Though the Xi-Clan members were individually fierce and unafraid of death, now, with all but one of the seven leaders possessing absolute strength either absent or slain, they were utterly rudderless, scattering like headless flies, chaotic and without formation.
Meanwhile, the Mainland forces continued to pour in fresh reinforcements; the sheer volume of numbers offered them no advantage. Moreover, the true combat prowess of the Heaven’s Punishment Warriors inherently surpassed theirs. They had previously only been bogged down by the enemy’s numerical superiority, unable to break free, but after successive losses, even their greatest reliance—superior numbers—was now tipping into a massive disadvantage...
It was truly a lost cause!
Many still resisted desperately, but a portion had already begun scanning the horizons, preparing for a swift escape.
Overall, however, despite being on the defensive, the Xi-Clan had not yet reached the point of total collapse.
The battle raged fiercely on!
The casualty counts for both sides continued to climb!
Mei Xueyan, clad in white, was strikingly conspicuous. Her long sword moved like the wind, slaughtering enemies as easily as chopping melons and vegetables. Yet, her white attire remained utterly spotless. Even when copious amounts of blood splattered near her, it immediately slid away, leaving not even the slightest trace behind.
Innumerable blades and weapons from the Xi-Clan had struck her body, but Mei Xueyan seemed utterly unaffected. Forget injury; not even a single crease marked her clothes!
Even a full-force strike from the Supreme Heavenly Ninja seemed to slice through empty air, having absolutely no effect!
Wen Yu Xin Chou! (Warm Jade Heart Silk!)
Mei Xueyan suddenly realized the clothing she wore was an exceedingly rare and precious treasure!
It was not only impervious to water and fire, impenetrable to blades and spears, but even attacks from divine artifacts charged with the profound energy of a Saintly Venerable could not leave even a scratch upon the fabric, let alone injure her!
Recalling how Jun Mo Xie had insisted she wear this garment before the battle, a wave of genuine warmth surged through Mei Xueyan’s heart. Even amidst the fierce combat, her spirit felt as if she were strolling through a garden of a hundred blossoms with her beloved; her heart was filled only with blissful satisfaction.
This garment was Mo Xie’s sincere expression of his affection for her...
It is easy to acquire priceless treasures, but hard to find a true love; this invaluable garment gifted by her beloved held within it a sincerity and true heart that was most precious!
...
Observing the chaotic and brutal battle below, Jun Mo Xie frowned. His Kai Tian Zao Hua Gong (Creation of Heaven and Earth Art), having just leveled up, immediately spread out, and suddenly, countless tiny black snowflakes began to fall from the sky!
The black snowflakes were the very thing vexing the Xi-Clan—the Chaos Fire!
Jun Mo Xie, whose true essence and spiritual power had been fully replenished and significantly enhanced by his recent breakthrough, was pleasantly surprised to find that the Chaos Fire was now completely under his control, no longer requiring the assistance of the Hongjun Tower! This must be a benefit of this upgrade. Without hesitation, he unleashed it to the best of his ability!
The battlefield was currently a messy tangle of friend and foe. If it had been the old Jun Mo Xie, even if he could have deployed it, he wouldn't have dared. But now, under Jun Mo Xie's precise control, the Chaos Fire specifically targeted those two-headed, two-bodied Xi-Clan members, without the slightest deviation.
Although the descent of the Chaos Fire was slow, amidst such intense, close-quarters fighting, how many could truly evade it?
Countless piercing screams rose to shake the heavens.
A look of extreme coldness crossed Jun Mo Xie’s face as he prepared to unleash more Chaos Fire, when his mind suddenly spun, and the seventh level of the Hongjun Tower dramatically burst open. A line of text transformed into golden light and drilled into his mind.
“When Heaven and Earth first parted, the mystery of the Primordial Chaos; The Five Elements unite, borrowing the strength of wind and cloud; Yin and Yang circulate, life and death remain fixed; The bells and drums of the Nine Heavens sound, the Eight Directions yield way; The Soul awakens nine times, Heaven’s Will becomes My Will...”
Jun Mo Xie couldn't help but startle. Just as he prepared to delve into what power the Hongjun Tower had bestowed this time, a deafening, mountain-splitting roar erupted from the seventh level. A sudden bolt of electric light shot out with a swoosh, boring directly deep into the core of his soul!
The moment this streak of light entered, a sudden realization dawned in Jun Mo Xie’s heart: the power gained this time was the power of lightning he had long coveted!
The Power of Lightning! This was the ultimate, untamed force between Heaven and Earth, the ultimate power that made all others retreat!
The Heavenly Tribulation power accumulated within the Hongjun Tower for ages was, at this moment, entirely infused into Jun Mo Xie’s small world!
Jun Mo Xie rejoiced internally. Seeing that the defeat of the Xi-Clan below was sealed, with some already beginning to flee, and the Mainland Coalition relentlessly pursuing, he noted that despite the devastating casualties, the Xi-Clan still possessed over a hundred thousand fighting forces. However, they now utterly lacked any will to fight. If one fled, all fled—this truly proved the saying:
When an army is defeated, it collapses like a landslide!
Just as Jun Mo Xie was about to test the formidable might of his newly acquired lightning power, his white robes fluttered as he shot up into the air, catching up, and roared, "Let me handle this!"
He shook his hands, vibrated his body, and simultaneously conjured lightning talismans with both hands. Suddenly, with a tremendous crack, over a thousand dazzling white bolts of light shot down!
