The demonic cultivators were busy blocking the bridge and counter-blocking, Tianmomen was leisurely clearing the outer regions, and Hua Jian and Linglong were watching the show right before their eyes.
Truly, everyone had a bright future ahead of them.
In the blink of an eye, many days had passed, and this brutal war between demonic paths had finally reached its conclusion.
At first, the two sides had been evenly matched, but the three demonic cultivators holding the city wall were ultimately too few in number.
When faced with an endless tide of demonic cultivators surging toward them like crashing waves, their spiritual power and stamina began to show signs of faltering.
The more desperately they blocked the demonic cultivators from getting close, the more the demonic cultivators wanted to take them down.
The reasoning was simple—if so many people couldn’t take this city wall, and these three were allowed to catch their breath and keep blocking, wouldn’t the demonic cultivators really be trapped inside the secret realm forever?
Other opponents might potentially kill them and then divide the spoils, maybe even coexisting peacefully afterward.
But these three were genuinely killing them, right here and now.
Since you want to block the entire map, we’ll show you the price of doing so!
If you want to swallow the whole map, then be prepared to fight through the entire map!
Without that kind of strength, attempting something that would doom everyone—who gave you the guts?
Truth be told, the three demonic cultivators holding the city wall were already incredibly powerful.
In a one-on-one duel, there probably wasn’t a single team in the entire secret realm that could match them—even Tianmomen wouldn’t stand a chance.
After all, Tianmomen’s average combat power wasn’t particularly outstanding. They rampaged through the outside world purely through sheer numbers.
The problem these three demonic cultivators faced was simply too many enemies.
Beat back one team, and another would charge right in.
The surrounding siege teams had even figured out a pattern—they rotated fresh fighters in at set intervals, grinding down their condition through a relentless wheel battle.
The besieging cultivators could retreat and rest, but the defenders on the wall couldn’t.
It was essentially like fighting an opponent with infinite HP and stamina cheats.
These three demonic cultivators had tried ways to break the deadlock—for instance, focusing their fire on a few of the besiegers to disrupt the enemy’s rotation cycle.
But their opponents weren’t stupid. They never gave them that chance.
The best result the focused attacks achieved was forcing the targeted cultivators to burn their protective spirit artifacts.
Those protective spirit artifacts were valuable—one use, one gone—but it did nothing to help the bridge-blocking team’s situation.
As their condition deteriorated, their ability to hold back the enemy grew weaker and weaker.
Everyone realized this battle was almost over.
The demonic cultivators gathered in silent coordination and launched their final all-out assault against the cultivators on the wall.
After a full day of intense fighting, only one of the three bridge-blocking demonic cultivators managed to escape in a sorry state.
In exchange, the allied forces lost four members to the dying throes of the blocking team, with three more suffering injuries of varying severity.
Clearly, those three demonic cultivators had real skill. Even in bad shape and massively outnumbered, they’d managed to trade at such an impressive ratio.
This made the victorious demonic cultivators feel somewhat fortunate—glad they hadn’t hesitated and had joined forces to take that team down.
If they’d kept fighting amongst themselves like that, raising a Gu King through internal strife, that Gu King probably would’ve been kicked to death by this team in the end.
Now, everything was fine. The strongest team in the secret realm had been eliminated, and they could do whatever they wanted!
The demonic cultivator teams still in decent condition had begun casting furtive glances at the battle-damaged teams.
With their common enemy eliminated, the remaining teams had once again become enemies of one another.
But they didn’t dare make a move for now. If they suddenly lashed out, they’d likely be dogpiled by the injured teams and end up with nothing good either.
They harbored thoughts of backstabbing and betrayal, and the battle-damaged teams naturally feared being stabbed in the back by these so-called “allies.”
For a moment, the atmosphere on the battered city tower grew extremely tense.
Any slight disturbance, and the flames of war could reignite right here.
Finally, after intense discussion, the battle-damaged teams reached a temporary alliance.
They announced they wouldn’t stay here any longer—they were going to activate the secret realm’s transmission array mechanism.
It was already the seventh day since the secret realm had opened.
For them to go activate the teleportation gate now meant they were declaring they wouldn’t compete with the fully intact teams anymore.
We’re heading out first. If you want to come along, come along. If not, this is your last chance.
The intact teams naturally weren’t too happy about this, but still suspicious of one another, they had to consider that the injured cultivators were numerous and had a stronger basis for cooperation.
odds of losing if they forced a fight were far from negligible.
Not to mention, there were two full teams in good condition present, and they balanced each other out.
Neither dared to make the first move to stop the injured teams from leaving.
In terms of numbers, the combined combat strength of the injured teams was only one person fewer than the two intact teams together.
If they fought to the death, neither side would come out ahead.
Their own teams also had injured members—they were just in slightly better shape than the damaged teams.
Under this balance of power, they accepted the arrangement.
