1 Demonic techniques.

"A weakness like you deserves to die!", a venomous voice lashed at the lean youth that was cowering down in fear.

Chen Xiang blinked. His blurred vision slowly adjusted back to normal. As he tried to get back on his feet, he felt a sharp ache in his head and a swarm of foreign memories rushed to his brain. The pain and mental exhaustion coming from processing such a sheer amount of data in limited time made him stumble back. He placed one of his hand on the ground and the other one reached his head as he tried to organize his muddled thoughts.

"See that? How he is cowering. Not even being able to get up. Nothing but a pathetic weakness!", one of the youths that were surrounding him, spat.

"I don't know what the princess sees in him. He is not even capable of protecting himself. How is he supposed to protect her?", another one said, contemptuously.

"She is clearly doing a huge mistake by choosing him over all the capable cultivators here"

"Should we not just kill that f**ker to protect our precious princess from that terrible mistake!", one of them who sounded the most bad-tempered among them, scoffed.

Chen Xiang looked up and slowly proceeded to get back on his feet. There were five of them in there. All dressed in pure white robes.

"Now, have you gotten enough balls to raise your head in front of us!", the bad-tempered one barked and leaped forward to attack him.

Out of instincts, Chen Xiang put forth his arms in front of him in a specific cross arrangement. From the scientific perspective, with the amount of strength that guy was coming in his direction, he greatly doubted that the move alone could protect him. And he was most probably going to suffer a serious injury. But he felt something magical about that defensive stance. Like an invisible shield had just surrounded him.

Meanwhile, Li Xiu Ying, who was the leader of the group straightened. He had been standing there idly until now, neither involving himself in their threatening conduct nor stopping them. His eyes widened slightly as he observed Chen Xiang stance. He felt a strong and sharp killing intent. It was momentarily and most probably not felt by others. With a speed, impossible for a human, he was in front of Chen Xiang and effectively stopped Wang Wook attack.

"Why would you stop me, senior brother", Wang Wook asked, angry at being interrupted but still respectful towards his senior.

"How the f**k you brought such sheer amount of dark energy to your spiritual shield!", Li Xiu Ying shouted at him, sounding a little terrified.

Dark energy-that word chilled everyone to the marrow.

Chen Xiang remained silent. His eyes were calm as they scanned through the area as he continued to maintain that stance as protection. His mind was still processing the unfamiliar memories and he could feel strong hostility towards these people.

Young master of Li family and a senior disciple of thunder sect. His strong competitor for princess affection. The information surfaced in his head.

Definitely an enemy.

"Senior brother, dark energy...", Wang Wook initiated, sounding equally terrified.

"This is purely a demonic practice", Li Yui Ying said slowly as he stepped away from Chen Xiang. Fear appeared in his countenance as well as others as they all created a safe distance from him.

"How was he capable of using it?", one of them said as he stared at Chen Xiang. Apprehension manifested in his voice. "Didn't they say that he had not even formed his foundation yet?"

"How can a cultivator at Qi gathering stage be able to use dark energy?", Wang So said, "Unless he has a demonic element in his constitution, it is impossible to use dark energy at Qi gathering stage."

"This is impossible. He was chosen as princes escort. Would they have not checked his roots? How can he have a demonic element in him?"

"I believe he must be hiding it by now", Li Yui Ying smirked, "But now he accidentally revealed himself. You two go and inform the king. I'm sure he won't be willing to have him as princess escort once he knows the truth", Li Yui Ying said in an arrogant tone.

Two of them quickly flew away on his sword as Li Xiu Ying and two others stayed guarding him as if preventing him from running away.

"Answer me. Who actually are you?", Li Xiu Ying asked in a superior tone.

Dark energy. Demonic element. These two words emerged in Chen Xiang mind with relative information. The real Chen Xiang had the demonic element in him and had been hiding it by now to avoid execution by the king.

And just now Chen Xiang accidently blew his cover. Great. Just great.

He was in deep trouble.

Not an ideal situation to land in a new world.

Despite that Chen Xiang had been standing there quietly keeping a calm demeanor. He couldn't let the enemy see his inner anxiety.

"I'm Chen Xiang-the...", Chen Xiang said slowly. He tried to mimic the way of speaking of the previous owner of the body from his memories the best he could.

"Don't try to fool us. If you could use have a demonic element in you, you must be an imposter planted by demons"

He was not.

"You are mistaken. I don't have a demonic element in me"

Accepting that would be equivalent to suicide. That was what he didn't plan to.

Li Xiu Ying glared at him. Chen Xiang was calm, wearing an unwavering impermeable mask. No one could see past that cold face. What was that cold face? Wouldn't Chen Xiang break into cold sweats whenever Li Lui Ying glared at him previously? Wasn't he a coward? Where were this strength and confidence coming from?

"That spiritual shield was capable of incapacitating Wang Wook. How were you capable of forming it if you are not even at the foundation stage?"

"You are again mistaken here. What I used was a simple martial art technique that I doubt would even have been capable of protecting me from Wang Wook attack"

"Stop Lying. Do you think you can lie and escape now? Your spiritual roots will be tested!"

Chen Xiang quietened. In his current weak form, he couldn't rely on anything but his intellect. He was too weak to fight them and run away. Li Lui Ying had already formed his foundation while others were above the fifth rank of Qi gathering stage.

While he was only at first rank.

And on the top of that, he couldn't recall how he got in this strange place in the first place. He was twenty-two years old man of the twenty-first century having done a course in cryptography. He was living a fairly normal life with adequate income. He didn't recall suffering from death so it was not the case of reincarnation. As he tried to recall the latest event from his original memory, he found a big void.

There was something missing in his memory.

He felt like it was there but somehow locked by some mysterious power and currently inaccessible to him.

Author Note.

If you see any mistakes, do point them out in the comments.