Chapter 302 - The Final Cards and the Breaking Point

Chapter 302: Chapter 302 - The Final Cards and the Breaking Point

Until now, caution had shaped almost every decision.

Demonic cultivators possessed too many unknown methods, and nobody wanted to discover another trap by stepping directly into it.

Li Xuanzong’s first kill changed that calculation.

The enemy’s prepared methods were dangerous, but they were no longer mysterious enough to control the pace of the battle.

Shen Youran held their cultivation down.

Lu Canghai could swallow the talismans meant to distract or divide them.

Li Xuanzong had already identified safe attack paths through the demons’ remaining defenses.

There was no longer any reason to allow them time.

Jian Wushuang attacked first. His sword light entered one of the corridors Li Xuanzong had left open.

But then, the bell protecting his target rang.

Jian Wushuang’s spiritual sense slipped aside. His sword light began drifting from its original trajectory.

The Myriad Swords Sect expert moved at the same moment.

Rather than targeting the demon himself, he attacked the entire region the man occupied.

Dozens of sword lights crossed from different angles.

The bell could mislead precise targeting, but it could not convince an entire section of the sky to move somewhere else.

The demon’s expression changed.

He tried to retreat.

Shen Youran’s ice had already closed the nearest route.

He turned toward another opening.

A controlled burst from the Zhuge Clan expert shifted his body half a step sideways.

That half step placed him directly beneath Jian Wushuang’s descending sword.

The demon roared and raised both arms.

His weakened spatial field distorted the attack enough to save his head, but his right arm was severed instead.

Before he could recover, pale lotus radiance from the Glass-Lotus woman spread across the wound.

The demonic Qi gathering there destabilized.

His attempt to force the injury closed failed.

The Scorching Sun Valley expert attacked next. Yang fire engulfed the space around him.

The bell continued ringing, but there was nothing left to misdirect.

Flames covered everything.

His scream lasted only a few breaths.

When the fire receded, the second demonic cultivator fell from the sky.

No one celebrated.

The righteous experts were already moving toward the next target.

The surviving demons responded with everything they still had.

A handful of spatial-lock talismans flew outward.

This time, nobody struck them.

Lu Canghai’s cloud rolled forward and swallowed them before they reached anyone.

Several talismans shattered inside the mist.

The spatial restraints activated there instead, briefly freezing portions of the cloud.

Lu Canghai raised an eyebrow.

The immobilized mist dispersed around the locked areas and reformed beyond them.

He looked toward the demons.

"That worked better the first time."

One of them cursed.

Another released a strange stream of dark light from his sleeve.

The Zhuge Clan expert saw the distortion around it and immediately altered his position rather than testing the attack directly.

The righteous side had learned.

Every unfamiliar technique was treated as dangerous until its function became clear.

Nobody chased obvious openings.

Nobody struck suspicious talismans.

Nobody approached the demonic cultivators physically unless Li Xuanzong’s aura marked the path as safe.

The demons realized it too.

Their tricks were still dangerous. The problem was that every failed trick taught the people surrounding them something.

They could not afford enough failures.

The seated cultivators poured more blood essence into the escape discs. Their faces had become visibly pale.

One disc spun rapidly enough that the surrounding space began bending around its edge. The others were only slightly behind.

"We need more time!"

A standing demon hurled another wave of talismans across the battlefield, but Lu Canghai’s clouds spread before they had traveled even half the distance.

Several talismans twisted sharply in midair and tried to slip around the mist, only for the clouds to divide and follow their changing paths. One finally managed to break through a narrow opening, but Shen Youran froze it before it could reach the sect.

The demon’s expression darkened. Their distractions were no longer creating the openings they needed.

Li Xuanzong raised the wooden blade again, and this time the surviving demons refused to wait for his attack.

Two of them rushed toward one of the thinner corridors within his aura, clearly hoping to force the righteous side to react before he could strike.

Li Xuanzong remained where he was.

The pressure filling that corridor suddenly thickened.

Both demons stopped almost immediately as the opening they had intended to exploit disappeared in front of them.

