With the Boundary-Crossing Ruler in his possession and having mastered the Dao art of Void Flicker, Yaoguang's speed had been pushed to the absolute extreme.
A squad from the Tianshang Battle Hall had only just transmitted their intelligence when his silhouette already materialized at the coordinates they provided.
Under the stunned gazes of the squad members, he accelerated once more, descending right behind the rank-nine great demon they had targeted.
Before the rank-nine great demon could react in the slightest, the sword light of the Swimming Dragon Sword followed the ethereal ripples of the void, piercing forth as if from nothingness to sweep silently past its body, shattering its head on the spot.
Having finished this, Yaoguang gave a nod to the squad members. "Dismantle the corpse."
The next instant, his figure vanished from their sight.
The entire process had taken merely a breath or two.
Only then did the other members of the squad finally snap out of it.
Watching the great demon's corpse before it even tumbled into the sea, two team members hurriedly stepped forward to collect it.
The materials from a rank-nine great demon were worth a fortune. Even for ninth-level Golden Core experts, they represented substantial wealth, let alone for cultivators like them at the seventh or eighth levels of the Golden Core Realm.
"So fast! So powerful!"
"Void Piercing... This is the power to warp the void wielded by a Void Piercing powerhouse."
"Does this junior sect master always act with such thunderous swiftness? And he really came out in person to hunt down these rank-nine great demons?"
The eyes of several squad members were filled with astonishment.
Some found it especially unbelievable that Yaoguang would personally hunt monsters.
After all, for those in high positions, having subordinates do the legwork while they hoarded the benefits was the normal order of things.
Yaoguang...
With his exalted status as junior sect master, he had actually hunted rank-nine great demons with his own hands?!
Didn't that mean...
What he had mentioned earlier about distributing the treasures redeemed with contribution points to them was also true?
At that thought, the members of the battle hall were instantly filled with fighting spirit.
***
On the other side, Yaoguang did not pause in the least after slaying the rank-nine great demon. Continuing to flicker across space, he charged toward the coordinates provided by another squad.
Before long, all the rank-nine great demons scattered across this region had been wiped out.
With that done, without pausing for a moment, he drew upon the power of the Boundary-Crossing Ruler once more and appeared at Qi Sha's coordinates.
In the distance ahead of him and several dozen battle hall disciples, an island loomed faintly into view.
The island was only a few li across, appearing unremarkable amid the vast, deep sea. Yet the portion hidden beneath the waves had long since been hollowed out by the demons and fortified with layer upon layer of formations, forming a formidable demon lair.
"Hall Master," Qi Sha spoke up. "We do not know what perils lie hidden within this demon lair. For safety's sake, let me lead a team down first..."
"No need. As I said, if I am to win the battle hall's respect as hall master, I must lead from the front." Yaoguang waved his hand dismissively.
As he spoke, he turned his gaze toward the demon lair. Grotto-heaven power capable of permeating the void, intertwined with True Spirit power, silently seeped toward the island.
Relying on his innate Child of the Void trait alongside his attainments as a level-ten formation master, he soon deciphered the structure of the submerged demon lair.
After brief contemplation, he settled on a plan. "We don't need to delve into this lair at all. Flooding seawater will force them out from the subterranean depths."
On the Beihai Star, countless substances had undergone mutations under the permeation of spiritual energy and the influence of mysterious powers. A single stone or blade of grass brought to the outside world could serve as material for refining spirit artifacts, and the sea waters were naturally no exception.
The currents in these waters were largely composed of Heavenly One True Water and Dark Nether Heavy Water. Crashing down layer upon layer, even rank-nine great demons could barely withstand them, let alone ordinary demons.
Having formulated his plan, Yaoguang waved his hand through empty air. The Swimming Dragon Sword soared skyward, effortlessly stirring ripples across the void.
However, unlike the void tsunami provoked during his previous Sky-Cleaving Strikes, all the void ripples this time were compressed and refined layer upon layer by him until finally...
...they formed a slender, razor-thin Void Sword capable of severing all things.
"Is this... an offensive void Dao art?!" Qi Sha recognized it immediately.
The might of this Void Sword was likely not inferior to the Extinction Sword Light he cultivated.
Moreover, his Dao of Destruction specialized in obliterating targets outright; when it came to breaching defenses and breaking formations, it was clearly no match for a Void Sword capable of cleaving empty space itself.
The instant the Void Sword coalesced, without the slightest hesitation—before many Golden Core cultivators of the Tianshang Battle Hall could even see it clearly—the slender blade cleaved downward toward the island below with enough momentum to slice space in two.
When the void blade cut into the island, it did not even trigger much of a tremor. Though it kicked up some dust and splashed a bit of water around the shores, compared to the cataclysmic, crushing descent of a Sky-Cleaving Strike, it appeared almost silent.
Yet shortly after this seemingly soundless strike struck home, the depths of the seabed began to shudder in unison.
Violent rumblings provoked a cataclysmic shift, causing the ocean surface to churn as if boiling over, roaring relentlessly.
From within the island, plumes of demonic aura leaked out from time to time.
It seemed all the formations had been sliced apart and shattered, leaving the demons unable to even conceal their presence.
Yet sensing the fully arrayed Tianshang Battle Hall waiting upon the surface, the demons dared not surface at all. Instead, they exerted every ounce of strength to salvage the formations within the lair, attempting to hold out behind them.
In merely moments, however, the tremors welling up from the seabed grew ever more intense. In the depths, a terrifying energy seemed to be coalescing, on the verge of erupting.
Practicing the Dao of Destruction, Qi Sha sensed the truth immediately. "The junior sect master's Dao art didn't just cleave the sea—it sliced right through the seabed bedrock! The apocalyptic magma trapped beneath is about to erupt..."
