The Thousand Demon Den.

A spacious cave estate had been wrought into the mountainside as if by supernatural craftsmanship.

Inside, spiritual qi hung thick in the air, laced with a faint rank, fishy stench.

The throne, carved from gold and jade, was piled deep with thick carpets, and no fewer than six voluptuous, willowy demons were coiled around a single massive white boar.

It reached out one coarse, huge hand and stroked the shoulder of a lioness.

Pressing harder and harder, as though it meant to crush her.

Listening to the lioness's whimpers—

the snow-white boar laughed in satisfaction. "Hnk. Now that's comfort."

Two lion cubs lay abjectly at the cave mouth, not daring to lift their heads to look at the towering figure upon the throne.

"What, still pining after that fool of a lion? Has This Emperor not treated you well enough?"

The boar-demon slid a hand beneath the lioness's arm and hauled her bodily up onto its lap. Watching her instinctively struggle, a cold light rose in its eyes, and its huge hand pressed down again, trying to flip her over.

Listening to the faint wails, the other female demons could only wait upon it all the more diligently.

The snow-white boar laughed until its whole body quivered.

At last it flung out several cultivator corpses. "Starving, aren't you? Prime human medicine, the best there is — a gift to you all."

At this, the two lion cubs, still in their true forms, crept over inch by inch, and as though trying to amuse the boar, would tear off a bite and then look up at it.

The lioness, too, utterly spent, climbed down off the boar and gnawed at the flesh and blood in small, hesitant mouthfuls.

Until she swallowed even the jade-doll-like path infant whole.

Beneath the boar's indifferent gaze, she then obediently climbed back onto it.

"Does This Emperor treat you well?"

The snow-white boar split its huge mouth into a grin.

The lioness trembled as she lifted her gaze, about to raise her head — only to hear a series of slow footsteps.