It wasn’t a loss for them anyway. Staying here meant they could attack or retreat as needed.
Once those damaged teams opened the teleportation gate, they’d have an escape route too.
After the deal was struck, the damaged teams didn’t dare linger.
They immediately gathered their people and left the city tower, while the remaining two full teams watched each other warily, afraid that once the third party left, the other might launch a surprise attack.
With this mutual distrust, there was no way they could join forces to block the bridge—which was exactly why the damaged teams dared to go pull the gate and retreat.
If only these two teams remained in the secret realm, the result might be the three factions pulling at each other endlessly, none daring to make a move, and finally leaving the secret realm hand in hand.
Or perhaps one team would be bolder and greedier, choosing not to take the second gate but the final one, timing their escape just as the secret realm collapsed.
Unfortunately, all of these scenarios had one prerequisite: there could be no force in the secret realm more powerful and vicious than they were.
And that prerequisite did not exist.
They had defeated the boss blocking the bridge, never realizing the true boss had already crept right up to their doorstep.
The “lone wolf” from the bridge-blocking team who had been driven off, and the damaged teams heading to pull the gate—one after another, they fell into that bottomless maw, chewed down to nothing but bone fragments.
……
“Tsk tsk tsk, I almost feel sorry for these folks. They worked so hard, even gnawed through the toughest bone, only to discover there’s an illegal party-formation group lurking in the secret realm.”
Watching the damaged teams walk straight into Tianmomen’s ambush, Hua Jian couldn’t help but let out a sigh for these unlucky bastards.
But life was just like that—unpredictable.
She could only sigh as she watched these people get caught off guard by hidden spirit tools, then buried by Tianmomen’s cultivators who kicked them while they were down.
They were wiped out in short order.
Fighting from a position of rest, catching the enemy off guard, overwhelming them with numbers—with so many advantages stacked together, if Tianmomen still couldn’t secure a quick victory, they might as well not use the Tianmomen name.
They should just off themselves to avoid tarnishing the sect’s reputation.
“We don’t need to stop them?” Watching the one-sided massacre displayed through Hua Jian’s projection, Linglong asked with a frown.
Although it was demonic cultivators killing demonic cultivators, the killers were Tianmomen’s cultivators.
She felt Hua Jian shouldn’t be taking this so casually.
Wasn’t Tianmomen their greatest enemy?
“Why would I stop them? Their lives are in my hands right now. The more people they kill for me, the happier I am.”
Hua Jian rolled her eyes, indicating she wished Tianmomen would clear out the entire secret realm.
That way, the blame for wiping out all the cultivators in the secret realm couldn’t possibly be pinned on her.
You Tianmomen people are so bloodthirsty, you got addicted to killing and forgot to pull the gate on time—how can you blame me for that?
Our Wanhuagu hasn’t done anything! If you want someone to blame, blame Tianmomen. They’re the root of all evil.
“Besides, we still need them to get their hands on the Demon Corpse Crystal. That’s the only way to lure out the big fish from Tianmomen and force them to make a move to snatch the crystal.”
We have to let Tianmomen take the bait of the Demon Corpse Crystal, right? Otherwise, why would Tianmomen’s big fish bite?
And for Tianmomen to find the Demon Corpse Crystal, killing people and clearing the map is something they absolutely must do.
“But they probably don’t know yet that there aren’t many days left in the secret realm. If they don’t pull the gate soon, they won’t be able to get out at all.”
Standing within the secret realm, Hua Jian was keenly aware of how large her little darlings planted in the realm had grown.
She had originally estimated the secret realm would be destroyed after fifteen days, but things were worse than she’d thought.
After receiving the stimulation from the transmission array, the growth rate of those colored branches had accelerated dramatically.
Now they had already enveloped the entire secret realm—the outer region had completely fallen.
The expansion speed of the colored foliage wasn’t a straight line but an exponential curve.
As its mass increased, the rate of expansion grew correspondingly faster.
Now, Hua Jian estimated the secret realm couldn’t last more than five days.
The time left for the demonic cultivators to work with was running out fast.
If the demonic cultivators were still planning their schedule around the original fifteen-day timeline, then when they went to pull the gate, they’d find the mechanism point already devoured by the colored foliage. They would never be able to leave this place.
It seemed they had no idea how dire the situation was. Getting them to pull the gate and flee right now was even less likely.
Tianmomen had entered the secret realm with a mission.
If they came back empty-handed, they’d definitely be punished by their superiors—possibly even executed on the spot.
Even though these demonic cultivators hadn’t received a single coin of mission funding and had done everything through their own effort.
The demonic sect wasn’t a place that operated on reason. If you fail your mission, you get punished.
There were no excuses to be made.
Especially excuses like cowardice—that would only add fuel to the fire, making the Tianmomen high echelon’s rage burn even hotter.