This purely exploratory attack yielded results comparable to a Heavenly Tribulation at the Venerable level! The nearly thousand Xi-Clan warriors were instantly reduced to piles of charred coke by that single thunderclap! Ordinary Xi-Clan members, at most at the Heaven Profound cultivation level, meeting a lightning tribulation equivalent to a Venerable level without warning, naturally had no hope of survival!
But this astonishing result was not enough to shock the entire field; what truly stunned everyone was the sudden, unprecedented lightning tribulation itself!
Hundreds of thousands of people across the entire battlefield looked up simultaneously. No one could have conceived, let alone understood, how such a massive thunderstorm could suddenly strike in a clear sky with not a single cloud present, instantly killing so many!
While everyone craned their necks to look up, Jun Mo Xie roared, "Thunder Moves the Nine Heavens!"
With a boom, another mass of dazzling white electric light descended.
Immediately following, Jun Mo Xie bellowed like thunder, ceaselessly: "One Thunder Shakes the World!"
"Lightning Startles Heaven and Earth!"
"Raging Thunder in a Thousand Coils!"
"Golden Tribulation Thunder Roar!"
"Divine Thunder Descends!"
"World-Ending Raging Thunder!"
...
By the end, the bolts of lightning light that Jun Mo Xie casually flung had transformed into purple! Their immense power was unprecedented and terrifying! From the fall of the first bolt to the final peal of thunder echoing between heaven and earth, the entire process took no more than the time it takes for half an incense stick to burn. Yet, of the remaining roughly one hundred thousand Xi-Clan troops, only a mere less than twenty thousand stragglers remained!
Over a hundred thousand soldiers had been reduced to ash under the relentless barrage of lightning!
The remaining fewer than twenty thousand scattered across the area were so terrified they forgot how to run, their faces ashen, trembling violently. This dispersal meant that neither the lightning power nor the Chaos Fire would be very effective.
"The morale of the Xi-Clan scum is broken. Everyone put in half your strength and kill the rest! Leave not a single one! Settle this once and for all!" Jun Mo Xie stood suspended in the void, coldly commanding.
"Yes!" The hundreds of thousands of Mainland Coalition troops below roared back excitedly.
At this moment, the Lord of Evil, standing in the air amidst brilliant light, looked like a divine being!
No! At this moment, Jun Mo Xie was a divine being!
It turned out their side had the assistance of a god, one who could not only wield the strange flames capable of incinerating heaven and earth, but could now also command wind and cloud and control lightning, easily annihilating the enemy with effortless thunderous tribulations! Such a miracle provided an incomparably huge boost to the morale of the Mainland Coalition!
Many soldiers who had fallen due to injuries managed to support themselves and stand up again, as if filled with an inexplicable strength, shouting war cries as they charged forward!
The battle was decided!
At that very instant, a tremendous, earth-shattering roar echoed from the distance!
As the booming sound arrived, the ground beneath their feet trembled, and massive stones weighing several thousand catties actually lifted off the earth. Tianzhu Mountain, already utterly ruined, began to shake again, sending rocks tumbling down...
Several volcanoes that had ceased erupting earlier began spewing black smoke once more!
The sudden, violent tremor had reached this magnitude!
And the direction from which the sound originated was at least several thousand li away from their location!
So far away, yet capable of causing such an impact?!
Jun Mo Xie frowned, gazing into the distance, muttering inwardly.
That place... that must be where the Fourteenth Young Master of the Nine Hells went!
Did something go wrong? With the abilities of the Fourteenth Young Master of the Nine Hells, that shouldn't happen...
"Everyone, clean up the battlefield and tend to the wounded. I will go check over there," Jun Mo Xie said, his tall, straight figure flashing out of sight in the air.
As Jun Mo Xie flew rapidly, he saw a dark figure approaching from the distant south like the wind, enveloped in billowing Nine Hells demonic energy. Following behind were two figures, who whistled through the wind and clouds in hot pursuit. However, upon reaching five hundred li from Tianzhu Mountain, they abruptly halted their advance.
"Fourteenth Young Master of the Nine Hells! If you have the guts to kill, don't be a coward and run away!" one of them cursed out loud, his voice thick with inexpressible grief and indignation. "Do you simply disregard the rules of the Jianghu? Do you have any of the spirit of a successor of the Nine Hells?! You coward!"
The Nine Hells demonic energy ahead fluctuated, and a cold voice replied, "Go to hell with your Jianghu rules! Do you think this young master is an idiot? When the three of you shameless curs teamed up to ambush this young master, where were your discussions of Jianghu righteousness? If we're talking rules, in a one-on-one fight, this young master would have already smashed all three of you into scattered bones! Hmph! Now that you’ve suffered a loss, you talk about propriety? Talk about your grandmother’s backside! If you have the guts, come over here, and I’ll talk rules with you!"
Amidst the curses, his forward momentum did not slow; instead, he accelerated.
From the tone of his voice, it was clear the Fourteenth Young Master of the Nine Hells was boiling with anger...
"Good! Well said, excellent cursing! You’re cackling beautifully!" Jun Mo Xie abruptly stopped his flight, revealing himself directly in front of the Fourteenth Young Master of the Nine Hells, wearing a wide grin. "I truly didn't expect Brother Fourteen's skill at verbal abuse was this superb; Mo Xie is utterly impressed!"
"Impressed my foot!" The Fourteenth Young Master of the Nine Hells had disheveled hair, his black robe torn open, his mouth askew as he cursed, "That damned Saint Lord bastard! He tricked this young master into going for a duel with some so-called Great Power! Damn it, what was waiting there were three Half-Saints! Three shameless Xi-Clan curs attacked me at once... If this young master hadn't still had a few tricks up his sleeve, I almost fell for their scheme!"