Chapter 2

About three centuries ago, the Demon Lord Zhao Li exterminated the He Clan, sacrificing almost five thousand casters. Using talismans for collecting souls, Zhao Li absorbed all the pain and rage of the fallen warriors, creating a mirror from their energy, that could fulfill a single wish of the one who was reflected in it.

When the mirror was ready, Zhao Li stood in front of it and said loudly, "I want the strongest demonic beast that has existed so far to appear in front of me." His wish came true at the same moment: in front of the Lord was a huge gray dragon with fetid breath and webbed wings overgrown with thorns on the folds.

Using the souls of slain casters, Zhao Li could not even imagine that their energy would merge with his own. Turning the Demon Lord into the beast he so passionately desired, the mirror absorbed Zhao Li's soul almost completely, depriving him of his life.

On the morning of the next day, the Demon of air Shi Yu, who came to an audience with Zhao Li, found a dead dragon in the Lord's chambers, in which he immediately recognized his Lord.

Noticing a magic mirror in the corner, Shi Yu realized that a certain kind of benefit could be derived from it. Using the magic of displacement, he got rid of the corpse, making sure that not a single scale remained on the floor.

Having hidden the body of the former Lord, Shi Yu told the mirror that he wanted to command demons more than anything else in the world. Shi Yu's wish was fulfilled, but instead of satisfaction, the newly-made Lord felt fear: now the black mirror was useless to him, but if it fell into the wrong hands, Shi Yu would suffer the fate of Zhao Li at the same moment, and the throne of the Demon Lord, which he secretly stared at, would be occupied by another greedy demon who had reached power.

Shi Yu didn't intend to die this way at all. Trying to destroy the mirror, he tried many techniques, but they didn't leave a trace on the smooth surface, which only absorbed his magic.

The artifact had only one weak side: like most glass objects, it was quite fragile, so Shi Yu broke the mirror into small fragments, which were immediately picked up and carried away by the wind, scattering them across the mortal world.

"People won't be able to feel the demonic energy coming from the mirror," – he thought when the wind died down. "It would never occur to anyone that useless debris could turn out to be a real treasure."

Shi Yu's assumption turned out to be correct: having found out about the black mirror that fulfills wishes, the Demon of fire Tan Lan De and the Demon of water Han Yue decided to go in search of him in order to appropriate all the power for themselves.

Having no idea what Zhao Li's mirror looked like, the two demons exterminated almost seven thousand people in pursuit of the fragments, which turned out to be not black at all, and were from porcelain wine bottles and other utensils.

The first and only fragment was discovered two hundred years later by the Heavenly Lord Ming Yuan Yi, who happened to be in the mortal world by an unfortunate accident. Hearing the crying of the restless souls, coming from the glass, the Heavenly Lord realized that in his hands was a fragment of Zhao Li's mirror, because of which Tan Lan De and Han Yue staged a bloodbath, slaughtering several clans.

Yuan Yi could use the divine energy to release the souls of the He Clan's casters. If one of the fragments had lost its power, all the murders would have immediately become meaningless and stopped, because it was already impossible to assemble the mirror, but greed woke up in the Heavenly Lord and spoke.

"I want to become the sole Lord of all demons and Gods," – he thought, convulsively clutching the shard. "If Tan Lan De and Han Yue were Gods, I would have punished them for what they did long ago, but Shi Yu looks at everything carelessly. Such a ruler deserves only death."