Just as the winds of martial arts were raging across the Douluo Continent and the preparations for the Tianxing Martial Arts Academy were steadily advancing, Yu Yuanchen sat high in Dragon City, quietly observing the shifting tides. Meanwhile, in the distant Demon Plane, an undercurrent had surged to a critical point.
Demon Quelling City, the human fortress standing within the Scorching Purgatory, had maintained a state of high-speed development and strict vigilance in the months since Yu Yuanchen's departure. With the joint command of Qian Daoliu, Tang Chen, Bo Saixi, and the powerhouses of various sects stationed on rotation, the city grew increasingly fortified, its defensive arrays were constantly perfected, and exploration and resource gathering proceeded in an orderly fashion. The human Soul Masters within the city had gradually adapted to this harsh land filled with opportunity, and their morale was high.
However, beneath the calm, a crisis was brewing. The sole surviving Demon King—the Shadow Demon King Demogorgon—was like a viper lurking in the shadows, never having abandoned its ambition for revenge and to reclaim its territory.
Although Yu Yuanchen's departure was secretive, the unique environment of the Demon Plane and Demogorgon's keen perception of spatial fluctuations allowed it to vaguely sense that the aura of that terrifying human powerhouse had vanished. Out of caution, it began a series of probes.
In the first few instances, Demogorgon locked its targets onto Qian Daoliu, who frequently led teams out to purify Fallen Angels. It utilized its bizarre shadow stealth techniques to launch sudden sneak attacks in the wilderness, retreating after a single strike and never lingering. It did not expect to severely wound Qian Daoliu, who wielded the Angel Sacred Sword; its goal was merely to probe—to test whether Yu Yuanchen had truly left and whether he would appear if Qian Daoliu were attacked.
The results left it both pleased and worried. It was pleased that despite being barely held off by Qian Daoliu's divine artifact and martial soul during several sneak attacks, Yu Yuanchen never appeared; it seemed he was truly not in Demon Quelling City. It was worried that the speed at which Qian Daoliu and the subsequently arriving Tang Chen were increasing their strength far exceeded its expectations. Especially when the two joined forces, the purification of the Angel Holy Light and the domineering power of the Clear Sky Hammer complemented each other, exerting significant pressure on it.
Failing to achieve results after several consecutive sneak attacks and instead being harassed like a fly completely infuriated the proud Qian Daoliu and the hot-tempered Tang Chen.
"Does this wretch Demogorgon really think this old man is easy to bully?!" After one sneak attack, Tang Chen was furious, his hair standing on end as he smashed the ground with his Clear Sky Hammer. "Pursue! This time, no matter what, we must drag this skulking creature out and smash its demonic head!"
Although Qian Daoliu was relatively calm by nature, he was also incensed by this endless harassment, cold light flickering in his golden eyes: "If this beast is not eliminated, Demon Quelling City will never know peace. Since it dares to show itself, it shall not escape easily again!"
The two had long been prepared. During their previous clashes, they had deliberately left wounds on Demogorgon, collecting its splattered demonic blood and shattered scales.
Upon returning to Demon Quelling City, they immediately summoned a special Soul Master accompanying the army—a Soul Sage from the Martial Soul Hall whose martial soul was a Blood Shadow Spider, utilizing his sixth soul skill: Blood Curse Soul Chasing.
When Yu Yuanchen fought the Demon King previously, no one had thought of this, nor had they deliberately collected a medium. But this time, Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen were well-prepared!
This Soul Sage's tracking skill was extremely unique; it required the target's flesh, hair, or frequently used items as a medium to greatly blur the perception of its location. As long as they were not separated by an entire plane, there would be a trail to follow.
Relying on the flesh medium of Demogorgon, the Blood Shadow Spider Soul Sage successfully locked onto its general hiding area.
The next time Demogorgon repeated its old tricks, attempting to ambush a patrol squad, Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen were already lying in ambush on the flanks!
"Demon, die!" Qian Daoliu transformed into golden light, the Angel Sacred Sword tearing through the shadows to strike directly at Demogorgon's true body!
"Take a hammer from your Grandfather Tang!" Tang Chen roared like thunder, his massive Clear Sky Hammer carrying the force of a collapsing sky to block its retreat path!
