By the time the Demon King took the Mysterious World Bead and looked up, he found that no one was in front of him anymore. This made him feel rather paranoid. If not for the imprint in his spiritual sea and the bead in his hand, he would have thought he had just experienced some kind of hallucination.
He looked around, trying to find traces of the fellow from earlier, and immediately felt an unbearable wave of pain in his mind, as if his very soul were being torn apart.
His heart went cold. He knew that even if the fellow had been hiding in the shadows, he had certainly been observing him—and at any moment, he had the power to end his life. That pain was definitely a warning.
What had the fellow told him to do again? Oh—swallow the bead, and pass through the World Gate…
He stared at the Mysterious World Bead in his hand, his heart writhing with conflicting emotions. The thing looked unremarkable enough. He had no idea whether it was poisonous or not. A deep sense of injustice filled him—completely unsolicited, disaster had simply fallen from the sky, and there was nowhere he could go to reason about it.
With an imprint of the other's soul planted in his spiritual sea, even if the bead truly was poisonous, he had no choice but to swallow it. After only a brief moment of hesitation, he swallowed the Mysterious World Bead into his stomach and headed toward the World Gate with a dark expression.
He had no choice. A thread of spiritual energy in his spiritual sea had locked onto his soul—he could destroy it at any moment!
Before long, he arrived near the World Gate. Looking up, he saw the area fortified to an extreme degree. The gate was surrounded on all sides by a massive demon army, packed so tightly not even water could pass through. Among them radiated the auras of several Demon Kings, and they were conducting rigorous inspections of every demon who passed.
Only then did he understand why the fellow had told him to go through the World Gate—the fellow had committed some crime. But what exactly had he done to warrant such a massive deployment of powerful figures to hunt him down?
If not for the constant threat in his spiritual sea—a strand of energy that could obliterate his soul at any second—he would have been happy to report everything. But that thread of energy locking his soul in place made him dare not make any rash moves.
He thought to himself that once he passed through the World Gate, he would be free and clear. No matter how powerful the fellow might be, he wouldn't be able to find him again. After all, with this level of security, there was no way the fellow could slip through the World Gate unnoticed—if he truly had that ability, he wouldn't have needed to force him to do all this in the first place.
Trembling with fear, he flew up to the World Gate, where a demon general immediately reached out to stop him and said coldly, "Halt! Where are you coming from, and where are you going?"
The Demon King forced a smile and cupped his fists, answering each question honestly and in full detail without any deception.
The demon general gave him a glance, then held up a scroll in front of him. "Have you seen this person?"
The Demon King looked closely, and his eyelids twitched. The portrait on the scroll was unmistakably the fellow he had just encountered. He now knew for certain that the fellow had indeed committed a crime. He quickly shook his head. "Never seen him."
The demon general rolled up the scroll and said flatly, "If you see this person, report it immediately. A confirmed tip will earn a reward of one hundred Myriad Demon Pills! If you can capture him, the reward is five hundred!"
"One hundred Myriad Demon Pills!" At these words, the Demon King couldn't help but cry out, his eyes going red.
Though he was a Demon King, he was only a low-grade one, and his life on his own continent hadn't been going well. Myriad Demon Pills were something he had only ever heard of, never actually seen. If someone truly gave him a hundred Myriad Demon Pills, it would be more than enough for him to cultivate up to the high-grade Demon King level. And if he could capture that fellow? Five hundred!
Just think of what that meant. With that many Myriad Demon Pills, he wouldn't need to worry about the rest of his life. Only the Demon Saints could produce that many Myriad Demon Pills at once—perhaps not even the half-saints had that kind of capital.
He nearly blurted out that he knew where the fellow was, but after thinking about his own survival, he swallowed the words back down.
Myriad Demon Pills were wonderful indeed, but he had to be alive to refine them. What use were they if he was dead?
Cautiously, he asked, "What crime did this fellow commit?"
The demon general replied, "He disrupted the great plans of the Honored Demon Saints. Many Honored Demon Saints are currently coordinating to capture him."
It involved the Demon Saints—and not just one, but many of them. At this, sweat began to bead on the Demon King's forehead, and he vaguely felt that he had been dragged into something far more terrifying than he had imagined.
He continued forward and passed through several more rounds of inspection—even his spatial ring was searched from top to bottom—before he was finally allowed through.
He secretly resolved that the moment he passed through the World Gate and confirmed he was safe, he would immediately find someone to report the fellow's location. He might not be able to claim the five-hundred-pill reward, but a hundred should still be his for the taking.
Before long, he passed through the World Gate and arrived on another continent. He furtively glanced left and right, then steeled himself and said, "The task you gave me—I've completed it. There's nothing else, is there?"
Silence. No one answered.
Ha ha ha—he had known it! There was no way the fellow could have passed through the World Gate alongside him. The Demon King was overjoyed. He quickly oriented himself and urged his body toward a particular direction, his eyes a deep, hungry red, as though he could already see a hundred Myriad Demon Pills waving at him.
But just then, a faint pain pulsed through his spiritual sea again.
He stumbled in midair and nearly plummeted straight to the ground. Catching himself, he broke out in a cold sweat, looking left and right in alarm.
Impossible! He was on a completely different continent now. How could the fellow's methods still affect him? Could he be nearby? But that made no sense—if the fellow could really pass through the World Gate without anyone noticing, why had he needed him to do it in the first place?
Just as he was spiraling into paranoia, the pain in his spiritual sea intensified slightly. Terrified, he shouted quickly, "I didn't reveal your existence! Let's talk about this—please, just talk about it!"
The moment the words left his mouth, the pain vanished. But before he could even catch his breath, it struck once more.