Chapter 275 - 274: Demon Kings
In the eastern pavilion, at the Zhao Province delegation, Lord Zhao Shenming ignored the frantic babbling of the cultivators beside him. He stood tall amidst the ruins of his viewing box, his eye locked onto the figure of Lin Yuan.
He survived the Obsession Heart Tribulation. He survived the Heaven Might. He now survived and consumed the Fire Retribution, Lord Zhao thought, his Dao Heart trembling with absolute vindication. He promised me he would reach into the cycle of reincarnation and pull my brother’s soul from it. Now, more than ever, I truly believe he’s capable of such in the near future.
Lord Zhao stepped forward, placing his hand over his heart, and offered a bow so deep his torso was parallel to the floor. "The Heavens have surrendered, Daoist Lin. Your Dao is absolute."
Down in the crater, Lin Yuan gently released Bai Qingyue from his embrace. He looked at the tears staining her beautiful face, and the protective, sovereign instincts within his Primordial Spirit flared.
"You were prepared to burn half your lifespan for me," Lin Yuan said quietly, his deep purple eyes locking onto hers, ignoring the thousands of divine senses currently analyzing their every movement.
"I would have burned it all," Bai Qingyue replied without a shred of hesitation, her voice steady and resolute. "If the Heavens demand a toll for your existence, I will gladly pay it."
"The Heavens have no authority to collect tolls from me," Lin Yuan stated, his voice a low, rumbling thunderclap that carried the conceptual weight of the Origin. "And they have absolutely no right to touch your lifespan. Our cycle of life and death doesn’t belong to them."
Lin Yuan turned his gaze away from his wife, his eyes sweeping upward, past the ruined spectator terraces, past the terrified adjudicators, and directly toward the Five Emperors hovering in the sky.
His deep purple irises flared with the tri-colored light of the Dao of Three Rebirths.
Before he could utter a single word, the spade of the area itself screamed.
The ambient pressure in the Grand Court, which had only just begun to stabilize after the dissipation of the Heavenly Fire, suddenly amplified by a thousandfold.
The pressure was putrid, suffocating, and dripping with an ancient, and rotting malice that sought to devour all orthodox Qi. The sky above Sky Jade City violently shattered like a pane of glass struck by a hammer.
Then, a massive, jagged fissure tore across the firmament, revealing the swirling, bruised-purple abyss of the Hollow Beyond. The Nine Heavens Ward, the ancient seal that had protected the Nine Provinces for ten millennia, finally reached its absolute breaking point under the cascading stress of the tribulations.
From the gaping cosmic tear, a torrential waterfall of thick, black-purple demonic miasma flooded into the plane. The sheer toxicity of the aura caused the remaining spectator pavilions to instantly corrode.
Then, the true horror descended.
Three figures stepped out from the Hollow Beyond, casually walking down through the void as if descending a flight of stairs. They commanded the very space they occupied, their mere presence causing the spatial laws of the Nine Provinces to weep and fracture around them.
High above, Emperor Tianxu’s eyes contracted into one of absolute terror.
"Demon Kings!" Emperor Tianxu roared, his voice cracking under the strain of his flaring Void Refinement aura. "The seal has breached prematurely! They have sent Demon Kings!"
The hierarchy of the demonic race was categorized by sheer, world-ending power:
An Upper Demon possessed the combat equivalent of a Supreme Stage Spirit Severing expert. A Demon General could match a Soul Transformation sovereign blow for blow.
But a Demon King... a Demon King stood upon the realm of Early Void Refinement. Above them were only the apocalyptic Demon Lords at Peak Void Refinement, and the mythical Demon Emperors who commanded Peak Body Integration realm, capable of shattering continents with a thought.
The three entities that had just crossed the boundary were Kings.
To the left stood the Rat Demon King, Mo Du. He was a hunched, wretched figure wrapped in tattered grey robes that seemed to writhe with thousands of plague-ridden shadows. His eyes were beady, glowing with a sickly green luminescence.
To the right hovered the Thousand-Eye Eagle Demon King, Qian Yan. His form was tall and imperious, wrapped in a cloak of razor-sharp, metallic feathers. But his most terrifying feature was his face—a shifting, horrifying mass of a thousand blinking, golden eyes that projected an aura of absolute, mind-shattering illusion and piercing wind.
