BOOM—

The void trembled and chaos blurred. Qi Xiu's eyes, now a brilliant golden yellow, suddenly surged with two terrifyingly powerful pillars of lightning!

The surging thunder penetrated the cosmos. Wherever his gaze fell, Heavenly Thunder roared, striking the four Great Demons. They screamed and howled as black smoke billowed.

"Come! Let Qi see what Magic Artifact could make you so arrogant and rampant."

Qi Xiu swung his large sleeve. Thirty-six dazzling, golden Cloud Seal Talismans rose into the air, swiftly unfolding into a Rune Array.

The Thirty-Six Thunder Pupils Great Formation!

CRACK, BOOM—

The thunderclap was deafening!

In an instant, the world turned dark and gloomy. Above, in the turbulent, cloud-filled sky, fissures opened, revealing cold, indifferent, and majestic Hidden Thunder Heavy Pupils that slowly opened.

Suppressing the Divine Marvel in his eyes, Qi Xiu stood with an impassive expression, hands clasped behind his back.

Above his head, thirty-six pairs of Hidden Thunder Heavy Pupils, brimming with terrifying lightning, aimed squarely at the four Great Demons.

The immense pressure, vast as the abyss and deep as the sea, caused the skin of the four Great Demons to crack open. Their fur stood on end, and every pore on their bodies stung as if pricked by needles.

"Eldest Brother, quickly use the Magic Artifact!" one Great Demon, resembling a mountain fiend with disheveled hair and a body covered in tumors, shrieked. It was nearly suffocating from the increasingly dense aura of Thunder Magic surrounding it.

Foul-smelling, yellow pus flowed from all seven of its orifices—a truly horrific sight.

"Behold my Magic Artifact!"

Fully aware this was no time to hide its strength, the leading Great Demon, which resembled a stick insect with brownish-yellow skin covered in fleshy spines, acted.

It twisted its palm backward and plunged it into its own belly. Amidst a hair-raising tearing sound, it pulled out a grayish-white sutra mat. Scriptures flowed across it like living things, exuding a sinister, cold, and grim aura.

"Arise!"

It spat a large glob of steaming, fiery Great Demon essence blood onto the mat. The grayish-white mat instantly regained its color and was forcefully tossed upward by the stick insect demon.

Suspended in the void, a white-bearded old monk faintly appeared above the mat, his eyes downcast, hands forming seals and resting on his knees.

His lips moved slowly as he powerfully and profoundly intoned each word of an arcane scripture.

"Namo, King Buddha of Annihilation..."

With each word he uttered, something seemed to vibrate in the air.

These seemingly insubstantial vibrations gradually coalesced into ink-black scripture characters of various shapes.

Devoid of sound, scent, or touch, they flickered in and out of existence within the void.

These characters, as if possessing lives of their own, fluttered and twirled around the old monk like erratically dancing stars in the night sky.

They multiplied uncontrollably, spreading outward with a suffocating and irresistible force.

Listening to this sinister chanting, Qi Xiu felt his soul tremble. He almost had the urge to convert on the spot.

Hmm? This sutra mat looks somewhat familiar...

His eyes narrowed slightly. From beneath his wide sleeve, his right hand instantaneously manifested several streaks of golden light.

[SUPPRESS]

A Suppressing Talisman steadied his mind. As Qi Xiu surveyed his surroundings, everything seemed to have lost all color.

Ash, white and gray, fluttered down from the sky.

Under the influence of this power, all existence seemed insignificant, their ultimate fate nothing more than a pile of ashes.

The chanting grew louder, echoing across the entire sky.

Above, the thirty-six pairs of Hidden Thunder Heavy Pupils in the sky gradually lost their color, eventually turning to ash and dissipating into nothingness.

As the Thirty-Six Thunder Pupils Great Formation dispersed, the four Great Demons felt a great sense of relief.

"Is this the source of your confidence?"

After nullifying the Thirty-Six Thunder Pupils Great Formation, the strange, eerie power began to encroach upon Qi Xiu.

But no matter how fiercely this power surged, it could never breach the pure golden radiance enshrouding him.

With a soft chuckle, a vertical pupil, like cast gold, slowly tore through the flesh in the center of Qi Xiu's forehead and opened.

The previously abated, dominating might of the thunder instantly intensified.

It was several times more terrifying than before!

This is... Not good!

Seeing the vertical eye open on Qi Xiu's forehead, alarms blared wildly in the stick insect demon's mind. It abruptly flew behind the sinister sutra mat, spewing mouthful after mouthful of its essence blood onto it, as if it cost nothing.

HUM—

Nourished by the Great Demon's essence blood, the old monk above the sutra mat instantly grew several times more substantial. The previously subtle chanting also grew much clearer.

"The extinction of all things is the bond; the dissolution of Heaven and Earth is the fruit..."

ROAR—

Terrifying pillars of thunder, like several entwined lightning dragons, surged forth and soared into the sky. The resulting roar shook the air, like the long cry of a dragon, utterly horrifying.

Wielding unparalleled destructive force, the pillar of lightning fiercely collided with the sinister sutra mat.

HISSS—

In an instant!

A myriad of brilliant lights burst forth like fireworks, dazzling and blinding in this space that had already lost all color.

"Hurry and help me!" the stick insect demon shrieked, its eyes bloodshot and its expression ferocious as it vomited essence blood.

The moment the lightning pillar struck the sutra mat, this Magic Artifact had directly drained two of its Blood Avatars.

If it were struck again, it would be sucked dry by this sutra mat, even without Qi Xiu having to lift a finger!

Hearing their leader's furious howl, the other three Great Demons hurriedly rushed forward. They pooled their essence blood and demonic qi to fuel the Magic Artifact's consumption.

