Black Robe

Black Robe is the hidden architect of the demon empire's intelligence operations, succession struggles, and wars against humanity. For most of the story, the world knows Black Robe as an elderly demon man whose calculations seem almost infallible. The final confrontation in Xuelao City reveals instead that she is a human woman: Zhou Yuren, remembered by history as Zhou Dufu's younger brother, also called Chen'er and married to Wang Zhice. Her allegiance to the demons is ultimately only a stage in a revenge plan directed against every people she holds responsible for Zhou Dufu's death. (Chapters 29, 170, 247, and 1174–1175)

Biography

The hidden advisor and the Garden of Zhou

Black Robe is initially known almost entirely through other people's fear. Demon experts respectfully call the unknown advisor “Lord Black Robe,” while the Yeshi tribe supplies a clandestine intelligence organization that has operated for centuries inside human territory. An agent's failed attempt to assassinate Luoluo gives Zhou Tong a thread into that organization; torture and counter-investigation then expose information about the Garden of Zhou. The episode establishes the pattern that defines Black Robe's career: broad networks and deep preparation give her an enormous advantage, but one compromised subordinate can place an otherwise hidden design in an opponent's hands. (Chapters 29–31 and 157–187)

The Garden becomes the center of Black Robe's attempt to destroy Su Li, whose sword and independence make him a strategic threat to the demons. She exploits the Garden's opening, the peril of Su Li's daughter, and Nanke's hostility toward the human entrants to force several conflicts to converge. Life lamps track selected targets inside the miniature world, while the iron plate and the Soul Pivot let her observe and influence a domain inherited from Zhou Dufu. Nanke is ordered to foster internal strife and kill figures including Xu Yourong, Zhexiu, and Qi Jian, turning young cultivators into both targets and bait. (Chapters 246–248, 270–283, 315–327, and 806)

Outside the Garden, Black Robe builds the second half of the trap around attrition. The Demon Lord, the Demon Commander, Demon Generals, and more than one hundred thousand cavalry and wolfriders combine to exhaust Su Li before he can escape south. The plan nearly succeeds, but Chen Changsheng returns the Heaven Shrouding Sword to Su Li through the Yellow Paper Umbrella, allowing the swordsman to wound Black Robe, tear open the encirclement, and flee. Black Robe keeps the pursuit moving and selectively leaks Su Li's route to hostile human powers while concealing Chen's presence, yet the fugitives escape again. Years of preparation therefore leave Su Li wounded but alive, and the failure strengthens the bond between Su Li and the pupil who will inherit his sword teaching. (Chapters 326, 349–365, 394, and 535)

A throne changed by treachery

Black Robe's public service to Xuelao City never means simple loyalty to its ruler. She joins the Demon Commander in rebellion, helps ambush and depose the old Demon Lord, and installs his youngest son on the throne. Nanke escapes the purge, but loyal generals and tens of thousands of cavalry are killed or executed as the new regime consolidates. To the demons, the coup can appear to be a transfer of power engineered for their race's survival; to Black Robe, it removes a ruler connected to Zhou Dufu's death and places a devoted student in power. The new arrangement gives her greater freedom to treat the demon state itself as an instrument. (Chapters 679–680 and 1174–1175)

Her methods around the old Demon Lord show how she separates apparent objectives from actual ones. Black Robe uses the Longevity Sect to reach Tang Second Master, allowing the human conspirator to believe that their cooperation is aimed at killing Chen Changsheng. The operation's true objective is the fugitive Demon Lord. After the coup, the new regime even conducts a two-year southern war whose territorial aims conceal a hunt for the deposed ruler; Black Robe and her allies accept hundreds of thousands of deaths as an affordable price for ensuring that he cannot return. The old ruler is eventually killed, completing one portion of a vengeance whose full scope neither her human intermediaries nor her demon patrons understand. (Chapters 780, 794, 849, and 921)

The Young Demon Lord regards Black Robe as teacher, model, and beloved companion. She has educated him through letters, trained him to study schemes, and helped make him emperor; he, in turn, trusts her hatred of humanity and supports plans that weaken his own war effort. Yet the intimacy is founded on a decisive omission. Black Robe intends the destruction of the demons as well as the humans, and even the Demon Commander—her most trusted operational partner—never learns that she is using their race toward its own extinction. The Young Demon Lord's affection is genuine enough that he senses her distress and creates the opening for Liu Qing to kill her, unknowingly triggering the reincarnation she had prepared; it cannot make her final purpose loyal to him. (Chapters 780, 1014, 1172–1175, 1180–1181)

