Chapter 85
At Conversion Degree 52, his devouring speed surpassed an ordinary Lower-Tier Ancestor Realm.
In seconds he’d swallowed every drop of holy divine power in the pestle clean, residual power to begin with, so it took no effort.
The devoured power converted to demonic energy and settled in his dantian.
The pestle dimmed and rusted before their eyes.
Soren squeezed.
The Demon-Subduing Pestle crumbled to dust and fragments in his fist.
Everyone present dragged in sharp breaths.
What kind of monster was this Soren? The Demon-Subduing Pestle was the heritage sacred relic of the Moonveil Human Domain’s Protectors, it had a powerful suppressing effect on foreign races, demons above all.
An ordinary Demon Emperor couldn’t escape the Demon-Subduing Prison once caught, touching the pestle directly was suicide. Yet he’d crushed it to powder.
A legendary sacred relic, really this weak?
It couldn’t be called weak, any other Demon Emperor who fought Caspar would have been fully suppressed by him and the pestle both, unfortunately for them, Soren was a freak among the demon race.
Caspar’s lips trembled uncontrollably, his face like he’d been struck by lightning. "Fiend, you destroyed my sacred relic!"
"I’ll give it back to you!"
Soren sneered and hurled the handful of iron sand out, amplified by his demonic energy.
The sand moved too fast for the eye to track, and hit harder than most techniques.
A run of heart-stopping bone-piercing sounds, Caspar was shot into a sieve.
The blood holes covering him were beyond counting, several thousand of them.
Every last grain punched clean through.
A few unlucky cultivators standing behind Caspar were shot dead on the spot by the sand that exited his body.
"No way, are you kidding us?"
"This fiend is way too strong! The Domain Protector is the strongest combat power in our whole domain!"
"That means Caspar’s stronger than Great Emperor Neal!"
"How is he... as fragile as paper?"
The cultivators shivered.
Only Lysara, watching Soren’s overwhelming strength and the terror in the crowd, felt something wonderful stir in her chest.
Soren was a boundless abyss, she’d never catch up to him, never fully see the bottom of him. It shook her.
On the Strategy Encyclopedia, the title for Following to the Death lit again, it held for over a dozen seconds, not far now from lighting for good.
Neal’s face darkened, he glanced at the black-robed man on his right. "This Soren’s a fair bit stronger than I imagined."
"Caspar alone can’t handle him, let’s attack together."
The black-robed man gave a wry smile. "Great Emperor Neal, at a time like this you should be setting an example, letting your cultivators see your heroic bearing."
"Before I partnered with you, I made it clear. I hold against Soren’s Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon. The rest, you humans handle yourselves."
"That’s the premise of our cooperation."
"The dragon hasn’t shown, so it isn’t convenient for me to act. Real cooperation means each side doing its own job."
"I’m not your hired thug."
Neal pulled his gaze back, displeased.
The man wasn’t wrong, that was exactly what they’d negotiated.
Moonveil handled Soren, he handled the dragon, unable to move him, Neal had no choice but to step up himself.
"Master Caspar, find a way to stall him first!"
"Give me one incense stick of time!"
"Just one incense stick will do!"
Caspar nearly spat the curse in his face, his artifact was powder, his whole body was a sieve, several thousand holes, blood spraying everywhere.
How was he supposed to hold Soren for an incense stick? This fiend was absurdly strong, Domain Protector or not, he couldn’t take him.
Forget it, who told him to come begging Neal for a favor, besides, if they couldn’t bring Soren down, he was dead anyway.
"This old man will try his best!"
Soren wore contempt, said nothing, his pitch-black hair whipping in the wind like fire, like surging sea, his whole being pouring off an aura no one could climb over.
Caspar shouted, a bell took shape in front of him, he bit his tongue and forced out a third of his blood essence in one breath, spraying it into the bell of condensed spiritual energy.
After a flurry of manipulation the bell turned blood red, radiating an eerie crimson light. Its fluctuations climbed more than a dozen times over.
Soren narrowed his eyes, the blood bell carried even more binding force than the Demon-Subduing Pestle, bought at the price of massive blood essence and burning life force, though.
"This is the Heaven-Burying Demon-Locking Bell!"
"A method this old man spent his whole life mastering! It has the power to bury the heavens and inter the earth!"
"Its sealing effect on demons is far stronger than on any other race."
"Once you’re trapped inside my bell, unless I release you willingly, you will never get out!"
"Soren, face the bell!"
Soren wore a half-smile, with his speed he could have dodged easily.
Instead he slowly raised his head and watched the blood bell descend to swallow him.
The defiant contempt of it nearly made Caspar cough blood midair.
But Caspar couldn’t spare a thought for that, he only prayed Neal would hurry.
The technique came at a heavy cost, and it could only lock Soren down, not hurt him, what came next was on Neal.
Neal spun and cupped his hands toward the cluster of Upper-Tier Venerables and Emperors behind him.
"Everyone, lend me your strength to eradicate this demon!"
Bang!
A deafening explosion erupted behind him.
Red motes drifted through the air like snow, and everyone felt as if they’d been plunged into an ocean of glittering red diamonds.
Neal cast a terrified glance backward, that single glance nearly made him wet himself.
Soren had blown the Heaven-Burying Demon-Locking Bell to pieces, he held Caspar by the throat with one hand, dangling him effortlessly in the air.
A proud Domain Protector, the absolute strongest fighter in all of Moonveil, reduced to a helpless chicken in his grip, stripped of any ability to resist.
The longer Neal looked, the more his scalp crawled.
The cultivators were worse, eyes nearly bursting from their sockets.
"Everyone, hurry, let Great Emperor Neal set up the formation!"
"I don’t want to die!"