Chapter 694: The Demon Emperor's Hand
Bang!
A black beam shot like lightning from Lin Langtian's Evil Eye and slammed into the Third King Hall.
The Demon Emperor Armor, already riddled with cracks, shattered like rotted wood. With a wretched scream, the Third King Hall's body was flung away and crashed heavily into the ground.
High above, the Heavenly King Hall glanced over at the disturbance. After another violent exchange with Ying Huanhuan, he flickered backward.
His eyes fell on the writhing Third King Hall, then swept across the battlefield's rising tide of blood and murderous intent. Finally, he smiled at Lin Langtian.
"Old Third, to think you would be the first to fall," he said, looking back at his wounded comrade.
The Third King Hall's screams slowly faded. Black blood streaked his face, turning it into a grotesque mask.
The other Demonic Prison elites stared at him, their expressions a mix of strangeness and fanatical light.
"Kekeke, indeed…" the Third King Hall chuckled, wiping some of the blood from his face. He turned toward Lin Langtian.
"You really are powerful. I thought I could at least trade blows with you for a while longer. Never expected to be crippled so quickly."
Lin Langtian's gaze flickered.
He could guess what was coming.
His eyes hardened as he moved to order the black demon beast to finish the Third King Hall off.
To his annoyance, the monster refused to move.
It had only been drawn here by the Prison Demon Eye.
Having devoured it, the beast let out a contented burp and swept its blood-red eyes around the battlefield.
Its gaze paused briefly on the Evil Eye glowing at Lin Langtian's brow, a trace of confusion stirring in its depths.
Clearly, it could not fathom why the Evil God Demon Eye would appear on such an "odd" human.
But whatever its thoughts, the beast was no genius. It grumbled once at Lin Langtian in clear disdain, then dove back into the vortex overhead.
Under countless held breaths, its massive form disappeared. Even the vortex it had come through slowly shrank and vanished.
The Grand Evil Heavenly Demon King, cowed for once, stayed very still.
"That thing's probably even stronger than the Heavenly King Hall," Lin Langtian murmured, shaking his head. "Too strong to control…"
Aside from unleashing devastating attacks, the Evil Eye had another ability: it could tear open space and summon terrifying beasts from the Evil Domain.
With the help of Yuan-Demon Power, Lin Langtian had managed to call forth one such monster.
But at his current level, he simply could not command it fully.
Still, destroying the Prison Demon Eye alone was victory enough.
The Heavenly King Hall also let out a breath.
He had no interest in tangling with that beast either.
Lin Langtian was beginning to seem more like a Yimo than the Yimo themselves.
He shook off the thought and turned back to the carnage below, his smile returning.
"Old Third, since you've lost," he said lightly, "the opening act is yours."
The Third King Hall's twisted smile widened. He sat cross-legged in midair before the watching armies and formed a rapid sequence of seals with his remaining hand.
More black blood streamed down his face.
A dark, oppressive sense of dread spread across the desert.
Lin Langtian's eyes narrowed at this strange scene.
Silver light flashed across his body and he appeared before the Third King Hall in an instant.
His demonic scepter thrust forward like a bolt of lightning, piercing straight for the man's throat.
Ssshh!
The strike punched clean through the Third King Hall's defenses, the scepter emerging from the back of his neck in a spray of black blood.
He stared up at the sky as blood fountained forth.
"Is… he dead?"
Shock rippled through the Continental Allied Army.
No one cheered.
The air itself felt wrong.
"Hehe…"
The Third King Hall slowly raised his head, his bloody face twisting into a feral grin.
His body began to swell.
"Hmph."
Lin Langtian snorted.
Silver light flashed again and he vanished.
Bang!
The Third King Hall's body exploded.
A tide of thick black demonic qi surged skyward, blanketing the heavens like a thundercloud.
Far off, Lin Langtian's figure flickered back into view. He glanced down at the fractures in his Ancestral Demon Armor and frowned lightly.
"So… it couldn't be stopped after all," he said quietly.
Watching the evil qi spread, he knew exactly what the Third King Hall had done.
The Yimo Emperor's awakening was now inevitable.
Even Ying Huanhuan would not be able to turn this tide.
"Hehe."
The Heavenly King Hall laughed openly now, his eyes burning with feverish light.
"Next," he said, smiling at Lin Langtian and the others, "you will witness the masterpiece our Demonic Prison has refined over these thousand years.
"I told you from the start—this time, in the War of Heaven and Earth, you were doomed to lose."
Boom!
The ground convulsed.
The desert tore apart as foul qi surged upward.
Deep below, something unimaginably huge began to stand.
The figure that rose from the abyss was vast beyond comprehension, its presence smothering the sky and earth.
It wore the form of a demon emperor.
