Bai Lie’s aura was vast and majestic, his demonic body blotting out the sky and sun.

Among the Demon Race, he was an absolute powerhouse.

It was just a pity that Jiang Shu was even stronger than he had imagined.

With the Two Realms Shuttle, Jiang Shu’s understanding of the Great Dao had long surpassed that of ordinary Daoist Monarchs and Demon Lords.

So what if he had just gone through a great war? Ever since he began his cultivation, how many times had he not clawed his way back from the brink of death?

All the acupoints in his body seemed to resonate with the stars in the heavens; strands of the Great Dao were all smelted into the Desolate Star Halberd, from which tremendous power erupted.

The Panwu Great Strength Dao Book and the Great Void Heart Scripture operated in unison.

The space turbulence around him seemed to be under his control.

He shuttled through space like a meteor, falling at high frequency, boundless power turning into streaming radiance, piercing the Void straight toward Bai Lie’s demonic body.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

Around the battlefield where Jiang Shu was crossing blows with Bai Lie, there was long since no trace of life; even ordinary Daoist Monarchs of Vientiane Realm and Demon Race Demon Lords did not dare intervene.

And across the rest of the battlefield, aside from where Jiang Shu and Bai Lie were clashing...

Everywhere else was equally, incomparably tragic.

One after another, Disciples who had once entered the high-level sight of the Eight Great Sects all fell in the slaughter, their corpses even swallowed alive into the bellies of Great Demons.

There were also some Transformation Realm Demons who, after exhausting everything, were besieged and slain by Elders or Disciples of the Eight Great Sects, refined publicly into great cauldrons and turned into extremely pure Elixirs one after another.

Pill clouds were dense, Dan Qi thick and rich.

Some Disciples whose strength was nearly spent, upon smelling the pill fragrance, were reinvigorated and once more charged into the battlefield to kill.

...

"The losses are grievous."

High above the Void, the eight Supreme Sect Leaders watched the battlefield below and let out a soft sigh.

The Demon Race had in succession deployed several powerful Formations, so that the Human Clan had not even managed to engage them in a proper battle. Although judging from the current situation, Panhai City would eventually be breached, the Human Clan had also lost quite a few powerhouses and prodigies.

The fallen Daoist Monarchs had already exceeded two digits.

Their Great Daos were sacrificed and ground to dust in the Void.

"Our Human Clan’s great army has at this moment already torn open a breach above the Demon Domain; all costs are worth it."

The Supreme Sect Leader of the Hidden Sword Sect showed not the slightest emotion on his face, speaking blandly, as if all the losses below were nothing more than numbers.

Yet everyone present knew that among the fallen Disciples of the Hidden Sword Sect, one carried his bloodline, a junior he held in extremely high regard. His grief was deeper than that of the other seven, but with the great war before them, he could only suppress these emotions in his heart.

Yes, compared to the victory of this battle, the lives of over a thousand people truly did not count for much.

"This time, the Eight Great Sects can truly be said to have gone all in."

By now, as the war raged on, there were of course some Loose Cultivators on the battlefield who did not hail from the Eight Great Sects.

Some of these Loose Cultivators did not lack deep foundations. Some had apprenticed under Daoist Monarchs, some had also obtained fortuitous encounters within the Cang Mang Domain, and in this great war they constantly tempered themselves; their Realm and strength were not inferior to some Inner Sect Disciples of the Eight Great Sects.

But now, in the eyes with which they looked at the Disciples of the Eight Great Sects, there was no longer the jealousy and hatred of the past.

While obtaining vast resources, the Disciples of the Eight Great Sects indeed paid more; countless of them had fallen in this war.

"If it were the Demon Race, I fear we would long ago have been thrown up as cannon fodder in the very front. Yet this time, it is the Disciples of the Eight Great Sects who hold the front line, allowing us, whose Realm and strength are insufficient, to attack from the flanks."

"The frontal power of the Demon Race is far too terrifying, even more dreadful than a Nirvana Tribulation. I really don’t know how those Sect Disciples cultivated."

"Speaking of Sect Disciples, Daoist Monarch Taixuan is truly outrageous. How long has it even been, and even this White Tiger has now fallen to his hands. To cut down three Demon Monarchs in succession—such battle merits are simply unbelievable."

"I heard Daoist Monarch Taixuan was originally just an ordinary servant disciple, rising step by step from a mere Dynasty, and at the start he didn’t even have the resources those Sect Disciples enjoyed. Even so, he could still cultivate all the way to the summit—such Talent is simply unimaginable."

On one small battlefield after another, some Loose Cultivators finished their fights, withdrawing blood-soaked, their gazes cast from afar toward a lone figure high above.

...

The signal to retreat was sounded; moonlight like frost shrouded the Sea Suppression Ship of the True Martial Sect.

The Supreme Sect Leader of the True Martial Sect had a pressure like an abyssal prison; the All Heaven Star Battle Array Map hanging in the hall cast the furrows between Purple Extreme Daoist Venerable’s brows into even deeper shadow.

He rubbed the ice crystals forming along the rim of his teacup, looking at the white-robed youth standing in the hall. His Adam’s apple moved, but in the end he said nothing.

"Sect Leader and Elders, please look."

Jiang Shu lifted his hand and pointed toward the Void. The Chaos Thunder Pool inverted and poured down a gray, hazy Dao Rhyme. A shattered Dragon Clan embryo was reconstituting within the Taichu Law, layers upon layers of sacrificial runes surfacing in its flesh and blood.

"This is the remaining memory within Ao Jin Demon Pill.

The Demon Race has arranged flesh-and-blood furnaces at the thirty-six Earth Vein nodes, and they have already devoured the soul-essence of three million Demon Beasts."

The Furnace of Eight Trigrams floating in the Dan Fu Sect old ancestor’s palm suddenly trembled, the furnace wall reflecting the phantom of a Nine-headed Xiangliu thrashing about in a blood pool.

"Ten Thousand Spirits Casting Venerable?"

"Do they truly intend to forcibly forge a Demon Venerable’s combat strength?"

"I think not. If Demon Venerable-level power could be shaped with a mere three million souls, those Venerables of the Demon Race would hardly have waited until now."

Jiang Shu’s five fingers closed; the embryo exploded into blood mist and condensed into a Star Map.

"Previously, when I used the Soul Great Dao to trace the Earth Veins, I discovered a certain resonance between the furnaces."