With talk like that Liu Feiyu is either an a seasoned adventurer or a practiced blowhard, and Shen Luguang is about to speculate out loud about which it might be when Astarion's comment sidetracks him completely. "Poor fellow," he says sympathetically. "You really are from somewhere far from here, aren't you? Let me explain."
As the three of them near the edge of the forest, he proceeds to do just that, relating how the lineage of Heavenly Demons had been founded in ancient times by a goddess who, having been cast from the heavens for crimes lost to history, mingled her blood with the denizens of Hell. The products of this union, themselves empowered by the divinity of their ancestry, quickly turned to conquest, and established themselves as rulers supreme over the demonic race. Thus was the line of saintly emperors established.
Unfortunately, even the brightest sunrise must give way to twilight, and in time the race of heavenly demons dwindled, their numbers reduced through war with humanity and the attrition of demonic politics. The penultimate saintly emperor, Tianlang-jun, was sealed beneath a mountain by human cultivators before he could sire more than a single son, and that carried by a human woman. But what might have been the death of the bloodline was instead its salvation!
The boy who would be emperor was raised among humans, and by the labors of his foster parents he experienced both the best and the worst parts of humanity. By the time he'd reached manhood he'd come to a realization that had eluded the wisest of both races for millennia: far from being opposites or natural adversaries, humanity and demonkind were more alike than they differed. Both races were capable of the loftiest graces or the cruelist selfishness, and Luo Binghe saw clearly how both worlds would benefit from acceptance and commingling with the other. He thus made this unification his life's goal, conquering first the demon realm and then the human and then taking wives from all levels of both societies. But still the two races stood apart, and so Luo Binghe at last put his greatest and most outrageous plan into action: he performed a ritual which tore down the barriers between the two worlds in their entirety, and fused the two lands into one. Now there was no longer any such thing as "the demon realm" or "the human race;" there was only one people, only glorious empire, and one immortal emperor to rule over them all.
"So you see," Shen Luguang said grandly, gesturing with his free hand; at some point while they were talking he'd drifted back over to Astarion's side of the trail and linked their arms together, and now they walked side-by-side like old friends. "The line of 'heavenly demons' is called such in recognition of their celestial origins, which gave them both the power and the right to conquer the world. His majesty the emperor is also called 'saintly' for the same reason, although some demon clans also use the term to honor their strongest warriors whether they have any heavenly demon blood or not. They get away with it because one of the emperor's first wives was a demonic saint," he explains, smiling slightly as he shares a factoid that even now hovers somewhere between historical fact and court gossip to this day.
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As the three of them near the edge of the forest, he proceeds to do just that, relating how the lineage of Heavenly Demons had been founded in ancient times by a goddess who, having been cast from the heavens for crimes lost to history, mingled her blood with the denizens of Hell. The products of this union, themselves empowered by the divinity of their ancestry, quickly turned to conquest, and established themselves as rulers supreme over the demonic race. Thus was the line of saintly emperors established.
Unfortunately, even the brightest sunrise must give way to twilight, and in time the race of heavenly demons dwindled, their numbers reduced through war with humanity and the attrition of demonic politics. The penultimate saintly emperor, Tianlang-jun, was sealed beneath a mountain by human cultivators before he could sire more than a single son, and that carried by a human woman. But what might have been the death of the bloodline was instead its salvation!
The boy who would be emperor was raised among humans, and by the labors of his foster parents he experienced both the best and the worst parts of humanity. By the time he'd reached manhood he'd come to a realization that had eluded the wisest of both races for millennia: far from being opposites or natural adversaries, humanity and demonkind were more alike than they differed. Both races were capable of the loftiest graces or the cruelist selfishness, and Luo Binghe saw clearly how both worlds would benefit from acceptance and commingling with the other. He thus made this unification his life's goal, conquering first the demon realm and then the human and then taking wives from all levels of both societies. But still the two races stood apart, and so Luo Binghe at last put his greatest and most outrageous plan into action: he performed a ritual which tore down the barriers between the two worlds in their entirety, and fused the two lands into one. Now there was no longer any such thing as "the demon realm" or "the human race;" there was only one people, only glorious empire, and one immortal emperor to rule over them all.
"So you see," Shen Luguang said grandly, gesturing with his free hand; at some point while they were talking he'd drifted back over to Astarion's side of the trail and linked their arms together, and now they walked side-by-side like old friends. "The line of 'heavenly demons' is called such in recognition of their celestial origins, which gave them both the power and the right to conquer the world. His majesty the emperor is also called 'saintly' for the same reason, although some demon clans also use the term to honor their strongest warriors whether they have any heavenly demon blood or not. They get away with it because one of the emperor's first wives was a demonic saint," he explains, smiling slightly as he shares a factoid that even now hovers somewhere between historical fact and court gossip to this day.