“Hahahaha! Old Fire-Spirit! Picking on a crippled soul remnant, is that all you’ve got? Your opponent is this Demon Lord!”
A wild, domineering voice filled with boundless demonic fire exploded like thunder!
Immediately afterwards, a gigantic hand formed entirely of black demonic flame, vast as a mountain, shot out from the flaming rift and reached straight for the pillar of starlight that was purifying the Soul-Devouring Venerable!
“Li Huo Demon Lord?”
For the first time, the figure of Lord Fire-Spirit Star in the starry sky spoke with a trace of gravity and anger.
The demonic-flame giant hand collided violently with the starlight pillar!
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only the frenzied mutual erosion and annihilation of two supreme law forces!
Starlight tried to purify the demonic fire, while the demonic fire burned the starlight. For a moment, they were deadlocked!
Chen Ping stared at the suddenly arriving Li Huo Demon Lord, his brows knitting instantly. He could not help cursing under his breath, “Bloody hell, why is this Demon Lord showing up again!”
Back in the Sixth Heaven, if Li Huo Demon Lord had not appeared out of nowhere, the Soul-Devouring Venerable would already have been taken away by him.
Now, just when the Soul-Devouring Venerable was about to be destroyed, this same Li Huo Demon Lord appeared once more.
Seizing that instant of deadlock, the tiny wisp of the Soul-Devouring Venerable’s most primal soul force that still remained, like a drowning man clutching at a straw, let out a shrill screech.
It violently broke free from part of the starlight’s restraint, turned into an almost invisible black thread of blackness, and instantly plunged into the churning sea of blood below, vanishing without trace!
“Hahahaha! I’m saved! This Venerable is saved!”
Wild ecstasy and venomous divine sense from the Soul-Devouring Venerable echoed faintly from the depths of the blood sea. “Lord Fire-Spirit Star! Little brat Chen Ping! And you filthy longworms! Just you wait! If I do not avenge this humiliation, I swear I am no man! When this Venerable recovers, I will make you repay it a hundredfold!!”
This sudden turn of events caused the hearts of Chen Ping and the dragon army, which had only just begun to relax, to plummet straight back into the abyss!
The spark of hope that had barely ignited was instantly trampled out by the arriving Demon Lord!
In the starry sky, Lord Fire-Spirit Star was clearly infuriated by Li Huo’s interference.
“Li Huo! Have you no end?!”
Lord Fire-Spirit Star’s voice carried icy fury.
“Cut the rubbish, old Fire-Spirit! I’ve long wanted to test your Starry Purification Flame! Do you dare fight this Demon Lord beyond the heavens?!”
Li Huo Demon Lord’s voice brimmed with provocation and battle lust.
“As you wish!”
Two supreme auras locked onto each other in an instant. The next moment, the starlight pillar and the demonic-flame giant hand withdrew simultaneously.
The figure of Lord Fire-Spirit Star in the sky and the Li Huo Demon Lord behind the flaming rift seemed to reach a tacit understanding.
They transformed into two streaks of flowing light at the same time, one dazzling as a river of stars, the other black as a demonic sun. In a flash they tore through the barriers of the Ninth Heaven and vanished into the boundless cosmos, heading to some unknowable higher realm to wage their war.
They had come quickly and left just as quickly, as though they had merely passed by, meddled in a minor affair, and then instantly shifted the battlefield because of their mutual enmity.
Within the Soul-Burying Abyss, deathly silence and oppression instantly returned.
Only the wounded Chen Ping, the battered dragon army, the Soul-Devouring Venerable’s remnant soul that had just escaped and whose whereabouts and threat remained unknown, and the slowly closing spatial rifts were left behind…
Despair after hope is always far more suffocating.
Chen Ping gazed at the now-calm Soul-Burying Abyss, feeling the intense pain throughout his body and the weakness of his divine soul. He glanced at his companions, covered in wounds and breathing feebly, and a bitter smile appeared on his lips.
“Li Huo Demon Lord, you bastard. Once I become strong enough, the first one I’ll kill is you…”
Seeing that both Lord Fire-Spirit Star and Li Huo Demon Lord had departed, Chen Ping shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Mr Chen, what do we do now?”
Old Black asked Chen Ping.
“Go back to Yama Heaven Sect. We wait until Senior Shen and the others recover, then we come settle the score with that Soul-Devouring Venerable.”
“With only us candidates, we are no longer stand a chance against him…”
Chen Ping said.
“Understood.” Old Black nodded.
The lofty ambition Chen Ping had felt at the start was now completely gone. The Soul-Devouring Venerable had beaten him back to harsh reality.
Although he had led the dragon army to conquer the Ninth Heaven, when facing a true powerhouse, his strength was still far from sufficient.
He had even dreamed of taking the dragon army to the Thirty-Sixth Heaven. Thinking back on that notion now, Chen Ping felt it was utterly childish.
What a bloody idiot…
He had to return to Yama Heaven Sect and raise his strength first, no matter what.
Otherwise, if he could not even deal with the Soul-Devouring Venerable, how would he ever handle the Temple of Malignant Dao?
How would he ever reach the Tenth Heaven, or the worlds beyond?
He had arrived full of arrogance. He departed in utter disarray.
Chen Ping, looking thoroughly wretched, led the dragon army back to Yama Heaven Sect.
He ordered every resource to be gathered, then threw himself into the Demon-Suppressing Tower and began closed-door cultivation.
