The silence thickens, and from that mont, the course of everything begins to change.
Xue Rong is placed within the palace soon after, her status declared as his concubine without room for refusal.
Li Xuanyi watches the arrangent unfold without objection, yet his thoughts move far beyond what is shown.
He understands clearly that his stepmother has no intention of retreating.
Her move is not desperation, but escalation.
She has chosen her path, and that path leads directly toward his death.
So he makes his decision without hesitation.
If she wishes to kill him, then he will kill her first.
And once that thought settles, another follows naturally behind it.
If one must die, then many can die as well.
There is no reason to stop at a single target.
The court is filled with those who balance power against him.
Ministers, factions, hidden alliances, all of them form a net that restrains him.
So he decides to tear that net apart completely.
He will remove every powerful minister in a single stroke.
When he finishes, the court will belong entirely to him.
No opposition, no hesitation, no second voice.
If he declares the sun rises from the west, then the court will agree without question.
And from that mont, he begins to plan.
Every step is calculated, every movent placed carefully into position.
During this ti, he continues to visit Xue Rong.
But those visits are no longer the sa.
Where once there was silence and quiet presence, now there is cold distance.
He punishes her, not with cruelty that breaks the body, but with humiliation that scars the spirit.
His words grow sharp, his tone distant, his actions deliberate.
Each mont becos a reminder of what he believes to be betrayal.
Deep within him, another voice exists, faint yet persistent.
The remnants of his past life tell him this is wrong.
That she is also a victim, caught within a sche beyond her control.
But he suppresses that voice without rcy.
This is not Earth.
This is not a place where kindness ensures survival.
If he shows softness, others will see weakness.
If betrayal goes unpunished, then betrayal will multiply.
So he continues, forcing himself to beco what the throne demands.
Yet even in that cold resolve, a line remains unbroken.
He is careful, always careful, never allowing harm to reach her womb.
Ending the child would remove a future threat entirely.
But he does not cross that boundary.
He cannot bring himself to destroy his own blood.
Instead, he makes another decision.
When the child is born, it will be sent away.
Raised far from the palace, far from power, far from danger.
A life outside the reach of his enemies.
Ti passes beneath the weight of preparation and hidden tension.
At seventeen, a few months into the year, the child is born.
A son.
The mont arrives quietly, without celebration, without announcent to the wider court.
Xue Rong grows weak after the birth, her strength drained, her body fragile.
Li Xuanyi stands beside her, watching in silence.
Sothing shifts within him, sothing he does not expect.
Sympathy rises, uninvited and unwelco.
The cold distance he maintained begins to fracture.
Without speaking of it, he starts to care for her.
He ensures she receives proper treatnt, proper rest, and proper protection.
His presence lingers longer, his tone softens slightly, though never openly.
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Then the new year arrives.
The palace fills with celebration, lights, music, and carefully arranged joy.
Officials gather, nobles present themselves, and the entire court prepares for the ceremony.
Li Xuanyi walks toward the throne room, his steps steady, his expression composed.
Then the attack cos.
It strikes without warning, swift and precise.
Blades erge, figures move, intent clear and deadly.
But they fail.
Li Xuanyi responds instantly, his body moving with controlled violence.
Each attacker falls before him, their lives ending in monts.
Blood stains the ground, spreading quickly beneath the chaos.
Yet the attack does not end there.
Flas begin to rise across the palace complex.
Fire spreads rapidly, devouring structures, turning celebration into disaster.
Smoke fills the air, screams echo, and order collapses into panic.
News spreads quickly, reaching every corner of the palace.
His stepmother arrives, along with Shen Guozhen and several powerful ministers.
They co in haste, drawn by the chaos and the opportunity within it.
But for Li Xuanyi, this mont is exactly what he has been waiting for.
Without hesitation, he strikes.
His blade moves through them without warning, swift and rciless.
Shock freezes their expressions, disbelief lingering in their final monts.
The chaos of the fire becos his shield.
Bla shifts easily, hidden beneath confusion and destruction.
By the ti the flas begin to settle, everything has changed.
The court is broken.
Power is his.
But as the night deepens, another report reaches him.
Xue Rong is gone.
His son is gone.
They vanished amidst the chaos, leaving behind no trace.
For the first ti, sothing unsettles him.
He sends out search parties imdiately, spreading across the capital and beyond.
Days pass, then weeks.
No sign.
No information.
Nothing.
And slowly, the search fades into silence.
After that day, he ruled the kingdom alone.
His authority becos absolute, unquestioned, unchallenged.
Months pass beneath his rule.
Then disaster strikes from the south.
Famine spreads across the coastal provinces, crops failing, hunger rising.
At the sa ti, from the eastern desert, nomadic tribes begin their assault.
War and hunger arrive together, pressing against his kingdom from both sides.
Li Xuanyi chooses to act.
He leads the army himself, marching toward the eastern border.
Battle after battle unfolds beneath his command.
He crushes the nomadic tribes with relentless precision.
Victory follows him, undeniable and absolute.
Yet each ti he returns, he is drenched in blood.
