"Just wait for death? Why ask so many questions?"
Hearing Ji Qingyue's words, the faces of the Blue Demon General and the three King-rank demons beside it became extremely unsightly.
All four of them were top-tier existences within the Void Refinement stage. When had they ever been so dismissed by someone of the same rank? Had it not been for the desire to kill this woman with the least possible risk, why would they have fled so wretchedly?
Wait for death? She made it sound as if they were the ones being surrounded!
"Do you think you've already won?" the Blue Demon General hissed through its bizarre, shifting face.
Its aura became dangerously volatile once more, and that sense of terminal crisis rose again in Ji Qingyue's heart. However, having already faced the demon's tricks once, she was not overly panicked. She remained extremely cautious, however, not knowing if the creature had used its full power before.
But she wouldn't be outdone in words:
"Don't the facts speak for themselves? Otherwise, why would you be running like a rat?"
She was in no hurry to strike; she needed a little more time to return to her peak condition.
Ji Qingyue's words caused the demons' expressions to darken even further.
"In that case..."
Suddenly, before the Blue Demon General could even finish its sentence, it unleashed its innate divine ability with lightning speed. The bizarre blue threads sprouted from Ji Qingyue's body once more. In a matter of breaths, she was covered in the macabre threads, and her life essence began to drain rapidly again.
Simultaneously, the three King-rank demons beside it unleashed their strongest innate abilities to strike Ji Qingyue at the same time.
An instantaneous strike—a surprise assault with no warning!
Such a horrifying coordinated killing move would likely be impossible for any other Void Refinement cultivator to withstand. But that clearly did not include Ji Qingyue.
Her figure flickered. She triggered her Lightning Haste and defensive spells simultaneously, leaving her original position at maximum speed. At the same time, several laws—including Rhythm—began to destroy the blue threads appearing on her body.
But then, the unexpected happened!
'The Law of Rhythm has lost its effect? No, not lost entirely, but its effectiveness has dropped by at least eighty percent!'
Ji Qingyue was momentarily shocked by the creature's terrifying adaptability and resistance. But that shock was immediately followed by an even more intense killing intent.
Her deduction was correct; this creature was too dangerous. If it didn't die, very few in the Star-Sea World would ever sleep soundly again.
'Fortunately, I was prepared. I didn't rely on the Law of Rhythm as my only trump card like last time. Instead, I chose a combination of multiple laws... Although the rhythm effect has dropped significantly, I can still purge these ghost-things.'
Ji Qingyue felt fortunate for her own caution. After guessing the demon's nature, she had prepared countermeasures. This allowed her to purge the macabre threads in an instant.
Otherwise, given the speed those blue things had displayed, she would have lost at least half her life even if she didn't die. How could she have fought off three King-rank demons then? Once she was in a weakened state with her speed and power diminished, facing their combined assault would have been certain death.
The Blue Demon General was truly perilous to the extreme. Even in this situation, a slight lapse would result in a fatal end!
Fortunately, none of that happened. Ji Qingyue spent very little time clearing the threads, and her loss of life essence was minimal—not exceeding ten percent. It had little impact on her combat strength.
Furthermore, by using extraction spells to preserve the essence of the previously slain demons, she could slowly replenish her lost life essence in a short time.
Thus, while fleeing at high speed, the attacks of the three King-rank demons that landed on her were limited, and her Myriad Laws Floating Cup was easily able to withstand them.
Following that, Ji Qingyue fought as she retreated. Through continuous exchanges, she quickly grasped the strengths, weaknesses, and counters for each of these demons.
Then, finding the perfect opportunity after pretending to be wounded and struggling, Ji Qingyue suddenly erupted. she chose the demon with the lowest defense—the one she was most certain of killing in a single blow.
Repeating her previous tactic, she used minimal power for defense while focusing her offense on the target. After several continuous strikes, she successfully slew the demon at the cost of losing an arm.
The powerful advantage of the Myriad Laws Floating Cup was displayed to its fullest.