"Is that… the Yimo Emperor?" Lin Langtian's pupils contracted. His lips thinned as he stared at the looming shadow.
The giant's body was covered in countless titanic arms.
In each palm, an evil eye lay closed.
Each one was more terrifying than the Prison Demon Eye the Third King Hall had wielded.
"The Demon Emperor's Image…" Ying Huanhuan whispered, ice-blue eyes overflowing with killing frost.
"Hehe. The feast begins," the Heavenly King Hall said, lips curling.
"Thank you all for your cooperation."
Bang, bang, bang!
His words were drowned by a storm of explosions.
In the Demonic Prison host, soldiers began blowing apart like strings of firecrackers.
Fountains of blood and demonic qi sprayed into the air and streamed into the Demon Emperor's massive maw.
Lin Langtian's expression darkened.
If he could not stop the Yimo Emperor's return, he could at least deny them an easy feast.
A black light flashed from his eyes and swelled into the Town-Demon Pagoda.
Its base opened into a black vortex that drank in the bloody demonic qi from the detonating legion.
If the Demon Emperor's Image could gorge on this feast, so could his Eight Heavenly Demons.
The Yimo here were far stronger than those in the Chaotic Demon Sea.
Even if the pagoda could not match the Demon Emperor's appetite, he could feel the eight statues within racing past the second Tribulation, grasping toward the third.
The Heavenly King Hall gritted his teeth at the sight.
"Whose side is this man on?" he snarled inwardly. "There's no method he won't use!"
Still, he had no time to waste on Lin Langtian now.
His eyes were fixed on the Demon Emperor's Image.
With every drop of blood and wisp of qi, more of the eyes on its arms began to open.
Darkness deepened over the desert.
The explosions continued, and the Western Xuan Grand Desert became an ocean of black blood.
At Tang Xinlian's command, the allied armies had already taken to the air, staring in terror at the scene below.
The battlefield's slaughter, the demonic qi, and the boundless hatred and malice all streamed into the giant statue to feed its eyes.
Even so, bringing all of them fully awake was far from easy.
By the time the entire Demonic Prison legion had sacrificed itself, less than half the eyes were open.
Some of that shortfall was simply lack of fuel.
Some of it was Lin Langtian's Town-Demon Pagoda stealing its share.
"Your turn," the Heavenly King Hall said coldly.
His eyes swept over the remaining Demonic Prison elites.
The Second King Hall and the others smiled strangely, their faces as bright with mad devotion as with bloodlust.
They rose into the air and, one by one, began to explode.
Bang, bang!
The demonic qi that poured from them was even more terrifying than what had come before.
The Ancient Masters watched in stony silence.
They had fought these enemies for a thousand years, locked in stalemate.
Now, in less than half a day, their lifelong foes were detonating themselves to the last.
What were these bastards planning?
Blood and qi surged into the Demon Emperor's Image.
More eyes snapped open across its titanic arms.
Alone now, the Heavenly King Hall stood in the sky, smiling down at Ying Huanhuan and Lin Langtian.
"Even if you do manage to open the Demon Emperor's Image," Ying Huanhuan said quietly, eyes like ice, "you'll only borrow power close to the Yimo Emperor's.
"It won't last. And even then, without the Emperor's own flesh and blood to guide it, you'll never succeed."
The Heavenly King Hall did not argue.
He turned his head toward the distant east, a hideous smile twisting his lips.
"Hehe. Ice Master, do you recall that when your Symbol Ancestor sealed our Emperor, he cut off one of his arms?"
Shock finally cracked her expression.
"That's right. The Emperor's arm never left your world."
"From the moment your Symbol Ancestor burned his Reincarnation and sacrificed himself to seal our Emperor, your fate was sealed as well.
"You lost."
He tilted his head back and sank to his knees, bowing deeply toward the east.
"By your will, Emperor… reclaim your hand."
His words rippled across the sky.
Far away in the Eastern Xuan Region, deep within the Yimo Domain, the land began to convulse.
The ground split apart.
Demonic qi exploded from the depths in a volcanic torrent.
A blinding pillar of black light tore through the ancient sealing arrays and ripped across the heavens toward the Western Xuan Region.
Within that light, a colossal pale arm could be seen.
Its presence radiated a nameless, soul-chilling evil that smothered the sky.
The flood of demonic qi rolled over the Western Xuan Region and spilled into the neighboring lands.
Beneath that storm, the Demon Emperor's Image stood like a destroyer from another realm, its aura pressing down like the wrath of a god.
The Continental Allied Army could only stare.
Ying Huanhuan and the Ancient Masters turned as one to the sky.
The void split apart.
A wave of bone-deep terror spilled out.
Within it, a gigantic pale arm slowly emerged.
They all recognized it at once.
"The Demon Emperor's Hand?!"
(END CHAPTER)
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