Chapter 483: Interception

To a Dao Lord, the North Sea Star was a very small place.

Any clash between two Dao Lords would affect the Great Dao enough for every Dao Lord on the star to sense it.

Often, Dao Lords wouldn't risk engaging in large-scale fighting on the North Sea Star itself, since a bad turn might shatter it, and that was despite the star being tempered by the laws of the Gate of the Immortal Realm, and therefore incalculably more durable than any ordinary world.

By the same logic, once one Dao Lord knew where several others were headed, they only had to guess the direction they'd travel in and then sit comfortably on the road those Dao Lords had to take. For beings like them, that "road" might be several hundred thousand, even several million kilometers wide, and yet they'd still sense each other.

That was how the Penglai Dao Lord blocked the way. When she released her aura and let others feel the full strength of a top-tier Dao Lord, the Innate Fiend Sovereign, the Yellow Springs Fiend Sovereign, and the Nine Hells Fiend Sovereign converged on one another from three separate directions without needing to discuss it.

Yaoguang blazed like the sun and his fearsome reputation was at its height, but in most people's eyes the Penglai Dao Lord was the greater threat.

The Heavenly Sea Sword Pavilion had a level 15 sect-protecting grand array and a Dao Lord manning it, and she had still nearly cracked it open by force. If someone hadn't arrived in time to mediate and convince her to stop, the Heavenly Sea Sword Pavilion would already be history.

On top of that, she had recently killed two Dao Integration figures, Abyssal Ruins and Jade Scale, directly or otherwise. Who would not fear a top-tier Dao Lord with the power to wipe out a sect single-handedly? Who would dare to face her alone?

Soon, the three fiend sovereigns of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects arrived to where the Penglai Dao Lord was waiting.

"The road ahead is closed. Stop there," she said calmly.

The fiend sovereigns exchanged a look with each other, and the Innate Fiend Sovereign, tacitly the strongest hand in the Fiendish Dao, stepped forward. "Penglai Dao Lord, do you really want to make enemies of all nine Dao Integration cultivators of our six sects? Top-tier or not, taking on all nine of us at once would put your life in danger. Think it through. Is one Yaoguang worth pushing every one of us onto the other side?"

"You all know perfectly well what the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign did while Daoist Yaoguang was making his push for Dao Integration. He's taking his revenge now, and that's only right and natural. So if you step in, it won't be me making an enemy of you. It'll be you insisting on fighting us to the end," the Penglai Dao Lord explained, unhurried.

She didn't particularly fear the nine fiend sovereigns of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects, and the main reason was simple. The Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects were not united.

Of all the alliances and blocs on the North Sea Star today, if the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects claimed second place for selfishness, no other power would dare claim first.

That was the quality of their alliance. If Yaoguang were willing to work with her and take on the nine fiend sovereigns one at a time, then as long as they could find an acceptable excuse, the rest would very likely stand aside and watch.

Some would even blame whichever fiend lord was attacked for having offended Yaoguang or her in the first place. Even if a few of them understood that the two of them were dismantling the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects one by one, the remaining fiend sovereigns would still struggle to unite.

Kill two or three and the rest might well dissolve the alliance themselves. Fight to the death? The Fiendish Dao was based on personal interest. It did not produce people who saw the larger picture and would sacrifice themselves for it.

Black Lunar managing to move the Innate Fiend Sovereign, the Yellow Springs Fiend Sovereign, and the Nine Hells Fiend Sovereign this time honestly surprised her a little. She expected one or two, at best.

"Penglai Dao Lord." The Innate Fiend Sovereign's voice was low. "Black Lunar did offend Dao Lord Yaoguang while he was attempting Dao Integration, and our six sects are willing to press him to make amends. But the two of you hunting him down and trying to kill him is going too far. Let us through so we can stop Dao Lord Yaoguang. We can discuss slowly about how he will compensate and settle this afterward."

"Yaoguang has been a Dao Lord for a month or two now. That's not long, but in all that time, I haven't seen a shred of sincerity from the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign about making amends. So it's only now, with someone at his door, that you remember how to sit down and talk about compensation?" the Penglai Dao Lord said, amused.

The Innate Fiend Sovereign felt a little embarrassed at her words, though nothing showed on his face. "That's only because Dao Lord Yaoguang had just achieved Dao Integration and needed time to consolidate. For Black Lunar to turn up apologizing right then would have been terrible judgment. It might have annoyed him even more and ruined the whole thing..."

"Enough. There's no need to say more." The Penglai Dao Lord waved a hand. "Life and death are fated. We'll leave Black Lunar's survival up to him. If he can hold out against Yaoguang for an hour, I'll persuade Yaoguang to let him go. If he can't last an hour, then he deserves this particular disaster."

"An hour." The Innate Fiend Sovereign's eyes narrowed slightly.

By an hour, she did not simply mean she was giving Yaoguang an hour. She meant she was confident she could hold off the three of them by herself for that long. Confidence like that meant she didn't see him as anyone worth considering.

He was the strongest of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects, a name made long ago, with a Dao Lord's death on his record. He judged himself a shade behind Penglai at worst.

