Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

The sky in the heart of the demonic lands of southern Xinjiang is red.

It wasn't the red of the setting sun, but the ochre-red of the entire sky, stained by demonic energy seeping from the ground. The clouds hung low like congealed blood, pressing down less than a hundred feet above people's heads.

As Xiang Yutian took his first step onto this land, the cracks on the iron staff lit up for a moment, and the staff emitted a faint sucking sound, as if it were swallowing the remaining demonic energy in the air.

The Burial Emperor and others were at the entrance.

He stood on the ruins of a half-collapsed demon tower, his black robe and hood hanging down to his chest, obscuring his expression. Behind him, the remaining forces of the Black Tide had retreated three miles away, leaving the entire demon territory as empty as if it had been cleared out.

"You've come." The voice of the Burial Emperor came from under his hood, hoarse but steady.

"You know why I came."

Dongfang Weiwo stepped across the demonic-infused ground, leaving a trail of ashes that parted to either side, like the sea being cleaved open by an invisible ship's prow. Xiang Yutian followed half a step behind him, while Ximen Chuixue patrolled ten feet to the right, and Ye Gucheng guarded the path they had come from.

The Emperor of Burial raised his hand and lifted his hood.

His face was thinner than it had been seven days ago, his cheekbones high and sharp, and a not-yet-fully-healed gash ran from his left eye socket to his cheekbone—a cut inflicted by shards of debris when the alien starship crashed. He looked at Dongfang Weiwo, a near-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"You carved 'owed.' I admit it. But the Black Tide only has a little over ten thousand left, and seven or eight out of ten of the demon bloodline are gone. You can take the seventh bone—"

He took out a bone box from his robes, forged from black iron, its surface covered with dark red sealing patterns. "But I can't open this box. You can take it, I won't stop you. But after you take it—"

"Then you have one request," Dongfang Weiwo finished speaking for him.

The Emperor of Burial paused for a moment, then nodded.

"The rift," he said. "The ancient array rift deep within the heart of the demon realm. I guarded the demon realm for seven hundred years, always believing it to be a passage connecting to the depths of the demon world."

"Seven days ago, in that battle, the rift opened up three inches, and the aura seeping out—" His Adam's apple bobbed, "wasn't demonic energy. It was much older than demonic energy. After it seeped out, most of the demonic plants within a hundred-mile radius of my demonic territory withered and died. That thing was 'feeding' demonic energy."

He took a step towards the east, holding the black iron bone box flat in his palm: "You took the seventh bone, so tell me what's in that crack. Fair."

Dongfang Weiwo stared at the bone box in his palm for three breaths.

The bones inside the ossuary began to resonate when he was within three feet of them—pulsating in sync with the six remaining bones inside his body, like the last piece of a puzzle calling for its return.

Without hesitation, he reached out and took the bone box. The sealing patterns crumbled into ash the moment they touched his fingertips, the lid popped open, and a complete right shinbone lay quietly inside, its surface engraved with dark gold patterns of the same origin as the key seal.

The moment he grasped the shinbone, the key seal in his dantian suddenly accelerated its rotation. The entire southern border trembled, and a crack suddenly appeared in the reddish-brown sky, letting in light.

"I'll tell you what's inside the crevice."

Dongfang Weiwo incorporated the tibia into his body—the feeling of the seventh bone fragment merging was more intense than the previous six. The ground beneath his feet caved in by half an inch, and his entire skeleton emitted a dense creaking sound, like all the gears of a lock meshing into place at the same time.

The moment his lower body skeleton was completed, he clearly "saw" for the first time the complete skeletal outline of his body—from the skull to the coccyx, from the left shoulder to the right shin, the entire divine and demonic skeleton fit together perfectly, with dark gold patterns spreading throughout his body like tree roots.

All the remains have been collected.

The key seal suddenly paused in the center of his dantian. Then it began to rotate in reverse.

Xiang Yutian braced himself against the ground with his iron staff, his expression slightly changing: "Young Master—"

"Don't move." Dongfang Weiwo's voice was forced out through clenched teeth, calm but tense. "It's twisting."

Twist. As the old man of the heavens said, "Twist it to the last turn."

The key seal reversed slowly, but each rotation produced a dull creaking sound deep within the bones, like the springs of a giant lock being pressed into their slots one by one.

The air around his body began to distort, and within three feet of him, the space was like a crumpled piece of paper that was slowly smoothed out—clear "creases" appeared on the smoothed-out edges.

The creases were translucent, beyond which lay the ochre-red sky of the demon realm's heartland, and within which was a pure void.

The Emperor of Burial took five steps back.

He stared at the expanding void rift within three feet of Dongfang Weiwo, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints. That was the thing surging from the depths of the rift he had guarded for seven hundred years—the same aura as the "door" that was now opening around Dongfang Weiwo.

"Is that crack in the door?"

The Emperor of Burial's voice changed, "You—you're opening the door—"

"Yes." Dongfang Weiwo closed his eyes. When the key seal rotated to the seventh circle, his entire skeleton simultaneously emitted a crisp sound as if an iron lock had snapped open. The sound was extremely clear, like someone had flicked the bolt of a massive lock back into its slot.

The sound echoed for miles around, and all the rubble on the ruins of the Demon Tower simultaneously floated up.