However, the killing moves of the two remaining King-rank demons were truly terrible; even with her current strength, she suffered significant injuries. Fortunately, possessing powerful self-healing abilities, she did not fear such wounds. She swept up the corpse of the slain demon and devoured it, and her injuries began to heal rapidly. After fleeing a short distance further, her arm had already regrown.
The two King-rank demons who had hoped to kill her while she was wounded finally realized something was wrong.
How had she recovered again? What kind of monster were they facing?
They had devoured no small number of cultivation worlds, but they had never met a monster that possessed every capability and simply refused to die. They finally realized they were being toyed with!
"Run!"
The two demons didn't even need to communicate; they both bolted simultaneously in opposite directions. This way, Ji Qingyue could only pursue one of them.
And indeed, she did.
But Ji Qingyue didn't hesitate for long. She pursued the one she was most certain of killing quickly, utilizing her targeted offensive and defensive spells. Not long after, another shriveled King-rank corpse fell.
After finishing that demon, she didn't bother with the one that had escaped. Instead, she turned back to pursue the Blue Demon General.
In her eyes, it didn't matter if the other demons lived or died, but this disgusting, macabre creature had to die! Otherwise, let alone others, even she wouldn't be able to sleep. If it could develop a resistance to the Law of Rhythm in such a short time, who knew if she could still kill it the next time they met?
What if it grew even faster at devouring life essence, to the point where she wouldn't even have time to release the Cycle of Ten Thousand Paths? No matter what, she had to slaughter that thing!
Returning to the Blue Demon General's last known location, she found it had already vanished. It had even scrubbed its traces so thoroughly that even Ji Qingyue's tracking spells couldn't find it.
'Quite the slippery one! But can you really run?'
Ji Qingyue sneered inwardly. She unleashed her Divination arts once more.
With the amplification of the Myriad Laws Floating Cup, her Divination had reached an unimaginable level. She no longer cared about the consumption of lifespan or law energy; she was confident of breaking through to Unity soon anyway. As long as she could successfully kill this bizarre thing, everything would be worth it!
Before long, Ji Qingyue found the direction the Blue Demon General had taken.
On a barren plain where nothing but stones covered the ground, a woman in blood-stained white robes appeared. She hammered a palm strike into the earth, knocking a mass of writhing blue threads out of hiding.
"Trying to run? Where could you possibly go?"
The woman's voice, sounding like a devil's whisper, rang in the Blue Demon General's ears.
"Damn it! Madman! Psychopath! Who is the real demon here? Who is the prey? Who is the one who's truly bizarre?"
Looking at the reappearing Ji Qingyue, the Blue Demon General was on the verge of a total mental collapse.
But Ji Qingyue didn't care what it thought. Her killing moves unfolded without pause—another instantaneous strike!
After a fierce battle, she only felt at ease when every single writhing blue line was utterly destroyed, leaving not even a fragment of residue behind.
But it didn't end there. Over the following period, she visited nearly a hundred different locations, thoroughly annihilating every single separate piece of the writhing blue threads the General had split into.
This effort would have been enough for her to kill dozens of other demons, but to her, it was worth it to finish off this disgusting, macabre creature. She never wanted to face a Blue Demon General again. And whenever she thought of those writhing blue things on her body, she felt a wave of revulsion, feeling as if she were somehow "unclean." Thus, she used lightning and fire to refine her body and soul several times over before she felt satisfied.
The moment the Blue Demon General perished, a similarly intense vibration erupted from the Demon Realm, a mournful cry that almost echoed through the entire world.
"Another... Demon Seed has fallen!"
The rest of the Void Refinement battlefield proceeded relatively smoothly. Aside from the early sacrifice of the Wood Immortal Matriarch, the Little Stone Spirit and Meng Tianqi systematically slaughtered almost all the demons in their sectors, securing two world nodes.
However, Ji Qingyue's sector encountered trouble again. The remaining Void Refinement demons, led by a specialized individual, formed a bizarre array. Facing this array, Ji Qingyue didn't dare to approach. Every time she calculated the outcome, it showed a risk of death!
Fortunately, the group couldn't catch her either, posing no real threat to her. She could only give up on them and continue hunting other stray demons. Because so many demons remained, she was unable to find the Demon Realm's world node, and the battle ended in a stalemate.
