kill all those Trial Disciples who fled back! It must be because they ran away in disgrace and shook the army’s morale that the Border Region was lost!"
"Shh! Watch your words! Don’t let that new Vice Mountain Master Yu from the Martial Arts Academy hear you."
"The new Vice Mountain Master, with the surname Yu... You mean that Yu Sheng?!" The Immortal Descendant who spoke looked astonished.
The Qiankun Academy had one Mountain Master, a Junior Fourth-Grade Official, whose status was equivalent to the local Prefect.
Beneath the Mountain Master were eight Vice Mountain Masters, four for each of the Scholars’ and Martial Arts Academies. They received a Fifth Grade stipend and could be considered major figures in Anren Prefecture, powerful enough to blot out the sky with one hand.
In Yongzhou Pass, this position was equivalent to the City Lord.
But what kind of impoverished place was the Border Region? Even if the status was equivalent, how could it possibly compare to the prosperous Anren Prefecture?
"The Demon-slaying Bureau sent people to interrogate them, but all two hundred of those disciples hyped her up as if she were an Immortal God descended to the mortal world. The Yu Family seized the opportunity to build momentum, publicizing her achievements throughout the city. They clearly wanted to elevate her to the position of the Yu Family’s Celestial Pride. That’s how she became a Vice Mountain Master of the Martial Arts Academy."
"But in my opinion, if she doesn’t have the real skills to back it up, the higher they raise her now, the harder she’ll fall later."
The Immortal Descendants from the various families whispered among themselves.
It was well known that the Scholars’ Academy was mostly filled with Immortal Descendants, making it more like a private study where they simply attended lectures. The Vice Mountain Masters there were also mostly acting Civil Servants from the court.
But the Martial Arts Academy was different. Disciples from all the major families gathered there.
It had been established by the Yu Family specifically to rival the Qi Family’s Demon-slaying Bureau.
In addition to training under their seniors, the students there were also responsible for assisting the Demon-slaying Bureau in its operations, which was how their performance was judged.
Anren Prefecture had jurisdiction over sixteen large counties and more than forty small counties.

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