The demons began to swarm the Vast Heaven Islands en masse. It wasn’t a disorganized charge, though. Groups of demons entered the domain of the Vast Heaven Islands from strategic locations from three hundred and sixty degrees in intervals, preventing the demons from gathering too closely together and repeating their earlier mistake.
Unlike the previous time, when the demons invaded the Vast Heaven Islands, there was a reaction, but it was not the appearance of the cultivators as the demons suspected. Instead, the second island to the ninth island began to move from their orbit.
The eight islands gathered around the central island in a circular fashion and equally spaced apart. With the change in the structure of the Vast Heaven Islands, the domain changed into a spheroid and altered the gravity within.
Before, if gravity was pushing down, now, gravity was pushing any intruders outward from the central mountain. Any demons who entered from the top or bottom would feel their bodies dragged towards the central plane and outward, out of the domain.
The demons struggled and resisted the force, but they were too weak to oppose the gravitational force of the Vast Heaven Islands. Seeing this, Ashflame Crow discussed it with his fellow elders and ordered twenty percent of the demons to charge. He believed the change in gravitational force was due to a technique, and he wanted to exhaust it.
After more than twenty percent of the demons charged in, they were all repelled towards the outer rim of Vast Heaven Island’s domain. With their unaccountable numbers, the demons formed a ring around the Vast Heaven Islands.
When a demon was ejected outside of the domain, they would fly towards the central mountain from the top or bottom, forming a continuous cycle. Hours passed like this with no sign of the cultivators, but Ashflame Crow wasn’t in a rush.
Seven days later, Ashflame couldn’t help but worry.
He’d thought it would take at least a day to exhaust the user of the technique, but the reality was different than his expectations. It was they, the demons, that were beginning to become exhausted. The demons were using their qi to counter the gravitational force of the Vast Heaven Islands, so after repeated cycles, they could not generate enough qi to sustain their tactic.
Ashflame Crow contemplated switching the group of demons to the second group. This way, after the demons sent to exhaust the user of the gravitational technique started to get low on qi, they could rotate the groups, continuing the process.
Ever the cautious one, Ashflame Crow did just that. What he didn’t know was that Tianyi wasn’t expending his qi at all, and even if he was, Tianyi’s qi output was higher than the input needed to sustain such a technique. The change in gravitational force was the result of Tianyi changing the formation that sustained the Vast Heaven Island’s nature as a pseudo realm. It did not cost any energy as the gravitational force was something more akin to the exertion of a law of physics.
All Ashflame Crow was doing was mentally exhausting his forces and lowering their morale. In contrast, the cultivators and residents of Fan City had their morale boosted. Anyone would balk at the sheer numbers of demons that came to assault them, but after continually seeing them fail, their fear turned into mockery.
But Ashflame Crow did not know any of this, so he continued with his strategy of exhausting Tianyi.
Only after six months did Ashflame Crow notice something wrong. Actually, he had already suspected something wrong earlier, but he had been unwilling to give up after the time he had already invested. Finally, he called the demons to retreat. By now, the demons were staring at Vast Heaven Islands with fear as if it was some sort of eldritch location. They had even launched numerous projectile and elemental attacks, but they were pushed out as well.
Ashflame Crow gathered the elders and discussed how to deal with the situation. At this rate, no matter how much time passed, they wouldn’t be able to break through the Vast Heaven Island’s defense.
At the very least, Ashflame Crow was sure that the majority of the cultivators were hiding in the Vast Heaven Islands. You’d had to be stupid to choose to escape and flee from the demon army instead of bunkering down in the perfect fortress.
After numerous rounds of discussion, the demon elders decided against sending any more of the lower realm demons until they could solve the issue of the gravitational force. Although they wanted to lie in ambush among the weaker demons and prevent the cultivators from discovering their abilities, they would be forced into a stalemate at this rate.
As Unity Realm level demons of the Golden Crow Clan, they were able to utilize combination techniques that required the cooperation of at least two or more elders. The technique they chose to use this time was Descending Eruption.
