"Quick! Form the array! Moon-Carver, get your formation disk out!"
For once, even Venti wasn't joking, his voice tight with urgency as he urged Moon-Carver.
Jiang Yan frowned, his tone firm:
"Do not move!"
"No one is to circulate true essence. Do not release a single wisp of aura."
"The Snow Howler King is a genuine Ten-Thousand-Year Demon King. His power is condensed to perfection—only one step short of Returning to Void."
"If you so much as stir a thread of true essence, he will sense it."
At his words, Venti and Moon-Carver froze. The others held their breath, tense eyes fixed on the distant sky.
All they could do now was pray he had not already noticed them.
Cultivation had sharpened their vision. In the blink of an eye, a small black dot appeared far away.
As they focused, it resolved into a young man draped in snowy white, his long hair cascading like an avalanche. His skin, his robes, even his pupils—all white to the point of distortion.
He gazed down for a moment, then spoke. His voice echoed across the entire icebound land.
"Mount Shu disciples? After several centuries, your stench returns again. As loathsome as ever."
The Snow Howler King tilted his head skyward, his tone calm—but edged with killing intent sharp as a blade.
"Such blatant traces of true essence… It seems those sanctimonious hypocrites of Mount Shu have neglected to teach you how to tread the Nine Nether Secret Realm."
"Come out. I can grant you a swift end."
A bead of cold sweat rolled down Zhongli's brow.
Though the distance was vast, he felt it—mortal danger.
There was no resisting it.
This was power like the wrath of heaven itself.
For the first time, the War God who had reigned invincible across Teyvat felt a helplessness so strong it hollowed his chest.
"Master…"
Ganyu whispered.
"Pay him no mind." Jiang Yan shook his head.
"He is bluffing. As long as you do not reveal your essence, he cannot pinpoint you."
"The aura of the Myriad Demon Mountains is too chaotic. Even a peak Soul-Merging cultivator cannot comb through it strand by strand."
Relief eased their hearts, though the sight of the Snow Howler King still chilled them to their bones.
This was the most powerful existence they had ever witnessed.
Jiang Yan did not count. Though he was late-stage Returning to Void, he never displayed his true strength. His presence was mild, his occasional faint leaks of qi resembling heaven and earth themselves, far beyond the Snow Howler.
But Jiang Yan never acted seriously.
Here, the King's aura was unleashed without reservation. Its crushing pressure was overwhelming.
Zhongli measured quietly in his heart.
If he had fully mastered the Manifest True Form Spell, if Venti had perfected the Wine God Art, if Alice had refined her Divine Light of Union—if all three acted in flawless concert…
Perhaps they could endure for a moment.
But only for a moment.
In the end, death would still await.
As for now, with their fumbling grasp of spells—they would likely be annihilated in an instant.
The King's aura was too fearsome.
"Master, what should we do?" Ganyu asked anxiously.
Jiang Yan's reply was calm:
"This is your expedition. If you rely on me for everything, how will you ever grow? Tell me—what do you think should be done?"
They fell silent.
At length, Ningguang spoke in a low voice:
"For now… we can only wait."
"Wait? Wait for him to find us and kill us?" Moon-Carver's voice cracked with panic.
Truly, their luck today had been cursed.
They had barely set foot into the secret realm, spotted a rare spirit fruit—and the guardian turned out to be none other than the personal retainer of the Snow Howler, one of the Seven Demon Kings of the Nine Nether Secret Realm.
A calamity from eight lifetimes.
"Moon-Carver, don't panic. Remember—the Snow Howler King and the Fire Qilin King are mortal enemies."
Ningguang shook her head softly.
"Our only hope is… external interference."
The words left them uneasy.
Her meaning was clear: their only salvation lay in another Demon King—namely, the Fire Qilin King.
"Not coming out?"
The Snow Howler's gaze swept downward. Power surged like a tidal wave, smothering the land.
"In that case… I will erase this entire region. Let us see how long you survive."
He raised his hand. A world-ending aura gathered. Heaven and earth trembled.
But before he could strike—
A tyrannical will ripped across the sky, scattering the icy clouds.
"White-haired mutt! How dare you run wild on my land? Has the Frost Domain frozen your wits?"
A voice thundered. Opposite the Snow Howler King appeared a middle-aged man in crimson robes.
His brow bore twin horns. His neck was plated with dark-red scales.
Compared to the Snow Howler, this newcomer's aura was even more domineering.
The Snow Howler's brows furrowed. He lowered his hand for now, cold eyes fixing on the Fire Qilin King.
"So. Even the border of the Myriad Demon Mountains is yours now, scaled beast?"
The Fire Qilin King sneered, eyes sweeping disdainfully downward.
"Your retainer, felled by mere Soul-Merging and Foundation-stage brats? Truly, you're wasting your years. Mount Shu's children killed him with ease."
"White mutt—you'd best kill yourself now, and spare the world your shame."
The Snow Howler King laughed coldly.
"Sharp tongue."
"Yet when Mo Yixi severed worlds, I never once heard you dare yap like this."
