"Senior, I have mastered the death energy," Mo Lingtian said, turning to face the chief commander. She was hovering in the sky along with the two commanders by her side, while the rest of the sixty-seven commanding generals behind her tightly gripped their spears, swords, and an array of ancient artifacts.
"Good. Show me your death domain," she replied, slowly descending to the ground.
In unison, all the commanding forces in the air and the death army on the ground gave their salute to her, releasing a powerful torrent of energy as they bowed slightly.
Then, Mo Lingtian slowly stretched his right arm forward, closing his fist tightly as if grabbing the very fabric of the air. Like an expanding dome, dense death energy exploded outward, encompassing the entire forest.
"
Good. But this is not a death domain. You just expanded your energy over a wide area, allowing yourself better vision, perception, and precision in the use of your power," the chief commander said as she peered deeply into his dual-attribute core of void and death.
"The law I used earlier was the evolved manifestation of my own domain. It is the domain of time," she continued.
"Then... how do I create one?" Mo Lingtian asked, looking at his palms in confusion as the death energy continued to expand outward.
"The true power of a domain lies in its characteristics. A domain has the ability to superimpose upon and submerge any law, principle, or reality within it, replacing it entirely with the law of its caster," she answered, now strolling casually through the forest.
"What you just did was simply overlay your energy across this area. You didn't enact any fundamental law over this place," she continued, stopping and turning to look at him.
"So... for me to manifest a death domain, I must first comprehend its core characteristics," Mo Lingtian murmured to himself, closely studying the dense particles of death energy as they floated around him.
"Yes," she replied, walking closer to him.
"Then, what is the characteristic of the death domain? Is it time, spatial laws, the law of fire..." Mo Lingtian started listing before he was abruptly cut short.
"There has been no precedent of a death domain," she replied.
"Then... why are you doing all this?" Mo Lingtian asked, looking down at his own body.
"My Lord never used death energy. That is one memory I cannot forget. The energy we use now is indeed death energy, but the style in which we wield it is highly incompatible. It feels far more akin to the other half of your core," she said, exhaling deeply.
"Demon energy?" Mo Lingtian asked, tugging at the demon core within his sea of consciousness, resonating slightly with its power.
"No, the hybrid core you just forged. The corruptive side of that core somehow aligns perfectly with the stylistic techniques we use in channeling our energy," she replied.
"But this is... Are you from the Devil Realm? The original energy of my hybrid core, the corruptive side, is called void energy. It is an energy extremely unique and exclusive to the devils. That's where I'm from," Mo Lingtian said, looking at her intently as a sudden, overwhelming rush of hope and nostalgia flooded his heart.
"I have no idea what that means. We have long lost our memories of the outside world," the chief commander said, slowly levitating off the ground once more.
Mo Lingtian's squared shoulders slumped slightly as he deliberated on the immense uncertainty of the assumption he was about to make.
"Do you have something to say?" the chief commander asked, resting one hand behind her back as she hung in the air.
"I just remembered a story the Chief Elder told us when we were children. Hundreds of centuries ago, we once had a supremely powerful figure that came from our lineage. We called him 'the Ancient Devil.' He was a half-step Divine Lord," Mo Lingtian said, making everyone including the chief commander gasp in shock.
"You had someone in your lineage who reached the half-step Divine Lord realm?" one of the two commanders at the forefront asked. He immediately dashed toward the ground, stopping to hover right by the chief commander's side.
"Yes. But somehow, he got into trouble with the Divine Lords of the three realms. With a joint verdict, they forced the Great Dao to endorse their action against him, completely annihilating him," Mo Lingtian replied.
"So if there is anyone connected to the Devil Realm capable of being your Lord... it is him," Mo Lingtian added, looking up at the chief commander and her vanguard.
"Maybe he is the answer we've been..." the vanguard began, before he was abruptly cut short.
"Even if his assumption turns out to be true, we cannot verify it if we remain trapped in this place," the chief commander replied, looking around the fog in frustration.
"Mo Lingtian, the reason I asked..."
"You want me to master the death domain so you guys can leave here with me. None of you can survive outside the death energy," Mo Lingtian realized, running his eyes across the commanders in the sky and the thousands of shadowy phantom vanguards standing silently on the ground.
"Yes. If you can bring us out of here, bringing your friends back to life won't be a problem," the vanguard said, flying closer to Mo Lingtian.
"Is that the characteristic law of the death domain? Bringing the dead back to life?" Mo Lingtian asked.
"I don't know much about the true essence of death energy. I only know from the decades I've spent studying it that anything that dies by the energy death can be brought back by the energy of death," the chief commander replied.
"For several years, I've watched the same plants wither away and sprout back over and over again under the influence of this energy," she continued.
"That means it is not bringing the dead back to life," Mo Lingtian said, falling into deep thought.
"It is bringing life out of death. If you can successfully enact that exact law over the remains of your friends, the Chief and two of us will personally guide them back from the abyss," the last commander at the forefront said. He slowly descended to the ground, solemnly handing over pieces of tattered clothing and cracked, festering dragon scales to Mo Lingtian.
"These are their remains?" Mo Lingtian asked, watching the clothes and scales float directly in front of his chest.
"Yes. Decrease the density and scope of the domain to focus entirely on the remains," the chief commander instructed.
Mo Lingtian immediately compressed the death domain, retracting the sprawling dome to a scope of just a few meters barely big enough to cover himself, the chief commander, and the two vanguards by her side.
"Now, feel the rhythm of the death energy. Feel it beyond the physical particles in front of you to catch a glimpse of its Law," she continued, channeling a single, potent drop of her own energy directly into his sea of consciousness.
Mo Lingtian slowly closed his eyes, trying to mentally absorb the commander's energy. Then, subconsciously, the Forbidden Book lying deep within the mountainous expanse of his sea of consciousness burst forth. It sent massive waves of torrential wind crashing across the mental waters of his mind.
The book violently flipped its pages in rapid succession until it slammed to a halt at a very specific page: the Devil Converging Seal.
"This is the Devil Converging Seal. What use is this at a time like this?" Mo Lingtian muttered to himself, struggling to comprehend the Law within the particles of death energy. At this point, he was confused, he had no idea of what he was doing, he had no idea of what he was searching for.
Outside his sea of consciousness, the chief commander and the entirety of the phantom vanguard watched him with anxiously, wondering whether he could successfully decipher the true Law of the Death Domain.
"I won't be too disappointed if he fails to understand it. I don't even know the true origin of this energy myself," the chief commander said, deep anxiety and uncertainty written across her face.
"It's like trying to find a single piece of gold in the dark depths of a vast ocean, when you have never even heard of or seen what gold looks like before," the commander by her side said, sighing heavily.
"Let's all hope this goes well."