CHAPTER 319: SUFFERING BUILDS DEMONS

The girls sat close around Zain, their eyes wide and full of curiosity.

Savra tilted her head. "So how did you even train, Master? What made you become the Heavenly Demon?"

Velra crossed her arms. "Yeah. You didn’t just wake up strong."

Zelia added softly, "Did you push through it with willpower alone?"

Zain took a deep breath and nodded. "Of course I trained."

"I trained harder than anyone else. So hard that I passed out more times than I could count."

Savra raised a brow. "So it really was hell?"

Zain gave a small laugh. "You want to hear what hell looks like? Alright. Let me tell you."

---

Mo Tianheng had just begun learning the Heavenly Demon Art.

The instructors didn’t explain much.

They just threw the books at the children and told them to figure it out.

At first glance, it looked similar to the Demonic Body Art and the Demonic Qi Art he had learned in the pit.

But this one had deeper breathing methods, strange body poses, and internal control techniques that made everything harder.

Tianheng sat cross-legged on a cold rock floor, his body already sore from morning training.

He tried to circulate the energy the way the book explained.

But as soon as he reached the third step, something went wrong.

"Gah!" he screamed as his body twisted in pain.

It felt like his bones were breaking from the inside.

He collapsed, shaking.

The instructor looked at him and shrugged. "First time always breaks something. You’ll live."

Another guard walked over and dumped a bucket of water on his face.

"Wake up," the guard said. "Get up and do it again."

Tianheng gasped for breath and sat back up, his hands trembling.

But the training didn’t stop.

Every single day, the ten children were pushed beyond human limits.

Each morning started with the Needle Endurance Test.

Dozens of thin, poisoned needles were pushed into their fingers and arms.

They had to stay still.

If they screamed or moved, the guards would push more needles in.

Then came the Iron Whip Trial.

Heavy chains were heated and swung against their backs until the skin peeled.

"Toughen the flesh," the guards would say. "Only demons feel no pain."

There were no rest days. No soft beds. They slept on stone.

If someone passed out, they were kicked awake.

If they couldn’t walk, they were dragged.

One time, Tianheng had to crawl across a field of broken glass.

Each step cut his knees, elbows, and palms.

But stopping meant failure. And failure meant punishment.

Another day, he was ordered to hold up two heavy rocks above his head for six hours.

If they dropped, spears pointed at his legs would stab him.

There was the Cliff Climb, a massive wall of jagged rock.

They were told to reach the top using only their bare hands.

If they slipped, they’d fall onto spikes below.

Tianheng reached the top with broken nails and torn skin.

Then the Freezing River Trial.

They had to swim across while tied to heavy stones.

The water was ice-cold.

Tianheng’s lips turned blue, and he could barely move, but he refused to sink.

Every night, they were made to sit in the dark and circulate their demonic energy.

However, Heavenly Demon Art was not a normal cultivation method.

It was brutal.

It made their blood feel like it was boiling from the inside.

Every time Tianheng circulated it, he felt like his body was about to rip apart.

It wasn’t just ordinary pain.

It was endless suffering, every second of every day.

He was often too tired to eat, too sore to stand.

Sometimes his vision blurred, and his legs shook just from walking.

The other nine children were all going through the same thing... but not all of them lasted.

One boy screamed during meditation. His body twisted unnaturally.

The guards watched silently as his heart stopped.

He collapsed right there on the stone floor.

Another girl tried to sneak food at night because she was too weak to train.

The next morning, her bed was empty. No one ever saw her again.

A third boy cried all night after failing the energy control exercise.

His face was pale. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

By sunrise, he was gone too. No one said anything.

The guards didn’t even look surprised.

Tianheng saw all of it. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t ask.

He told himself one thing again and again:

"If I stop now, I die."

"If I keep going, I might live."

Some of the children tried to beg for mercy.

Others tried to run. But there was no mercy in the Demonic Sect.

One boy tried to escape during the night. They caught him by morning.

As punishment, they broke his legs in front of everyone.

Then they threw him into the cold river. Unable to swim, unable to scream.

He sank.

After that, no one tried to escape again.

Tianheng kept his head low and focused.

He bit through the pain, through the hunger, through the fear.

When the art tore open his skin, he just bandaged it and started over.

When his body collapsed, he dragged himself back up.

He stopped dreaming. He stopped hoping.

There was only one thing left inside him. Survival.

And little by little, day after day... that boy who once cried on his first night in the cage was gone.

What remained was something else.

Something that could endure.

Something that would become the Heavenly Demon.

---

Back in the present, Zain finished telling the story.

The three girls were silent.

Velra finally said, "Okay... that’s worse than I expected."

Savra shook her head. "Torture, drowning, whipping, starvation..."

"That’s not training. That’s a war against yourself."

Zelia looked down at her hands. "And yet... You survived."

Zain smirked. "Not just survived. I became the one they feared."

He leaned back slightly.

"You want to know how I became the Heavenly Demon? That was just the beginning."