his time, the Demon Sect gathered again at the Weichuan Trading Company in Jiangnan.
Six Dao Lords attended: Death, Craft, Righteousness, Emotion, Causality, and Measure.
Compared to the previous meeting, the Lords of Life and Revelation were both occupied with other matters and could not spare time to discuss how to kill Gu Fangchen or devise a new plan.
Meanwhile, the Lords of Craft and Emotion had freed their schedules to join this session.
But this was typical of the Tenfold Dao, the so-called Perfect Cult.
It was almost impossible to assemble all ten Dao Lords at once.
Especially the Lords of Eternity and Destruction, they might not appear for hundreds of years, merely sending word to their subordinates to act on their behalf.
Dao Lords such as Craft, Righteousness, and Emotion saw their positions replaced so frequently that after dozens of generations, few had ever even met those two.
To gather all ten would likely have to wait until the day the Demon Sect truly overthrew the Great Wei Empire.
In other words, most Dao Lords were not familiar with one another at all, some had never even met face to face.
This was one of the reasons Gu Fangchen dared to infiltrate the sect so boldly.
But the most important reason was that the current Dao Lord of Emotion was, in every sense, the weakest generation to ever hold the title.
The Path of Emotion cultivated by collecting the changes in joy, anger, sorrow, and delight. Every new Dao Lord throughout history had seized the title by deceiving or killing their predecessor, stealing the lineage and Dao foundation for themselves.
In theory, this Darwinian cycle of survival of the fittest should have made each generation stronger than the last.
But this time, something had gone wrong.
Gu Fangchen's understanding of the Demon Sect was deeper than any Dao Lord present.
After all, in the Descent of All Demons route, he had once been the sect's most loyal minister, devoted to the end, dying in service. The Demon Sect's internal affairs, including the identities of several Dao Lords, were all in his grasp.
Among them was the secret history of the Dao Lord of Emotion.
The current Dao Lord of Emotion was the daughter of the previous Dao Lord, Shang Zhizhi.
Shang Zhizhi's life had been a tragedy. Though she was the Demon Sect's true enchantress, master of emotion, she had been undone by the very word she embodied, love.
She had fallen for the one man least likely to return affection to a demonic seductress: a righteous swordsman named Ying Baishou.
Shang Zhizhi prided herself on understanding mortal desire, taking on human guises to experience love, sorrow, and joy, then detaching herself from it all to grasp enlightenment upon return.
But as the saying goes, those most skilled at swimming are often the ones who drown.
On her final incarnation among mortals, Shang Zhizhi overplayed her hand and lost.
At that time, Ying Baishou had not yet ascended to the First Rank. Initially, Shang Zhizhi deceived him completely. The two even lived for a time as a celestial couple. But as the years passed, she herself fell in love with him.
When Ying Baishou discovered the truth, his Dao heart was as firm as iron.
He meditated for seven days, then severed his mortal feelings, and in doing so, proved his Dao by slaying his own wife.
The roles of hunter and prey reversed. Shang Zhizhi's Dao heart collapsed. While being pursued by the righteous sects, she gave birth to her daughter, Ying Liangxin.
The fact that she still gave the child the surname Ying proved how completely her Dao heart had shattered, beyond salvation.
Knowing her own end was near, Shang Zhizhi sought to protect her daughter. At the brink of death, she disguised her child as herself, creating the illusion that she still lived.
She fooled her subordinates and the entire world alike.
When Ying Liangxin succeeded the title of Dao Lord of Emotion, she was only seven years old.
At that age, she was completely incapable of inheriting the Dao foundation.
Her disguise relied entirely on the illusion array her mother had left behind.
To outsiders, it appeared that Shang Zhizhi had simply tricked the Sword Saint, escaped after deceiving him, and continued her demonic reign unscathed. None dared act rashly against her.
Coincidentally, not long after that, Ying Baishou opened the Heavenly Gate and vanished from the world.
From then on, only Ying Liangxin herself knew the truth.
For over a century, she lived in trembling fear, relying on the techniques her mother had left her.
With no one to teach her, she could only grope blindly through cultivation.
Yet as the child of two unmatched prodigies, her talent was exceptional. After a hundred years, she reached the Fourth Rank and finally possessed some measure of confidence.
