The sounds of slaughter erupted as countless demon gods roared in fury, charging toward Chi Creek.
After a bloody battle, corpses piled into mountains. Even Chi Creek could not help but feel fatigue. He cultivated the Seamless War-God Art from the Chiming Era—a technique that seizes blood-essence from others, keeping himself at peak condition at all times. With three heads and six arms, his close-quarters combat was perfected to the extreme.
As long as his enemies were wounded, their leaking blood-essence would flow into him. The longer the fight, the greater his strength—endurance favored him.
This divine art was one of the finest of the Chiming Era. Countless practitioners, gods and demons alike, cultivated it—thus, Chiming gods and demons often took on the three-headed, six-armed form.
The Seamless War-God Art had two flaws. First, it placed immense strain on the flesh, so the body would grow weary even as blood-essence surged.
The second flaw was in spell-arts.
Because it was a close-combat art, his mastery of spell-arts was not particularly high.
This Chiming-era Monitor-Executioner sat atop a mountain of corpses. As night fell, flames from spent spell-arts flickered everywhere, sending up black smoke in the twilight.
Hex City lay in ruins.
Paper soul-ferry boats sailed out of the darkness, each bearing a Youdu Underworld Envoy collecting the souls of the fallen. Chi Creek watched these envoys blankly, asking no questions.
After all, he was the Monitor-Executioner of the Chiming Heavenly Court—a figure of immense background, long accustomed to such scenes.
Seated atop the corpse-mountain, he gazed into the distance. There, a three-faced demon god was approaching, adjusting his state with each step—a truly formidable opponent.
Sovereign King Furylo!
Chi Creek pressed one leg atop a skull, letting the other dangle casually as he steadied his breath and calmed his heart, striving to suppress his anger and save it for the moment of eruption.
His opponent was the demon race's Sovereign King. Chi Creek had once slain another Sovereign King using the God-Slaying Headsman's Blade, and knew full well how terrifying such enemies were. His heart had to be flawless—he could not give his foe the slightest opening.
Anger, and the thirst for vengeance, gave him strength—but could also rob him of reason.
Only by suppressing his fury until the life-and-death moment, then unleashing it in a decisive burst, could he strike a fatal blow. That was when vengeance would truly bring him joy, and his dao-heart would find immense satisfaction!
In the distance, Sovereign King Furylo kept advancing. At a glance, he seemed less a demon god than a cultured, handsome middle-aged scholar.
With each step, his arms flickered through spell-arts—one after another, yet each art compressed and layered, power accumulating without being released.
His stride frequency was not fast, yet his speed was immense, giving the illusion that he was careening down a mountain.
That was momentum—an invincible aura!
Momentum wasn't about stride frequency. His steps were slow, yet the feeling he gave off was an overwhelming, unmatched force!
The speed at which he accumulated spell-arts was astonishing, pressing down on Chi Creek with ever-increasing pressure—until he could no longer sit still!
Behind him, space unfolded in layered blooms, pushing Hex City farther and farther away. Even the demon corpses near the corpse-mountain receded into the distance.
Furylo's spell-arts were already preparing for the coming battle—moving away the demon corpses so Chi Creek would have no blood-essence to draw upon.
If he didn't strike now, Furylo would finish forging an invincible momentum!
Chi Creek shot into the air, six hands gripping six blazing golden war-blades. Blade-lights danced as battle skills and spell-arts erupted beneath his knives!
Battle skills and spell-arts surged like a tidal flood—one wave stacked atop another, each blade-light building higher and higher!
His steps quickened, each footfall stamping not on earth but on air a hundred zhang above the ground—yet the earth below caved in, forming dried-up lakes shaped like footprints!
The ground quaked. One footprint-shaped, dried lake after another appeared; even mountains abruptly sank, as he sped toward the unhurried Furylo at terrifying speed!
Footprint-shaped lakes flashed into existence before Furylo, leaving less than two hundred zhang between them.
At last, the two terrifying beings collided!
Far away in the City of Departure, Quinn Shepherd climbed the city wall at dusk, preparing to rest—when he saw a flash of light from the west.
The west—that was demon territory.
The youth stood atop the city wall, gazing into the distance as brilliant light erupted from the twilight. No matter how far away, it was blindingly bright.
That light looked like a massive, towering tree—the trunk suddenly shot up from the ground, a torrent of radiance surging skyward. Even in the City of Departure, the pillar of light could be seen climbing higher.
Then, a dazzling branch burst from the bare trunk, shaped like pure thunder-light.
Quinn strained to see, activating the Ninefold Heaven Eye Art—but even its power couldn't resolve the details at such a distance.
At such range, not even the shadow of a god or a ten-thousand-zhang mountain could be made out!
It was clear—the battle was unimaginably fierce and intense!