“Junior, you are far too presumptuous.” The Night Emperor let out a wild laugh. “When I, the Night Emperor, first made my name, you hadn't even been born yet. To think you could make this Emperor surrender to a mere junior like you is the height of delusion. There’s no need for further words. Victory is for the strong; let me show you what true madness is.”

The Night Emperor engaged the Purgatory Demon King with a desperate, mutually destructive tactic. But the Purgatory Demon King, currently holding the advantage, had no intention of fighting to the death with him. His aura immediately weakened, and he was suppressed by the Night Emperor. The Night Emperor, ever the trickster, feigned a strike, deliberately weathering a blow from the Demon King. In a flash, he tore through the void, appearing before Lei Dong as if by instantaneous travel. His strangely shaped scythe ripped open space, trailing a long arc of light as it slashed down viciously toward Lei Dong. He sneered, “Brat, you ruined my grand plan. Even if I die, I’ll drag you along as company.” Unable to find Mei'er, he had to vent his rage on Lei Dong, his second greatest target.

From the moment he began his offer of surrender, Lei Dong had focused his entire attention on the Night Emperor, fully aware that provoking him might drive the latter to desperately take him down as a final act. Without changing his expression, Lei Dong silently recoiled, his form slipping into the fractured void, narrowly evading the fatal strike.

Hiss, hiss. He flicked out two precise bursts of finger energy, striking directly toward the enemy. Would the Night Emperor deign to notice the finger energy from a mere mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, one not even fully ascended? He scoffed, neither blocking nor evading, choosing instead to press his attack: “Little…”

Puff, puff~

The two streams of finger energy pierced his defensive aura, drilling two clean holes right through him. Blood sprayed, and though the lingering force was insufficient, only embedding a few inches deep—a mere scratch—it brought the Night Emperor not only shock but also profound humiliation. A mighty Void Refinement expert wounded by the finger energy of a mere Nascent Soul brat.

Just as he prepared to pursue Lei Dong, intending to tear him to shreds, the sidelined Purgatory Demon King arrived at the opportune moment. He roared in fury and unleashed a Blazing Flame Blade, an attack so potent its very momentum could collapse mountains: “Night Emperor. Your opponent is this King.”

Knowing the Purgatory Demon King’s formidable strength, the Night Emperor dared not ignore him. He had to temporarily abandon Lei Dong and shift his entire focus onto the Demon King. After several lightning-fast exchanges, he found himself at a disadvantage under the Demon King’s relentless assault.

“Everyone move! Quickly surround and kill the Night Emperor!” Seeing that the battle on the Nascent Soul side was settled, and realizing there was no chance of the Night Emperor yielding, Lei Dong immediately issued the command to encircle and slay.

Lei Dong never liked to drag things out. Moreover, he clearly understood that the longer the delay, the higher the probability of incurring unwanted casualties on his side.

Following Commander Lei’s order, every single weapon was aimed squarely at the Night Emperor. A single Nascent Soul expert, even one at the late or peak stage, would never concern the Night Emperor. But over a hundred Nascent Soul cultivators formed an overwhelming advantage through sheer numbers.

Even in the wilderness, a single Void Refinement expert would hesitate to provoke a team composed of a hundred Nascent Soul cultivators. A direct confrontation, even if they managed to kill a portion of the attackers, would at best leave the expert heavily injured, or worse, result in their demise.

Furthermore, this battle was not as simple as a hundred Nascent Soul experts against one Void Refinement master. There was another equally powerful Void Refinement expert on the sidelines acting as a check. Even if the Night Emperor was ferociously powerful—a rare Void Refinement master—the Purgatory Demon King was his equal. If the Night Emperor dared to divert his attention to the Nascent Souls, the Demon King would make him suffer terribly.

What’s more, a Void Refinement expert simply could not kill a Nascent Soul cultivator in a short time unless they fought with every ounce of their power.

Caught in the massive encirclement, the Night Emperor became thoroughly miserable. Faced with a bizarre array of potent attacks, he could only dodge as best he could; when evasion was impossible, he had to tank the hits. While the ranged magical attacks from the Nascent Soul experts couldn't breach his formidable defenses to cause serious harm, even ants in a swarm could overwhelm an elephant, let alone a group of Nascent Soul masters, each of whom was a terrifying entity capable of shattering continents and flattening peaks.

With a large contingent of formidable Nascent Soul experts besieging him, the Purgatory Demon King could unleash his full potential. He wielded the Blazing Flame Blade—a deeply inherited innate spiritual treasure of the Purgatory Demon Clan—with grand, sweeping movements, its Nine Yang True Fire scorching the very fabric of space until it warped.

As for Lei Dong, during his earlier flurry where he killed over ten foes, he had mostly relied on the Yin Fiend Lightning supplied by Wan Yan, supplemented by timely use of elixirs and spirit stones. Thus, both his True Essence and Divine Sense were at peak vigor. He calmly, deliberately, inserted a single Finger of Immortal Slaying into the onslaught every now and then, inflicting calculated damage upon the Night Emperor.