And blocking someone was not the same as beating them. Holding one expert back was far harder than fighting all out. With three of them here, claiming she could hold them for an hour was arrogance.

"Penglai Dao Lord, is there no room to compromise?" the Innate Fiend Sovereign said in a low voice.

She understood exactly what that meant, and extended a hand. "Why don't the three of you try? See whether you can break through me within half an hour."

The Innate Fiend Sovereign exchanged a look with the Yellow Springs and Nine Hells Fiend Sovereigns, then threw himself at her, sending out a corrosive black mist that formed into a black dragon and lunged toward the Penglai Dao Lord.

To either side, the Yellow Springs and Nine Hells Fiend Sovereigns pushed their speed to the limit, clearly wanting to sweep around her flanks and get through to Black Lunar.

The Penglai Dao Lord merely waved a hand. The power of the Great Dao of origin spread out like a vast sea, forcing the corrosive black dragon down.

At the same moment, she raised her right hand and made a slashing gesture toward the Yellow Springs Fiend Sovereign; as she did, mighty origin power condensed into a sword force so heavy it seemed to hold ten thousand Primordial Voids, forcing him into a hurried block.

Then her figure flickered, and used the power of the Horizon Diagram to effortlessly teleport in front of the Nine Hells Fiend Sovereign. Origin power turned into a city wall and swept forward, smashing back the fiend sovereign who had thought he was about to break past her.

The powers of the Great Dao of darkness, the Great Dao of death, and the Great Dao of water collided again and again with the power of the Great Dao of origin, and the tremors spreading through the Great Dao grabbed the attention of every Dao Lord on the North Sea Star.

Several Dao Integration cultivators had already noticed something was wrong when they felt the three fiend sovereigns rushing across the sky, and with the battle between Yaoguang and the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign erupting in the Yin Lunar Sect, most of them had their attention fixed on it.

Now, seeing the Penglai Dao Lord holding off three fiend sovereigns of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects, every watching Dao Lord felt a chill. Dao Lord battles at this frequency gave them the illusion that the days of the Dao contest had arrived.

Fortunately, the Central Heaven Dao Lord surfaced in time and quickly explained the whole story for every Dao Lord on the North Sea Star.

Once they learned that Yaoguang was repaying the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign for ambushing him during his Dao Integration, although they thought he was overbearing and far too eager to show his edge, they had to admit he had a defensible reason, and none of them said anything.

The Light Divine Venerable, on the other hand, had his expression darken the moment he heard, and immediately began working out a response with the other nine divine venerables of the divine race.

***

None of what was happening outside bothered Yaoguang in the slightest.

One Great Disintegration Technique after another came hammering down.

On the heavenly immortal path, crossing the threshold required fusing several Dao Techniques, as many as a dozen or more, into one and shaping the origin directly.

A single Origin Dao Technique of that kind held the transformations of several or a dozen techniques within it, and when combined and stacked on top of each other, those transformations differed from a loose heap of sand the way an army in formation did, producing an effect far greater than the sum of its parts.

The human immortal path was not the heavenly immortal path, but the essence of an Origin Dao Technique was the same on both, amounting to every transformation a Great Dao contained.

The Great Disintegration Technique was not an Origin Dao Technique like the Great Void Technique, but the power packed into it still matched two to three Dao Techniques fused as one.

It carried the power to disintegrate and shatter the void; before that, it would also congeal and contract it.

Every time a strike landed, the space centered on the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign would first freeze solid, then contract and collapse; in the next instant, it would split and shatter completely, grinding everything inside it into nothing. Even the powers of other Great Dao struggled to manifest, having lost the medium that carried them, and every Great Dao other than the void was weakened.

Under a barrage of attacks at that near-quasi-immortal technique level, the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign could only defend with difficulty, consuming one life-saving item after another, each with its own peculiar power. In a few dozen breaths, he was already in mortal danger, and as those items ran out, he was visibly reaching the end of his rope.

"Stop! Daoist Yaoguang, why do we have to take this all the way to killing each other?" Facing death, the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign had to bow his head and beg. "If you want the Yin Lunar Sect's territory, take it. On my last trip out, I also found a secret location holding a good quantity of Taiyi Gold Essence. I collected some myself, and I can show it to you as proof. Spare me, and I'll not only leave the North Sea and never set foot in this starry sky again, but I'll also hand all of the Taiyi Gold Essence over to you..."

"If I kill you, all of it is mine anyway." Yaoguang was unmoved and sent another Great Disintegration Technique at him.

The Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign saw that Yaoguang's was fully intent on killing him, and from the shape of the battle's tremors he could tell the Innate Fiend Sovereign and the others coming to save him had been blocked by the Penglai Dao Lord. He gritted his teeth, reversed the grand array into forbidden ground, then turned into a wave of fiendish flame and rolled out through the array, fleeing the Yin Lunar Sect and making straight for where the Innate Fiend Sovereign and the others had gathered.

As for the rest of the Yin Lunar Sect, trapped inside the array with Yaoguang, he paid them no mind.