Not just the enemy’s blood, but the image of destruction that surrounds him.
Rumours begin to spread among the people.
They whisper that their king is not human.
They call him a demon.
He does not respond.
The eastern threat ends, but the famine deepens.
Food grows scarce, and the kingdom begins to strain under the pressure.
At nineteen, he makes another decision.
He passes a law to open the sea.
He orders that fish from the ocean be caught and consud.
The court erupts in opposition.
The people resist with fear and belief.
They say the sea is cursed, its salt a mark of demonic corruption.
They believe consuming its creatures invites disaster.
Li Xuanyi ignores all of it.
He enforces the law without compromise.
Fishing begins despite resistance, spreading slowly across the coast.
It eases the famine, though not completely.
But sothing else grows stronger.
The belief that their king is truly a demon.
And he allows it.
Li Xuanyi understands one truth clearly: once a rumour takes root, proving it false becos nearly impossible.
The more one denies it, the deeper it spreads.
So he does not deny it.
He embraces it.
If they call him a demon, then he will beco the demon they fear.
He turns the na into a weapon.
Within the court, his presence grows colder, sharper, more oppressive.
Ministers who hesitate find themselves crushed beneath his decisions.
Those who resist reforms are singled out, exposed, and destroyed without rcy.
He uses fear to force change where reason fails.
He pushes reform after reform, altering systems that have remained unchanged for generations.
Yet progress cos slowly.
Resistance remains constant, hidden within tradition and noble influence.
Through ruling the court, he cos to understand his true enemies.
It is not the common people who oppose him.
It is the noble families, those who benefit from the current order.
Their wealth, their influence, their control over land and resources.
They form the foundation of resistance against him.
So he targets them indirectly.
Using his feared image, he strikes hard within the court.
He forces through policies others would never dare to attempt.
He introduces new food sources during famine.
Things once considered unclean, unworthy, or even cursed.
Sea creatures, wild plants, preserved ats, and thods unknown to the people before.
He orders them to be consud, distributed, and enforced.
The famine begins to ease, slowly but steadily.
But acceptance does not follow relief.
Instead, discontent grows.
People whisper that their king forces them to eat like beasts.
They say he has abandoned human ways.
The nobles spread these thoughts quietly, fueling unrest.
The kingdom stabilises outwardly, yet pressure builds beneath the surface.
Like a sealed pot over rising fire.
Li Xuanyi sees it clearly.
He does nothing to reduce the pressure.
Instead, he allows it to build.
He wants it to burst.
Only through collapse can he clear what cannot be reford.
Only through destruction can he rebuild completely.
At twenty-two, before that eruption can occur, another crisis arrives.
From the north, the Snow Mountain tribes descend.
They co not for conquest, but for plunder.
From the west, the Bynian Kingdom launches a full invasion.
Their justification is simple and convenient.
He killed their princess.
His stepmother.
War rages on two fronts, pressing against his kingdom at once.
Li Xuanyi does not hesitate.
He issues commands imdiately.
To the north, he sends the Duke of Wei, a royal relative whose fief borders the region.
The task is clear: hold back the tribes and prevent deeper incursions.
To the west, he dispatches another general, ordering full defence against Bynian forces.
At the sa ti, he orders all governors to draft every available man.
Farrs, labourers, and anyone capable of holding a weapon.
They are sent to the front without delay.
The war begins.
And it does not end quickly.
Years pass beneath the weight of continuous conflict.
Three years of battle, loss, and exhaustion.
The kingdom bleeds resources with every passing day.
The coffers run dry.
Food becos scarce once more.
Then cos disease.
Plague spreads through weakened populations, taking lives without discrimination.
Famine deepens, feeding into chaos.
The kingdom weakens from within even as it fights without.
At last, the war ends.
Victory cos, but at a cost too great to ignore.
And as soon as the external threats fade, the internal pressure finally explodes.
Rebellions erupt across the land.
Anger, hunger, fear, and resentnt combine into open defiance.
Within the capital, a thousand rebels storm the palace itself.
They co with one goal.
To kill the demon king.
Li Xuanyi faces them alone.
The battle unfolds within the palace halls, brutal and relentless.
One by one, they fall.
His body moves without hesitation, his strikes precise and final.
Blood floods the ground as the last rebel collapses.
Silence follows.
Victory stands before him once again.
But sothing is wrong.
Their weapons were coated with poison.
The sa thod was used against him before.
His inner qi moves imdiately, trying to purge the toxin.
But this ti is different.
The battle has drained him completely.
The faint wisp of qi he cultivated is exhausted.
The poison spreads unchecked.
His vision begins to blur.
Strength leaves his limbs.
For the first ti in years, he cannot resist.
Darkness takes him.
When he awakens, everything has changed.
Chains bind his body, cold iron biting into his flesh.
He hangs suspended in a familiar place.
The underground dungeon he once ordered to be built.
The sa place ant for his enemies.
Now it holds him.
Slowly, his gaze lifts.
And it finds her.
Xue Rong stands before him.
This ti, his eyes hold no coldness.
Only softness remains.
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