The eleven elders appeared in a circle around the edge of the Vast Heaven Islands. The elders began to exude a ferocious demonic qi that caused the environment to twist and darken under the pressure. When the qi interacted with the domain of the Vast Heaven Islands, it was as if an invisible barrier separated the space within and outside and prevented the qi from affecting anything inside the domain. As this happened, clouds began to conglomerate above the Vast Heaven Islands.
An uneasy silence descended on the people hiding within the Vast Heaven Islands as the clouds began to darken and rumble as if in preparation for a storm. However, no rain fell. Instead, red orbs began to materialize within the clouds, and moments later, they descended.
Hundred upon hundreds of fireballs descended upon the Vast Heaven Islands. Each fireball was formed from some sort of core and burned ravenously and even burned the very air it passed. It was a scene of an apocalypse where giant meteorites descended, intent on eradicating all life on the land.
When they passed through the domain space of the Vast Heaven Islands, they continued their descent, and their trajectory only altered slightly. Because of this, several of them crashed into the outer islands, creating craters on and around the mountains. Most, however, crashed into the land below the Vast Heaven Islands.
At the central mountain, Tianyi frowned as he saw this. Since the mountains were the anchors for the formation that sustained the Vast Heaven Islands, any damage to them would compromise the existence of the Vast Heaven Islands. If he did nothing, the majority of the strategies created would have to be scrapped. In fact, it would be a repeat of Sheng Ni’s experience.
Under Tianyi’s control, the black seas began to churn and rumble. Black streams of liquid began to interweave with the streams from the other black seas, creating an interconnected web. The black sea net then dispersed a black fog with numerous glitters of light sparkling within. That fog ascended above the nine islands, creating a barrier.
When the fireballs made contact with the black fog, a change occurred. As they traveled through the fog, the fireballs began to grow smaller and smaller as their glow dimmed. When they eventually passed through the black fog, they were only a fraction of their original size. When they struck the mountains, they dispersed into harmless sparks of fire that only singed the ground, unlike earlier, where they devastated the islands with craters.
“Continue,” Ashflame Crow ordered. He didn’t believe that Tianyi could maintain the state for long.
Unfortunately for him, Tianyi was an abnormality. And even if he couldn’t, the demon elders were doing an excellent job of supplying him with energy. After several more rounds, Ashflame Crow noticed his mistake and quickly ordered the others to stop the combination technique.
Every time the fireballs passed through the black fog, the fog increased in size. Ashflame Crow quickly figured out the reason. Somehow, the fog was disintegrating parts of the fireballs, destabilizing them so that they would not have as much impact when they crashed and absorbing the fireball’s energy for its own use.
Still, although it wasn’t the optimal result, Ashflame Crow had accomplished his goal. Spreading his spiritual sense, he could sense that the Vast Heaven Islands’ domain had shrunk, and he could partially penetrate the domain, unlike before.
Under his order, the second group of demons started their assault, allowing the first group to rest. And just as Ashflame Crow expected, although the gravitational force was still present, its strength was far weaker than before. The second did not experience the same repulsion as the first, but they still had to force their way through from the outer edges as the force on the top and bottom of the domain was still strong.
At this time, humans began to appear at the edge of the islands facing the demon. Although Ashflame Crow’s spiritual sense was blocked at that point, he could discern that they were ‘immortals’ but the human denizens of the Demon Cage Realm.
What are the immortals planning? Ashflame Crow wondered. The strongest humans have only reached the point of forming their cores, but far more haven’t. And even then, they’ve never passed that point. Do the immortals plan to use the humans as cannon fodder? But that doesn’t make sense either. The weakest demons present have already formed their demonic cores.
Ashflame Crow soon received his answer as every human pulled out a rectangular piece of metal, small enough to hold in their hands. Just as the crow demon wondered what the metal rectangle’s purpose was, the demons started to fall by the thousand.
