"Kill them! Counterattack!" Zhang Daniu roared. Now that Han Li had awakened such a foundation and physique, his combat power had soared! He and Meng Yan were also extraordinary. Judging from the situation, the moment for counterattack had arrived! Furthermore, they had arrays and talismans to assist them.
"Senior brothers, you can kill as you wish! I'll handle the defense!" Zhang Daniu's battle intent had completely erupted. Earth power was being drawn into his body continuously, transforming into sturdy armor that blocked strike after strike, allowing Han Li and Meng Yan to kill without worry. Most of the attacks landing on the Qing-God Array were actively absorbed by Zhang Daniu.
His ability to take damage was nothing like before. Attacks that could have heavily wounded or killed him earlier now merely shattered his earthen armor, dealing limited damage to his true body. And that shattered armor and limited damage recovered at a visible rate under the endless earth power. This meant that as long as the damage he took did not exceed his limit, he could theoretically tank indefinitely!
The auxiliary effect this brought was very effective. Effectively freed up, Han Li and Meng Yan could devote their entire beings to offense and slaughter. Simultaneously, Zhang Daniu used earth power to bind the demons' movements, making it easier for his two senior brothers to attack!
On the other side, once Meng Yan was completely free, the terrifying offensive power of the Divine Artisan Flame was revealed. Holding his massive hammer, he condensed the flame domain around him to the extreme, creating the ultimate offensive enhancement. Now, against demons with bloodlines around the high tier, he could kill one in just a strike or two. With his armor protecting him, the occasional attacks that landed didn't pose a great threat.
However, as powerful as the Divine Artisan Flame was, its consumption was exceptionally high. Meng Yan had to rely on pills to constantly recover and replenish; he could not sustain combat like Zhang Daniu could. This was a weakness of the fire. After attacking for a while, the frequency of his strikes gradually slowed. But for a master refiner with the Divine Artisan Flame to engage in such life-and-death slaughter was already an outlier; this talent was truly best suited for refining!
Han Li, as expected of him, performed exceptionally in the extreme situation. He used his seventy-two lightning flying swords and powerful divine sense to block numerous spiritual attacks. His fully activated sword formation slew any demon it met. Every few moments, another demon would die wretchedly under his swords. He hadn't dared to be so arrogant before, but his powerful foundation and the physique that could quickly recover spiritual energy gave him immense confidence! The terrifying lethality of the seventy-two sword formation's full eruption was originally his hidden trump card, but with the enhancement of his physique, he could maintain that state for a much longer time.
"So satisfying!" Zhang Daniu roared as he watched the demon corpses fall. They had been suppressed until they were practically suffocating just now. Now it was finally their turn to kill in reverse.
But just as Zhang Daniu was killing happily, Han Li suddenly spoke.
"We should withdraw!"
"Why?" Zhang Daniu asked, confused. They were clearly in a position of advantage.
"Haven't you noticed that more and more demons are catching up? Though their total number is decreasing, the rate is slow. The demons we left behind earlier have caught up! Our state is gradually approaching its limit. I need to recover my mental state; I can't sustain this high-intensity eruption for so long. Junior Brother Meng is also near his limit; he lacks endurance. And haven't you noticed that your recovery is slowly falling behind the damage you take?"
"Furthermore, only demons with middle and high-tier bloodlines have appeared so far. Once a demon with a King-level bloodline appears, they might possess power equivalent to our current level. They might have feared our trump cards before, but as we consume our strength, they will become dangerous once they step forward..."
Following Han Li's analysis, cold sweat broke out on Zhang Daniu's back. He hadn't realized that such a terrifying lethal crisis was hidden behind their current advantage.
"Senior Brother Han is right!" Meng Yan also agreed. "The advantage is with us now. We should fight while retreating, recovering while wearing down the enemy. Avoiding a direct encirclement by a massive number of demons is the most stable strategy!"
"Exactly. We must maintain this state where we can both fight and run. Survival is the prerequisite for everything; do not act on a moment's bravery!" Han Li added.