The Myriad Swords Sect expert nearly laughed when he understood what had happened. Li Xuanzong was not simply marking safe directions for their attacks.

He was continuously reshaping those paths according to every reaction the enemy made, turning the surrounding battlefield into something that resembled a formation despite there being no actual array beneath their feet.

The righteous experts took advantage of it without needing further instruction.

Sword light drove the demons apart while scorching Yang fire closed one of their remaining retreats. Shen Youran’s ice sealed another route, and the Zhuge Clan expert altered the position of a wounded cultivator by only a small amount, placing him directly within Jian Wushuang’s attack path.

Jian Wushuang’s sword descended.

The third demonic cultivator died before he could escape.

The spatial discs were still spinning behind them, and one of the seated cultivators abruptly abandoned his plate as he realized how quickly their situation was collapsing.

"We won’t finish them in time."

No one answered him.

His eyes reddened as a strange heat began radiating from his body, drawing Su Bai’s attention almost immediately.

Dark patterns were surfacing beneath the man’s skin.

They had not come from any artifact he carried. The markings appeared to have been carved directly into his flesh long before this battle, spreading across his neck, chest, and arms as though a dormant formation had been hidden inside his body all along.

The remaining demons began activating the same markings.

Su Bai focused on them carefully. He had studied Immortal formations, ancient sealing structures, Court restrictions, and numerous methods recovered from Fallen-Star Sanctuary, yet nothing he had encountered matched the patterns now appearing across their bodies.

That unfamiliarity alone was enough to make him uneasy.

Li Xuanzong reached the same conclusion without wasting time trying to understand them.

"Do not approach them."

The righteous experts immediately increased their distance, and the nature of their assault changed with them. Sword light, flames, lotus radiance, ice, and controlled spatial force descended from afar while everyone avoided entering the demons’ immediate surroundings.

The demonic cultivators laughed.

"You righteous bastards really have become cowards."

Jian Wushuang answered by sending another sword light toward him.

The man barely twisted away in time, and nobody bothered responding to his provocation.

The patterns beneath the demons’ skin continued brightening as the heat radiating from their bodies intensified. At the same time, one of the seated cultivators suddenly screamed when the disc across his lap accelerated, warping the surrounding space hard enough for visible distortions to appear around him.

He was close to completing the escape formation.

Li Xuanzong’s aura shifted.

Five attacks converged almost immediately.

The demon tried to rise, but Shen Youran tightened the suppression around him and his Qi stalled before he could complete the movement. Pale lotus radiance followed, interfering with the demonic energy gathering around his body long enough for Jian Wushuang’s sword light to pass through the opening.

The disc split apart beneath him.

The cultivator was cut down a heartbeat later.

The fourth demonic cultivator died beside the remains of the broken escape formation.

Whatever composure the survivors had maintained finally began to collapse. Their eyes turned bloodshot, while one tore open his robes and pressed both hands against the formations carved across his body. Another poured his own vitality into the remaining spatial disc with no concern for the damage it was causing him.

The demonic cultivator connected to Su Bai’s Dark Mark looked across the battlefield.

Four of his companions were already dead, leaving only three beside him. Two were still desperately controlling their escape discs, while the last stood close enough that the marked demon only needed to turn his head to look at him.

A violent laugh suddenly burst from his throat.

Even the other demons turned toward him.

"Don’t think this ends here! I’ll return this humiliation tenfold!"

His gaze swept across Radiant Sky Sect before settling on the cultivator standing closest to him.

That man noticed.

His expression changed.

"You..."

The marked demon struck before he could finish.

His hand punched straight through his companion’s chest.

The dying cultivator stared at the arm buried inside him, and disbelief quickly twisted into fury.

"You son of a..."

The formations covering the marked demon’s body lit up before the curse could leave his mouth.

Blood surged from the dying cultivator and flowed directly into those markings. His body shriveled at a terrifying rate as the marked demon absorbed his blood, vitality, and even part of the spiritual power escaping from his collapsing body.

Li Xuanzong attacked immediately.

The wooden blade moved.