However, the majority of his attention was fixed on guarding against the Night Emperor’s desperate, retaliatory attacks, preventing him from cornering them. Indeed, the Night Emperor was now at the end of his rope, filled not just with rage but an overwhelming desire for vengeance. Killing the Purgatory Demon King, an equal, was out of the question, but he could certainly take some Nascent Soul experts down with him.

The women deeply connected to Lei Dong, such as Tian Mo, became his prime targets for martyrdom, and he seemed willing to endure further injury to take them down. Yet, just as the Night Emperor endured some incoming attacks, preparing to lash out at a target, Lei Dong would activate his True Word Incantation, binding him in spatial shackles.

Although given the vast disparity in power, Lei Dong could only hold him for a second or two, that brief moment was ample time for the surrounding masters to flee or execute numerous maneuvers. A continuous downpour of various control and offensive spells bombarded the Night Emperor.

A Void Refinement expert is not immortal. Typically, they could only handle a one-on-one fight against dozens of Nascent Soul cultivators. After this round of bombardment, all of the Night Emperor’s defenses were shattered, and both his physical body and nascent soul suffered grievous wounds.

“Blazing Heaven Inferno.” The Purgatory Demon King, a veteran of countless battles, was a master at seizing opportunity. Seeing the Night Emperor paralyzed, he brewed up his ultimate technique. The Nine Yang True Fire filling the sky converged into a highly condensed, potent strike that slammed squarely into the Night Emperor.

Unlike his earlier displays when at the Nascent Soul stage, the power of this attack was several times greater. The Night Emperor, already half-dead, was blasted from the sky down into the earth, carving a massive crater into the hard, jagged rock below.

However, a Void Refinement expert remains a Void Refinement expert; his vitality was impossibly resilient. Even after absorbing so much damage, the Night Emperor was only grievously wounded, not yet at the point of death.

But under such disadvantageous circumstances, no matter how strong his life force, recovery was impossible. Roaring repeatedly, he tried to summon Ba Chong and Du Ya for aid. But the Nether Ghost Emperor and the King of Radiance were no easy foes; they immediately deployed a series of control spells, locking down the other two tightly.

After another fifteen minutes, the Void Refinement master who once held sway over the Six Domains and Nine Continents finally fell under the final strike of Lei Dong’s Black Dragon Chant. His body exploded, and his nascent soul, cornered by the encirclement, had not the slightest chance to escape.

Lei Dong sealed the Night Emperor’s nascent soul within a transparent Soul Sealing Sphere and examined it closely. Unlike the Nascent Soul spirits he had captured before, the nascent soul of a Void Refinement expert was already solidified, virtually indistinguishable from a true body.

The very concept of Void Refinement was the gradual etherealization of a mature nascent soul, ultimately aiming for the unity of man and spirit.

Even through the Soul Sealing Sphere, Lei Dong could sense the boundless life force emanating from it. He believed that if he tossed it into the Chaos Soul Devouring Pagoda, it could likely yield many Chaos Crystals in one go.

Of course, for Lei Dong, a Void Refinement nascent soul was far more valuable than mere Chaos Crystals at this moment. For his first captured Void Refinement soul, refining it into Chaos Crystals was out of the question. Simply refining it into a Shielded Ghost Soldier would likely grant it at least mid-stage Nascent Soul combat power.

This was not the right time to deal with the Void Refinement spirit. Lei Dong shifted his attention to the two Demon Realm generals. They too were in a pitiful state; experts of their caliber could sweep across a region even in a place like the Three Realms.

Had they truly manifested in the Six Domains and Nine Continents, they would be comparable to Celestial Gods. But here they were, caught in a life-or-death situation, stumbling into the battlefield between Lei Dong and the Night Emperor, and ultimately falling into this miserable predicament due to carelessness.

Since ancient times, few who had their minds controlled by a Mind Demon met a good end. The King of Radiance was an exception, but even he was near the end of his lifespan; even consuming Divine Life Water would only grant him a few extra days.

To subdue these two experts controlled by Mind Demons was now clearly impossible. Following the Night Emperor’s death, both had descended into madness. It was evident that the Night Emperor had destroyed the artifact controlling the Mind Demons before his demise.

Once such an object was destroyed, the controlled Mind Demons would revert to their primal state of madness and savagery, a process that could not be reversed. Since subjugation was impossible, Lei Dong unhesitatingly ordered the execution of these two Void Refinement Demon Generals.

Compared to the Night Emperor, these two frenzied Void Refinement Demon Generals, while still formidable, posed no threat of complex trickery to Lei Dong. A direct, full-force assault, unleashing all their spells, was all that was needed. Amidst a continuous barrage of roars, the two Demon Generals, who had failed on their very first expedition, perished.

After the fighting ceased, Lei Dong’s back was completely drenched in sweat. However, his heart was brimming with exhilarating satisfaction. To wipe out eighty Nascent Soul cultivators and three Void Refinement masters in one go—such a record brought him extreme elation. But the greatest satisfaction came from the spoils.