The Bloodfiend Old Demon was so frustrated he wanted to vomit blood, a feeling of profound and bitter injustice washing over him. For cultivators at the Dao Comprehension stage, battles lasting several days, or even weeks, were completely normal, a test of endurance, technique, and resource management. The previous frantic exchange between them had just been a preliminary, cautious probing of each other's defenses.
But with the near perfect protection of four heavenly treasures and the special, infuriating characteristics of her Five Elements Holy Body, which seemed to negate his most potent attacks, he was infuriated to the point of actually feeling his blood churn. If this were any ordinary early stage Dao Comprehension cultivator, they would have long been dead by her hands, torn apart by his blood arts.
But that was not even the worst part. What truly maddened him, scraping at his sanity, was that she could also actively drain his already dwindling lifespan. Had he been at his peak, with a robust and stable foundation, Su Min definitely would not have been able to take so much from him so quickly.
Yet things had already come to this desperate point. What else could he do? Even without knowing all her cards or uncovering more secrets of her elusive time law, he had no choice but to go all out, to burn the last of his essence. If this dragged on for even half a day longer, he would be completely drained, a desiccated husk floating in the void.
"Blood Overwhelms the Heavens, No Regrets, No Dreams." With this silent, final roar in his heart, the Bloodfiend Old Demon unleashed his ultimate power. In an instant, most of the local starry sky was dyed a deep, oppressive crimson. Nightmarish visions of hell, rivers of blood and mountains of bone, unfolded before Su Min's eyes as countless grotesque, shrieking creatures emerged from the bloody expanse, their forms shifting and monstrous.
"Innate Domain?" Su Min muttered to herself, borrowing a term from her past life to describe what she was seeing. Was this his final trump card, a projection of his twisted inner world?
"Blood is not inherently evil. It seems you were once a respectable man." As a massive, coagulated blood fist came crashing toward her, Su Min swung her sword in a clean arc, cleaving the monstrous attacker in two. However, this time, her usual suppression effect against demonic entities did not trigger. The blood constructs did not recoil or weaken in her presence.
This meant her natural advantage against corrupt entities was not working here. That made things a bit more interesting, a genuine puzzle. After all, she too possessed a formidable killing intent, a vast, overwhelming aura of slaughter earned on countless battlefields.
"In my youth, I fought alongside the Kirin Emperor in the Otherworld, slaying countless demons and aberrations to save the common people. Everything I have now, all this power, is what I rightfully deserve, little girl." His voice boomed through the bloody domain, filled with a bitter pride.
"What a pity you fell so far, and nearly drove the entire Kirin race to extinction in your greed." Her words, calm and sharp, only further provoked the Bloodfiend Old Demon. The space around them had now completely separated from the normal universe, becoming an isolated realm of his own making, a pocket dimension of blood and rage.
"Hahaha! The Kirin? Those arrogant divine beasts treated humans as nothing more than puppets and slaves! I saved the Kirin from peril multiple times, yet what did the Kirin Emperor do? On his deathbed, he forced me to swear a soul oath, binding me to their service for eternity!" he roared back, his justification echoing in the crimson void.
"Plenty of excuses." Su Min's response was utterly indifferent, dismissing his centuries old grievance. While the blood oath likely only restricted him from directly harming the Kirin, perhaps not even limiting his personal freedom, his true moral downfall came when he faced the Heavenly Decay and chose to take these desperate, monstrous measures against the innocent.
This man might have once been a hero, a savior, but now he was nothing more than a calamity to the world. The dragon slayer had become the dragon himself, a tragic and common cycle of corruption and power.
As for Su Min, she was not worried about following the same path. Not because she had absolute, unshakable confidence in her own moral fiber, but for a far more fundamental reason: she had achieved true immortality. Even if the Heavenly Decay returned in full force, she could simply endure, waiting it out for countless ages, untouched by time.
"Since that is the case, I will show you the highest form of respect a warrior can offer." After carefully assessing the stabilized domain and the power fueling it, Su Min made her decision. She popped another pill into her mouth, the motion swift and precise.
[Qi Burst Pill (7th Tier, Mid Grade): Temporarily grants an immense surge of spiritual power. If not used immediately, the energy will rapidly dissipate.]
Seeing her consume another priceless pill, the Bloodfiend Old Demon's lips twitched in a mixture of rage and envy. Fighting a wealthy alchemist was never good news; it was like trying to outlast a fountain. Had he known Su Min was a master pill refiner from the start, he would not have been so openly hostile; he might have tried negotiation, or a much faster, more decisive ambush.
This was already the second 7th tier pill she had used in this battle alone. Just how obscenely wealthy was she? Just look at someone like Tian Hao, he had followed her across the world and through countless dangers for the promise of a single high grade pill. The Bloodfiend Old Demon did not have any pills left in his possession, as unlike durable weapons or inert materials, pills could not withstand the relentless erosion of time. Even if he once possessed a treasury of high grade pills, they would have long since deteriorated into worthless dust in his long slumber.