The door opened.

A vertical crack appeared in the void three feet in front of him. The crack was less than a palm's width wide, with smooth, mirror-like edges, and deep within the mirror-like surface was an endless, dark golden void.

At the very instant the rift opened—a beam of white light shot out from the depths of the rift, like a javelin that had been thrown for a thousand years finally reaching the bullseye, carrying a fierce wind from the void, and crashing straight into Dongfang Weiwu's chest.

The eighth piece.

The arm that first flew from Baidi City into the void—the "eye" that Lu Moshen had been guarding inside for a hundred years—returned following the light through the crack in the door.

As it crashed into his body, his entire right arm, from head to fingertips, was covered by a layer of dark gold shell, with bone patterns spreading to the back of his hand, extending from his palm to the tips of his fingers. With the last piece of the puzzle in place, the entire divine and demonic skeleton was finally complete.

When Dongfang Weiwo opened his eyes, something appeared for the first time in his empty gray pupils—a very faint dark gold vortex, slowly rotating in the center of his pupils, synchronized with the key seal in his dantian.

Three breaths. First breath.

He reached out his hand towards the void rift before him. Something moved in the dark golden depths of the void opposite the rift—a pair of eyes. Those eyes were larger than an alien starship, the outline of an entire continent reflected in their pupils, the edges of which burned with black and red flames.

The owner of those eyes was rapidly approaching the rift from the depths of the void, so fast that the space on both sides of the rift emitted a glass-like shriek.

Lu the Demon God.

Or rather, "that person" who has been waiting across this door for a hundred years.

With a flick of his wrist, Dongfang Weiwo channeled the power of the divine and demonic skeleton, which had been completely fused into the entire skeleton, into his right arm—the key imprint materialized in his palm into a dark gold short sword, one foot and three inches long, with nine hundred and ninety-nine ancient array patterns on the blade lighting up simultaneously.

He held the sword in reverse, not thrusting it out of the crack, but instead "stabbing" it into the void three inches in front of him.

Second breath.

The moment the sword tip pierced the edge of the "door frame," the entire crack let out a roar like a giant beast. Dark golden void winds surged wildly from the crack, and the crack closed inward at a visible speed.

But those enormous eyes had already approached the crack—a giant hand covered in black and red scales emerged from the crack, its five fingers outstretched, reaching for Dongfang Weiwo's head. The pattern on the palm was a distorted ancient array diagram, of the same origin as the Dark Gold Giant Shadow, but mirrored in reverse.

Snapped.

Dongfang Weiwo raised his left arm and clasped the middle finger of the giant hand with his five fingers.

His complete divine and demonic skeleton exerted its power simultaneously—spine, ribs, arms, legs, every bone instantly unleashing the power accumulated over ten thousand years.

The moment the giant hand was gripped by his five fingers, the mirrored ancient array in the palm began to shatter from the outer edge, like a bronze mirror struck by a heavy hammer, with cracks spreading deep into the palm.

The reflection in those eyes—the outline of that burning continent—darkened the moment he clenched his fist. A long, disappointed, weary sigh echoed from the depths of the rift.

Then Lu Moshen's voice came from the crack, hoarse, aged, and weathered by a century of hardship: "...You locked it fast enough. Good."

The crack closed.

The third breath has ended.

Dongfang Weiwo released his left arm, and the remaining fragments of black and red scales on his fingertips burned to ash in the air. The space in front of him returned to flatness, and the ochre-red sky of the demon realm lowered again. All the suspended pebbles fell back to the ground at the same time, making a torrential downpour-like sound.

He straightened up and looked down at his hands.

The dark gold outer shell on his right arm slowly faded, revealing the perfectly intact skin beneath. But deep within the bones, it was clearly visible—eight pieces of divine and demonic remains were completely fused together, the entire skeleton resembling a silent city, the latch already back in its slot, the city gates tightly shut.

The key seal stopped rotating in his dantian, hanging steadily in the center, like a key that had been turned into a lock and no longer needed.

The door is locked.

But the moment he breathed a sigh of relief—the ground beneath his feet vanished.

It wasn't a collapse, it vanished. The ground in the heart of the demon realm where he stood suddenly transformed into a transparent mirror of void, reflecting another world beneath it. In that world, nine suns hung simultaneously in the sky, mountains hung upside down like stalactites, and rivers flowed upstream towards the heavens.

Everything was completely contrary to the laws of the Tianxuan Continent beneath his feet.

He looked down at the world reflected in the mirror, and the complete divine and demonic skeleton within his body suddenly emitted a long resonance—the resonance did not come from the bones themselves, but from all the "locked" power within the skeleton.

The lock closed, but something deep inside the lock cylinder was "popped" out, pushing the entire lock, along with him, into the world beneath the mirror.

Xiang Yutian's shout came from overhead, growing fainter and fainter: "Young Master—"

Dongfang Weiwo raised his head. He saw Xiang Yutian's iron staff reach into the void mirror, trying to grab him, but the mirror shattered into billions of light points at his feet, and those light points carried him as he fell downwards.

Passing through the ochre-red sky of the demon realm's heartland, through the ancient array barrier once laid down by the dark gold giant, through the "shell" watched by the gaze of the outer realms, downward, downward, sinking into a world with completely opposite laws.