Chapter 633: Kneel before the goddess

The twisted souls were about to reach Gumiho when she raised her hand.

The moment they clashed with her palm, they broke into countless butterflies formed from pink petals.

Jae Hyun's eyes widened. 'My attack wasn't blocked.'

"Y-you! You destroyed the very souls?" he muttered, immediately taking several steps back.

"More accurately, I sent them back to the Cycle of Reincarnation," Gumiho replied, lowering her hand.

'She is stronger than I expected,' Jae Hyun gasped inwardly. 'Her divine power is strange. I can feel the heavens and earth resonating with her Soulforce.'

Jae Hyun was an extremely cautious and sharp man. This ability was what had helped him reach the top of the Demonic Faction. He knew how to survive in a cultivation world. When to take advantage of a situation and when to step back.

'I need to retreat and report about her to 'them',' he decided inwardly. He was about to give the order to retreat when Gumiho continued,

"Before leaving, free all the souls you have trapped."

Jae Hyun's jaw tightened. "Hah! As if," he scoffed. He had only taken a step back when suddenly, a rod of petals shot toward him.

He tilted his head at the last moment, dodging the rod.

"That wasn't a request, Leader of the Demonic Faction," Gumiho said, her Soulforce rising even further. "If you want to leave alive, free the souls."

Her pink eyes radiated like a pair of stars, sending chills down Jae Hyun's spine.

The cultivators from both the demonic and Unorthodox factions were observing the situation unfolding above them. If he were to back down now, his position as the leader of the Demonic Faction would be shaken.

'Jae Hyun was actually about to leave?' Mriga gasped, his eyes widening. 'Why would Gumiho stop him? She must have just reached the Sacred Beast Realm. She can't possibly defeat a Level Three Demi-God. Should I lend her my help?'

The thought had barely crossed his mind when Jae Hyun drew his weapon from his storage pouch. It was a dark whip with numerous interconnected skulls. An ominous energy radiated from the whip, distorting the space around it.

'Th-thats the Soul Shattering Whip, the legendary-grade weapon refined by trapping ten thousand souls,' Mriga gasped. Jae Hyun had never drawn this weapon during the war, finding his opponents unworthy of being killed by such a high-grade weapon. If he had drawn it now, he must truly be serious about the battle against Gumiho.

With a swing of his hand, the whip snapped through the air, shattering the reality around it.

"Lady Gumiho, if you get attacked by it, your very soul will be damaged—"

Before Mriga could finish his sentence, the whip reached Gumiho's torso.

Just as it was about to strike her, a wall of petals appeared before her.

Boom!

A cataclysmic explosion occurred. The space was shattered for hundreds of metres from the point of contact. One side was covered in wild pink-colored fire, while on the other, a wall of thousands of souls struggled to overpower the flames.

The land several kilometres below broke apart from the aftereffect, and the cultivators were slammed to the ground from the collision of the Soulforce of divine-level cultivators.

Jae Hyun retrieved the whip and attacked again.

Another wall of plum blossoms appeared, followed by another explosion.

He released a barrage of attacks, the whip moving like a blur.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Mriga was pushed hundreds of metres back from the collision alone.

"So this is the true strength of the Demonic Faction's leader," Mriga gasped, covering himself with a shield of light. "If he had fought me like this, I wouldn't have stood a chance."

He shook his head, a hint of frustration on his face.

"I'm afraid it's already too late to save Gumiho."

When the smoke slowly vanished, Gumiho and Jae Hyun's figures became visible.

They were both unscathed. Gumiho was holding the whip with her hand.

"Hahahaha, catching the Soul Shattering Whip with your bare hand," Jae Hyun laughed. "You are just courting death."

The tens of thousands of souls from the whip entered Gumiho's palm, spreading along her arm.

"Die!!" Jae Hyun barked, pouring every ounce of Soulforce into the whip.

The ten thousand souls answered, screaming within the weapon as darkness swelled outward and swallowed Gumiho whole. The space around her twisted and shrieked, groaning under the divine pressure.

'This is it,' Mriga thought, unable to look away. 'Even Battle God Aruma wouldn't be able to escape this attack unscathed.'

Jae Hyun watched the writhing dark mass, and slowly the tension in his shoulders eased. A smirk spread across his face.

"Goddess of all beasts?" he scoffed, his voice carrying across the battlefield. "What a disappointment. She is just a weakling."

He was still savoring the words when a single thread of pink light split the darkness.

Then another and another. Countless streaks of pink light emerged through the souls.

In the next instant, all ten thousand souls dissolved into butterflies of plum blossom petals. They drifted outward in a slow spiral, mending the shattered space around them before fading into nothing.

The whip in Jae Hyun's hand crumbled to ash between his fingers. Ten thousand years of gathered souls were gone in an instant.

He stared at his empty palm, fury and disbelief warring across his face.

"You—"

"I warned you but you didn't heed it," Gumiho said, her voice as calm as before. "So now, you must be punished."

Before Jae Hyun could raise his guard, petals coiled around his arm.

Boom!

The explosion tore through his limb. When the smoke cleared, his arm was completely obliterated.

Jae Hyun's scream carried more fury than pain. "Retreat! Full retreat!" he roared, rushing back.

The human army scattered at his order, cultivators of the Demonic and Unorthodox factions alike breaking rank to flee a battlefield they had, moments ago, been certain of winning.

Gumiho didn't pursue them. She turned instead toward the wounded scattered across the field and raised her hand once more. Petals drifted from her palm, spreading like falling snow.

They found the dying humans first, and the instant a petal touched skin, color returned to their pale faces and wounds sealed shut, just enough life restored to let them crawl from the battlefield.

The beasts received more than mere healing. Some felt their Soulforce increasing while for others it went further; cultivators who'd been stuck at the same bottleneck for years felt something inside them finally give way, their cultivation surging forward at last.

Even Mriga, a Sacred Beast felt his bottleneck that had held him still for hundreds of years loosening at the faintest brush of her power.

He stared at Gumiho with both shock and respect. He dropped to his knees, lowering his head.

"I pay my respects to the Goddess of All Beasts."

One by one, every beast on the battlefield followed, kneeling as one, their voices rising together.

"We pay our respects to the Goddess!"

The retreating humans turned back at the sound, and what they saw stole the breath from their lungs, an entire battlefield of beasts kneeling before a single figure standing in the air amid drifting plum blossoms.

Jae Hyun froze mid-retreat.

"Is... is she truly the Goddess of Beasts?" he muttered in disbelief. "If that's true, then she might be as powerful as... 'them'."