The battlefield stretched endlessly in all directions, a canvas painted in crimson and ash.
Thousands of bodies lay scattered across the devastated landscape—orthodox cultivators, members of demonic sects, and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
Their lifeless forms created hills of flesh and bone, a testament to the apocalyptic war that had raged for days.
At the epicenter of this carnage, seven figures danced around a single point of absolute darkness.
The Heavenly Demon stood amidst the chaos, his pale features unmarked by the violence surrounding him. In his hands, two legendary blades sang their death songs—Glacial Fang gleaming with frost in his right hand, and Shadowmaw drinking in light itself in his left.
His movements flowed like liquid death as he employed the forbidden Double-Handed Demon Sword Technique, each strike coming from impossible angles.
"You burned down everything!" Yue Lianhua's voice cracked with rage as her black fur bristled, her fox ears flattened against her skull. Her twin daggers left trails of silver light as she lunged forward. "My entire clan! My mother was about to give birth!"
The demon's left blade caught her strike, redirecting her momentum effortlessly. His right sword's pommel caught her in the ribs, sending her crashing through three mountain peaks before disappearing into the distant cliffs.
"Monster!" Xue Baihe roared, her dragon scales gleaming emerald along her arms and neck. The half-dragon woman's massive two-handed sword came down with the force of a falling mountain. "You turned my father into one of your puppets! Made me watch as he—"
Both demon blades crossed overhead, catching her strike between them. With a twist and a step, she was airborne, her scream echoing as she crashed through the forest miles away.
Li Mei descended from above like a falling star, her angelic wings spread wide as divine light poured from her blade. "In heaven's name, I'll cleanse your sins!" The half-angel's voice rang with celestial authority. "You corrupted the holy temples, defiled sacred ground—"
"Your heaven is silent," the demon said coldly, both swords spinning in a perfect circle that shattered her divine technique. She tumbled from the sky, crashing into a distant valley with earth-shaking impact.
Chen Ruoxi appeared from shadows, her vampire fangs bared in fury. "You killed my maker! The only family I ever knew!" Her blood-red claws extended as she moved with inhuman speed, but the demon was faster.
Shadowmaw caught her throat while Glacial Fang pressed against her heart. "Join her," he whispered, before launching her through four mountainsides in succession.
Zhou Ling laughed maniacally as she attacked, her heterochromatic eyes—one gold, one silver—blazing with unhinged power. The half-demon woman's chaotic energy crackled around her blade. "You think you're the only demon here? I'll show you real madness!" Her techniques defied logic, attacking from every angle simultaneously.
The Heavenly Demon's response was elegant brutality. Both blades moved in perfect harmony, creating a prison of steel that contained her chaos before shattering it entirely. She flew backward, her laughter turning to screams as she vanished into the burning horizon.
Zhang Wei flowed like water around his attacks, her phoenix bloodline manifesting in wings of pure flame. "You destroyed my nest! My children!" The phoenix-kin woman's fire techniques painted the sky in shades of red and gold. "They were just hatchlings!"
But fire meant nothing to absolute darkness. The demon's blades carved through her flames like scissors through silk, sending her spiraling into the earth so hard that she created a new crater.
Lin Yuxi's massive frame towered above the others as she charged, her giant bloodline giving her incredible strength. "You enslaved my people! Used them as cattle!" The giantess's war hammer could split mountains, but the demon stepped aside as if she were moving in slow motion.
Both demon swords struck her in perfect unison—one at each temple. Her massive form toppled backward, shaking the earth as she crashed into distant peaks.
Now only Lin Feng remained.
The Son of Heaven stood amid the devastation, his white robes somehow still pristine despite the carnage. Divine light radiated from his being, but it seemed dimmer now, weakened by watching his wives fall one by one.
The Heavenly Demon looked down at his weapons with mild interest. Hairline cracks ran along both blades—Glacial Fang's perfect steel fractured by divine techniques, Shadowmaw's darkness scarred by powers that transcended mortal understanding.
With a casual shrug, he released both swords. They shattered against the ground like common iron, legendary weapons reduced to glittering fragments.
"Your wives are really strong, aren't they?" the demon said conversationally, rolling his shoulders.
Lin Feng's expression remained calm, but his eyes burned with inner fire. "Of course they are."
The demon's smile was all malice and anticipation. "I guess I'll take them then."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
Neither warrior moved for a heartbeat. Then reality exploded.
They collided in midair with the force of colliding worlds, fists meeting fists, raw power against raw power.
The shockwave flattened mountains, turned stone to dust, and sent tremors racing across entire continents.
This was no longer about technique or weapons.
This was the fundamental clash between heaven and hell, light and darkness, hope and despair—two forces that could not exist in the same universe without one destroying the other.
And far in the distance, seven broken figures began to stir among the rubble, their eyes burning with renewed fury.
The collision sent shockwaves rippling outward like cracks in reality itself. Mountains crumbled into dust, the very air igniting from the clash of opposing forces.
A massive cloud of debris and spiritual energy erupted from the epicenter, obscuring everything in a choking haze of destruction.
Seven broken figures dragged themselves from the rubble, their battered bodies screaming in protest. Yue Lianhua's black fox ears twitched as she pushed herself upright, blood streaming from countless wounds.
Around her, the other wives struggled to their feet—Xue Baihe's dragon scales cracked and bleeding, Li Mei's angelic wings torn and singed, Chen Ruoxi's vampire fangs bared in a snarl of pain and rage.
Zhang Wei coughed up blood as her phoenix flames flickered weakly around her broken form.
Zhou Ling's heterochromatic eyes burned with manic fury despite her injuries, while Lin Yuxi's massive frame trembled with barely contained wrath.
They all looked up at the same time, their gazes piercing through the swirling dust cloud that hung like a funeral shroud over the battlefield.
"Lin Feng..." Yue Lianhua whispered, her silver eyes wide with desperate hope.
The dust began to settle, particles drifting down like ash from a funeral pyre. Through the clearing haze, shapes began to emerge—two figures locked in what looked like an embrace.
Then the wind shifted, and the truth hit them like a physical blow.
The Heavenly Demon stood motionless, his pale hand buried deep in Lin Feng's chest. His fingers had pierced straight through the Son of Heaven's heart, dark energy crackling around the wound like corrupted lightning.
Lin Feng hung there, suspended by that single, terrible grip. Blood poured from his mouth in steady streams, staining his pristine white robes crimson.
His divine light flickered like a candle in a hurricane, growing dimmer with each labored breath.
"NO!" The scream tore from seven throats simultaneously, a chorus of anguish that shattered what remained of the surrounding peaks.
But Lin Feng wasn't finished. With tremendous effort, he raised his trembling hands and grabbed the Heavenly Demon's collar, pulling himself closer until their faces were mere inches apart.
"You might have won in this cycle," he gasped, blood spattering the demon's pale features, "but in another I will—"
"You will not win," the Heavenly Demon interrupted, his voice carrying a cold finality that seemed to freeze the very air.
Lin Feng's eyes widened in confusion. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. In every previous cycle, every previous iteration of their eternal conflict, he had died with defiance on his lips and rebirth in his heart.
The cycle always continued. He always returned.
The Heavenly Demon's free hand moved with deliberate slowness, placing his palm against Lin Feng's forehead like some twisted benediction.
"System," the demon said softly, his voice carrying absolute authority. "Activate Memory Extraction."
[MEMORY EXTRACTION PROTOCOL INITIATED]