Modao

In the common Honghuang account, the dragon, phoenix and qilin clans held the water, the land and the air, and their soldiers killed one another all over the world. The bones sank into the rivers and seas, and blood and resentment gathered day and night.

Luohou drew that killing-force together in the west and called in followers of the demonic path. He moved his seat into Mount Sumeru, and black cloud hung over the mountain day and night.

The fiercer the war of the three clans, the heavier the malice that gathered on Mount Sumeru. Luohou brought out the four swords Zhuxian, Luxian, Xianxian and Juexian with their formation chart, hung the blades at the four gates and closed every road into the mountain.

In the most widely told version of the war of Dao and demon, Hongjun called in Yangmei, Yinyang and Qiankun, and each went towards one of the sword-gates. Sword-qi burst again and again out of the mountain’s mouth, and the halls and crags of Mount Sumeru came down layer by layer.

Yinyang and Qiankun died in the fighting one after the other, and Yangmei and Hongjun pressed further in. The four sword-gates were broken in turn, the four long blades fell from them, and the black vapour in the formation scattered west across the land.

Even without the sword formation Luohou fought on in Mount Sumeru against Hongjun. The versions have him either burst his demon body at the end or swear the oath of the demonic path with his death; when the fighting was over he no longer came out of the mountain.

Hongjun took up the four Zhuxian swords and the formation chart. After the three sermons of Zixiao Palace, the common account then puts the sword formation into Tongtian’s hands, and the four blades went with him into the Biyou Palace.

After Luohou’s defeat the surviving demon hosts scattered from the west. The old demon halls and gate-towers fell in, and the earth-veins of Mount Sumeru were left ruined by that fighting.

Later Honghuang continuations have cultivators of other ages fall to the demonic path: some refine their arts from killing-force, some turn demon within a calamity. Each rises on his own, and none has ever gathered on Mount Sumeru the force Luohou once had.