Desire

From one of the fragments of Zhu Huan's soul on the floor, a giant shadow manifested and became a body.

The body looked exactly like Cain.

"So you're smart. My plan to possess you was a fool's errand it seems."

"It was." Cain flatly replied.

The Desire Demon clicked his tongue. "You hide your desires well. So what is it? Are you going to let me go? Or do you wish to make a deal?"

Cain furrowed his brows, he couldn't read this Demon at all, when he tried to he would feel his emotions fluctuate. These kinds of enemies were the worst kind, formlessly affecting their opponents.

'Even in a weakened state, he can affect me. Just how did the Demon Slaughtering Celestial contain him? How'd he defeat this thing in the first place?'

The Desire Demon took the authority of Desire from heaven, taking pieces of things like lust, greed, etc., and turning them into the domain of desire. It was a being that played on the desires of others, hiding its own until it was too late.

Even so, Cain smiled, for even if the being before him was of the 9th Tier, it could only be considered half as powerful as a false Gatherer. This demon could get the jump on him, but if Cain unleashed all his strength, it could do nothing. And that's exactly what he did.

The tides of blood rose, funneling around the Grand Demon of Desire.

"Hey! What are you doing!? Stop!" It moved its hands and the waves became less aggressive.

Cain's brow raised. 'He can even affect the desires of things? Well, the blood is more like my subconscious. Hmm, to even accomplish this requires power from a core, power that isn't diluted. Is the power of heaven it took part of the core's authority?'

Cain speculated some things while he tapped his foot and fastened the tides.

"Hey! Wait!" The Desire Demon tried to halt the waves but became encased in blood before it could slither its way out of the situation.

Such a demon could only escape if Cain allowed it. That was the power a true gatherer had over those lesser than them.

Cain dusted his hands off like a job well done.

"That's that, time for everything else." 

...

Opening his eyes, Cain found himself in the prior body of Zhu Huan, but he had already overwritten it. After a quick look, Cain created a mirror from his blood and changed his face back to the body's original appearance.

Once he was done, he looked no different from Zhu Huan.

"Good, now I can accomplish my original aim." He smiled and left the void.

When he got out, Cain was immediately bombarded by the Demon Sealing Elders.

"Sect Leader, are you okay?'

"Sect leader, you used your innate spell?"

"Do you need rest?"

Their questions were filled with kindness but they were only doing this to gauge Cain's state, none of them had good intentions.

Cain replied to each of them with courtesy, "I'm fine, it's just that the enemy self-detonated to try and kill me, I survived though."

He acted according to how Zhu Huan would act, easily passing all the Elder's tests. Finding him normal, they became slightly colder, they dared not act too cold though, they still had fear for the great Demon Slaughtering Celestial.

...

A few months passed, and Cain masqueraded well, he didn't have to interact with anyone under the guise of going into closed-door cultivation. Everything went as planned.

'I can now confirm I'm in the past. To think I went back in time instead of forward....'

While masquerading as the Sect Leader, Cain gained an immense amount of information, much of which he still had to look over and verify before recording them as facts.

'What now...I know my past...er future self is to enter this Territory in a few decades, should I leave? But I want the core. My best option would be to stay hidden, I don't want to mess up the future, or is that even possible?'

Cain was at a crossroads. He was in the past but was he really in the past? Time was confusing and a rule of Order, its underlying facts were obscure to those who didn't study its secrets.

Scratching his head, Cain was left with nothing to do. That was before a mysterious letter entered his room without his awareness. It appeared before him, manifesting from nothing. 

The letter was a ghostly blue and floated in the air, just like a specter.

"What's this?" He picked up the letter and opened it.

Reading through its contents, he laughed out loud.

"Hahaha! Who knew the Sect Leader was in such a position? What a world!"

...

In a small ravine, thousands of flowers bloomed in a ghostly light. On each of the flowers was a wisp that gathered and flew around, the larger the wisp the more insects would come to pollinate it.

The flowers gave off a cool and sweet scent, along with the underlying stench of death. These were ghost lilies, a flower that required the souls of the damned to grow.

The ravine was a place of many resentful deaths, it was the headquarters of one of the Three Great Demonic Sects, the Ravaging Ghost Sect. A sect so secretive not many knew they were the third great evil sect.

Those in this evil sect cultivated a rare group of spirits, Evil Spirits.

Unlike normal spirits, Evil spirits were corrupted by Humans. The most common method was forcing the spirit to live inside a human and then torturing the human; till death to get the best results.

Depending on how well the torture was done, the spirit would turn into a completely new spirit depending on the death.

It was like refining treasures, only the materials were spirits and human lives. Depending on the Tier of Spirit used, the tier of the evil spirit will also be of the same Tier. It didn't matter what type of spirit was used, only the torture method and the Spirit's Tier mattered.

Because of this, high-quality Evil Spirits could be made from even the most common specimens.

In the Ravaging Ghost Sect, 5 Ghostly Fingers were in positions similar to Demon Sealing Elders.

There was also the Sect Leader, The Ghost King, who was at the Peak of the Enlightenment Stage like the Demon Slaughtering Celestial.

'To think I must come here. I might not be able to hide my Cultivation Level from a Peak Enlightenment Stage Cultivator. Hopefully, I don't have to meet the Ghost King.'

Cain sighed. To think Zhu Huan was in such a precarious situation on all sides.

Specifically, there was a Ghostly Finger of the Ravaging Ghost Sect who once went out and seduced an Elder of the Seductress sect, one of the other Great Evil Sects.

They made the Elder fall madly in love with them, breaking all common sense.

To think, the Ghostly Finger did such a thing to refine an Evil Spirit, the Evil Charm Spirit. To refine it the Ghostly Finger made the Elder of the Seductress Sect their plaything and slowly tortured them mentally and physically. However, the entire time, the Elder of the Seductress sect didn't mind, even taking it a step further and offering their life in the end.

Upon their death, the 8th Tier Evil Charm Spirit was created. Coincidently, this spirit's first target was the rising star Zhu Huan. Even when he became an Enlightenment Stage expert, he was charmed by the Ghostly Finger, even having a child with them.

Zhu Huan never suspected a thing, but in recent years he has become more distant due to the efforts of the Desire Demon. He rarely ever came to visit.

But now, Cain came in Zhu Huan's place, planning to take full advantage of his position.

'Evil Spirits... such a curious thing. I can't wait to learn their secrets!'