Chapter 825: Grim Battlefield

Before dawn, the border of Luohuang Zhou was shrouded in blood‑colored mist.

Three thousand Heaven Punishment Palace cultivators formed the "Heavenly Gang Demon Suppression Formation," their crimson Dao robes rustling in the morning wind. Leading them, Chi Xiao Real Person stood on void, his Demon‑Slashing Sword exhaling three‑foot green light.

"The demon race has trespassed, slaughter our kin!" Chi Xiao's voice thundered, "Today, we shall repay blood with blood!"

On a ridge a hundred li away, the Silver‑Back Wolf Demon commander bared a blood‑filled maw, exposing forest‑white fangs: "Human ants dare violate our lands?" He swiped his claws fiercely, and three thousand Wolf Riders behind him howled skyward in unison, their cries shaking the wilderness.

Boom!

When the first ray of morning pierced the clouds, Chi Xiao Real Person's Demon‑Slashing Sword had transformed into a hundred‑zhang rainbow beam that slashed down. The Silver‑Back Wolf Demon crossed its claws to block, the clashing of metal ringing across the battlefield, and the ground cracked into spider‑web fissures from the aftershock.

On the eastern side, Fa Tian Sect disciples summoned seventy‑two Bagua mirrors. Their reflected light wove a net, scorching the fur of any Wolf Rider it touched. A Nascent Soul Stage Wolf Demon roared, broke through the light net, and its claws tore open the chests of three disciples, blood splattering the Bagua mirrors.

"Form the array!" the Mystic Fairy barked. Surviving disciples quickly re‑formed, the Bagua mirrors assembling into a cage that trapped the Wolf Demon. The reflected solar fire seared the beast, its wails endless until it finally turned to charcoal.

The western battlefield showed the opposite scene. Three hundred Ox Demons formed the "Earth‑Shaking Battle Formation," each step causing the ground to quake. Human cultivators' flying swords struck their dark‑green thick hides, leaving only white scars.

Bang!

A Divine Transformation Stage Ox Demon rammed its massive horn straight through a Nascent Soul Cultivator's protective aura, hurling the body a hundred zhag into the air. The shattered corpse slammed into the mountain wall, spraying a rain of blood.

At noon, the first wave of wandering cultivators arrived on the battlefield.

These sect‑less cultivators each displayed their prowess. An elder who commanded Poison Insects sent swarms that made demons collapse and convulse; a youth bearing seven flying swords let blade light slash through the field like dragons; many were low‑level cultivators only at the Foundation Establishment Stage, grouping in threes or fives to target wounded demons.

"Watch out! It's the Qingluan Race's Flame of Burning Heaven!"

The sky suddenly poured down a cyan fire rain, turning dozens of wandering cultivators into torches in an instant. A young female cultivator struggled within the flames; her water spell had just coalesced before evaporating. After three breaths, only a charred skeleton remained, still holding the sealing pose.

In mid‑air, Qing Xuan coldly surveyed the battlefield. With a flick of her fingertip, another blue flame fell into the human formation's center, exploding a fire pit thirty zhag in diameter.

"Ignore those wanderers; focus the main assault on the human cultivators' stronghold!"

"Kill!!!" The demon cultivators received the order and launched a new wave of charge.

Deep within Luohuang Zhou, the demon royal court's bronze war drums thundered.

"Humans have insulted us too much!" the Tiger Tribe General shattered a jade table, "You saw those images! They spare not even the young!"

A water mirror looped footage of humans massacring a demon village. In truth, Xiong Fei Yu had fabricated the scene with Illusion Art, yet at this moment every great demon being's eyes glowed crimson.

"Fight!"

"Blood debt, blood repayment!"

Ten demon generals knelt simultaneously, pleading for orders.

The figure on the throne slowly raised a hand; a bronze tiger talisman flew through the air toward Qing Xuan: "Gather three hundred thousand demon troops; I will make the humans know!"

"Demons, shall not be disgraced!"

The next morning, a sky‑blocking demon cloud loomed over the border.

Five thousand Eagle Demons forming the vanguard dove first, their wing edges glinting metallic, diving at speeds comparable to flying swords. Human cultivators' protective auras tore like paper, and within a blink hundreds of heads were sent flying.

"Form!"

Three hundred Elders of Heaven Punishment Palace simultaneously performed the sealing gesture. Blood‑colored chains erupted from the ground, dragging hundreds of Eagle Demons underground. Yet more Eagle Demons had already breached the line, clawing cultivators and flinging them into the sky before dropping them.