The Sword Pavilion's internal rebellion years ago had originated with Ying Baishou's adopted son, Xue Qi, who had been corrupted by the Path of Righteousness.
Outwardly, it had been the Righteous Path's doing, but in truth, the plot was conceived by the Path of Emotion, and it was Ying Liangxin who had leaked Xue Qi's origins.
In that way, she avenged her mother.
However, the cultivation method Ying Liangxin practiced had not been Shang Zhizhi's, it was Ying Baishou's.
In other words, she was a legitimate sword cultivator through and through.
She could be called the most unqualified Dao Lord of Emotion in history.
Yet, from another angle, she was also the most qualified.
From age seven onward, she had flawlessly pretended to be her mother for over a century without being exposed.
It was only misfortune that she had not received the correct method.
Had she obtained it, she might have become another enchantress to rival Shang Zhizhi herself.
But she had not.
For more than a hundred years, she had relied on silence and pretense, letting her subordinates handle all affairs. Given the chaos within the Demon Sect, no one required much supervision anyway.
Until now.
Because the sect's current plans focused on Jiangnan, the Dao Lord of Emotion had no choice but to attend this meeting in person.
Ying Liangxin had expected this to be nothing more than a formality.
Yet before the meeting could reach any conclusions, while others were still discussing how outrageous Gu Fangchen was, she had wondered privately: How outrageous could he really be?
Then she turned her head, and saw the secret chamber door opened by her own subordinate, Guan Yue. Behind her stood none other than Gu Fangchen himself.
Ying Liangxin froze.
Before she could even process why this man had come to throw himself into the net, she heard him declare in a voice like thunder:
"Wretch! How dare you impersonate me!"
Hidden within the smoky illusion, Ying Liangxin's whole body stiffened at the words.
Had her century-long disguise finally been exposed today?
But a moment later, she came to her senses.
Wait, she was impersonating her mother! Her mother had been dead for over a hundred years.
There was no way this man could be her.
On what grounds was he accusing her of impersonating him?
Straightening, she drew upon her aura and snapped coldly,
"Gu Fangchen! Have you lost your mind? You claim to be the Dao Lord of Emotion, then who am I? Daring to walk into the net yourself, do you truly think the Tenfold Dao has no one?"
"Fellow Dao Lords, let us strike together and be done with him!"
Gu Fangchen stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his momentum even greater than hers.
"Oh? Then dare you admit that you are Shang Zhizhi?" he asked.
He refused to take her bait, instead, he set his own.
All under heaven's martial arts rely on speed.
To seize control of a conversation required the same: speed, precision, and ruthlessness.
Ying Liangxin froze for an instant, pupils shrinking.
No, this was bad.
The name Shang Zhizhi was not one known to outsiders.
Her subordinates always called her "Dao Lord." She could deflect easily enough with that.
But among the gathered Dao Lords, some would know the name, such as the Dao Lord of Causality, the Sixth Division Star Lord.
Though this was but one of his causal avatars, it was still a Second Rank existence, a master of fate and consequence.
Until now, none had suspected anything.
But with Gu Fangchen suddenly throwing out this name, if she admitted it, the Sixth Division Star Lord could verify her claim through causal calculation, and the lie would collapse instantly.
If she denied it, she would have no explanation for why she hesitated.
Even a moment's pause was enough to make her look guilty.
What had once been unquestioned certainty now turned to doubt.
The other Dao Lords, who had been ready to attack, turned their gazes toward Ying Liangxin, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
Caught at her weakest point, she could only force herself to continue, snorting coldly,
"So what if I am not Shang Zhizhi? The Dao Lord of Emotion's seat is taken by whoever has the skill to seize it!"
Gu Fangchen smiled faintly.
"Indeed. So that is why, while I was deceived and taken away, you sought to steal my identity?"
Ying Liangxin blinked, confused.
Wait, what?
How had she just been led into agreeing with him, even giving him the justification he needed to stand his ground?
In only a few exchanges, he had completely flipped the narrative.
She was stunned.
She might not have been the true Dao Lord, but after a century of pretending, she had learned a few tricks. Yet this man before her was sharper than any elder she had ever met.