Demogorgon was greatly alarmed; it had not expected the opponent to be able to pinpoint its location so accurately! In haste, it transformed into thousands of shadows and scattered in flight—this was its most proficient life-saving technique.
In the past, Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen might have only been able to watch it escape. But this time, it was different!
"Holy Light shines, purify the shadows!" Qian Daoliu pushed his Angel Domain to the limit, the holy light spreading like a tide, melting low-level shadow clones wherever it passed!
"Clear Sky True Body, Shock Character Art, hold for me!" Tang Chen transformed into a giant, his Clear Sky Hammer slamming into the earth. The terrifying shockwave distorted space, causing a large number of shadows to become sluggish!
The two coordinated perfectly, clearing out the shadow clones with all their might. Although they could not annihilate thousands of clones with a wave of their hands like Yu Yuanchen, they successfully severely wounded Demogorgon before its true body could fully escape, forcing it to abandon a significant portion of its clone essence in a wretched state just to survive.
After this battle, Demogorgon's essence was wounded once again, and its hatred for Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen reached its peak, though it was accompanied by even more fear! It realized that the opponents possessed the means to track it!
Sure enough, in the days that followed, no matter where Demogorgon fled or how deeply it hid, Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen could always bring that Soul Sage to track it down and launch a siege. It was like a fox chased by hounds, living in constant terror, its injuries steadily worsening.
It also discovered the key—the human Soul Master with a cultivation level of only a Soul Sage, who was strictly protected by Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen, was the source of its tracking!
"I must kill that tracker first!" Demogorgon thought viciously. But it attempted several forced kills, only to be blocked firmly by Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen, unable to get close at all. Instead, it sustained new injuries due to its desperate attacks.
Driven to a dead end, the demonic ferocity of Demogorgon erupted completely! It knew that if this continued, it would be worn to death sooner or later. It had to break the deadlock!
It fled back to its last remaining secret territory—an Abyss Rift filled with chaotic demonic energy. Here, dozens of its most loyal high-level demon subordinates remained, along with hundreds of thousands of low-level demons attached to them.
"You forced me to do this!" Demogorgon looked at the black mass of the demon legion below, madness and despair flickering in its scarlet eyes. "Since you won't give me a way to live, then let us all be destroyed together!"
"In the name of the demon, I sacrifice your souls and blood to awaken the forbidden power from the ancient times!" Demogorgon chanted ancient and evil incantations, and a massive altar constructed of bones and magic stones lit up with blood-red light reaching the sky!
Those dozens of high-level demons let out shrill wails as their flesh, souls, and even their lifelong cultivation were forcibly extracted and devoured by the altar! Immediately following, the blood-red light of the altar spread like a plague, enveloping the hundreds of thousands of low-level demons gathered on the outskirts of the nest!
"Roar—!"
"Kill!"
It launched one of the most vicious forbidden arts with the highest cost in the Demon Plane—"Ten Thousand Demon Sacrifice, Abyss Creation"!
It used its own Demon King essence blood as a catalyst, forcibly extracting the entire life force and souls of dozens of trusted high-level demons as sacrifices, and further stirred the chaotic demonic energy that had accumulated in the Abyss Rift for ten thousand years! The terrifying ritual triggered earth-shattering phenomena!
Under the influence of the forbidden power, these low-level demons instantly lost their sanity, falling into the most primitive and crazed mutual slaughter and devouring. The cruel survival laws of the Demon Plane were accelerated to the extreme!
Every moment, thousands of demons died in the infighting, their flesh, souls, and demonic energy forcibly gathered, purified, and infused into the bodies of the few survivors by the power of the altar!
In just a few days, a tragic and brutal "insect-gu" style slaughter came to an end. Of the original hundreds of thousands of low-level demons, fewer than fifty thousand remained! But without exception, the auras of those who survived had undergone a heaven-turning change!
This process was cruel and efficient. In just a few days, hundreds of thousands of low-level demons were nearly wiped out, and in the center of the rift, a "New Demon Legion" numbering in the thousands was born!
These demons were more hideous in form, with knotted muscles and jagged bone spurs, their eyes filled only with a pure desire for slaughter. Their strength had been forcibly elevated, with even the weakest comparable to a human Soul Sage! Among them, those with particularly powerful auras even reached the level of Titled Douluo, numbering in the double digits!
