Aspiring to the Immortal Path

The battle continued, but there was no suspense to it.

Perhaps there was never any suspense in the first place. This was a ready army several times stronger than the opposing force attacking an unprepared enemy. Victory was the rule, not the exception.

The Rosecloud Domain’s only concern was how many fiends they could kill in this battle. Weakening the forces of the Divine Spring Domain and altering the balance of power was the primary objective.

Once the fiends saw the situation they were in, many of them chose to flee rather than foolishly stay and fight.

But the Domain Astral Winds had cut off their path of retreat, with the most unfortunate being the Deification fiends and the middle- and low-level fiends that had come down the Dark Elevators. They didn’t have the power to get through the Astral Winds on their own, which meant they couldn’t escape and could only fight to the end against an insurmountable foe.

The fiends that had come out of the Dark Elevators realized to their great dismay that the tables had suddenly been turned. The human cultivators they had been chasing had come back dozens of times stronger, forming teams and combat formations. Only then did they realize that they were the weak ones here!

Fiend massacres took place all across the Rosecloud Domain, with even mortals taking part.

The Rosecloud Domain had never been so lively before. The Rosecloud Domain was similar to the Divine Spring Domain except in the exact opposite direction, in that there were few areas where fiends could thrive. Thus, while these fiends were a calamity, they were also a treasure, bringing change along with disaster.

Their deaths increased the local concentration of spiritual energy, giving mortals more of an opportunity to cultivate, while their flesh, blood, and fiend pellets provided resources that cultivators could use to grow stronger.

The war with Blood River had already blessed this new land once, and the war against the fiends once more boosted its spirituality.

As the spiritual energy circulated, more and more people would be able to cultivate.

In the future, many powerful cultivators were bound to appear.

But that was far in the future.

There was no way any fiends at Deification or below could escape the Astral Winds, but the Soul Projection fiends and above had some hope.

Thus, once they realized what was going on, they turned to flee, and the human cultivators gave chase.

Chases were all about speed.

Some fiends were not fast enough, so only death awaited.

But some fiends were innately fast.

One Fiend Emperor immediately took their original form, a great peng with golden wings, and with a single flap, it instantly flew ten thousand meters, as fast as lightning.

As a Soul Projection Fiend Emperor, it could go in and out of the Astral Winds several times with no problem at all, and with its great speed, it quickly left its enemies behind. It smugly laughed, “You damn humans want to stop Grandpa Hawk! Hah!”

Just when it was about to flap its wings and continue rising, it saw a cultivator in the Astral Winds.

This cultivator was at Deification, barely enough to get through the Astral Winds. Perhaps for this very reason, they seemed to be having a tough time traversing this layer, seemingly struggling to fly while maintaining their barrier.

The peng Fiend Emperor immediately got greedy. Confident that it was fast enough that the human cultivators couldn’t catch up, it turned to that lone cultivator and shouted, “Just curse your own rotten luck!”

A talon reached for the cultivator.

The cultivator sensed its approach, and when they turned and saw the great peng approaching, they seemed to become frozen in shock.

The great peng inwardly celebrated, already imagining the sight of the cultivator breaking under its talon.

But a moment later, there was a flash of light from the cultivator, and then the Fiend Emperor felt pain.

It saw its talons flying away from its body.

“My… talons…” the peng Fiend Emperor said in shock.

Its talons had once pierced through the refined body of the Sea Dragon Emperor of the west, had hacked through the horned battle axe of the Rhino Emperor, and they had even been tempered in the Lightning Tribulation of the Nine Heavens. Never before had they been broken. They were its proud weapons, the foundation of its strength!

But now, they had been broken.

Just like that.

For a moment, the peng fiend thought that it had been struck by an illusion or had gone mad.

How could this be? Without going through any kind of tough battle, its talons had broken?

It stared at the cultivator in shock.

The cultivator was smiling.

“You fly fast,” he said.

Sword light exploded.

When Tang Jie sheathed his sword, the great peng was completely dead.

Putting away the corpse, Tang Jie flew off on his way.

Soon, he encountered a gray wolf Fiend Emperor.

This gray wolf was also extremely fast, running through the Astral Winds like a bronco, flames streaming off its paws, headstrong and brash.

Of course, someone so brash and headstrong wouldn’t let others fly with it.