The marked demon only laughed harder.

Before the attack could reach him, his own body began withering as well. His skin sank against his bones, his hair whitened, and the flesh beneath his robes collapsed until he resembled a corpse that had aged several centuries within only a few breaths.

Su Bai felt the Dark Mark react violently.

The connection did not vanish. Instead, it stretched.

The demon’s withered body suddenly crumbled into ash, and a soul wrapped in an unfamiliar layer of light emerged from the remains.

Li Xuanzong’s blade aura swept through the space where the body had been and erased the falling ashes, but the soul had already moved.

It shot eastward with terrifying speed.

Li Xuanzong’s spiritual sense followed immediately and managed to catch the fleeing presence for an instant, yet it became increasingly difficult to perceive with every passing moment. Whatever method protected the soul was carrying it across distance without opening an ordinary spatial passage.

Li Xuanzong raised the wooden blade, but the brief moment required to determine where the soul had gone was enough.

The presence disappeared beyond the range he could reliably lock onto.

Su Bai remained focused on the faint sensation coming from the Dark Mark.

The connection was still there. It had become distant and extremely weak, but it had not disappeared.

The demonic cultivator connected to him was still alive.

Only his body had died.

Everything had happened within moments, yet that delay was exactly what another cultivator needed.

The final stages of one escape disc completed.

Space collapsed inward around it as the formation reached full activation, releasing a pressure that made every expert nearby turn toward the disturbance.

An enormous illusory hand emerged from the warped space above the disc.

Rather than attacking anyone, it descended directly toward the cultivator who had activated the formation and closed around him.

Li Xuanzong moved the instant it appeared.

His blade aura crossed the battlefield, but the enormous hand tightened first.

The demon vanished into the spatial distortion a fraction of a breath before Li Xuanzong’s attack reached him, and the warped space collapsed immediately afterward.

That left only one surviving demonic cultivator on the battlefield.

The final escape disc was still resting before him.

Realizing that he was now alone, the man poured everything he had left into it, desperately trying to complete the formation before the righteous side could turn its attention toward him.

Li Xuanzong gave him no such opportunity.

The wooden blade descended once more.

The desperate cultivator threw every defensive treasure he still possessed into the path of the attack. Two talismans burned at once, followed by a barrier and a blood-red shield that formed directly in front of him.

Li Xuanzong’s blade aura tore through all of them.

The demon’s expression froze as the distorted space reached his body. His flesh and bones disappeared within the folding space, and even the soul that tried to flee immediately afterward was caught and erased before it could escape.

This time, there was no strange formation to carry him away and no spatial hand waiting to pull him from the battlefield.

The last demonic cultivator remaining inside the suppression field was dead.

Silence gradually spread across the mountains.

Six of the eight Void-Shattering demonic cultivators who had entered Radiant Sky Sect were dead.

Of the two who escaped, one had abandoned his body and fled eastward as a soul through an unknown method, while the other had been pulled away by the enormous illusory hand summoned through the completed spatial disc.

For any righteous faction, killing six Void-Shattering enemies in a single battle should have been enough to celebrate for years.

Cultivators at that realm were not disposable soldiers, and losing so many at once could cripple entire operations, break alliances, and force several demonic factions to spend years rebuilding the strength they had just lost.

Nobody celebrated.

Li Xuanzong continued staring toward the east, while the Zhuge Clan expert studied the place where the enormous illusory hand had disappeared. The woman from the Glass-Lotus Holy See remained silent, and even the faint amusement that usually lingered around Lu Canghai had vanished.

The battle had given them far more to consider than the number of enemies they had killed.

The two successful escape methods were even worse.

None of the experienced Void-Shattering cultivators present had immediately recognized either of them.

Six enemies had died, while two had escaped through methods nobody had expected.

Yet after everything they had witnessed, the result of the battle no longer felt like the most troubling part.

Li Xuanzong slowly lowered the wooden blade, but his gaze remained fixed on the empty sky.

The demonic cultivators had arrived prepared for Radiant Sky Sect.

What none of them knew was who had prepared them.