"You? Exorcise demons? Don't make me laugh."
A brilliant silver glare burst from the Seven-Leaf Demon Lord's eyes—the telltale sign of his demonic power rising to its peak.
"Don't think that just because you refined true gang-qi with my Nine-Yang Holy Water, your strength can compare with mine. A mere novice who just stepped into the gang-qi realm wants to challenge me? You're courting death. Our realms are worlds apart.
"If you crawled back into the Five-Prison King Cauldron, you might barely put up a fight. But outside of it? You're already dead."
"Such refined demonic art… and such shameless cunning."
Fang Han suddenly looked upward. A demonic silhouette dove straight at him—silver robes trailing like mist. It was the Demon Lord's real body.
On the throne, the Demon Lord who had been speaking slowly dissolved into nothing—only an illusion.
The Seven-Leaf Demon Lord had set a trap the entire time.
While speaking to provoke Fang Han, he created a phantom to sit in plain sight, while his real self hid above, waiting for a deadly surprise attack.
Fortunately, Fang Han had dealt with demons long enough to know their trickery. He hadn't fallen for it.
He roared, igniting the Wood Emperor gang-qi through his entire body. Sparks flared from the violent friction.
He punched toward the incoming silhouette—determined to find out if he could leap three realms and battle a true powerhouse.
Their fists collided—no technique, only raw power.
A thunderclap burst outward. Fang Han felt the Demon Lord's gang-qi surge like a tidal wave, ripping into his own, tearing through the defenses, trying to invade his body—into his mind—seeking to extinguish his life.
The blow sent Fang Han flying dozens of meters before he crashed into the ground hard enough to leave a crater.
The fortress—Shadow Castle—was made of gray demonic clouds, but the cloud-stone ground was mirror-smooth and harder than iron. Fang Han felt pain shoot through every bone.
He instantly understood the gap.
Alone, he still wasn't the Demon Lord's match. The Seven-Leaf Demon Lord's power was close to one hundred thousand wild stallions—he had reached the "Ten Thousand Laws Return to One" level. Against this man, Fang Han would've died instantly if he didn't have the King Cauldron's protection.
The Demon Lord's demonic gang-qi was alive—slithering like blades and serpents—each strand forming a tiny formation as it burrowed deeper. Fang Han's own gang-qi could barely resist.
"A gap of three realms… one strand of his gang-qi can crush three of mine!" Fang Han finally tasted the true horror of realm difference.
One strand even reached his mind.
"The World Tree!"
To stop the gang-qi from destroying his consciousness, Fang Han immediately activated the World Tree lodged in his brow. Pure immortal energy washed downward, binding the invading qi. Roots drilled in, devouring it entirely—refining it to pure essence.
The World Tree was like a furnace that could digest anything.
"Overestimating yourself!"
The Demon Lord snorted when he saw Fang Han embedded in the ground.
"If you stayed inside the Cauldron, I couldn't force you out. But you walked to your own grave. You thought forming gang-qi makes you my equal? Fool. You kill yourself better than I ever could."
Seeing Fang Han motionless, he assumed the gang-qi was destroying him, never expecting that Fang Han had already neutralized it.
"Eighteen Yin-Yang Demon Kings—capture him. I'll handle the Cauldron."
But before they could act—
A chilling voice whispered beside him:
"Who's the fool… we'll see soon enough. Hehehe…"
A massive dragon claw struck from nowhere, smashing into the Demon Lord's back and shredding his silver robes.
It was Yan.
After drinking large amounts of Nine-Yang Holy Water, Yan had restored his strength to the fifth Divine Ability stage—the Heaven-Human realm. Not fully recovered, but powerful enough to wield some of the Yellow Springs Diagram's more advanced formations.
He had used its killing art—Dark Assassination Path. With the artifact's power and the Demon Lord's utter lack of caution, the ambush succeeded instantly.
Yan, a thousand-year fiend, was an entirely different level from Fang Han—vicious, ruthless, and merciless. Combined with Forget-Love Water, a weapon specifically meant to break protective qi and artifacts, this one blow shattered the Demon Lord's protective robe and instantly bound him in the Corrupted Immortal Formation.
Grotesque sigils—like centipedes, scorpions, and spiders—crawled across the Demon Lord's body.
Smoke hissed from his skin as the corruption ate into him.
"Dark Assassination Path! Only the Yellow Springs Demon Sect possesses this! Who are you!?" the Demon Lord roared in agony. Silver gang-qi burst from him in waves, trying to wash away the formation.
Realizing he was at the brink of death, he stopped holding back. He snatched a blade from his waist—
A blood-red saber, thin as cicada wings, its hilt shaped like a twin-headed beast. Strange veins writhed along the blade.
He slashed at the dragon claw—faster than lightning.
"The Demon Blade—Blood Sky!"
Yan's face changed. He withdrew instantly, knowing the blade's terrifying reputation. One strike from Blood Sky could destroy his corporeal form and force him back into spirit state.
The Demon Blade Blood Sky was infamous across the immortal and demonic worlds—on par with the Five-Prison King Cauldron in rank, but far more feared. The Cauldron was ultimately a refining tool, not meant for killing. Blood Sky had only one function:
Slaughter.
Even without breaking through to Dao-artifact level, it was already close. A once-in-a-millennium treasure.
Yan vanished, letting the blade strike empty air.
"The Yellow Springs Sect's Corrupted-Immortal Curse!" The Demon Lord growled as he fended off Yan's attack. He tried to purge the curse, only to find the sigils clinging to him like maggots to bone.
"This requires Forget-Love Water to forge… so the one who ambushed me was a Yellow Springs disciple!"
He grabbed a vial of pills, choking them down in desperation.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
His eyes widened.
Several explosions rang out—the sound of bodies bursting.
Fang Han had killed several Demon Kings.
When Fang Han had "fallen" to the ground earlier, the eighteen Yin-Yang Demon Kings rushed in. That was exactly what he wanted.
He sprang up like a phantom, appeared before one Demon King, and ripped its heart out with his bare hand. The Five-Prison King Cauldron pulled the corpse in instantly.
Though the Demon Kings were equivalent to Divine Ability experts, they were nothing compared to the Demon Lord. And Fang Han… was a freak.
In a blink, five male Demon Kings were annihilated and absorbed into the Cauldron before they could self-detonate.
The cauldron's Forget-Love Water neutralized their self-destruction.
The remaining Demon Kings fled the castle in terror.
"Courting death!"
The Demon Lord, enraged, swung Blood Sky at Fang Han.
"Not good!" Fang Han's instincts screamed. He shot into the King Cauldron at once. Even he couldn't withstand that blade—one hit would reduce him to blood sludge.
CLANG!
Blood Sky struck the cauldron—leaving a deep scar along its surface.
"Well then!" Fang Han jolted, pouring his gang-qi into the cauldron, activating a dozen capture formations—Devouring, Soul-Eating, Spirit-Refining, God-Seizing…
A massive suction force wrapped around Blood Sky. The great blade slowed. The King Cauldron naturally restrained other artifacts.
"You want to capture this blade?"
The Demon Lord sneered.
"Not with your strength."
"His real intention… is to distract you."
Yan's icy voice slithered from the shadows.
He appeared again.
A colossal dragon claw slammed down toward the Demon Lord's skull—
And darkness swallowed the sky.