"I won't waste words with trash. Mount Shu's disciples have entered the Nine Nether Secret Realm once more, this time through your domain."
"Fire Qilin King—shouldn't you give me an explanation?"
The Fire Qilin King barked laughter, fury rolling off him.
"An explanation? From me? To you?"
"It was your retainer who trespassed on my land. If anything, you should kneel and beg forgiveness."
The Snow Howler's eyes hardened.
"What matters most is slaughtering the Mount Shu disciples. Must you waste time quibbling with me?"
"Bah. A handful of fledgling cultivators? After I destroy you, I'll seize them at leisure."
Purple lightning and flame began to swirl in Qilin's eyes.
"Seize?"
The Snow Howler King bristled.
"Damn you! You would hoard them for yourself? Do you not fear the wrath of the Seven Kings united?"
The Qilin laughed.
"Seven Kings' Pact? A cabal of scheming hypocrites. You think yourselves allies? Bah."
"Once I seize the disciples and find the exit, you can rot forever in this Nine Nether Secret Realm."
"White mutt! Die!"
Thunderfire erupted, roaring across the heavens.
The Snow Howler King laughed in rage.
"If not for Greenwind Ox's sake, you would have long been a corpse beneath my claws!"
"Today, I'll send you to the Yellow Springs!"
Ice storms and thunderfire collided.
In an instant, the world convulsed.
The clash unleashed a tidal wave of power greater than the three-headed bird's self-detonation.
For a thousand miles, mountains shattered, earth disintegrated.
Zhongli and the others blanched. They could no longer dare hide their essence. Desperately, they combined their power to shield against the first surge of destruction.
"Run!" Venti shouted, sweeping them all up as he burned through everything he had to flee.
Zhongli followed without hesitation.
The aftermath of two high-tier cultivators colliding was far deadlier than any bird's explosion.
Even blocking for a few breaths drained his essence like floodwaters bursting a dam.
The truth of "when city gates burn, the fish in the moat perish" had never been so vivid.
They were nothing but collateral in this war between titans.
Venti ran himself ragged. The Wine God Art flared to its limit, every drop of power thrown into flight.
Only after an hour did the clash's echoes finally soften.
Venti exhaled, relief flashing across his pale face—before weakness devoured him.
The moment the scripture's effect faded, his body gave out. He plummeted from the sky.
Thankfully, Zhongli caught him in time.
"Old man… no more running…"
Venti's eyes half-closed, voice slurred with exhaustion.
"Too tired… can't move…"
Zhongli pressed his lips together, nodding with complicated eyes.
"Rest. The battle won't spill this far."
"Two peak Soul-Merging experts clashing… this will not end quickly."
Venti gave a faint nod—then fainted.
"Moon-Carver, set the Spirit-Gathering Array."
At Zhongli's order, Moon-Carver hastily drew a formation. Venti was placed within, his circulation guided to restore his essence.
Color returned slowly to his face.
But he was drained near to collapse.
Zhongli and Alice were no better, their true essence hollowed from facing the brunt of the earlier shockwave. They too sat cross-legged, swallowing pills, forcing their energy to recover.
Not long into the Myriad Demon Mountains, and already one of them was down, while two were emptied.
And they were the strongest three.
Ningguang and the others could only sigh in helplessness.
The worst part?
They hadn't even fought a proper battle.
While Zhongli and Alice meditated, the others turned their eyes back toward the battlefield.
The sky was split in two—one half blazing inferno, the other frozen wasteland.
As though heaven itself had been cleaved.
Each collision erased another swath of land. Mountains thousands of meters tall crumbled like sandcastles, dissolved to ash.
They remembered the beasts they'd passed while fleeing—those too slow to escape.
All dead, shredded by the shockwaves.
Some had been at the very peak of Essence-Refining.
In the Nine Nether Secret Realm, life was this cheap.
Millennia of cultivation—ended as nothing more than collateral in a clash of stronger beings.
"So this… is the cultivation world? How cruel."
Lisa's sigh was long and heavy.
"It is because it is cruel," Jiang Yan's voice came quietly,
"that every cultivator climbs upward with all their might."
"No one wishes to be background—to be tallied as just another number, dead to someone else's shockwave."
Ningguang fell silent, then admitted with relief:
"We were lucky to choose the Myriad Demon Mountains. With rival Demon Kings in conflict. Had we entered territory ruled by only one…"
"We would already be dead."
The others nodded grimly.
When the Snow Howler King raised his hand earlier, they had truly thought it was their end.
But the Fire Qilin King had other plans.
Yet they knew well—none of these Demon Kings bore goodwill toward them.
Each had lived tens of thousands of years, shrewd beyond measure.
Who could guess what they plotted?
Seven Kings' Pact…
Ningguang replayed Qilin's words. Something about that pact felt… off.
But after a moment, she shook her head.
Such schemes of the mighty were far beyond her reach.
That they had survived at all—thanks to two titans tearing at each other—was already the greatest fortune.
Better not to dwell.
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