Chapter 631: Dear and Fox Clan vs Eastern and Northern Legion

One week ago, Western Continent...

Dark smoke rose from the scorched ground at several places. The land was filled with numerous small and large craters. The soil was wet and crimson, never getting the chance to dry as cultivators, both humans and beasts, continued to fall.

The air was thick with the strong metallic scent of death. Roars and cries echoed across the battlefield, followed by the relentless clash of weapons.

Beasts in both demi-human and transformed forms could be seen engaged in a fierce battle against the invading humans.

The beast army was dominated by fox and deer beasts, with warriors bearing fluffy fox ears or towering antlers. A massive dark stronghold stood behind the battlefield, a giant stone statue of a fox engraved at the center of its walls. This was the Tianhu Stronghold.

Many beasts were actively attacking from the walls, supporting their comrades fighting on the frontlines.

High in the air, the commanders and generals of the Eastern and Northern Legions were fighting against the Greater Spirit Beasts of the Fox Clan and a Mythic Beast of the Deer Clan.

The number of Greater Spirit Beasts was half that of the commanders from the two legions, while only one Mythic Beast from the Deer Clan was fighting two generals from the human army.

If not for the protective abilities of the Mythic Beast of the Deer Clan, their lines would have already fallen. Still, their condition did not seem favorable. They were being actively suppressed by the wild and relentless attacks of the humans.

"Hahaha, give up, animals," one of the generals laughed. His name was Tae Jin, an Early Stage Eternal Sage and a practitioner of demonic arts.

He was a middle-aged man with sparse but long auburn hair that left his scalp visible beneath it. His eyes were unnaturally crimson, and his sclera was black. His cheeks were hollow, while his sagging eyebags were darkened.

He shifted the weight of the metallic club in his hand as he continued, "You are no match for us."

The other demonic practitioner, the General of the Northern Legion beside him, snickered as he licked the blood off the dagger in his hand. He seemed older, with a hunched back and grey hair. His name was Do Jin, a Middle-Stage Eternal Sage.

"Why bother speaking to the food?" he said to Tae Jin, his voice old and deep. "We are having fox and deer meat tonight."

"You demonic cultivators!" an elderly demi-fox shouted from the opposite side, his one arm bleeding and hanging limp at his side. The blood on Do Jin's blade belonged to him. He was Ryota, a Greater Spirit Beast and the current leader of the Fox Clan.

Ryota bared his teeth, his ears flattening against his skull. "You wouldn't dare speak so freely if Battle God Aruma still walked this land."

"Aruma?" Tae Jin barked out a laugh, swinging his club lazily onto his shoulder. "Watch your tongue, old fox. It was your own kind who put him in the ground. Whatever misery you're drowning in now, you brought it upon yourselves."

Ryota's growl died in his throat. There was nothing to say to that.

Both generals surged forward as one.

Simha threw himself between them and the wounded fox elder, lowering his antlers as a wall of translucent light bloomed outward from his body.

He was no killer. Deer beasts were never bred for it, their gifts leaning toward protection rather than ruin, and against opponents of the same realm, his shield held like a mountain refusing to move.

Tae Jin's club rang against it again and again, sparks of dark energy scattering uselessly across its surface. Do Jin's dagger fared no better, his strikes sliding off at odd angles no matter how he twisted the blade.

Behind the two generals, the commanders of the Eastern and Northern Legions lent their strength from above, riding on flying artifacts that cut arcs of light through the smoke-choked sky as they hurled spell after spell into the mounting assault.

While the Greater Spirit Beasts relied on those same artifacts to remain airborne, the Eternal Sages and Mythic Beasts needed no such aid, flight simply being another expression of their cultivation.

The weight of it all bore down on Simha's shield in overlapping waves, and cracks began threading through the light like frost creeping over glass. Sweat beaded along his flank. His breathing had turned ragged.

He was running out of time.

Far above the battlefield, beyond the reach of even the highest-flying commanders, two figures faced each other across a gulf of empty sky.

Jae Hyun's reddish-brown hair whipped loosely around a face lined less by age than by whatever he had done to himself over the centuries, his beard long and unkempt.

As the Leader of the Demonic Faction and a Level Three Demi-God, he was regarded as the strongest human on the Western Continent, arguably on the same level as the leader of the Righteous Faction.

Across from him hovered Mriga, easily twice the general's height, his antlers alone nearly matching the length of his own body. Water ran backward off his hooves. Behind his antlers turned a slow ring of pale, ethereal light. He was a Level Two Sacred Beast, the clan leader of the Deer Clan.

"Still nothing but shields, Mriga?" Jae Hyun's voice carried easily across the distance between them, amused. "Centuries of cultivation, and not once did you bother learning how to kill something. A pity, really."

"Killing was never the answer." Mriga's tone did not rise to meet his. "Not for me. Not for you, if you could see the negative karma chaining your soul."

"Spare me the sermon." Something dark gathered in Jae Hyun's palm, souls he had trapped and bent to his will writhing visibly within it, feeding a power that reeked of rot and old grief. "This negative karma is a blessing from the Demon God."

He struck first.

The blow came wrapped in shrieking darkness, souls screaming as they were flung forward.

Mriga answered with a pulse of light that felt less like an attack and more like dawn breaking over a battlefield. The two forces met in the empty air between them.

Spiderweb-like cracks spread across the sky. Space twisted and the reality shattered like fragile glass.

Jae Hyun did not let up. Strike after strike of trapped souls and clawing dark energy hammered into Mriga's light, and slowly, inevitably, the deer began to give ground, driven backward through the torn sky. His ring of light flickered. The water at his hooves ran thinner.

One final blow sent him reeling, and Jae Hyun surged after him, dark power already coiling for what would clearly be the final strike, a killing blow for a beast who had never once thrown one of his own.

Just as he was about to land the final strike, he suddenly stopped mid-motion. Not just him. The generals fighting below him and the warriors farther below on the ground all stopped mid-motion as well.

An immense pressure rolled over the battlefield without warning, pressing down on humans and beasts alike until even Jae Hyun's raised fist hung frozen in the air. Soldiers caught mid-swing found themselves unable to complete their motions. The fighting, the screaming, the roar of a war that had raged for hours, all of it went utterly still.

Into that silence, a voice spoke. It was calm and gentle.

"Turn back, humans."