The northern campaign

Before open war resumes, Black Robe continues using prediction to attack irreplaceable individuals rather than formations. Observing the Southern Cross, she concludes that a new human Divine Domain expert is about to emerge in the snowy plains and correctly identifies Xiao Zhang. She arranges for three ancient Mountain Men to kill him before his breakthrough and predicts that Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong will come to retrieve him, making the rescuers the trap's more consequential targets. The calculations are formidable but not absolute: the intended victims survive, while the result demonstrates that Black Robe's forecasts remain vulnerable to unmodeled choices and intervention. (Chapters 1125–1126)

During the major campaign, Black Robe combines diversions, old arrays, carefully selected experts, and knowledge of human temperament. At Mount Nuorilang, scattered assaults on camps and supplies conceal a concentrated strike involving Demon Generals, wolf cavalry, and the Demon Commander. A second array and four high-ranking generals wait along the route she expects the Prince of Xiang to take in pursuit, nearly killing him and forcing the Mount Li Sect Master into the encirclement. Her immediate purpose is not necessarily to hold ground, but to wound enough Divine Domain experts to delay the human advance until winter. That aim shows her characteristic willingness to spend elite demon lives for time and leverage. (Chapters 1141–1144)

The design does injure several human experts, but it fails at the level that matters most. Human commanders exploit developments Black Robe did not fully control and break the second defensive line earlier than expected. This reversal is important to her development: the strategist once treated demon manpower as a route to humanity's extinction, whereas the collapsing front convinces her that the demons can no longer win that task for her. She therefore encourages the upper ranks to place their hopes in a sacrificial altar. Their growing dependence on that alternative weakens their commitment to the battlefield, worsening the military disaster and making the promised supernatural rescue seem still more necessary. (Chapters 1144 and 1172)

Zhou Yuren and the path of Sacred Light

While the armies approach Xuelao City, Black Robe personally attempts to kill Shang Xingzhou. Disguised as a wounded human soldier, she slips close enough to launch a concealed soul-locking finger attack; Shang sees through the disguise and uses spatial fissures to strip away the uniform and tear her ancient robe. The red blood beneath it exposes that Black Robe is human, not demon. She is powerful enough to survive a direct ambush by Xiao Zhang's Frost God Spear and escape as black fog, but the wound prevents her from halting the human advance. The exchange forces the truth of her body into the open before her name and history are finally disclosed. (Chapters 1153–1155)

In the Demon Hall, Black Robe reveals that she supplied Chen Xuanba's blood for the transaction that produced Chen Changsheng, while Shang Xingzhou participated without knowing her intended end. Celestial Fire from the demon flames ignites the Sacred Light inside Chen, turning him into a “lighthouse” whose position can be fixed across the sea of stars. The resulting path would allow an army of Angels to descend and reduce the peoples of the Central Continent to extinction or servitude. When asked why a human would do this, Black Robe names herself Zhou Yuren. Wang Zhice then identifies her as his wife, a woman whose maiden name is Chen'er, overturning the story's long presentation of Black Robe as an elderly demon man. (Chapters 1174–1176)

The revelation also explains the scale, though not the morality, of her alliances. Black Robe says that human, demon, and demi-human experts conspired to kill Zhou Dufu, and that she swore to exterminate humanity on the day of his death. Her service to the old Demon Lord was enabled by that visible hatred, but he did not know that she had learned of his own participation or marked the demons for destruction too. She is prepared to sacrifice the Young Demon Lord, the Demon Commander, Wang Zhice, and herself to make every race accompany her brother in death. Revenge has consequently transformed relationships that contain real trust or love into expendable instruments. (Chapter 1175)

