Rise of the Demon God

Long Chen swallowed the pill as he watched the people from the other side flying towards him.

The Demon Princess wondered what he swallowed and why. She kept her eyes on Long Chen. She could see that Long Chen seemed to be in pain as he closed his eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"I am fine. Just temporary discomfort." Long Chen opened his eyes after calming down. As he opened his eyes, he revealed his pitch-black eyes, similar to a demon. His eyes seemed identical to what the Princess and the other Demons had.

"What is the meaning of this? Are you trying to mock us?"

"Not at all, my princess. It's just how my other self looks. He also had pitch-black eyes. If I don't want to be caught, I need to look the part at least, don't I?" Long Chen inquired, smiling. "Just let me take the lead and talk to them."

"He has eyes like us?" Suddenly, the Princess was more interested in the real Long Chen. Selected by the Heavenly Emperor despite having eyes like Demon? Just what exactly was this guy?

Moreover, his clone needed their help to even come to the Demon Realm, but that man was able to not only reach the Heavenly Realm but also managed to win the favor of the Heavenly Emperor? He certainly didn't seem like any ordinary person. She was really curious to know more about him.

Three Black Tortoise Clan guards landed before the group of three, while others remained in the air.

"Those eyes? Are you Demons? What are you doing in our realm? If you don't have any justified reason..."

"Don't worry; I have all the reasons to be here. I'm the guest of Prince Zhu Chang," Long Chen answered calmly. "I've been to this realm even before. I've even been to the Main Clan building. I've also met the Black Tortoise Patriarch. You can ask him about me. My name is Long Chen."

"Long Chen." The guards frowned. They didn't know anything about this, but the man talked with such confidence, they couldn't help but feel that maybe he was telling the truth. Did the Prince really bring a Demon here? Was he truly a guest who even the King knew about?

It didn't matter what the truth was; just the information was enough. They needed to take it seriously and bring these three back to the castle for confirmation of them. If they were telling the truth, then fine, but if they were lying, then they were going to be punished.

"You need to come with us. We will be verifying what you said. But if it turns out that you've been lying, know that we have some strict laws about infiltrators." The guard warned the newcomers as he wrapped the hands of all three of them in black ropes.

Having his hands wrapped in the rope, Long Chen felt something off. This rope wasn't ordinary. It was something special that weakened them and kept them in a weakened state where they couldn't use most of their abilities.

The guards took Long Chen, the Demon Princess, and the Immortal Queen with them to the castle.

~~~~

The real Long Chen, in the meantime, was still stuck inside the maze of death. He had just taken a few steps inside, and he was already at a place where there were three paths ahead of him. One went straight, one to the next, and one to the right.

"Since this is a maze, I suppose only one path is right?" Long Chen asked, frowning.

"There are millions of such intersections where you'll face many paths. You only have three choices here, but there will be points where you might have to decide one between twenty."

"Millions? So I need to make a million choices, and all need to be right if I want to get out of this place? That seems easy," he sarcastically answered. "Looks like I'll be dying of old age here."

"Not really. I said there are millions of such points, but if we're lucky, we might only have to select a few hundred right paths. There are a million intersections because even wrong paths divide later, with none of the paths in the choice being the right one. That leads you deeper and deeper into the maze on a wrong path," Long Tian answered.

"So, if you're lucky, you need to make only a few hundred right choices. But if you're unlucky, even a billion choices won't get you out," he further added.

"Even the wrong paths split up? That... So we won't face dead ends which tell us that we are on the wrong path?" Long Chen asked.

"There are quite a few dead ends, but we better hope we don't get there. It's better to be on the wrong path that leads us in the wrong direction than end up on a dead end."

"Why? Won't that save some time? If we reach a dead end, we know we took a wrong path, and we can go back?" Long Chen inquired. "Unless there's something about those dead ends that you haven't told me about?"

"There is certainly sometimes about those dead ends. Not just one but all dead ends. You know why this maze is called the Maze of Death? It's not because you have so many choices that it's impossible to leave this place before you step old and die. It's because of the dead ends!" Long Tian exclaimed. "The Dead ends are a real threat. Because that's where you'll face deadly challenges."

"What challenges?" Long Chen frowned.

"I'm not sure; there wasn't anything about them in what I read. It just mentioned that the Ice Phoenix had died at one of the dead ends after surviving a few close encounters at other dead ends. Whatever is at those dead ends... It is too dangerous. This is why this Maze is called the Maze of Death," Long Tian answered.

"You're already weakened now, but even if you were at your best, surviving a dead end would've been hard. So we better pray we don't see what's at the dead end!" He continued.

"I see... So we need luck real bad. Not only do we need to select only the right paths, or we'll end up walking on the wrong path for hundreds of years, but we also need to make sure we don't end up on a dead end," Long Chen smiled as he scratched the back of his head. "Suddenly, I had this place, even more, you know?"

"You aren't the only one. Now you understand why this maze is considered an even more powerful artifact than the Sword of Time? This place is a nightmare!"