When it saw Tang Jie “struggling” through the Astral Winds, it cruelly laughed and opened its mouth to eat Tang Jie up.

Without turning his head, Tang Jie threw out the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace.

The gray wolf Fiend Emperor almost broke its teeth on the Myriad Yin Yang Furnace, and 108 divine beams immediately began to blast the inside of its mouth. As the gray wolf spat out the furnace, it saw a brilliant wave of sword energy…

Tang Jie stowed away the wolf corpse and continued his journey.

These Fiend Emperors were all at Soul Projection, but they had already expended a great deal of strength. Moreover, they underestimated Tang Jie because he was only at Deification. Finally, Tang Jie himself was just too powerful, so strong that he could fight someone a tier and a half above his level. He could casually kill those at Soul Projection, and while he might not have been able to defeat a Fiend God, he could hold out for a time without a problem. If he activated the Heavenly Dao Realm, he could temporarily suppress Fiend Gods, but the realm had a time limit while Fiend Gods were undying, so he would ultimately fail to achieve victory.

His strength being greater than his cultivation level meant that he was very suitable for playing the pig to eat a tiger, ideal for hunting down the fiends that had fled into the Astral Wind region.

Since most of those retreating through the Astral Winds were at Soul Projection, whenever they saw the Deification Tang Jie, they almost all tried to kill him, which would end up getting them killed.

Tang Jie didn’t even need to give chase, simply slowly fly over, and those Fiend Emperors would come at him like moths to the flame.

Of course, there were also targets that Tang Jie didn’t want to deal with.

A Fiend God came up from below.

Tang Jie instantly sped up and fled the region—not because he feared the Fiend God, but because dealing with that guy would take too much time. His priority right now was to hunt down as many fleeing fiends as possible.

It wasn’t long before Tang Jie had killed ten-some Soul Projection Fiend Emperors.

These were all Titan-level existences, the strongest beneath Immortal Platform, any one of them able to hold sway over a region, but Tang Jie had reaped them like so many stalks of wheat.

After flying around for a while and seeing that not many Fiend Emperors were emerging from down below, Tang Jie flew higher, finally emerging from the Astral Winds and reaching the void outside the Rosecloud Domain.

There were still fiends standing guard in the void.

There were several dozen of them, Fiend Gods and Fiend Emperors, and all of them shared the trait of being cautious.

Their caution meant that they had resisted the temptation and remained rational. It meant that they had a habit of waiting for the right moment to strike and meant that they hadn’t stepped into the lethal trap Tang Jie and Yun Tianlan had prepared for them.

But this didn’t mean that Tang Jie would let them go.

A perfect battle required not only minimizing ally losses, but also maximizing enemy losses.

Tang Jie’s desire for perfection meant that he had to keep these fiends here and hunt them all down!

Thus, he had flown out of the Astral Winds and appeared before all these fiends.

These fiends sensed that something was amiss.

Their Divine Wills weren’t strong enough to penetrate the Astral Wind region, which was an ability only True Immortals possessed. But they could gather information both through the Dark Elevators and from the fiends that had already entered the domain.

But when Rosecloud began its counterattack, it activated a formation that interfered with Divine Wills, thus preventing the fiends outside from communicating with the fiends below. Meanwhile, what they could see through the Dark Elevators was too limited. But even with this little information, their years of experience told them that something was wrong.

It was then that Tang Jie appeared, much to their amazement.

Tang Jie smiled. “Hello, everybody. Since you’re already here, why not pay a visit to the world below? It is only there that we can offer you the best service.”

Even the most cautious of Fiend Emperors would never back down in front of a Deification cultivator.

“Impudent!” a Soul Projection Fiend Emperor bellowed, throwing a powerful punch at Tang Jie that sent ripples through space.

Tang Jie simply laughed. “A good punch!”

He returned with a punch of his own.

When the punches collided, both human and fiend were thrown back. Tang Jie was swaying a little, meaning that he was a little weaker.

The Fiend Emperor cackled, “That’s all you have? Take another punch!”

Another fiendish punch was thrown toward Tang Jie.

Not to be outdone, Tang Jie manifested his true form.

As a body refiner, when he unleashed his power, he instantly grew to become a massive giant that towered over the firmament. With a mighty bellow, he threw a punch at the Fiend Emperor.