"There's demonic qi ahead—a Heavenly Demon. And a strong one. A Demon King."
After circling around the mountain carved with seven giant warnings of DANGER, Fang Han abruptly felt a blast of malicious force rushing from ahead. It was unmistakable—the scent of a Heavenly Demon. He'd slaughtered more of their kind than he could remember, waded through pits of their flesh and blood, even killed the Seven-Leaf Demon Lord, whose strength rivaled the Sixth Layer of Divine Abilities.
And Fang Han loved killing demons.
His Five-Prison King Cauldron was empty. Not a single Heavenly Demon sealed within. If he could amass eight million of them, the cauldron's power would nearly rival a Dao Artifact—a perfect guardian for his mountain, a bulwark against the coming divine invasion. The gods had appeared. Calamity would follow. When the Divine Race descended in force, Yuhua Sect would be besieged, and the true disciples' personal mountains would become the first—and perhaps only—line of defense. Fang Han felt the pressure of it daily; he needed his Reincarnation Peak fortified before the storm came.
Then he saw it.
Suspended in the sky was a towering figure clad entirely in jagged bone armor, a three-pronged trident clutched in its claws: a Demon King.
It spotted him too. Surprise flashed across its corpse-pale face. A shrill, broken cackle burst from its fanged mouth:
"Human? Cultivator? FLESH… delicious… PERFECT!"
With a mad screech, it lunged—trident thrusting, demonic lines pulsing across its body, some forbidden magic humming beneath the surface.
"Courting death."
Fang Han's laugh was cold. This Demon King's strength was equivalent to a novice in the Divine Ability Realm—little more than a few hundred warhorses' worth of force. Barely an appetizer.
He extended his left hand.
Heaven-Shrouding Devil Hand.
A black inferno roared to life, freezing the air as his shadow fell over the demon. The gargantuan devil palm descended, enveloping the Demon King in an instant.
A Heavenly Demon at the Divine Ability level was fearsome to mortals. But to Fang Han now? No more than rotten wood.
"Ah! Such power—Heavenly Demon… Dissolution! Nirvana! Eternal bliss—!"
Realizing its hopeless disadvantage, the Demon King's eyes widened first in terror… then ecstasy. Its body swelled a hundredfold, runes bursting across its skin.
It self-detonated.
BOOM.
The blast knocked Fang Han's devil hand back with a jolt. When the smoke cleared, there wasn't a scrap of the demon left.
He frowned.
A Demon King choosing to self-destruct immediately? That wasn't right.
Heavenly Demons were intelligent—especially Demon Kings. They valued their own lives deeply. They only self-destructed when trapped beyond escape, as a last act of spite.
But this one… had exploded with zeal, even a strange sense of fervent faith—as if certain it would resurrect afterward.
"Something's wrong," Fang Han muttered. "Why would a Demon King blow itself up without hesitation?"
He had intended to capture it, refine it into pills or treasures, maybe feed it to the Eighteen Arhat puppets or strengthen the Five Hundred Ghost-Banner formation. A Demon King was precious. Its loss was no small matter.
"I didn't expect it either," Fang Han said with a sigh. "Yan, if you'd sucked it into the Gate of Hell, it wouldn't have had the strength to self-destruct."
Yan's voice grew grim.
"It felt… brainwashed. No fear of death. And utterly convinced it would revive through self-detonation. This Five-Element Land reeks of something terrible. Something sealed. Even I can feel a primordial force lurking here—one that frightens me."
"Whatever it is, we move carefully," Fang Han replied. "At least the World Tree can still draw immortal essence here—unlike in the Taiyuan Immortal Mansion."
He had barely finished speaking when—
BOOM!
The ground beneath him erupted.
A massive, earth-yellow serpent head—large enough to swallow a carriage whole—lunged from the exploding soil, jaws wide.
"Not a demon… a beast? Earth-aligned?"
The creature's strength was clear at a glance: equivalent to a cultivator at the Second Layer of Divine Abilities.
Shadow Step.
Fang Han vanished and reappeared above it. His left hand descended again.
Heaven-Shrouding Devil Hand!
The serpent's skull exploded into dust under the strike, its consciousness obliterated. What remained dissolved into a thick stream of earth-element essence.
Fang Han inhaled sharply, activating the Earth Emperor qi in his spleen. The essence rushed into him, immediately strengthening his Earth Emperor Gang Qi.
"So that's how it is," Fang Han murmured. "These beasts are condensed from elemental qi. Killing them lets me absorb pure Five-Element energy. If I keep this up, I can complete the Five-Emperor Grand Devil Arts."
Yan nodded.
"That serpent was a Teng Snake, born when earth-qi reaches extreme density. Rare even in deep subterranean worlds. But I'm certain of this: something powerful is watching us. I can feel its gaze—cold and sharp as a blade at my back."
Fang Han closed his eyes, burning a thread of spiritual fire. Yes… there it was. A faint presence staring right at him—vanishing the moment he tried to focus.
It made his skin crawl.
"No choice," he said quietly. "We go deeper. If Teng Snakes appear here, a massive Earth Spirit Root must be nearby. And we have no path back anyway."
He flew on.
But after barely ten miles, the sky ahead ignited into burning red.
A vast crimson cloud surged toward them, filled with frenzied screeches. Heat hammered the air until it shimmered and twisted.
"What's that?" Baby Xingyun rubbed his eyes as the temperature spiked.
"Fire Ravens." Yan's voice dropped. "Creatures born from pure solar flame. Usually only near a star's outer corona. A flock of three thousand can match a Golden Core cultivator's fire-domain spell. This cloud… holds at least ten thousand."
The red cloud approached—and resolved into swarms of blazing scarlet ravens.
Fang Han finally understood the warning carved on the mountain.
Where the Fire Ravens passed, earth charred to black glass. In some places, the ground melted, drooping like wax toward molten lava. When the flock spotted Fang Han, an ocean of flame rushed toward him.
Ten thousand Fire Ravens—
as deadly as several Fire Cloud Immortals unleashing their greatest fire arts at once.
Even a Golden Core master would be vaporized.
"Crimson Emperor Fire Qi!"
Fang Han inhaled—and exhaled a torrent of fire. The shadow of the Crimson Emperor and the Fire Sovereign flared behind him, their regal presence briefly stunning the ravens.
He followed with the Black Emperor Water Fist, then cast the Frost Boundary barrier to shield his companions. The suffocating heat eased.
Seizing the narrow opening, he thrust his devil hand into the raven storm.
Black flame met red fire. Ravens fell like burning rain, each bursting into a plume of pure fire essence that flowed straight into Fang Han's Fire Emperor qi.
The battle was brutal.
The devil hand sizzled under the flames, pain prickling along Fang Han's arm.
So strong… even my Heaven-Shrouding Hand feels it.
But the hand did not fail.
And with his magic blade Blood Sky sweeping arcs of black lightning through the sky, the raven swarm finally broke.
One by one, the blazing bodies popped and dissolved into motes of crimson light.
When the last Fire Raven fell, Fang Han's Fire Emperor qi glowed brighter—its flames edged with crystalline light.
"Hah…"
He exhaled hard. "Let's rest a moment."
"We won't get the chance," Yan said darkly.
From the distant horizon came a new sound—
HUMMMMMMMMM.
A deep, vibrating drone, like millions of giant bees.
The sky turned gold.
A storm of metallic wings surged toward them—an endless swarm of golden hornet-like beasts.
And they were coming fast.