Chapter 56
Aelyra frowned at his laughter. "What’s so funny?"
"What makes you think I’ll be giving Althea back to you?"
Soren had captured Althea, Duke, and the rest to force Vorian into releasing his mother from the Black Water Dungeon, then trade them at the right moment, now that things had unraveled this far, what need was left to trade anything with Vorian?
Aelyra’s face went cold, she brushed back the black hair by her cheek. "On the grounds that her biological father is standing right here."
"On the grounds that without this Lord Demon Emperor’s nod, you will never walk out of that formation."
"This broken formation?"
Broken formation? One of the Demon Emperors released Aelyra from his arms. "What an arrogant mouth."
"The Five Demons Heaven-Imprisoning Formation is woven from the combined power of all five of us., even the strongest Upper-Tier Demon Emperor would sit quietly inside it."
"You, a mere Middle-Tier Demon Emperor, even if you can suppress that trash Vorian, could never possibly break..."
Bang! Riiip!
Before the words finished, Soren’s sword ripped the formation wide open.
Demonic might erupted, swallowing the world, the formation shattered inch by inch and rained down in clattering pieces, like a shower of falling light.
Strategy, the Solitary Heaven suppresses demons, apart from the Heavenly Resentment Demonic Sword, whose blade is condensed from pure resentment, hardly any demonic weapon or formation can withstand a full-weight blow from the Solitary Heaven.
That mother of mine treated Vorian far too well, going to such lengths to win him a high-grade Emperor-tier weapon, a pity he never knew what he was holding, or what it cost.
Aelyra’s group and the five Demon Emperors stared at the ruined formation, minds rattled, and pulled back out of range as one.
"Don’t panic!"
"However strong Soren is, he cannot possibly match five Demon Emperors!"
"He’s bizarre, fine, but bizarre or not, we take the Heavenly Resentment Demonic Sword, that is the mission!"
"If another Alliance group beats us to it, our centuries of work go down the drain!"
"The moment the sword is in hand, we leave."
Aelyra spoke up. "Lords Demon Emperors, if we leave, what about Althea, Duke, and the others?"
"Demonic sons and daughters of that caliber number in the hundreds of thousands within the Alliancem, we hardly lack those few, the Sword comes first."
In the space of an incense stick, Aelyra’s heart had ridden a mountain range, something like despair took her, and she hauled on that Demon Emperor’s arm.
"How can you say that? This isn’t what we agreed, Althea carries your bloodline."
"Shut up!" Aelyra was swatted through the air.
The five spread into an encircling formation, penning Soren at the center.
He looked around calmly, five Upper-Tier Demon Emperors, even with twin swords, killing them all would be genuinely difficult.
The five were just as wary, this was the man who had suppressed Vorian and torn their formation open, they dared not show a single flaw.
Soren weighed bringing out the World-Destroying Demonic Lotus.
It would intimidate them, but intimidation wasn’t the goal.
These five had to die, or they would be trouble forever, detonating the Lotus meant mutual destruction, he wasn’t going down with them.
The Lotus’s greatest deterrence lived in the instant before it was used, better to keep it sheathed, it had grander uses ahead.
"I’m done playing."
"This is boring." Soren shook his head, expression sliding into open boredom.
The five couldn’t read him at all, is he giving up? Smug smiles passed between them as they prepared to switch into mockery.
Instead, Soren frowned down at Orathis, still sprawled motionless among the rubble. "How long do you plan to keep pretending?"
"Oh my, as expected of Master, you even saw through this little dragon playing dead" Orathis bounced up as if nothing had happened, wings hammering, and shot into the sky.
It had its reasons! With only Middle-Tier Spirit Emperor strength, it couldn’t fight Upper-Tier Demon Emperors at all.
"Group Leader, what’s going on?"
"That Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon is unhurt?"
"Impossible! It took a punch from me, it should be out of the fight!"
"Damn it, the thing tricked us!"
Orathis was weakened, true, but it remained a Spirit dragon, freaks like Soren aside, ordinary Demon Emperors genuinely couldn’t hurt it.
It had been too slow to save Soren, so it simply seized the chance to lie down and rest.
Orathis could feel that Soren, inside the formation, wasn’t worried in the least, a mount that panicked was a mount that lost value, besides, roaring around outside would only draw the five emperors’ fire.
Orathis opened its mouth and poured out black fire.
Wave stacked on wave, packing dense, and in an instant a ring of flame rushed outward, the five Demon Emperors were driven off their positions.
Soren used the opening to leap onto its back, master and mount squared off against the five as they closed the circle again.
"You walked out here to die on your own, don’t accuse me of bullying." Soren took out the Dragon Pearl and tossed it down.
Gulp. Orathis swallowed it whole.
A chain of hisses ran through the dragon’s body, and then.
A terrifying Spirit might swept outward, cold energy blanketed heaven and earth, locking down space faster than any eye could follow.
Ten meters, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million meters.
In a few breaths, the pressure radiating off Orathis engulfed everything for a million meters around.
Every living thing inside it, except Soren, was pinned where it stood, even Upper-Tier Demon Emperors felt nailed down by ten thousand steel spikes, suffocation and despair flooding their throats.
The five squeezed their voices out word by agonized word.
"Middle-Tier... Spirit Ancestor!"
"We’re finished!"
"We’ve run into an iron wall!"
"Good heavens, is this a joke!? Is Soren truly just a Middle-Tier Demon Emperor?"
"How terrifying is this boy? A blood contract with a Spirit Ancestor-level Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon, a Middle-Tier Spirit Ancestor dancing to his tune?"
The five Upper-Tier Demon Emperors tasted regret like bile, they must have been out of their minds to step forward and provoke this man, given the chance to do it over, they would never, under any condition, have shown up to hand-deliver their own deaths.