As for the sector where the Wood Immortal Matriarch had been, the Star-Sea's world node had long since been destroyed.
Additionally, because Ji Qingyue had traveled across more than half of the battlefield, she found the specialized spatial transmission talisman left by the fallen Void-Aether Fish. This allowed her to establish contact with the Star-Sea Headquarters and report the situation of her sector.
Furthermore, after the appearance of the Power of Creation, Ji Qingyue's Myriad Law Celestial Physique received a significant enhancement. However, since her physique was already at the top tier, the overall magnitude of the improvement was not particularly obvious to her. Her greatest gain was truly obtaining more insights into the Myriad Laws Floating Cup, allowing her to truly master the unique power of her physique.
At this stage, as long as she had sufficient resources and her Dao-heart remained firm, her future path to Unity would be a smooth road! With her current strength, as long as she didn't do something to provoke a divine punishment from the Heavenly Dao, there was virtually no risk of her failing her tribulation.
Her current state was far more powerful than Bai Liyun's had been when he forcibly broke through to Unity.
There was one more thing that made her happy: at this moment, she felt truly accepted as a part of the Star-Sea World under Qi Ping's leadership. She had earned the respect she deserved through her actions.
Then there was the Little Stone Spirit. The Power of Creation had not further increased its cultivation level, which remained at the mid-Void Refinement stage, but it had made its foundations—built through the rapid consumption of weapons and treasures—much more solid.
The true transformation of the Little Stone Spirit was the elevation of its life-tier. Its already ten-thousand-zhang-tall body grew once again, becoming even more colossal! Now, if it simply stood still, it was a super-mountain!
Then there were the runes of military conquest covering its body, each radiating an endless pressure.
The ability of these runes was another point of change. Originally, the runes could only attack separately, but it seemed to have grasped a way to fuse them into a specialized whole: Self as Array, Unity of Ten Thousand Weapons—the Ten Thousand Weapons Immortal Seal!
It had actually attempted this method before. Qi Ping had told it that its runes were very strong—especially the Sword and Blade runes—but the attacks were too scattered. If they could be unified, they would be even stronger!
However, the nature of these runes was too mysterious for even Qi Ping to fully understand, so he couldn't create an array for it. He could only communicate various possibilities of "unifying ten thousand weapons" and let it seek its own path.
Now, under the influence of the Power of Creation, the Little Stone Spirit finally understood the method. At this moment, the rune on its forehead changed, becoming an incredibly mysterious and complex Military Conquest Rune. It seemed to be composed of countless types of divine weapons; if one observed it closely, they could see the shadow of every weapon in the world within it.
The Little Stone Spirit felt that if it unleashed the Ten Thousand Weapons Immortal Seal, it might be able to beat that Black Hole Demonic God into oblivion with its own hands! However, the consumption of this divine ability was also horrific; a single strike would likely drain it entirely.
When the Star-Sea Headquarters received word of the Void Refinement battlefield's status, everyone monitoring the war erupted in excitement. This was an outcome no one had anticipated!
The results were stunning: two victories, one draw, and one loss!
This winning percentage crushed every other sector except for the Qi Refining level. It even surpassed the Unity stage battlefield, which was so vast and intense that a victor had yet to be decided.
More amazingly, the Star-Sea World at this level had not suffered many casualties. The death of the Wood Immortal Matriarch had been factored into their calculations from the start.
Furthermore, setting aside the sectors won by the Little Stone Spirit and Meng Tianqi, even in the draw, Ji Qingyue had slain the majority of the demons, dealing a massive blow to the demonic forces at the Void Refinement level.
The only thing was that the battles fought by Meng Tianqi and Ji Qingyue had been too harrowing. Hearing the reports alone was enough to make one's palms sweat; a single change or accident could have turned the tide, potentially leading to a crushing defeat for the Star-Sea and the loss of its strongest pillars.
By now, the results of almost every level of the battlefield were gradually emerging—except for the final, supreme battlefield where they faced the Saint-grade demons of the Unity stage!