Aspiring to the Immortal Path

While Tang Zixi was moving to the sutra hall and searching for clues, the war in the Gigantes Domain was rapidly growing in scale.

Every day, the war between the Rosecloud Domain and the Primordial Fog Domain was intensifying.

The demons were like a flood, assailing the human lines over and over, but Army Anchor City was like a standing rock, enduring the ceaseless pounding of the waves.

More and more high-rank devils were appearing. After Samadhi Prajna came Queen Sinflower, the Black Dragon Demon Lord, Demon Lord Warflame, the Polar Ice Demon, and so on. When it came to True Immortals alone, there were ten-some of them. If the Rosecloud Domain hadn’t developed so much, if the Gigantes weren’t sharing some of the load, it really might have failed to withstand this level of pressure.

The power of a Demon Sovereign’s faction was not to be underestimated!

Today, the skies over Army Anchor City were once more shrouded in darkness.

The dark clouds kept coming back no matter how many times they were driven away.

The black clouds stretched for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, a shadow cast across the heavens, and from time to time, smaller clouds would break off.

Various demons stood on these clouds, in various savage appearances and wielding all kinds of weapons, and what awaited them was the tens of thousands of cannons of Army Anchor City.

The cannons of the Void Shuttles painted the skies with spiritual energy. These standardized spiritual weapons personally designed by Tang Jie had fundamentally changed the nature of battle, giving the demons a taste of just how scary the wrath of the positive plane could be.

But the demons weren’t that easy to deal with. A pack of Screech Demons shrieked at the same time, unleashing waves of energy at Army Anchor City, causing its barrier to flash and ripple. The Screech Demons were not discouraged, continuing to make their sonic attacks at Army Anchor City’s barrier.

The barrier formation employed by the city was the Supreme Unity Celestial Water Formation, which was known for having an extremely durable defense. It created a barrier of many layers to disperse and weaken attacks, thus allowing it to operate for an extremely long time at a relatively low cost. But for this reason, it was somewhat lacking in dealing with the resonance created by sonic attacks.

Over the course of this long battle, the demons had gradually grasped the nature of the Supreme Unity Celestial Water Formation and had started to gather large numbers of demons that specialized in sonic attacks.

The shrieking of the Screech Demons caused the ripples on the formation to visibly intensify, becoming like rolling waves. This was a sign that the formation was under increasing pressure.

At this moment, rays of light shot out from the city, and as they fell upon the Screech Demons, they started to melt. 108 mirrors had been raised on the walls, and the beams from these Clear Sky Mirrors vaporized each Screech Demon they swept over.

In response, large numbers of shield bone demons flew out of the clouds, standing in front of the Screech Demons and transforming their arms into shields that brightly shone in the face of this dazzling light. When the rays from the Clear Sky Mirrors fell on the shields, the beams were reflected back onto the formation.

The response from Army Anchor City was very simple. They simply replaced the Clear Sky Mirrors with Divine Fire Pillars.

1,498 Divine Fire Pillars blasted the bone shields with beams of flame, burning them to nothing.

The two sides had been battling each other for so long that they were too familiar with what each side had at their disposal.

It was a clash of two peak experts. When one made a move, the other countered, and then made a move that the first side would then counter.

Once they were familiar enough with each other, they could counter the moment the other side employed something different, gradually falling into a routine.

Losses normally happened when one side used something new that no counter had been prepared for.

The one who changed up tactics first often had the upper hand.

At this moment, the demons were sending large numbers of Lava Giants.

Lava Giants were high-level demons. The Primordial Fog Domain had many volcanic regions, which produced many kinds of Fire Element demons, and those that could be named after lava itself were the most outstanding.

Lava Giants lived in areas rich in lava and magma, their entire bodies overflowing with it, and their lava whips reached temperatures high enough to make seas boil and dry up rivers on contact.

The Lava Giants pushed through the cannon fire toward Army Anchor City, cracking their whips at the air and summoning flames that raised the temperature of the entire region. While their whips had a range of one thousand feet, for cultivators, this could already be considered close-range combat.

As the Lava Giants neared the city, they swung their whips at the walls, and the Supreme Unity Celestial Water Formation began to groan under the stress.

According to the normal pattern, when the formation reached this level, the humans would remove the formation, at which point the demons and humans would properly fight until both sides were completely exhausted or else one side was utterly defeated.

Most of the time, everyone grew tired and withdrew on their own.

But this time, things were different.

As the Lava Giants started their charge, a small jade bottle appeared on the walls of Army Anchor City.

Despite its size, as the bottle was tilted, a flood of yellow water emerged.