Black Robe's final calculation comes close to opening the world, but it fails through accumulated choices she did not predict. Chen's years of giving blood for Cinnabar Pills leave less Sacred Light in his body than her model assumes; his breakthrough and the three thousand swords disrupt the path; and Su Li, already beyond the sea of stars, cuts it from the far side. Wang Zhice cripples her cultivation and intends to confine her, but the Young Demon Lord creates an opening for Liu Qing to stab her through the Ethereal Palace. That death is itself part of Black Robe's contingency: a graveyard altar transfers her soul into a body prepared with the Demon Commander's help. Zhexiu has patiently waited at the site, however, and kills the helpless revived Black Robe before she can recover, ending the revenge she still planned to continue in the human world. (Chapters 1177–1181)

Appearance and personality

For most of the story, Black Robe is described according to a carefully maintained false presentation: an old, slightly stooped demon man in a plain, worn black robe whose position is difficult to follow even in a blizzard. A deep hood hides most of a deathly pale, green-tinged face, while an enchanting smile and thin, withered fingers remain visible. The late revelation does not erase those observations, but changes their meaning. Beneath the masculine identity and altered manner is a human woman with an original, pleasant voice and an indescribably beautiful face still marked by sickly green skin and the aura of death produced by her unnatural longevity. (Chapters 170, 247, 1153–1154, and 1174–1175)

Black Robe is patient, controlled, and willing to let others mistake partial truths for the whole. She inspires genuine respect in subordinates and can show tenderness toward the Young Demon Lord or remorse for the Demon Commander, yet neither feeling outweighs her oath. Her hatred is personal rather than ideological: she serves demons to destroy humans, then embraces Sacred Light when demon victory becomes impossible, even though that choice also condemns the demons. She takes pride in calculation and in her identity as an avenger, but repeated failures expose a blind spot toward sacrifices made freely for others—Chen's medicine, Xu Yourong's willingness to die with him, Su Li's distant intervention, and Zhexiu's patient hunt all fall outside the selfish premises on which she prefers to calculate. (Chapters 780, 1172–1179, and 1181)

Abilities and cultivation

Black Robe is an ancient, high-level cultivator whose exact realm is never stated. Her combat strength is formidable enough that the Demon Commander is uncertainly ranked against her, and Shang Xingzhou judges that she may be stronger than he is in direct cultivation. Her thousand-year survival depends on an evil longevity method that leaves her body neither fully living nor simply dead. She can move with extreme speed, deliver a finger technique intended to lock and destroy a soul, survive a Frost God Spear thrust through her chest, and dissolve into black fog to escape. These powers have limits: Shang deceives and wounds her, Wang Zhice cripples her cultivation through a touch, and her sacrificial revival leaves her defenseless for weeks and decades away from full recovery. (Chapters 1153–1155 and 1179–1181)

Intelligence, prediction, and command

Her greatest weapon is the ability to combine intelligence with predictions about motive. Black Robe has planted spies in human society for centuries and treats nearly any person—including an enemy's bereaved son—as recruitable if the incentive is sufficient. Her network delivers fast, detailed reports, and her plans use intermediaries who understand only the objective needed for their part. From the Garden of Zhou to the old Demon Lord's death and the Mount Nuorilang battles, she repeatedly conceals a targeted operation inside a larger crisis. Her limitation is not lack of information but the claim implicit in her methods that people will choose according to fear, gain, resentment, or self-preservation; costly acts of loyalty and unforeseen personal growth repeatedly break otherwise accurate forecasts. (Chapters 157, 363–365, 780, 849, 1029, 1125–1126, and 1177–1179)

Concealment and misdirection

Black Robe is called the continent's greatest master of concealment. Her robe and cultivation make her position uncertain even to an observer staring through a snowstorm, while additional methods can hide a fight on a nearby hill from an entire cavalry force. She can disguise herself as a wounded human soldier, suppress signs of an attack until striking range, alter the gender and species by which the world recognizes her, and escape in a cloud of black fog. Her deepest misdirection is temporal: schemes remain useful after apparent defeat, as shown when the “sacrificial altar” built for contact with the Sacred Light Continent also contains the prepared body and ritual needed for her own return. (Chapters 170, 784, 1153–1155, and 1180–1181)