In truth, the most important thing was that he could consistently sense an extremely terrifying power. This was a natural intuition he had cultivated over a long time. It was possible that for a demon with King-level bloodline, their life was too precious; perhaps they too sensed the lethal trump cards on him, so they wanted to use these lower demons to wear them down. As someone whose principles were stability and caution, he naturally wouldn't give the fellow in the shadows a chance.
The reason he didn't tell his junior brothers was that knowing wouldn't help. It would only add to their despair. It was better to pretend not to know the fellow in the shadows, and then suddenly deliver a lethal blow.
"As expected of Senior Brother Han!" Zhang Daniu praised.
He immediately began to retreat while fighting, as Han Li instructed. However, as they retreated, they suddenly sensed an extremely terrifying purple lightning power! Within it was a trace of the aura of a lightning tribulation. Following it were the wails of demons...
"What's going on? That lightning power fighting the demons, do you recognize it?" Meng Yan suddenly asked.
"Our Star-Sea Continent doesn't seem to have a lightning expert of this level, does it? Great Perfection of Nascent Soul? I don't remember one! Could it be a trap?" Zhang Daniu asked after thinking.
Han Li, however, knit his brow tightly. This aura seemed somewhat familiar... Who was it? Was it a trap? Wait, flying swords... Golden Thunder Bamboo!
"That's Senior Brother Lin's bamboo!"
"What? Senior Brother Lin's bamboo?"
"Brother Qi's seed?"
"Yes! Back at the tribulation site in our Azure Heaven Domain, the bamboo that absorbed the lightning tribulation power there!"
"Then let's go quickly! Bamboo cannot move easily; we can't let the demons ruin it!"
"Quick!"
Upon hearing it was Qi Ping's bamboo, they immediately moved. They knew that bamboo was something Qi Ping had focused on nurturing, so its importance was likely very high. They couldn't let anything happen to it! Over the years, they had received too much favor from Qi Ping and had little chance to repay him. But now that they had the chance, they wouldn't let his bamboo come to harm. Having just obtained their ultimate awakening and breakthrough, they had even more confidence. Furthermore, they could feel that the bamboo was very strong; if they brought it along, it would be a powerful combat force for them. Compared to demons, humans were at a numerical disadvantage, and the difficulty of producing strong experts was higher. Cooperation to achieve a result where one plus one was far greater than two was the human advantage. So regardless of the motive, they had to save Qi Ping's bamboo.
"Holy crap!"
"Does this thing even need us to save it?"
"It's too fierce!"
When the three arrived, they were completely stunned. They had thought the bamboo would be in peril, but it was currently towering between heaven and earth. Its purple body and leaves were entirely wrapped in a terrifying lightning tribulation power; it looked like something an ordinary Nascent Soul would die upon touching. Beside the bamboo, there were already an unknown number of shriveled demon corpses... they looked as if they had been sucked dry by something. Furthermore, several hundred Golden Marrow Bees were flying around the bamboo, assisting it in battle.
At the same time, as the three appeared, the Lightning Tribulation Immortal Bamboo discovered them.
"Humans... come over quickly!"
"Leave those demons... to me!" the bamboo messaged them.
It remembered its master's instructions: when encountering the humans and other beings of the Star-Sea Continent, help them as much as possible, especially a few specific individuals. And now, it saw several people whom Qi Ping had specifically asked to look after! It had to complete its master's orders. It was one of the master's proudest Treant Warriors—the Lightning Tribulation Bamboo Warrior! It couldn't embarrass its master!
Especially since it had just received a surge of energy that allowed its bloodline ability to transform completely, fusing the lightning tribulation into its bloodline and evolving into the Lightning Tribulation Immortal Bamboo! Originally, given its situation, it had worried whether it could even see its master again. Though it had the method for devouring demons provided by its master, that power placed a great burden on it. Combined with the massive number of demons, it had to devour frantically to maintain its consumption, which once placed it in a very dangerous position.