Shockingly, the powerful Lava Giants actually howled in terror as the yellow water washed over them, their bodies which could even resist Divine Connections starting to decay. Their flames were extinguished, the lava no longer seethed, and the yellow waters drowned them all…

“The Yellow Springs…” In the sky, a Demon Lord that was half spider, half human muttered. “I heard that Tang Jie was extremely familiar with the Nether Domain and was able to go in and out, controlling a part of its power, and it seems like the rumors were true. To think that he is able to use the Yellow Springs! The Lava Giants will suffer devastating losses.”

“You know that they’ll suffer heavy losses, but you still do nothing? Are you just going to wait until all my children and grandchildren die?” With a furious roar, a giant hand made of lava descended from the sky and stopped the Yellow Springs.

The one who had intervened was the Red Cloud Ancestor, a Lava Giant who had come upon a lucky encounter and was able to cultivate all the way to True Immortal. He was the ancestor of all the Lava Giants of the Primordial Fog Domain, so he immediately came to the rescue of his people—a basic property of war was that as the war went on, higher and higher levels of combatants would appear.

The half-spider–half-human Demon Lord sighed, “Tang Jie is no ordinary person, but the successor chosen by the Martial Lord. When we’re dealing with this kind of target, being patient is very important. Ancestor, you acted too soon.”

“So what? I can’t stand this attitude of saving all your trump cards until the very end. Ultimate moves should be used at the start, and the strong should be killed the moment they show up! Just how long are we going to test them with our subordinates? We are the demons of Primordial Fog, and overwhelming others with strength is our creed and way of rule! Testing each other back and forth like little girls… AGH!”

If not for that final scream, the Red Cloud Ancestor’s words would have sounded rather forceful and domineering.

Alas, the scream had completely ruined it.

The scream was because a spear had come out of nowhere.

This silver spear had stabbed into the Red Cloud Ancestor’s palm—the Red Cloud Ancestor had been devoting almost half of his strength to stopping the Yellow Springs, so he had overlooked the spear.

Even so, the Red Cloud Ancestor did not back down, continuing to hold back the Yellow Springs as he roared, “Who’s there? Attacking this old man from the shadows!”

“Ridiculous. You’re allowed to intervene in this war among our subordinates and we aren’t allowed to do anything?” a voice boomed back as Yun Tianlan appeared over Army Anchor City. He once more thrust out his silver spear. If this old demon wanted to protect the Lava Giants, he would have to pay a price.

“Awooo!” the Red Cloud Ancestor howled in pain. They were both True Immortals, so Yun Tianlan’s spear wasn’t easy to deal with. Moreover, following the ancestor’s advice, Yun Tianlan had used his strongest move from the start, the World Destroyer Spear, which even the profoundly powerful Red Cloud Ancestor found difficult to resist. Worst of all was that the cannons on the walls had also started to fire at him.

In normal circumstances, the Void Shuttle Cannons were of little threat to Immortals, but now, he was trying to hold back the Yellow Springs and was being attacked by Yun Tianlan. He had little left to spare for the cannons, and if they all fired at him at once, he would have to pay dearly to extract himself from this situation.

With this thought, the Red Cloud Ancestor didn’t dare to linger and retreated with a yelp.

Without him, the Yellow Springs flooded out once more.

The Lava Giants had barely had time to catch their breath, much less retreat to a safe distance, so they were instantly swept up, many of them engulfed in those lethal waters.

Seeing so many of his children dying, having both failed to protect them and gotten himself injured in the process, he roared in anger, “What are you waiting for? Fight!”

He descended entirely from the clouds.

“Red Cloud, no!” the half-spider–half-human Demon Lord shouted. “Master has ordered that we are not to move out until the decisive battle…”

Before he had finished, the Red Cloud Ancestor had already unleashed a palm strike at Yun Tianlan, as had several Demon Lords that he was on good terms with. At the same time, several True Immortals flew out of Army Anchor City to intercept them, and thus began a True Immortal battle.

This was war. No matter how carefully a commander devised their plans, a tiny change could result in everything being for naught.

The Primordial Fog Domain, Blood Cloud Hall.

On a seven-petaled lotus platform, a broad-faced, large-eared monk suddenly raised his head and muttered, “So it’s begun? Earlier than I planned. The will of the heavens! This is the will of the heavens!”

He closed his eyes, the lotus platform spinning as it returned to the hall.

In the Hall of Divine Conference, Tang Jie raised his head. “The True Immortals have joined the battle. Then the final battle is bound to come soon. Is this part of the plan, or an accident?”

But there was no one there to answer Tang Jie’s mutterings.