After Xia Li shot the young man dead, his followers barely hesitated before scattering in all directions.

  Unfortunately for them, the enemies they faced had no intention of letting anyone escape.

  Qiu Fu was a tiger demon. She excelled at tracking and pursuit in the mountains. Xia Li, meanwhile, could land headshots from extreme range.

  Some of the fleeing men had only just stopped to catch their breath before bullets came from nowhere and blew their heads apart.

  In less than the time it took an incense stick to burn...

  Only one follower remained.

  Xia Li had deliberately shot through the man's legs and left him alive.

  "Who are you people?"

  He walked up and pressed the gun straight against the man's head.

  "You're finished! You killed Commander Wang's own son from the Demon-Hunting Army! We've already sent word back! You human traitor, don't even dream of ever returning to human lands!"

  "Terrifying. But is there any chance at all that I really am a spy who has no intention of going back to the humans?"

  With that, Xia Li fired and blew off the man's head as well.

  People connected to the Demon-Hunting Army certainly had grounds to act arrogantly in Manzhou.

  But that was all.

  At most, they could disgust their own people. To someone who had fully defected to demonkind, it meant nothing.

  "Sorry... I dragged you into this."

  Qiu Fu walked over with the white fox in her arms, guilt plain in her eyes.

  "But don't worry. From now on, anyone in demon territory who wants to bully you will have to step over my corpse first."

  "I never said I was joining demonkind, so stop moving yourself to tears. Since we're done here, we leave now. You and the little fox get in my gourd. I have a concealment method for traveling."

  Xia Li patted the Cave Heaven Gourd at his waist.

  Qiu Fu now fully recognized his ability, so she wasted no words. She immediately climbed inside with the little fox in her arms.

  There was no time to gather the spoils from the battle.

  Xia Li activated Realm Fusion and the anti-detection field, then took out the cleansing bottle and washed himself while running. The cleansing bottle he had extorted from Zhu Song really was excellent.

  At the very least, after entering the Hundred Thousand Mountains, he had never once been tracked down.

  This encounter had been pure bad luck.

  For the next half month, Xia Li did nothing but travel.

  The Heaven Alliance and the Demon-Hunting Army both sent out large numbers of people to hunt him down, but under his triple-layered concealment, they couldn't even hope to touch a hair on his head.

  Unless some great expert was willing to pay an enormous price to perform a heavenly divination art.

  But great experts feared death too. They also cared about profit.

  The more miraculous the technique, the more terrifying the cost. Heavenly divination was not something that could be activated with spiritual energy alone.

  It required the diviner to sacrifice lifespan.

  And if the target happened to be someone with truly overwhelming fate, then not only might the divination reveal nothing, the diviner could even suffer backlash from the Heavenly Dao.

  The cost simply wasn't worth it.

  About a week later.

  Xia Li finally emerged from the Hundred Thousand Mountains and saw another giant fortress-city rising from the plains.

  That was Demon-Suppressing Pass, humanity's greatest stronghold in Manzhou.

  Behind Demon-Suppressing Pass stood Demon-Severing Pass. These two fortress gates formed the front line in humanity's war against demonkind.

  "Qiu Fu, which direction is your tribe?"

  Xia Li tapped the Cave Heaven Gourd and sent his voice inside.

  "Northwest. I'll pass you a map."

  As Qiu Fu transmitted the map with her divine sense, she also explained the route.

  After receiving the information, Xia Li continued onward.

  Thinking about it was almost funny. In territory controlled by humanity, he felt no safety at all. Instead, all he wanted was to reach land controlled by demonkind as quickly as possible.

  After nearly another half month of travel...

  Only once he had left the most active human-controlled region behind did Xia Li release Qiu Fu from the gourd and let her travel alongside him.

  At that point, they had truly entered the depths of Manzhou.

  Though Manzhou was only one continent, it was vast beyond compare. A single continent there could rival three others elsewhere in size.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "From here on, we just need to watch out for the Manfolk. If you're wanted, there's a chance they'll come after you too."

  The moment she came out of the gourd, Qiu Fu began sniffing the air, sorting through the scents around them to determine whether any Manfolk had been nearby.

  "How so?"

  Xia Li frowned. Were the Manfolk humanity's vassals or something?

  "Ever since humans and demons moved into Manzhou, the continent's true masters, the Manfolk, were split into the Southern Manfolk and the Northern Manfolk. Humanity stands behind the south. Demonkind backs the north."

  "On the Manzhou front, the Manfolk are an indispensable force. Both sides support one branch in a war of unification, hoping to control Manzhou indirectly."

  "So as long as we're still within Southern Manfolk territory, we can't let our guard down."

  As Qiu Fu explained, Xia Li found the whole situation strangely familiar.

  Wait.

  Hadn't the era he used to live in produced case studies exactly like this?

  "A textbook proxy war. Then let's move faster. I don't want another clash with the Manfolk."

  In the geographic records of Lingxu Cave Heaven's scripture pavilion, Xia Li had read descriptions of the Manfolk.

  They were born with immense physical strength, surpassing even many great demon bloodlines famed for power. At the same time, they also possessed the intelligence and creativity of humanity.

  They should have been a formidable race.

  But humanity and demonkind had split them apart, preventing them from ever building a civilization of their own over countless ages.

  Their temperament had grown crude and brutish.

  They fought among themselves without end.

  Perhaps both humans and demons understood one thing very clearly.

  The truly dangerous enemy of both races was a powerful, united Manfolk.

  With Qiu Fu leading the way, their pace increased. Along the road, Xia Li also grew curious about the Manfolk's history.

  "How much do you know about them, anyway?"

  "Not much. Their origins are even harder to trace. The Manfolk don't cultivate the human Mystic Dao. They're closer to demonkind, mainly cultivating qi and blood. The Hundred Thousand Mountains cut them off and caused them to miss humanity's era of development. Maybe they were once an ancient branch of humanity."

  "All Southern Manfolk take Pan as their surname, while all Northern Manfolk take Gu. Those are the names of the ancestral gods they worship."

  "According to the historical records preserved by demonkind, demons are descendants of gods and humans are descendants of immortals. Both came from the upper world. The Manfolk are the true natives of this world, the ancient human race that had the very name of 'human' taken from them."

  The moment Qiu Fu said that, Xia Li realized something.

  Was it possible...

  That this spiritual, abundant Profound World had always been humanity's true homeland?

  He had seen immortals before. For example, Vajra.

  At most, they possessed some humanlike traits, but most had four arms, six arms, or other features that differed greatly from humans.

  Immortals transformed into human form.

  Demons transformed into human form.

  Then who were the real humans?

  And why did everyone want to take the name "human" for themselves?

  If humanity alone had truly been born in accordance with the Great Dao...

  Xia Li dared not think further.

  The more he thought, the more terrifying it became, as though he had brushed against the deepest secret hidden beneath this world.

  The immortals were not benevolent.

  The gods were not righteous.

  The Manfolk had been left stupid forever, never to rise.

  But there were still the wise.

  The Manfolk had risen through evolution and fallen through evolution. They had already entered a dead end.

  Natural evolution was too slow and too full of flaws.

  The wise chose instead to redefine what evolution itself meant.

  I am my own god.

  My evolution shall proceed according to my will.

  Install a spirit-fusion core.

  Implant a Heaven Chip.

  Connect to the Heavenly Dao Network.

  From this moment on, evolution would be determined by humanity, not by heaven.