The humans had pointed them at the demons and unleashed an attack that instantly killed or fatally injured numerous demons at once. It was a power that the humans of the Demon Cage Realm should have never possessed.
“What is going on!?” Ashflame Crow shouted out, breaking his cool for the first time. Not even when the spatial distortion killed thirty percent of the demons present did he lose his cool.
The loss of the demons was because of the cultivators outside the realm. They eventually had to leave, so the status quo would return to normal for another thousand years at least. But if the humans of the Demon Cage Realm came to possess such power, it would disrupt the demon’s reign over the realm!
The attacks poured forth nonstop. It was as if the humans were at the Nascent Soul Realm and were able to continuously unleash techniques without rest. At this point, Ashflame Crow thought the humans possessed even more Nascent Soul Realm level combatants than the demons!
Ashflame Crow’s immediate action was to retreat, but he stilled in his decision as he recalled Golden Crow Ancestor’s orders.
“Continue attacking. It doesn’t matter if you have to sacrifice all the Leviathan Clan demons present.”
Gritting his teeth, or rather, gritting his beak, Ashflame Crow ordered the first group of demons to attack.
Ashflame Crow had separated the remaining demons into three groups. The first two groups were primarily composed of demons from the Leviathan Clan. In contrast, the last group was composed of the Golden Grow and Jade Rabbit Clan members and the strongest Leviathan Clan members. The last group was supposed to be the trump card against the cultivators when they were too tired after waves and waves of assault.
Ashflame didn’t order a retreat to regroup because he didn’t want their efforts in weakening the gravitational force to go to waste. Ashflame Crow didn’t believe that the damages to the islands could be easily fixed, but now, he didn’t dare to leave anything up to chance. After all the surprises he saw for the past few months, he believed nothing would surprise him anymore.
At the central mountain, the top echelons of the disciples were present and watching the battle. Large versions of Xiyi Talisman were floating around the room and displayed the battle’s events in real-time.
Yes, even now, Tianyi was advertising his Xiyi Talismans.
Daoist Moneybag’s eyes turned towards Tianyi after the shock at seeing the Xiyi Talisman at work. He wasn’t the only one, as the other disciples displayed similar expressions of shock.
Compared to elite disciples like them, the techniques unleashed by the talisman were subpar at best, but that wasn’t the main focus. With a Xiyi Talisman, a foundation establishment disciple could unleash the power of a nascent soul grandmaster. More importantly, Xiyi Talisman had multiple uses. As long as you had enough Xiyi Talisman and even servants, you could have the power of a squad or small army composed of nascent soul grandmasters!
Well, there was the downside of needing spirit stones as energy or naturally absorbing the spiritual qi. However, inside Tianyi’s Vast Heaven Islands, the qi was supplied to the talismans almost immediately.
“Brother Xi, how many talismans can you make?” Daoist Moneybag asked, several other disciples also perked up their ears.
“Not much, as long as I have the materials, about fifty a week?” Tianyi wasn’t sure. He left most of the logistics to Xi Ri, after all.
Not much?
Numerous disciples found their emotions leaking through their masked expression at Tianyi’s words. Fifty a week was already a lot! It meant that Tianyi could have a force of fifty nascent soul grandmasters every week!
They respected Tianyi’s strength, but Tianyi had no personal force or connection like Xia Yushan did. Now however…
As long as Tianyi willed it, he could amass a massive amount of influence with time.
In truth, the Xiyi Talisman wasn’t as impressive as they thought it was. The only reason they showed such a stunning performance was due to the terrain they were used in, the Vast Heaven Islands. Outside, the number of spirit stones needed to fuel the Xiyi Talisman to repeatedly unleash such techniques would be astronomical. Still, Tianyi might have downplayed the combat ability of the Xiyi Talisman too much.
“Brother Xi, how about we enter cooperation? I want to act as an intermediary for the sale of these Xiyi talismans outside of Buzhou Immortal Sect’s territory.”