Who was the real Dao Lord of Emotion here, him or her?
Gu Fangchen's audacity was founded on precisely this, Ying Liangxin was easy to read and easier to manipulate.
Though she had grown up in the Demon Sect, her temperament was purer than that of many righteous cultivators. From the age of seven, she had been forced to act as a Dao Lord, with no one to teach her how to deal with people.
She relied on silence and a few secrets her mother had told her to maintain her façade.
Others assumed that surviving Ying Baishou's calamity had made her even more unfathomable. They imagined profundity where there was only confusion, and in time, even she began to believe her own act.
But today, she faced the Demon Sect's one true loyalist.
For Gu Fangchen, infiltrating the Demon Sect was far easier than infiltrating the righteous path.
Guan Yue, who had long since received his instructions, stepped forward indignantly.
"Exactly! Had the Dao Lord not seen through the deception and returned in time, all of you would have been fooled by this impostor!"
The reason the other Dao Lords had not attacked immediately was that Guan Yue, a familiar senior of the Path of Emotion, had brought Gu Fangchen in, showing no sign of coercion.
Now that she had spoken up, everything appeared to be an internal dispute within the Path of Emotion over the position of Dao Lord.
The gathered Dao Lords exchanged glances.
So that was it.
Among the Path of Emotion, such things were common.
Their pleasure came from deceiving others, to trick even their own sect during a grand assembly was nothing strange.
If successful, the surge of emotions from having fooled the other Dao Lords could even be used to solidify one's own cultivation.
Risky, but with great odds of success.
The Sixth Division Star Lord turned to Gu Fangchen, forming seals with his fingers as he began to trace the threads of causality.
"If that is so, why do you appear in the likeness of Gu Fangchen?"
Gu Fangchen showed no fear. He raised an eyebrow.
"I recently perfected the Mirage Array and improved it further. Taking on Gu Fangchen's appearance is merely a way to verify my identity."
He smiled at the Sixth Division Star Lord.
"Well then, Daoist Feiguang, have you discovered anything?"
The Star Lord's hand froze mid-seal.
This incarnation had once apprenticed under one of the Causality Path's guardians, spending a brief period as a wandering priest with the title Feiguang.
This man even knew that.
Compared to the silent Dao Lord of Emotion beside him, this newcomer indeed seemed far more like one of their own.
The Sixth Division Star Lord furrowed his brow.
He could not discern the other's causality.
Either someone was deliberately obstructing him, or the person before him was of equal rank, a peer whose fate could not be easily read.
Before leaving, Gu Fangchen had already asked the National Preceptor to conceal his causal threads temporarily.
The Preceptor and the Sixth Division Star Lord were equals in the art of causality, unable to overpower one another. Thus, naturally, nothing could be detected.
The Lord of Decay's eyes gleamed coldly.
"If this is merely a disguise, then surely you can take on other forms as well?"
He was the only one among them who immediately recognized the man before them as Gu Fangchen himself. But he had no intention of revealing it.
He wanted to see what game Gu Fangchen was playing.
Ying Liangxin drew a deep breath, sensing a chance to turn the tide.
"Indeed," she said sharply, "you claim this disguise is born of the Mirage Array, yet I sense no trace of formation energy upon you. How do you explain that?"
Gu Fangchen laughed coldly.
"Ignorant child! The subtleties of the Mirage Array are beyond your meager comprehension."
His tone was that of an ancient monster scolding a junior, so natural and commanding that for a moment, Ying Liangxin almost believed he truly was one of her elders, stepping forth to take her place.
Gu Fangchen tilted his chin upward proudly.
"In the presence of all Dao Lords here, if any can pierce my disguise, then my cultivation in the Path of Emotion shall count for nothing!"
At those words, the Lords of Craft and Righteousness exchanged looks.
They, too, understood the might of the Mirage Array.
Through the years, they had all continued refining their respective Daos, though their drive had waned with age.
Hearing Gu Fangchen's challenge now reignited a spark of rivalry.
Gu Fangchen smiled.
"Very well. I shall now transform into the Dao Lord of Destruction. Tell me, is there any flaw to be seen?"
With that, he released from within his soul a vast golden wheel of light.