Chapter 3371
From here to the Sacred Demon Galaxy, their warships could make the journey in less than twenty days.
They had only been traveling for a few days when a scout vessel reported spotting a large number of demon flying vessels heading toward their fleet.
These demon flying vessels varied in size and had set out at different times, but there were at least several thousand of them. They were scattered at varying distances from one another, some near and some far, yet together they formed a vast, surging mass that stretched beyond the limits of sight.
Ye Liuyun, Yu Xiaofeng, and the others all came out to observe the situation. With their Golden Eyes, they could already see the flying vessels in the distant starry sky.
“They’re all ordinary demons, not soldiers!” Ye Liuyun’s Golden Eyes could see the farthest, allowing him to peer into some of the flying vessels ahead and see what was inside.
The demons belonged to all sorts of races, their cultivation realms varied, and even their weapons were far from uniform.
“It seems the demons have been mobilized. This is just the right opportunity to give the Death Legion some practice. Equip every squad with Black-Armored Elite Soldiers to keep them safe. Be careful—they may have hidden demonic experts among them.”
Yu Xiaofeng immediately made the necessary arrangements. He and several commanders also came out to get some practice.
When the demons aboard those flying vessels saw their soldiers disembark from the warships, they too left their vessels one after another and engaged them in close combat.
The Death Legion split into a number of small squads, each with nearly a hundred members and protected by five Black-Armored Soldiers. Battles broke out everywhere across the starry sky, throwing the entire scene into chaos.
Those with weak divine soul power could not see the battlefield in its entirety at all.
Ye Liuyun also brought the demonic beasts, the women, and the Tang family disciples out to fight and gain experience. Before leaving, he took the strongest soul sources from his two clones and stored them in his sea of consciousness, in case the demons had experts skilled in divine soul attacks.
Their group was quite well-balanced, with members of varying cultivation realms who could handle any situation.
Ye Liuyun did not take part in the fighting, but his Golden Eyes and divine sense monitored the situation throughout the starry sky.
Soon, he locked onto a small flying vessel. It was mixed in among the countless other vessels. There were only four demons inside—two Red-Armored and two Black-Armored—but all of them had concealed their auras.
The divine sense fluctuations from the other flying vessels were all very strong. Only this vessel was completely devoid of divine sense fluctuations.
Ye Liuyun swept the vessel with his Golden Eyes and discovered that all four demons were at the peak of the Ninth Level. Their divine soul power was also far stronger than that of ordinary people. In particular, the two Crimson Demons with red scales probably possessed more than one soul source each.
Although Ye Liuyun’s Golden Eyes only swept over them briefly, the four demons immediately sensed that something was wrong. They promptly disembarked from the flying vessel, split up, and blended into the demon combat groups. Only one of the Crimson Demons kept its eyes fixed on Ye Liuyun.
“You might have been a threat together, but once you split up, you’re no longer worth fearing!”
The corner of Ye Liuyun’s mouth lifted. He immediately launched a divine soul attack against the Crimson Demon watching him, releasing three soul sources in a single move.
The other three martial cultivators had not released their divine senses at all, but at that moment, each released one soul source toward Ye Liuyun’s sea of consciousness. At the same time, they each released another soul source toward the Crimson Demon Ye Liuyun had attacked.
“Huh? What’s going on?”
Ye Liuyun was puzzled as well. The other three demons had clearly been afraid to release their divine senses to investigate, so they should not have reacted.
He immediately realized that he had been tricked.
However, he did not panic. His soul sources had been released first, and they were considerably stronger than the demons’ divine souls. He should have enough power to destroy the Crimson Demon first and then deal with the other three soul sources.
Thus, as soon as his soul sources entered the Crimson Demon’s sea of consciousness, they launched an all-out attack. One transformed into a soul blade, while another became a gigantic fist, both striking toward the Crimson Demon’s two soul sources.
The Crimson Demon’s two soul sources were not very strong. It had also cultivated a third divine soul, but that divine soul was far too weak to threaten Ye Liuyun and had not reached the level of a soul source. One punch from his soul source, imbued with the power of heaven and earth, shattered it.
He had to expend a little more effort against the other two soul sources. After the soul blade cleaved one of them, it unleashed the power of lightning and flames, preventing that soul source from healing. The other soul source, using the power of heaven and earth, merely blasted the Crimson Demon’s soul source away and left it cracked. Netherworld Ghostfire ignited across its body, but the attack was not immediately fatal.
The soul blade and gigantic fist then switched opponents and launched another attack. With the assistance of his third soul source, they finally destroyed the Crimson Demon’s two soul sources. The gigantic fist then transformed into a Heaven-Devouring Beast and swallowed all of the Crimson Demon’s divine souls.
Only then did the three divine souls coming to support the Crimson Demon arrive. Meanwhile, the three soul sources that had charged into Ye Liuyun’s sea of consciousness were immediately enveloped by the golden light of the Myriad Gods Token and ultimately devoured by it.
Using his remaining soul sources to search the three demons’ souls, Ye Liuyun learned that the four demons had signed an equal contract. When the Crimson Demon discovered that Ye Liuyun had launched a divine soul attack, it notified the other three.
They had intended to use this method to set a trap for Ye Liuyun. They had not expected him to be able to release three soul sources at once, nor had they expected him to have a guardian inside his sea of consciousness.
“I really can’t underestimate these demons. If I didn’t have the Myriad Gods Token, I would have fallen right into their trap!”
Ye Liuyun reminded himself to be even more careful.
Battles between divine souls were actually even more perilous. The moment one fell behind its opponent, almost certain death awaited. Fortunately, when the four demons tried to force their way into Ye Liuyun’s sea of consciousness, they split up the targets of their soul-source attacks.
Otherwise, if they had sent all their soul sources into the Crimson Demon’s sea of consciousness, the outcome would truly have been difficult to predict.
At that moment, inside the Crimson Demon’s sea of consciousness, Ye Liuyun’s three soul sources held an overwhelming advantage in their three-on-three battle.
The flames, lightning, and poison carried by his soul sources alone were already difficult for the three demons to withstand. With the soul blade and attacks empowered by the power of heaven and earth added in, two of the three soul sources were killed on the spot, while the third was wounded and fled.
Ye Liuyun left one soul source behind to transform into a Heaven-Devouring Beast and swallow the other two demons’ soul sources. At the same time, his other two soul sources pursued the demon into its sea of consciousness, completely eradicating and devouring it.
He then went to the sea of consciousnesses of the other two demons and killed the weaker divine souls they had left behind to guard them. He completely wiped out all four demons without leaving a single survivor. Only after that did his soul sources return to his own sea of consciousness.
However, figuring out what to do with these soul sources was also a headache.
If he threw all eight soul sources into the Soul Refining Cauldron at once, the soul source produced through refinement would be too powerful and difficult to refine. If he did them one at a time, he would have to temporarily store all eight soul sources in his sea of consciousness.
He also felt that simply absorbing the demon soul sources without refining them would leave them insufficiently purified.
In the end, he put the equivalent of two soul sources into the Soul Refining Cauldron at once for refinement and temporarily stored the rest in his sea of consciousness. Of the four divine souls produced through this process, he would slowly refine two himself, while each of his two clones refined one.