And 7th tier pills? Even at his peak as a Mahayana expert, he would have had to treat a pill master of this level with the utmost respect, as a near equal.
Su Min, however, paid his internal turmoil no mind. Having confirmed there were no easily exploitable weaknesses in this blood domain, she opted for the simplest and most direct approach available to her: overwhelming, brute force.
In the next instant, the majestic forms of the four sacred beasts, the Vermilion Bird, the Black Tortoise, the Azure Dragon, and the White Tiger, materialized around Su Min simultaneously, their auras shining like beacons in the crimson gloom. The sight made the Bloodfiend Old Demon's heart tremble with a primal fear.
The Four Symbols, the legendary primordial deities that shaped the world. His era had been the late stages of the Decline Age, just before the true Age of Dharma's End. By then, the Four Symbols had long vanished from the mortal realm, leaving only fragmented records in the most ancient of texts.
But it did not end there. The next moment, to his utter horror, the four sacred beasts swirled together and merged into one, a coalescence of primordial power focused entirely on Su Min.
"What are you doing?!" The Bloodfiend Old Demon felt every hair on his body stand on end, his survival instincts screaming at him to flee.
"Giving you a nice, big present. We are far enough from the planet now. Here, in this space, I command the Four Symbols!!!" A terrifying explosion of raw energy and elemental chaos erupted throughout the blood domain, tearing at its seams. Though their battle had not lasted long in absolute terms, Su Min had deliberately lured him away from the inhabited world, maneuvering their fight into the deep void. The distance between them and the planet was now greater than that between Jupiter and Earth.
At this range, given her current controlled strength, none of the fallout from her attacks would reach the planet. That meant she could finally, truly go all out. The next moment, she unleashed the most powerful, concentrated strike she had ever executed in her life, a blow comparable in sheer destructive force to the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Had this battle taken place on the planet's surface, the world would have been utterly shattered, its crust vaporized.
"Damn you! Bloody Asura, Devour the World!" The Bloodfiend Old Demon roared in defiance, his voice cracking. With no room to dodge in the confined domain, he could only counter head on. The entire hellish domain shattered into glittering fragments, coalescing into a sphere of pure, compressed destruction in his hands before being hurled forward with brutal, simple force.
The two forces collided in the center of the void, their energies clashing and eroding each other in a silent, brilliant cataclysm of light and power.
Meanwhile, on the planet below, everyone on the night time hemisphere was staring at the sky, their faces illuminated by the otherworldly glow. The battle in space unfolded like a dazzling, terrifying fireworks display on a cosmic scale. None of them, not even the Divine Transformation cultivators, dared to fly up to intervene. The slightest approach would see them instantly obliterated by the raging, untamed energies.
Then, something even more spectacular occurred. Deep in the cosmos, a point of light akin to a newborn star exploding erupted, so bright it was visible even to the naked eye, a second sun blooming in the night for a fleeting moment.
The main meeting hall of the Cultivation Alliance stood empty. Every cultivator of note had taken to the skies, hovering in the air and watching the battle unfold above them, a sight both magnificent and utterly terrifying. Though they had once considered themselves akin to the ancient gods of myth, they now realized their true insignificance before such power. Mortals, and even they themselves, were meant only to gaze upward in awe and fear.
"Dao Comprehension stage?" The strongest Divine Transformation cultivator's face was alight with a fervent, almost religious passion. Was this the true power of the Dao Comprehension stage?
"This is not an ordinary Dao Comprehension battle. Do not forget, one of them was originally a Mahayana cultivator. Even with his cultivation suppressed to Dao Comprehension, his combat prowess, his understanding of laws, is beyond our comparison." Lin Yao cut in, her voice firm. This was no ordinary fight between early stage Dao Comprehension experts. Having spent considerable time with Su Min, she knew some of her history.
Su Min had slain multiple Dao Comprehension experts even while she herself was still at the Divine Transformation stage. Now that she had reached Dao Comprehension herself, her strength was undeniably monstrous. Yet even she was locked in such a bitter struggle, proof that this was a battle between two exceptional existences, far beyond a normal early stage Dao Comprehension fight.
"I see..." The cultivator gave a bitter smile but said no more. Whatever Lin Yao said, he would accept. After all, Su Min was her master, which put him at a social disadvantage in her presence. Still, it comforted him somewhat; it was easier to accept being dwarfed by a monster than by a peer.
Out in the void, violent energies continued to rage. Some of the scattered power even struck a nearby barren moon, blasting a massive, fresh crater into its ancient surface. From a distance, it looked like a stone thrown into shallow water, sending up plumes of dust and rock that enveloped the entire world in a hazy cloud.
Had such force struck a living planet, the consequences would have been catastrophic, something Su Min understood all too well and had worked carefully to avoid.
