Nuwa's expression was ashen, her gaze sweeping over a battlefield that had turned into a slaughterhouse. She could see the truth written in the blood-stained earth: her Yao warriors were no match for the primal fury of the Witch Race.
The Witches had come with the cold precision of a pre-planned harvest; the Yao had been caught in the middle of a celebration. Even more damning was the sheer logistical failure of the Yao unification—billions of their kind remained scattered across the Great Desolation, unaware that their new capital was being razed. In contrast, the Witches hadn't even mobilized their full strength. Not even one in ten Yao was present to defend the mountain.
The disadvantage was total. If they stayed, Mount Buzhou would not be their throne—it would be their collective tomb.
"Retreat!"
Nuwa's command cut through the din, though in truth, the order was redundant. The Yao were already breaking. Great Yao, their bodies broken and their spirits shattered, roared in agony before turning tail. One such commander fought a desperate aerial duel with a Great Witch, only to scream the order and vanish into the clouds without a backward glance.
From the horizon, the Witch tide was an endless, roiling ocean of dark crimson. The air was thick with a sky-piercing Evil Qi that smothered the very light of the sun. The remaining Yao fled in a blind panic, their battle intent dissolved into nothingness.
Even the powerhouses—Kunpeng, Fuxi, and the Protectors—were forced into a fighting retreat, swept up in the massive, chaotic tide of the rout.
East King Duke fled with the rest, his regal robes torn and his dignity forgotten. He no longer shouted about "maintaining the primordial order." He understood a simpler law now: only the living can maintain anything.
"Fellow Daoist God of Fire!" the Duke screamed over his shoulder as he streaked through the sky. "We have no personal enmity! I was merely fulfilling my mandate! Stop this pursuit!"
"Scram!" the God of Fire bellowed, his voice a wall of heat that sent the Duke tumbling. "The further the better! If I see your face again, I'll melt the bone from your skin!"
The Ancestral Witch didn't bother following. He had more important targets to burn.
The East King Duke didn't stop until he was hundreds of millions of miles away. His heart was a bitter knot of resentment and fear. The Saint had given him a job, and yet, with the third sermon looming, the world was in ruins. Would Hongjun see this as a dereliction of duty? If he lost the Saint's favor, he wouldn't just lose his "First Disciple" spot—he might lose his head.
Even in the depths of a crushing defeat, his mind remained tethered to the vanity of his title. He kept running, a man haunted by the shadow of his own inadequacy.
The spectacle of the Yao's collapse rippled across the Great Desolation, shocking the hidden masters who had expected a stalemate. The Yao had Nuwa—bolstered by the heavy Karma of her race—plus Kunpeng, Fuxi, the Queen Mother, and a legion of Great Yao. Yet, they had been dismantled in a heartbeat.
The world was forced to acknowledge a terrifying reality: the Witch Race was invincible. Without the intervention of a Saint, the Twelve Ancestral Witches were a force that could not be stopped.
"The legacy of Pangu... why was so much given to these barbarians?" many whispered with a mix of awe and burning indignation. To them, it seemed a travesty that a race defined by slaughter and destruction held the keys to the world's power.
"Currently," others mused, "it seems only the Sanqing have the potential to stand against them."
Though the Three Pure Ones had lost every encounter thus far, the world saw the room they had to grow. Only they had the resilience to face the Twelve twice and live to tell the tale.
At Yujing Mountain, the three brothers watched the conclusion of the tragedy with varying degrees of detachment.
"Fellow Daoist Nuwa is far too young," Laozi said, his voice as calm as a mountain pool. "She thought the Karma of a race was a gift, not a burden. Even the three of us together could not halt the Twelve; what did she expect to achieve with a mob of spirits and beasts?"
He wasn't surprised. A stalemate would have been the anomaly; this was simply the natural order asserting itself.
"Indeed," Yuanshi sneered, his lip curling in a mask of arrogance. "Those barbarians are pitiful wretches, but their fists carry the weight of the earth. I wonder if Nuwa is mourning her ignorance or her vanity right now."
In Yuanshi's worldview, there were the Sanqing, there was the Saint, and there was trash. Everyone else fell into the latter category.
"I can't help but feel a small regret," Tongtian admitted, looking toward the horizon. "Nuwa essentially acted as a lightning rod for us, drawing the fire of the Witches. If the three of us had stayed to help, the Yao might have actually held the line, wouldn't they?"
With their combined Quasi-Saint power, they could have neutralized three of the Witches' heaviest hitters.
"Third Brother, you are far too naive," Laozi admonished, his tone sharpening. "You believe the Ancestral Witches are fools because they are loud. But Di Jiang is no idiot. If he knew we were there and still attacked, it means he had a card we haven't seen yet. He was prepared for us."
He looked at his two brothers, his eyes boring into theirs. "Furthermore, why would we bleed for the Yao? These are all minor paths—distractions for the weak-willed. The Way of the Saint is our only goal. Once we reach that height, the Twelve Ancestral Witches will be nothing more than ants we can erase with a flick of a finger. Correct your hearts. Focus on the Dao."
Yuanshi and Tongtian felt a chill of realization. They bowed their heads. "We understand."
The aftermath of the conflict lasted a thousand years. The Yao were hunted across the continent until they finally vanished into the jagged, fog-choked peaks of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.
Within the new, grim headquarters of the Yao, the atmosphere was suffocating.
"We must gather every soul!" Gui Che roared, his eight remaining bird-heads snapping with rage. One head had been torn away during the retreat, leaving a jagged, cauterized stump. "We kill our way back to the Witches! We take our revenge for this ambush!"
"Nonsense!" Kunpeng barked, his voice cold and sharp. "With what? Which one of them will you kill? You couldn't even keep all your heads against a sub-leader!"
Kunpeng had been thoroughly suppressed by Candle Nine Nethers during the fight. He had felt the crushing weight of the Law of Time, and he had no desire to feel it again. If this weren't the "official" headquarters, he would have already left for the North Sea. He felt cheated; Bai Ze had promised him Karma and glory, not a life spent hiding in a damp mountain range.
"Kunpeng is right," Fuxi interjected, his eyes narrowed as he mapped out the future. "A direct assault now is a suicide pact. Even if we mobilized the entire race, we would only achieve mutual destruction at best."
He looked around the room, his voice gaining strength. "We must endure. We must focus on our cultivation and wait for the Saint's third sermon. This time, Hongjun will teach the complete path to Sainthood. Once we have those secrets, our strength will multiply. Only then will the barbarians of the earth find that they are no longer our masters."
The Yao fell into a deep, brooding silence. They would wait. They would sharpen their claws in the dark.