Calculation, arrays, and interworld theory

Black Robe uses a metal plate as a calculating and control instrument, most notably when it displays a miniature Garden of Zhou and supports observation through life lamps. The Soul Pivot grants access to Zhou Dufu's domain and helps explain how demon forces enter and manipulate the Garden. On battlefields, she prepares concealment arrays, spatial paths, ambush formations, and layered retreats rather than relying on a single decisive clash. Her most ambitious theory identifies demon Celestial Fire and Sacred Light as related forces: by connecting the fire to Chen's body, she creates a beacon that lets another continent locate this world. The theory works, but the path's stability depends on a quantity of Sacred Light she miscalculates, allowing Chen and Su Li to sever it. (Chapters 283, 315–327, 1141–1144, and 1174–1179)

Power progression

Relationships

• Zhou Dufu: Black Robe identifies herself as Zhou Yuren, the historical figure remembered as Zhou Dufu's younger brother, while Wang Zhice's disclosure establishes that she is a woman. She describes Zhou Dufu as her elder brother and makes revenge for the multinational conspiracy that killed him the governing purpose of her life. (Chapter 1175)
• Wang Zhice: Wang Zhice is Black Robe's husband and knows her as Chen'er. His repeated difficulty opposing her becomes comprehensible after this disclosure; when her final plan fails, he cripples her cultivation but tries to spare her life and confine her in Sangharama Temple, provoking resistance from the people harmed by her schemes. (Chapters 1041 and 1175–1180)
• Young Demon Lord: Black Robe is his teacher, political maker, and the object of his love. He helps carry her plan to the brink of completion and later creates the opening for Liu Qing to kill her prepared body, unknowingly enabling her escape ritual. She values him, but still intends the extinction of his race. (Chapters 680, 780, 1014, and 1174–1181)
• Demon Commander: The Demon Commander is Black Robe's closest military collaborator, joining the coup and selecting the body used for Black Robe's revival. Black Robe regards her as the most trusted of companions and feels remorse after her death, but never tells her that the final design condemns demons alongside humans. (Chapters 679–680 and 1181)
• Su Li: Each recognizes the other as a singular threat. Black Robe spends years arranging the Garden and snowy-plain encirclement to kill Su Li; he escapes, wounds her, and ultimately destroys her path to the Sacred Light Continent with a sword strike from beyond the stars. (Chapters 248, 270–277, 349–354, 535, and 1179)
• Chen Changsheng: Black Robe helps supply the blood used in Chen's creation, not to save or raise him but to prepare a future beacon for the Sacred Light Continent. Chen repeatedly becomes the unplanned variable who breaks her schemes, first by returning Su Li's sword and finally by surviving long enough to sever the interworld path. (Chapters 326, 349–354, and 1174–1179)
• Shang Xingzhou: Shang Xingzhou is another party to Chen's creation, but Black Robe conceals her true goal from him. Their long contest culminates when he anticipates her attack, exposes her as human, and leaves Xu Yourong instructions for defeating the lighthouse plan even if it requires Chen's death. (Chapters 1153–1155 and 1175–1177)
• Zhexiu: Zhexiu does not defeat Black Robe through superior cultivation. He notices her earlier interest in the graveyard, hides inside a frozen demon corpse, and waits through the winter until her reincarnated and powerless body emerges. His patience defeats the escape contingency of a strategist who believed no one could wait longer than she could. (Chapter 1181)

Items

• Black robe: The plain, ancient garment is both Black Robe's namesake and a practical instrument of concealment. Its hood obscures her face and helps sustain the world's false understanding of her age, sex, and species; Shang Xingzhou's spatial attack tears it open when he exposes her human blood. (Chapters 170, 247, and 1153–1155)
• Iron plate: This calculating and control relic can display the Garden of Zhou as a miniature landscape and works with life lamps to track targets within it. Black Robe continues carrying a damaged version after the Garden scheme fails and later uses a metal plate when assessing the Sacred Light path. (Chapters 283, 315, 430, 571, and 1177)
• Soul Pivot: This relic associated with Zhou Dufu gives Black Robe the means to influence access to the Garden of Zhou and helps conceal the personal history behind her possession of its authority. (Chapters 315–327 and 1175)
• Sacrificial altar: Presented to the demon leadership as the foundation for salvation through the Sacred Light Continent, the altar also serves a private second purpose. Its sacrificed nobles power Black Robe's transfer into a prepared corpse, allowing her to survive Liu Qing's apparently fatal strike before Zhexiu finds and kills the revived body. (Chapters 1172–1174 and 1180–1181)