Scarlet Heart

Scarlet Heart is a badger Demonic Emperor whose attempt to devastate Ravager territory becomes intertwined with Su Chen's campaign there. Su Chen steals the treasures accumulated in Scarlet Heart's palace, provoking an increasingly destructive war that ultimately leaves the emperor wounded enough for Su to hunt down and kill.

Biography

A palace emptied during war

Scarlet Heart is introduced through its reputation while away directing a large Beast Wave. Although young by Demonic Emperor standards, it has cultivated for more than three thousand years and is feared for bloodthirstiness, irritability, and a fondness for eating hearts. Its raids against the Ravager border are so frequent that war is effectively one of its regular sources of wealth. Su Chen deliberately enters Scarlet Emperor Palace during the campaign because robbing it will both enrich his group and intensify the pressure on the Ravagers. (Chapters 676 and 679)

The treasury reveals that Scarlet Heart's savagery coexists with patience and calculation. It has killed a peer to obtain the Hourglass of Time, spent decades preparing a single-use ambush for an intact Demonic Emperor Origin Crystal, and conducted scores of schemes and massacres to acquire Desolate Beast blood. Other treasures mark intended paths of development: the Heavenly Truth Songstone supported its original ascent, while the Thunder Spirit Totem offered a route into lightning. Su Chen takes all six central treasures and even their valuable carriers. (Chapter 679)

When the palace servant's dying consciousness reports the theft, Scarlet Heart refuses to reduce the offensive. It expands the Beast Wave so that Ravager lives and resources can replace what was stolen, destroys thirteen cities in a day, and has Anubi's envoy torn apart. The campaign's excessive breadth eventually exhausts its own forces, but pride and the desire for restitution keep it from withdrawing. (Chapters 682–690)

Baited into the imperial army

Su Chen manipulates Anubi into marching with the Origin Bone Scepter and Vitality Totem, correctly predicting that the scent of rare treasures will keep Scarlet Heart engaged. The Demonic Emperor advances in a blood-colored floating palace and follows concealed traces from its stolen property. Su also marks the true Anubi with Charming Fragrant Mud, redirecting Scarlet Heart away from the decoy carriage and toward the fleeing ruler while the imperial army is already committed. (Chapters 712–718)

Scarlet Heart initially offers Anubi safe passage in exchange for its belongings, but the confused ruler cannot return what he never stole. The emperor then attacks through the Ravager defenses, killing Gucha and confronting Goncourt, the Ancestors, the Guardian Spirit, and suicidal Imperial Guards. Its domains, fire, darkness, and staff devastate the opposition, yet repeated consciousness blows and life-powered axes inflict injuries that even a Demonic Emperor cannot readily heal. When the tricolored staff shatters in a final collision, Scarlet Heart escapes with its strength drastically reduced. (Chapters 719–723)

The last pursuit

Even while wounded, Scarlet Heart continues after Su Chen because it recognizes the true thief and refuses to abandon the accumulated treasures. It spends lifeforce on a darkness forbidden technique, only for Su's affinity with Darkness Origin Substance to undermine the attack. The Ravager army then forces the emperor to retreat. Su tracks the residual substance to its hiding place and waits until Scarlet Heart has stopped suppressing its wounds and entered a vulnerable recovery state before confronting it. (Chapters 722–724)

Scarlet Heart's remaining strength is still sufficient to disrupt Su's consciousness, lock space, and unleash a suicidal final attack. Su survives when the Vitality Totem activates and reinforces his body beyond what the dying emperor can break. Scarlet Heart consumes its own body to sustain the assault, dwindles from a storm to a breeze, and turns completely to ash. No corpse or Origin Crystal remains; only its Origin Ring and the spoils gathered from Ravager territory survive. (Chapters 724–725)

Appearance and personality

Scarlet Heart's true form is a badger, but it appears directly as a middle-aged human scholar carrying a staff set with three gems. It chooses the form because it considers itself a noble among Beasts and prefers the image of a gentleman. Its floating palace is blood-colored, matching the red stone and oppressive appearance of Scarlet Emperor Palace. (Chapters 676, 719, and 721–722)

Its cultivated exterior masks an irascible, predatory temperament. Scarlet Heart can speak calmly, negotiate, and prepare schemes lasting decades, but theft turns that restraint into fixation. It punishes the Ravagers for failing to stop Su, pursues compensation despite enormous losses, and ultimately risks death rather than let the thief escape. Its greed is therefore not simple impulsiveness: each treasure represents time, sacrifice, status, and a possible avenue of advancement, making the loss an assault on its identity as an emperor. (Chapters 679, 684–685, and 719–724)

Scarlet Heart nevertheless values survival until pride removes every acceptable retreat. It abandons the battle after recognizing that its wounds may become fatal and initially tries to frighten Su away during their final encounter. Once that bluff fails, it chooses mutual destruction. The contradiction—cautious self-preservation followed by ruinous obsession—determines its death. (Chapters 723–725)

Abilities and cultivation

Scarlet Heart is a Demonic Emperor, broadly comparable to an Ultimate Emperor Realm human. Its body naturally possesses exceptional power, regeneration, affinity with environmental Origin Energy, and a consciousness strong enough to stagger Su Chen even after suffering severe spiritual injuries.