Four Great Demons versus Qi Xiu alone!

Under the blaze of ultimate radiance, Qi Xiu's black hair danced wildly, and his Taoist robe whipped about violently. The pillar of blue-white light surging from the vertical pupil between his brows ascended like a sharp sword, aiming to smite the chanting old monk.

"You can take quite a beating. Since that's the case," Qi Xiu said, a faint trace of excitement at the corner of his mouth, "I'll add more fuel to your fire…" He held one hand erect before his chest and then began to form a spell.

Within his eyes, the subdued golden lightning surged once more.

The next instant!

Two golden pillars of lightning, only slightly thinner than the blue-white pillar, roared out. The three pillars of lightning intertwined and amplified each other, their power surging explosively once more!

"Holy shit!"

"Holy shit!"

"Holy shit!"

"Holy shit!"

Four synchronized shouts of "Holy shit!" conveyed the Great Demons' utter outrage!

"Don't hold back! Give it everything you've got! Everything!"

From a fleshy pouch on its lower back, the stick insect demon grabbed a handful of black, skull-like elixirs and shoved them into its mouth. With a bloodcurdling roar, countless bloody wounds split open all over its body. A bloody mist, thick with a pungent, coppery stench, sprayed out.

"AAAARGH!"

Thick, roiling torrents of essence blood were funneled into the sutra mat.

Having absorbed a massive amount of demonic essence blood, the old monk seated cross-legged on the mat seemed as if he might step from the void into reality.

Even his downcast, tightly closed eyes slowly creaked open a sliver!

The old monk's eyes, crimson as blood, brimmed with an endless, ominous terror capable of turning myriad living beings into withered bones.

BOOM!

The ocean of lightning and the ominous Blood Sea clashed fiercely, instantly tearing apart a vast swath of the sky and scattering a dazzling rain of lightning.

The rampaging shockwaves solidified into tangible waves of air, razing everything within a hundred-mile radius to the ground.

The ground itself caved in, sinking a hundred meters.

The extremely bright light in front of them made the four Great Demons' eyes stream with blood. They couldn't open their eyes at all.

"How... how has it not stopped yet..."

The collision of the two terrifying forces lasted far longer than the four Great Demons had imagined.

This seemingly ordinary young Daoist they faced possessed a True Origin that seemed as vast as a bottomless abyss.

Such immense Thunder Magic must have an astonishing energy cost.

Yet, he showed no sign of exhaustion, remaining as calm as if it had nothing to do with him.

This... this is impossible...

Five minutes passed... then ten... then a quarter of an hour.

In the blink of an eye, sheer terror had completely filled the eyes of the four Great Demons.

What on earth were they facing...

"Eldest Brother... we must retreat! I'm being drained dry..." the mountain fiend-like Great Demon began to wail.

Continuously providing demonic qi and essence blood, its Blood Avatars were almost completely depleted, with only one left.

If it continued to expend its energy like this, only death awaited it!

Even if the mountain fiend hadn't spoken, the stick insect demon had already reached its limit. It had been the first to act, and two of its Blood Avatars were already gone. It had only managed to hold out this long by excessively consuming forbidden elixirs that stimulated Blood Avatar regeneration.

Once the elixirs' effects wore off, it would instantly fall into a comatose state, completely at their mercy.

"Listen to my command. I'll count to three. We'll withdraw our power at once and then scatter in four different directions. Even if he wants to chase us, he can only follow one. Our lives are in the hands of fate; from here on, it's all down to luck."

"Okay!"

"One, two..."

Just as it counted to "two," the stick insect demon suddenly withdrew its power. A bloody hole burst open at the top of its enormous Great Demon True Body. A minuscule insectoid form, no bigger than a human palm, shot out and vanished into the distance in the blink of an eye.

"Eldest Brother, how could you!"

Never expecting the stick insect demon to pull such a stunt, the remaining three Great Demons were caught completely off guard, their faces contorted with rage and bitter unwillingness.

BOOM—

With the stick insect demon's power withdrawn, the sutra mat could no longer withstand the continuous bombardment from the Hidden Thunder Heavy Pupils.

The old monk's illusory figure was instantly torn to shreds, and the three Great Demons behind it directly faced the terrifying might of the lightning pillars!

Under the ultimate destructive power of Thunder Magic, their formidable Great Demon True Bodies proved no more resilient than ordinary clay.

In just an instant, the upper bodies of the three Great Demons were obliterated by the lightning pillars.

The charred edges of their remaining lower bodies, still wreathed in fierce flames, twitched rigidly a few times before plummeting downwards.

In that fleeting moment, the three Great Demons were obliterated.

The stick insect demon, not yet a hundred miles away, trembled uncontrollably with terror. But just as it mustered all its strength to flee in a frenzy, a mysterious and majestic power suddenly sundered the space of this world.

It descended with a thunderous crash!

The Hunyuan Palace!

A barrier, shimmering with colorful light, suddenly enveloped the stick insect demon and drew it in.

The next moment, Qi Xiu, his sleeves gathered, materialized before the stick insect demon. His eyes, still faintly glinting gold and deep with terrifying arcs of lightning, looked down upon it imperiously.

"Spare me!"

In the face of life and death, dignity was worthless. The stick insect demon prostrated itself completely before Qi Xiu, kowtowing and begging for mercy.

Gazing at the palm-sized stick insect demon before him, Qi Xiu chuckled softly. He slowly raised his foot, as if intending to crush it.

"I am a paramour of the Second Daughter of the King of Green Mulberry Country! I know many secrets! Spare my life, and I'll tell you everything!"

...

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