However, this power birthed by forbidden arts had a fatal flaw. The life force of these demons was overdrawn, and their lifespans were extremely short, not exceeding one year at most. Moreover, they had low intelligence and were almost entirely controlled by Demogorgon's will, like puppets.
But Demogorgon could no longer care about that! It needed this cannon-fodder legion to disrupt the situation and create chaos!
"Roar! Target, Demon Quelling City! Kill all humans!" Demogorgon let out a hysterical roar, leading this army of demons—built upon the lives of hundreds of thousands of its own kind and exuding an ominous aura—like a burst dam, rushing out of the Abyss Rift and heading straight for the heart of the human presence in the Demon Plane: Demon Quelling City!
It wanted to use this legion to launch a frontal assault on Demon Quelling City, forcing the human powerhouses to defend with all their might, while it would sneak in during the chaos and, at any cost, kill that damned tracking Soul Master! Only then would it have a chance to shake off the pursuit and find a corner to linger on in survival.
When the news arrived that the demon army was pressing toward Demon Quelling City like dark clouds, the atmosphere in the city became heavy to the extreme.
Qian Daoliu, Tang Chen, Bo Saixi, Golden Crocodile Douluo, and other remaining powerhouses gathered in the Council Hall, looking at the image of the astonishingly numerous and demonic-energy-filled demon legion projected in the crystal ball, everyone's complexion solemn.
"Thousands of demons at the Soul Sage level or above, and dozens at the Titled Douluo level... that madman Demogorgon really paid a great cost!" Tang Chen clicked his tongue, even with his boldness, he felt his scalp tingle facing such a number of high-level demons.
"They are cannon fodder birthed by forbidden arts, with short lifespans, but they are a huge threat in the short term." Qian Daoliu frowned, analyzing calmly. "Although our elite forces are strong, our numbers are far inferior. Defending the city, relying on the arrays and our strength, it will not be difficult to repel them, but casualties... I fear they will be unavoidable."
Bo Saixi gently stroked the Sea God Scepter, a trace of worry flashing in her deep blue eyes: "There are too many demons. If they charge the city walls regardless of the cost and destroy the array nodes, even if we win in the end, Demon Quelling City will surely be severely damaged, and years of effort may be destroyed in one fell swoop. Moreover, Demogorgon's target is likely the Blood Shadow Spider Soul Sage."
Everyone fell silent. Demon Quelling City was the foundation of humanity in the Demon Plane and could not be lost. And the Blood Shadow Spider Soul Sage was the key to restraining Demogorgon and must not be harmed.
"We cannot fight head-on; we must resolve this crisis with the minimum cost." Qian Daoliu finally made his decision, his gaze shifting to Tang Chen. "Brother Tang, it seems we must ask Brother Yuanchen to return."
Tang Chen nodded heavily, a trace of regret flashing across his face. "It is a pity to lose Demogorgon, such a fine whetstone... but the big picture comes first! This guy is desperate and cornered; he cannot be left alive any longer!"
Although they were confident in defeating the Demon army during the siege, it would be as difficult as ascending to heaven to capture Demogorgon, who was determined to escape and skilled in evasion. Only by recalling Yu Yuanchen, whose strength was sufficient to crush the opposition and who had the certainty of killing the Demon King, could they resolve this crisis once and for all with minimal cost.
"I will immediately use the secret channels of the Martial Soul Hall to send an urgent report of the situation here to Brother Yuanchen," Qian Daoliu said in a deep voice. "I will ask him to return with all haste, take command of Demon Quelling City, and slay this fiend!"
With the decision made, everyone immediately split up to take action. Qian Daoliu headed to the secret chamber in the center of the city to relay the message to Yu Yuanchen via the Martial Soul Hall's unique communication methods; Tang Chen, Bo Saixi, and the others ordered the entire city into the highest state of combat readiness, reinforcing defenses, evacuating non-combatants, and preparing to meet the incoming Demon Tide.
Inside Demon Quelling City, horns blared, soul power surged, and an aura of slaughter permeated the air. Everyone understood that a brutal battle concerning the survival of the city was fast approaching. The key to breaking the deadlock lay in whether that pillar of strength far away on the Douluo Continent—Yu Yuanchen—could return in time!
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Translated by: randomtranslator.com
Proofread by: GodKun-Chan