Fortunately, that surge of good fortune power just now had allowed it to completely fuse that power and transform its lightning tribulation into its bloodline. Now, its ability to refine through lightning tribulation was immense; ordinary demons no longer posed a threat to it.
"Come over! Master told me to fight alongside you if I met you!" The bamboo urged as it saw the three hadn't moved.
"Are we still running?" Zhang Daniu looked at Han Li, somewhat dazed.
"Why run in this situation? Is there any better place to recover than beside Senior Brother Crow's bamboo?"
"True! That is the best place for us to recover our state. We can help each other and try to return to our peak to face any potential dangers."
At this moment, the three finally breathed a sigh of relief, especially Han Li, who knew of the strong enemy in the shadows. With the coordination of this powerful bamboo, their chances of victory would soar again! The victory of this battlefield was basically assured. Unless a demon with King-level bloodline capable of overturning the war situation appeared. But the probability of that was small; truly terrifying bloodline power would likely only appear at the Soul Transformation, Void Refinement, and Body Integration levels. Those were the truly horrifying battlefields.
There, even those with high talent could die in an instant. Ordinary high-tier or upper-rank demons were strong, but compared to King-level bloodlines, they weren't on the same level. But fortunately, they were no push-overs either! They now had the capital to soar; what they needed now was to kill all the demons!
At the same time, another special sub-battlefield appeared within the Nascent Soul tier. There was only one person in this battlefield: Wang He!
He was currently walking alone in a battlefield that contained only him. He didn't know how long he had been walking, or how many demons he had killed. He only knew he was alone, and besides him... the entire world was his enemy! But that was no big deal to him. As the Lord of Punishment for the Nine Domains, the number of people, demons, ghosts, and monsters who had died at his hand was unknown. In fact, he had likely killed more people than Qi Ping himself!
How had the stability of the Nine Domains been maintained over the years? The answer lay in one word: killing! Though most had submitted to Qi Ping and many dissenters had been killed, it still didn't stop many from having small schemes. Because of past habits, many were still engaged in small moves for profit in the shadows. These people weren't just stuck in their old ways; they were betting that human hearts could be bribed, betting that Qi Ping couldn't manage small fry like them.
How many such people were there in the Nine Domains? Over a hundred million had died directly or indirectly at Wang He's hand! The Star-Sea Continent was too large, and too many people had entered. Even if only a small fraction had schemes, their number was an unimaginably terrifying figure! And all those people had been personally or indirectly slain by him.
If the souls of those who died under his blade gathered, they could form a terrifying legion. In terms of slaughter... if he said he was second, no one could claim first. And the people he killed weren't just tens of thousands struck down by a single palm; he had truly examined the evidence for every single person. He had personally seen the names, life stories, and social relationships of almost every one of them.
For a time, when he closed his eyes, he saw those countless people who died by his hand. The pressure it brought was immense. He wasn't some inhuman person who didn't care; rather, he was the one who cared most for ordinary people. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been the successor to the Sword of Righteous Law. But for the sake of the Nine Domains, for the prosperous era Qi Ping wanted to create, and to ensure fewer people died in internal conflict, he had to do it. Otherwise, even more would die.
Currently, his name was the most terrifying Asura in the Star-Sea Continent; those with weak hearts would be scared to tears upon hearing it. During that time, Wang He didn't know how he had endured. He only knew that his originally clean Sword of Righteous Law gradually turned red, forming a thick layer of blood-scabs, and eventually, even the blade itself was stained black... much like his Dao Heart.
Qi Ping had talked with him about this, but it hadn't helped. Only Wang He himself could pass this trial. And no one was better suited for this position than him; if a heartless person sat in a position deciding the life and death of countless cultivators, it would be a disaster for the Nine Domains. Qi Ping was also waiting—waiting for the day Wang He truly stepped past that trial. He knew that only when Wang He could carry the weight of endless slaughter while passing the trial would the Star-Sea Continent truly welcome a Lord of Punishment.