After an unknown amount of time, Chu Yang slowly woke up. At this moment, his limbs were all bound by chains, and these chains were not ordinary; they were infused with extremely dense laws of power.
Like shackles of heaven and earth, they possessed terrifying power.
Breaking free was undoubtedly extremely difficult.
Chu Yang remained calm, first raising his head to look at the surroundings.
He was in a very dark cave, with a few weak rays of sunlight penetrating through the rock crevices.
The environment was extremely damp, the ground full of puddles, and a nauseating stench permeated the air.
Looking deeper into the cave, there was a man in a black robe, currently with his back to Chu Yang.
The man did not turn around but suddenly spoke, "Awake?"
The man's voice was deep, as if it contained the vicissitudes of life, filled with a sense of weight.
Chu Yang looked at him, expressionless, and asked, "We don't seem to know each other. Why have you imprisoned me?"
There was not a trace of panic on Chu Yang's face, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
His demeanor appeared relaxed, as if he were not imprisoned here but rather resting and could leave at any time.
At this moment, the man turned around.
His face was very resolute, looking like a middle-aged man, with an innate aura of authority, lofty and overlooking all beings.
Looking at Chu Yang, he said, "I am Liu Changsheng, the leader of the Demon Sect."
"People generally call me the Demon Emperor, but these are just titles and are not important."
"Our Demon Sect has been watching you for a long time."
Liu Changsheng did not explain Chu Yang's question but continued speaking on his own.
After speaking, he kept looking at Chu Yang's expression, as if wanting to see what kind of reaction Chu Yang would have.
However, when Chu Yang saw that the other party had no intention of answering his question, he remained silent.
It seemed that he did not care much about why the Demon Sect had imprisoned him.
Time passed slowly.
After a long while.
Liu Changsheng seemed to be the first to lose patience and slowly stood up.
His somewhat handsome face was covered with a beard, and his sword-like brows and starry eyes seemed to always carry a hint of worry.
This made him look full of the sense of time's trials.
He no longer looked at Chu Yang but stood up and walked to the mouth of the cave, gazing at the world outside, and spoke slowly.
"In your childhood, your village was massacred, and your parents died in that catastrophe, leaving you to struggle for survival with your younger sister. After much hardship, when you finally achieved cultivation, your sister had an accident, and you gave her the Supreme Bone, a divine artifact."
"You returned to the mortal world and coincidentally met Nie Fengyun. The two of you became sworn brothers. Later, you joined a sect and, with your supreme sword heart, became a Sword Sovereign. However, for Nie Fengyun, you willingly destroyed your sword heart and even severed your arm."
"In the snow, you encountered a little fox. You saved each other and ventured into the desolate forbidden land, enduring many hardships. You barely managed to lift her curse, but she still tragically died. To save her, you braved the river of time, protecting a trace of her true spirit in the river of time, successfully bringing her back to life, but losing your Great Emperor's cultivation and the fortune of heaven."
"Later, you met Shaoguang and bore everything for the human race and her. To protect Shaoguang, you even abandoned your Dao fruit."
After finishing, Liu Changsheng's gaze finally turned back to Chu Yang.
What puzzled Liu Changsheng was that despite revealing so many secrets, the other party's face remained completely unmoved, without a hint of surprise.
This left him baffled, unable to resist the urge to peek into Chu Yang's mind to understand what he was thinking.
After all, logically speaking, if someone woke up to find themselves imprisoned and heard their entire life's details recounted by someone else, even a quasi-emperor would be shaken to the core.
Even an emperor would surely be momentarily stunned in such a situation.
But Chu Yang was now merely a mortal. Without the composure of a strong cultivator, how could he remain so unfazed? It was as if Liu Changsheng was recounting the life of someone entirely unrelated to Chu Yang, with such calmness.
This prompted Liu Changsheng to ask, "Aren't you curious?"
"Aren't you curious why I brought you here and imprisoned you?"
Chu Yang's expression remained calm, simply watching the other quietly, as if waiting for him to continue.
Seeing Chu Yang's demeanor made Liu Changsheng wonder who was truly imprisoned here.
After a moment of silence, Liu Changsheng spoke again, "After your village was massacred, you arrived at a small town. Did you encounter a frail cultivator who entrusted something to you?"
"That object is the 'Mountains and Rivers State Chart, the Celestial Book Scroll'."
"The Mountains and Rivers State Chart is a sacred relic of our Demon Sect, divided into three scrolls. I brought you here hoping you would return the Celestial Book Scroll to the Demon Sect."
"After all, the Celestial Book Scroll contains a method of cultivating the Heavenly Dao. Now that you can no longer cultivate the Heavenly Dao, the Celestial Book Scroll holds no meaning for you."
Outside the Celestial Emperor's Mirror.
When someone of Liu Changsheng's stature mentioned the Celestial Book Scroll, the gathered cultivators were stunned.
They had suspected the authenticity of that Celestial Book Scroll. After all, the three ancient scrolls of the Mountains and Rivers State Chart were artifacts that could incite fierce battles even in the immortal realm.
Especially the Celestial Book Scroll, which had been missing for many years, with no one able to find its traces.
But to think that the Emperor obtained this scroll in his youth, a scroll that could drive all cultivators mad, how could they accept this? "It seems the Celestial Book Scroll obtained by the Emperor from the mortal world might actually be genuine!"
"Perhaps the Mountains and Rivers State Chart conceals some enormous secret!"
The eyes of all the cultivators grew fervent. If it were useless, why would the leader of the Demon Sect, a Demon Emperor, personally seek it out?
They were filled with curiosity about this.
The mystery of the three books had always troubled all cultivators on the Ten Thousand Spirit Continent.
A cultivator frowned and said, "But why does the Demon Emperor know so much about the massacre of the Emperor's village in his youth?"
If it were about the later events, they could understand, but that was decades ago.
At that time, the Emperor was merely a child and had not shown any remarkable traits. How could he have drawn the attention of a figure like the Demon Emperor?
It was evident that the Demon Emperor had been paying attention to the Emperor from a very early age.
To read the manga version, please click the YouTube link https://youtu.be/Jw-q2euGywY