As he spoke, the temperature across the seabed skyrocketed. The surrounding waters began boiling furiously as steam billowed upward, and a blazing crimson glow surged from the depths, expanding rapidly...
"Fall back!" Seeing this, Qi Sha barked an urgent order, leading the cultivators of the Tianshang Battle Hall to retreat.
At the same time, the demons appeared to realize the true objective of that strike: to trigger an underwater volcanic eruption and thoroughly obliterate the lair they had painstakingly built.
With the eruption imminent, powerless to stop it, their only hope of avoiding being wiped out in one fell swoop was to break out. Beams of cyan light carrying thick demonic aura surged madly from the seabed, scattering in every direction in a desperate bid to escape.
Standing upon the sea surface like a patient hunter, however, Yaoguang manipulated the Swimming Dragon Sword, slaughtering every demon rushing up from the depths.
One by one, pair by pair, he reaped them all without mercy.
Before long, his Swimming Dragon Sword was no longer content to merely wait at the surface for demons to throw themselves into the net; it plunged directly into the ocean depths, parting the waters to execute one demon after another.
Although there was no shortage of rank-nine great demons among them—some with combat power likely exceeding one million—...
...compared to the current Yaoguang, the gap was simply too vast.
Consequently, from the very beginning, the battle was practically a one-sided massacre.
"Combat power: 15.41 million." Qi Sha checked with a detecting device.
This figure was not far from his own 18.11 million.
Yet he knew full well this was by no means Yaoguang's full strength.
After all, his opponents were merely ordinary demons, the strongest being only a few rank-nine great demons; there was no way they could force him to display his full might.
Yet even under such circumstances, Yaoguang's combat power reached 15.41 million...
Just how terrifying would his true strength be?
Especially considering...
...he had attained the Void Piercing Realm a mere six years ago!
"Six years... His strength is likely already on par with mine. Accumulating over time to erupt forth—a true breakthrough through deep foundation. No wonder the peak masters, lineage masters, the sect master, and supreme elders all believe that he is certain to achieve Void Refining within a century at best, or several centuries at worst," Qi Sha reflected inwardly.
Word was that this junior sect master Yaoguang had been cultivating for less than a century!
To match in under a century the achievements that had taken him a millennium...
There really was no comparing one person to another.
One had to know that back in his day, Qi Sha had also been acclaimed as one of the most outstanding true disciples of his generation. It was precisely because of this that he was proud and arrogant, refusing the olive branches extended by any peak master or lineage master.
Aristocratic clans? Powerful lineages?
He, Qi Sha, was his own clan, his own lineage!
It was that very pride that led him to join the battle hall later on, wasting several centuries.
Even after centuries spent idling away, he still firmly believed that with his talent, he would one day achieve Void Refining—and do so through the Dao of Destruction. Once in the Void Refining Realm, he would stand at the pinnacle of combat and slaughter.
Yet now, looking at Yaoguang...
His confidence, his pride, had begun to waver faintly.
*Whoosh!*
In less than half an hour, the Swimming Dragon Sword returned to Yaoguang's hand.
Within the demon lair, not a trace of demonic aura remained.
"Take inventory of the spoils," Yaoguang instructed.
Immediately, the cultivators of the Tianshang Battle Hall dove swiftly into the sea, braving the scorching heat to bring out the demon corpses one after another.
Not only were the corpses inherently valuable, but they also served as proof to claim Demon-Slaying Hall contributions from the Penglai Immortal Sect.
Of course, the Demon-Slaying Hall did not strictly require physical corpses to award contributions; footage recorded on shadow-recording stones would suffice as well.
However, when destroying an entire demon lair, discerning exactly how many great demons had been slain from shadow-recording stones alone was difficult, so bringing along the corpses made calculation far simpler.
One by one, the Tianshang Battle Hall cultivators plunged into the seabed, swiftly hauling out corpse after corpse.
Rank-seven, rank-eight, and rank-nine great demons—they had them all.
There were so many that under ordinary circumstances, tracking them down one by one would take half a year to a year.
Before long, a Void Piercing Battle Immortal brought over a great demon resembling a sharkman, encircled with scarlet scales.
"Hall Master, look. This is one of the demon race's specialized subraces: a Scarlet Scale Demon!"
The Void Piercing Battle Immortal spoke with a somber expression. "In a sense, Scarlet Scale Demons are equivalent to those with special constitutions among our human race—specifically, spatial constitutions. They are exceptionally perceptive to the void and have always been the demon race's experts in constructing teleportation formations. Moreover, Scarlet Scale Demons always appear in pairs to calibrate the specific coordinates between two teleportation formations."
"You mean that since there is a Scarlet Scale Demon here, there must be another demon lair at its corresponding location?" Yaoguang asked.
"Yes. One of the young men in our Tianshang Battle Hall has mastered a secret technique that can use this Scarlet Scale Demon to sense the location of its counterpart, allowing us to find the other demon lair."
"Then what are we waiting for? Track it down," Yaoguang said without hesitation. "Clearing out demon lairs is far more efficient than hunting down scattered demons one by one."
"Wait," Qi Sha interjected. "This lair is close to the inner sea and seems newly established, so there was no Void Piercing demon king presiding over it. But that might not be the case for other nests."
"A Void Piercing demon king..." Yaoguang glanced at him. "Are you afraid?"
Qi Sha paused slightly, then replied, "Just a demon king. It's not as if I haven't killed one before."
"Then that's all that matters."
Yaoguang checked the growth progress of the [Immortal Path · Void Refining] branch...
Clearing out just one more demon lair—even one without a Void Piercing demon king—would be just about enough.
Chapter 331