And in the center, radiating a physical density that made the air itself scream, stood the Ape Demon King, Yuan Kong. He was a towering, ten-foot-tall behemoth of corded muscle. Thick, bone-spiked armor grew directly from his flesh, and his massive fists crackled with a terrifying, blood-red lightning.
"Ah, the sweet, untainted scent," King Mo Du hissed, his voice a grating, infectious plague that caused the weaker Foundation Establishment cultivators in the stands to instantly clutch their throats, vomiting blood. "It has been ten thousand years since we tasted the flesh of the Nine Provinces."
"The Ward has weakened," King Qian Yan declared, a thousand voices overlapping in a hypnotic, and terrifying chorus that scrambled the divine senses of many. "The Demon Race shall claim this mud for ourselves!"
"Enough talk! I wish to eat an Emperor!" Yuan Kong, the Ape Demon King, bellowed. He pounded his massive fists against his armored chest, generating a sonic boom that shattered the eardrums of every cultivator within a ten-mile radius.
The three Demon Kings did not hesitate. They vanished from the sky, hurtling directly toward the Five Emperors with the force of falling stars.
"Defend the realm!" Emperor Xiyan roared, drawing his massive warlord blade. His White Tiger aura erupted into a blinding storm. "Do not let them reach the surface! If they unleash their domains on the city, millions will die!"
The sky above the Grand Court instantly transformed into a warzone.
Emperor Tianxu and Emperor Beiming intercepted the Rat Demon King, their Qilin and Black Tortoise domains clashing violently against a spreading tsunami of green, flesh-eating plague shadows. Emperor Nanheng and Emperor Dongyu clashed with the Thousand-Eye Eagle, their Vermilion Bird and Azure Dragon flames battling a hurricane of mind-rending illusions and spatial blades.
Emperor Xiyan, driven by the pure bloodlust, met the Ape Demon King head-on.
"White Tiger Heavenly Annihilation Slash!" Emperor Xiyan roared, channeling the absolute totality of his Early Void Refinement power into a singular vertical arc of silver sword intent.
Yuan Kong laughed, a booming, arrogant sound. He did not dodge. The Ape Demon King threw a bare fist directly into the descending silver blade.
The collision of Void Refinement martial intent and Demon King physical might created a shockwave that temporarily parted the clouds over the entire Central Continent.
Emperor Xiyan coughed a mouthful of blood, his arms trembling violently from the feedback. But the strike had succeeded in displacing the beast. Yuan Kong was sent hurtling backward, spinning out of control from the sheer force of the White Tiger’s strike.
The Ape Demon King plummeted from the sky like a black meteor, crashing directly into the eastern edge of the arena, right beside the crater where Lin Yuan and Bai Qingyue stood.
The impact cratered the star-iron further, throwing up a massive cloud of dust and demonic miasma.
Yuan Kong slowly stood up, shaking his massive head. The silver cut on his fist was already rapidly healing, stitching together with corrupted blood. He growled in annoyance, his red eyes scanning the immediate area.
His gaze immediately locked onto Bai Qingyue.
To a demonic entity that fed on pure orthodox Qi, Bai Qingyue was a delicacy beyond comprehension. Her newly formed Golden Core, completely untainted and saturated with the residual Heaven and Earth luck from Lin Yuan’s Primordial Spirit formation, radiated a mouth-watering blue light.
"A flawless Golden Core..." Yuan Kong rumbled, his massive fangs parting into a horrifying grin as thick saliva dripped from his jaw. "The Heavens have laid out a feast before the slaughter!"
Yuan Kong lunged.
His speed defied his massive bulk. He crossed the distance in mere seconds, his massive hand reaching out to crush Bai Qingyue’s body and rip the Golden Core directly from her dantian. The sheer, physical pressure of an Early Void Refinement entity paralyzed the air around her, locking her in place.
But the hand never reached her.
BANG!
A sound like two colliding mountains echoed across the eastern terrace.
Lin Yuan stood directly in front of Bai Qingyue, and had merely raised his left hand, his palm open, and caught the Ape Demon King’s charging fist.
The impact generated a localized hurricane, ripping the remaining stone tiles from the floor. But Lin Yuan did not slide back a single inch.
Yuan Kong’s blood-red eyes widened in profound shock. A human? A human whose aura registered at the Early Stage of Soul Transformation had just casually caught a physical strike from a Demon King?