Deep Blue Domain and water control

Water is Scarlet Heart's most developed element. The Deep Blue Domain spreads blue light across the battlefield, places crushing pressure on those within it, slows attacks, and allows Scarlet Heart to shift position as if occupying a different spatial layer. It uses the domain to evade Gucha's blade, impede the Ancestors' chants, and make volleys of life-powered axes nearly stop in place. (Chapters 719–720)

The domain is powerful but not absolute. Its restraint weakens whenever Scarlet Heart diverts power into movement, creating openings for the Guardian Spirit and Imperial Guards. Goncourt can also halt its advance temporarily with his own strength. The technique's exact radius, cost, and means of acquisition are unstated, but prolonged combat while wounded clearly strains the emperor's total reserves. (Chapters 719–720)

Fire, darkness, and lightning

Scarlet Heart masters fire to counter the Tattooed Rau's wood and earth affinities. Its Azure Dragon Flames melt mountain rock, spread across a thousand-foot area, and can be compressed into a dragon before being intensified with darkness. The flames overwhelm a sound prison and later rain across a battlefield without the tricolored staff, showing that the weapon amplifies or coordinates the element rather than creating it. (Chapters 720 and 722)

Its darkness attacks include Death Withering Snakes, the Black Wave of Death, and a larger darkness domain. These powers rapidly decay bodies and corrode life; the final domain uses Scarlet Heart's body as a conduit to a darkness-rich dimension and consumes lifeforce to operate. Su Chen counters it by absorbing Darkness Origin Substance and hiding within the same darkness, while medicines slow the lesser decay effects. (Chapters 719–723)

Scarlet Heart had also begun studying lightning through the Thunder Spirit Totem. Su Chen's theft removes that avenue before the corpus shows a developed lightning technique. Its latest combat therefore remains centered on water, fire, darkness, consciousness, and physical force rather than a completed four-element system. (Chapters 679 and 719)

Emperor body, consciousness, and spatial control

Scarlet Heart's Demonic Emperor body can regenerate small wounds almost instantly, draw vast quantities of Origin Energy from the environment, and survive damage that destroys its staff, tears its consciousness, and reduces its effective strength by several tiers. It can casually stop a peak Totemic Warrior's weapon and kill Gucha with a withering strike. Its gaze-based consciousness attack also momentarily darkens Su Chen's vision despite his unusually strong mind. (Chapters 719–724)

These defenses have limits. The Guardian Spirit's attacks injure consciousness more seriously than flesh, and repeated suicidal axes force Scarlet Heart to spend attention on weaker attackers. After sustaining accumulated spiritual and physical damage, using Origin Energy causes its body severe pain and prevents easy teleportation. During the final battle it can still lock the surrounding space, but only by abandoning defense and converting its own body into one last attack. (Chapters 720 and 724–725)

Strategy and command

Scarlet Heart organizes large Beast Waves, commands Demonic Kings and lesser Beasts, and uses a floating palace as a battlefield platform. Its treasury history also demonstrates infiltration, bribery, camouflage, long-term observation, and carefully prepared single-use tools. It is therefore capable of sophisticated strategy despite the Beast Race's general weakness with constructed arts. (Chapters 676–680 and 718–720)

Its failure is strategic overextension. After the theft, it widens the front to recover value quickly, exhausting subordinates and making its eventual defeat predictable. Su Chen then exploits the emperor's known priorities with stolen-treasure auras and a marked target. Scarlet Heart recognizes individual tricks once exposed but cannot relinquish the goal that made the traps effective. (Chapters 684–690 and 712–724)

Relationships

• Su Chen: Su robs Scarlet Heart's palace, manipulates its resulting rage against the Ravagers, lures it into Anubi's army, and finally tracks it through Darkness Origin Substance. Scarlet Heart becomes fixated on recovering its treasures and killing him; Su treats that fixation as both a strategic weapon and an opportunity to kill an injured emperor. (Chapters 676–725)
• Anubi: Scarlet Heart holds the Ravager ruler responsible for the theft because Su crossed Ravager territory and attacks his envoys and people for compensation. When Anubi marches with rare national treasures, Scarlet Heart pursues him directly, never realizing that Su has arranged both the bait and the misunderstanding. (Chapters 685, 712–720)
• Danba: Danba recognizes that Scarlet Heart's offensive is unsustainable and uses the crisis to consolidate Ravager tribes. He later cooperates with Su's plan around Anubi, benefiting politically from the devastation even though his people bear much of its cost. Their relationship is strategic opposition rather than a direct personal encounter. (Chapters 685–691 and 713–723)
• The old pangolin: Scarlet Heart entrusts its palace to an aged, loyal servant. After Su deceives him and empties the treasury, the pangolin sends his consciousness to report the failure and kills himself in apology. The episode triggers Scarlet Heart's escalated campaign and demonstrates the fear and devotion it commands. (Chapters 677–684)

Items

The finalized item inventory for Scarlet Heart contains no entries. It carries a tricolored staff during its final campaign and once owned an exceptional treasury, but the staff is destroyed and the treasury's central contents pass to Su Chen rather than remaining persistent possessions.