"Cough."
At that moment, Su Min spat out a mouthful of blood, the coppery taste filling her mouth. She was silently grateful she had disarmed the Bloodfiend Old Demon earlier. Had he still possessed that Heaven tier weapon during this final clash, she might have had to take him down with her, at the cost of her own life.
Of course, that was only a possibility. She still had two ultimate life saving pills she had prepared for just such an emergency. The worst case scenario would have been a pyrrhic victory, requiring a full century of secluded recovery.
"You are still alive..." But then, Su Min's lips curled into a cold, determined smile. A figure far more battered than her, missing an arm and trailing pieces of dark armor, emerged from the fading explosion, tumbling uncontrollably as it hurtled toward the planet below like a falling star.
While Su Min could cause mass extinctions, she could not yet destroy an entire planet with a single blow. If the Bloodfiend Old Demon reached its surface, he might still have a sliver of a chance to escape into the deep crust and go into hiding, to recover over millennia.
Or so he thought.
"Time Acceleration!"
In a flash, Su Min shot forward, her body moving faster than thought, like a meteor streaking across the sky. When cultivators exhausted their spiritual power, when all techniques were spent, only one option remained: brutal, physical, close quarters combat. Almost instantly, she appeared behind the tumbling form of the Bloodfiend Old Demon and delivered a devastating, armor shattering punch to his spine.
Boom!!!
A deafening impact echoed through the thin upper atmosphere as the Bloodfiend Old Demon was sent flying downward at an even greater speed, crashing into the planet's surface from tens of thousands of meters up. The collision triggered catastrophic earthquakes, splitting the continental plate and unleashing fountains of molten lava from the wounded earth.
But Su Min was not done. She pursued him relentlessly, a golden avenger descending, and what followed would have shocked any onlookers. The very ground seemed to flow like water as it cracked and heaved violently under the force of their struggle. Both combatants were now consumed by battle frenzy, tearing through the planet's crust and mantle in a brutal game of cat and mouse. Compared to the stable Heavenly Continent, or even Lin Yao's more robust homeworld, this planet's structural integrity was pitifully weak.
Mountains crumbled into dust, toxic gases spewed from newly opened fissures, and volcanoes erupted simultaneously across the globe. The very atmosphere began to undergo drastic changes, growing thick with ash and poison.
Boom!!! Another explosion rang out as the two burst back out from underground, or rather, Su Min dragging the limp, broken body of the Bloodfiend Old Demon with her. Her once pristine black and gold armor was now in tatters, revealing patches of fair skin beneath, crisscrossed with shallow cuts and deep bruises.
Even heavily wounded and on the verge of death, the Bloodfiend Old Demon had still managed to inflict significant damage in their final, desperate struggle. His combat prowess and grit far surpassed that of the Future Maitreya Mountain's ancestor, making him officially the strongest opponent Su Min had ever faced in a true, life or death battle.
She estimated that within the Dao Comprehension stage, only herself, the monstrous Xie Yingying, or her stubborn rival Tian Hao could have matched him in a direct fight. As for prodigies like Yao Xian'er and that infuriating little monk, they might have already reached the Unity stage by now, leaving such concerns behind.
"He is dead." Looking at the utterly lifeless corpse in her hands, Su Min took a deep, ragged breath. The long, exhausting battle was finally over. The planet beneath them had been transformed into a smoking wasteland, mountains leveled, earth shattered, and volcanoes spewing endless destruction into the sky.
Yet amidst the overwhelming devastation, Su Min's sharp senses picked up something else, a faint, peculiar vitality slowly emerging from the planet's traumatized core. Their battle had released immense geothermal energies and churned up deep, mineral rich layers.
"Have I become a creator god?" The thought was fleeting and absurd. This planet now resembled Earth billions of years ago, undergoing massive, violent geological changes as the very first building blocks of life began to stir in the chaotic soup. Their battle had, ironically, reignited the planet's latent life force. Of course, it would take eons, billions of years, for anything sentient to come of it, far longer than Su Min would likely ever witness.
"Now, it is time for you to disappear completely." Shaking off her philosophical musings, Su Min smirked down at the corpse. Crimson flames, hot enough to melt steel, engulfed her hand as she reduced the body to fine, sterile ashes. With her heightened spiritual perception, even if a single wisp of his soul had somehow remained, it would never find the energy to recover on this newly barren world.
Gasping for breath, her body aching in every fiber, Su Min soared back up into the silent, cold space. She pulled out her little gourd and drank deeply from its seemingly endless supply of spiritual water, not stopping until she had regained a sliver of her strength and stability.
Only then did she finally allow herself to relax, the tension draining from her shoulders. Still, she would need proper, extended rest and several high grade pills to fully recover. Killing the Bloodfiend Old Demon and surviving his final, all out counterattack had taken a heavy toll, one that could not be shrugged off easily.