The ground battle grew even more brutal. Elephant Demon legions moved like shifting mountains; a sweep of their long trunks could shatter a Golden Core Cultivator's flesh. Their back‑mounted arrow towers continuously launched poisoned bone spears, turning the struck instantly into a pool of pus and blood.

"Use fire talismans! Aim for the eyes!"

A squad of wanderers dared approach an Elephant Demon, but at ten zhag away its massive foot crushed them into mush. The female cultivator, before dying, managed to detonate all the talismans in her womb; flames surged down the Elephant Demon's trunk into its skull, and when the colossal beast crashed down, it crushed three comrades.

When the Elephant Demons on the battlefield were all slain by their methodical technique, the wanderers leapt up excitedly:

"Good!"

"Everyone performed admirably! This time we…"

But then a massive flock of Bird Demons swooped from the sky, each bearing four claws, each claw gripping a spirit spear, unleashing a rain‑like barrage upon the human wanderers below!

"Damn, that is…"

"Spirit spears? Take cover!"

Even though spirit spears have a fatal flaw, under the demon race's massive outfitting, some low‑rank demons unleashed tremendous war potential.

A unit of three hundred Bird Demons equipped with spirit spears even shot down more than ten human Golden Core Cultivators on the ground, and countless human Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators were slain.

On the third day of war, both sides were blood‑shot with murderous eyes.

Human cultivators discovered demons refined the dead into blood food, so they invented the "Burning Demon Talisman" to ensure no whole corpse remained. The demons, meanwhile, targeted human weak points, using spirit spears and spirit cannons to shift the tide.

In a valley, Fa Tian Sect disciples nailed a captured Snake Demon to the cliff wall, skinning it alive. Ten li away, in a dense forest, Wolf Demons were feasting on captured formation masters, grinding bones to powder.

The most tragic scene was the border villages. The Otherworldly Race, once living in harmony, now became targets for both sides' venting. A fox‑human youth was pierced through the chest by a Heaven Punishment Palace cultivator, still clutching a protective talisman his human foster mother had given him; even his demon foster father was torn apart by five horses while trying to shield him.

On an isolated peak at the battlefield's edge, Xiong Fei Yu satisfied himself by tallying the spoils.

Three days of fierce fighting left over fifty thousand casualties on both sides. His meticulously arranged seventeen illusion formations successfully made the humans believe the demons were refining souls with forbidden arts, while the demons remained convinced the humans were slaughtering their young.

"Not enough…" he licked his lips, produced a jet‑black jade tablet. It was the "Grievance Soul Lure" forged from battlefield dead souls, capable of inciting an even larger frenzy.

At midnight, the jade tablet exploded at the battlefield's center. Soaring resentment seeped across a hundred‑li radius, and whether human or demon, blood‑thirsty red glints shone in their eyes.

At dawn, the war finally spiraled out of control—both sides ceased distinguishing targets, killing any living thing they saw. A Divine Transformation Stage cultivator detonated his Nascent Soul, taking an entire elite demon force with him. Qing Xuan's left wing was wounded by the Demon‑Slashing Sword, and Chi Xiao Real Person's right arm remained forever lodged in a Wolf Demon's belly.

On the seventh morning, when the first ray of sunlight pierced the blood‑filled mist, an eerie Silence fell over the battlefield.

Across a hundred‑li expanse of corpse mountains and blood seas, fewer than thirty percent of the standing cultivators remained. Most surviving demons were maimed, missing limbs or wings. A blood‑smeared hand suddenly seized a Wolf Demon's broken leg; a dying human cultivator, with his last strength, crushed a thunder talisman, and both perished together in a flash of lightning.

Qing Xuan stood atop a mountain of corpses, her blue flame dimming to near extinction. She gazed at the equally scarred Chi Xiao Real Person in the distance, and both saw deep fatigue and bewilderment reflected in each other's eyes.

"Why…" Chi Xiao coughed up blood and asked, "Launch this war?"

Qing Xuan: "You crossed the border first!"

"Nonsense, you demons attacked our human cultivators first!"

"Further words are useless; betray my humans without great attainment?!"

"Welcome, Senior Li Xuantian!"

Three Great Ascendant members of the Grand Commerce Guild landed, staring coldly at their old rival Qing Xuan.

Qing Xuan's face hardened: "Just because you are a bunch of defeated subordinates?!"

"Who wins and who loses may not be certain, Daoist Qingxuan!" Li Xuantian laughed and brazenly struck.