Chapter 568: Race War Status, Cultivation Difficulty Skyrockets

“A Yang God in this world, to deliver us all!”

Just as the army faced annihilation, a voice as gentle as a lover’s whisper echoed in their ears.

In the midst of a Demonic Qi explosion that tore through the world, Leng Xiuming forged a great wall with his own body and protected everyone with his Yang God—everyone but himself…

A pillar of demonic light shot into the sky, piercing the heavens.

When the light faded, the surrounding Demonic Qi had been completely wiped away.

“Brother Leng! Brother Leng…” Baili Zhangtu cried out.

“Supreme Elder! Supreme Elder! Waaaah…” Countless disciples burst into tears.

The shattered form of Leng Xiuming managed a smile. “Too… noisy! I… want… some… quiet…”

But sobs still broke out from within the army, for only half of Leng Xiuming’s head remained. The powerful physique he had taken such pride in was gone without a trace.

“Brother… Baili… I want… to go back… to Mozhuang Mountain!”

With those words, Leng Xiuming closed his one remaining eye.

“Supreme Elder! Supreme Elder…” Cries of grief erupted all around.

Baili Zhangtu clenched his fists, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. Mozhuang Mountain was long gone. Six years ago, during a great war with the Demon Race, the Leng Clan of Mo Palace had fought desperately until Mozhuang Mountain, their ancestral home, was razed to the ground.

‘Demon Race… I swear I will slaughter you all!’ Baili Zhangtu vowed silently in his heart.

“Where are the disciples of the Leng Clan?” Baili Zhangtu asked in a somber voice.

From the once-mighty Leng Clan of Mo Palace, which had flourished in the Floating Shadow Realm, only a dozen or so voices replied, “We are here!”

“You will all honor Brother Leng’s last wish and take him home!”

The grief-stricken Leng Clan disciples all dropped to their knees. “Senior Baili, we wish to continue the slaughter of the Demon Race!”

“Silence! Say no more. Obey my command and go back at once!”

After entrusting Leng Xiuming’s body to the Leng Clan disciples, Baili Zhangtu immediately took out a spare Communication Talisman. He had to relay this news to the other two armies to prevent them from suffering the same fate.

Especially Fu Jiange’s army. They didn’t have a Body Cultivator like Leng Xiuming, one who possessed a Yang God capable of saving the world.

However, after sending the message, Baili Zhangtu was dumbfounded. Fu Jiange’s forces had also just finished a great battle, slaughtering nearly ten million Demon Soldiers, and Chimei had also escaped. But they hadn’t encountered the terrifying surge in Demonic Qi that Baili Zhangtu had described, nor had they faced a Destruction Array that cost millions of lives.

Meanwhile, the Yao Race army was still locked in a fierce battle, with endless Demon Soldiers swarming out from the city. They had already slaughtered a terrifying total of over fifty million Demon Soldiers.

That was also because the Yao Race had numerous experts among their ranks. ‘If my army had run into that, we would have been caught in an agonizingly bitter struggle,’ Baili Zhangtu thought.

But no matter how miserable it was, it couldn’t compare to the death of Brother Leng. At this thought, a sharp pain lanced through Baili Zhangtu’s heart again.

After sending the Leng Clan disciples away, Baili Zhangtu had his army regroup in the deep crater left by the explosion. He was waiting for the Yao Race’s battle to end before advancing along their planned route.

Late that night, after the battle had raged for nearly a full day and night, a message finally arrived from the Yao Race’s front.

Total Demon Soldiers slaughtered: over eighty million. Demon Marshal Chi Xiao fought and fled. Yao Race casualties were around ten percent.

Upon receiving the news, Baili Zhangtu sighed once more, then led his army forward.

Along the way, they passed numerous cities, all of them completely empty. There were no Demon Soldiers, not even a single worm. They were utterly devoid of any sign of life, just like the desolate and decaying worlds that, according to rumor, had been overrun by the Demon Race.

As the army advanced, the Demonic Qi between heaven and earth slowly thinned, indicating that the territory of the Demon Realm was shrinking.

This was an unprecedented event in the thousand-year history of the Floating Shadow Realm. For a millennium, the Demon Race’s domain had only ever expanded. There had once been sects comparable to the three great sects of today, but back then, the Human Race had not yet united, and those once-flourishing powers were all annihilated by the demonic invasion.

The army passed the former site of the Earth Profound Sect, which had also been one of the most powerful sects. The land was just as desolate, like a field of mottled, decaying rock. The Earth Profound Sect’s primary cultivation, the Earth Mother Heart Scripture, was a Supreme Technique of unparalleled combat strength, yet its home had been reduced to this.

‘If only the Human Race had united to resist the Demon Race back then, we wouldn’t be in this situation today.’

Thinking of this, Baili Zhangtu sighed again. ‘If the positions of the Heart Slaying Hall and the Earth Profound Sect had been swapped, I imagine the Heart Slaying Hall would have met the same fate.’

The three armies advanced into the depths of the Demon Realm in a pincer formation, and just as before, they met no resistance.

Baili Zhangtu recalled Chi Huang saying he would wait for them in Demon Abyss City. ‘Could the entire Demon Race have holed up in their main stronghold, Demon Abyss City?’ he wondered.

Meanwhile, on the other side of things, Chen Dong had already passed through the World of Fire, the mountains of ice, and the Wind’s Mountain Forest. He was now in the Earth Sand Dunes, seeking enlightenment.

An incredibly heavy sense of the earth pressed down on him, making it hard to breathe. Even when he transformed into lightning, the suffocating pressure remained. This was because this world consisted only of sand and earth-elemental Spiritual Qi. There was no sky; endless sand stretched upwards, as if he were sealed within a world made of grit.

If he hadn’t comprehended how to transform his body into law and had come directly to this Sands Realm, he would have been crushed to death in a matter of moments.

Liu Ling hadn’t lied to him; the difficulty was indeed skyrocketing. The previous Wind’s Mountain Forest had been manageable. Aside from the astral winds that could flay a person to death, there was also endless wood-elemental Spiritual Qi. But the Earth Sand Dunes were different. Beyond the earth-elemental Spiritual Qi, there was also dark-elemental Spiritual Qi. This was an extremely rare type of energy; among all the Cultivators he had ever met, he had never seen anyone with a Dark Spirit Root.

He could still catch his breath in the earth-elemental Spiritual Qi, but if the dark-elemental Spiritual Qi washed over him, he wouldn’t even have time to recover. It wasn’t that he couldn’t absorb this type of energy, but that his body seemed to reject it. His own Spirit Root thoroughly despised it.

If he were in a world that consisted entirely of dark-elemental Spiritual Qi, he wouldn’t just be suppressed—he would die from spiritual energy deprivation.