Bang—bang

Both demonic flood-dragon heads exploded as arrows punched straight through them, obliterating even their souls.

The two clones plunged into the pack next. Heaven-Eater and Golden Sabre—white and gold blades of light—began hacking without pause.

Ye Liuyun instantly unleashed a tide of lightning, recalling the world-annihilating force of his lightning intent. A sea of apocalyptic tribulation thunder crashed into the nearest wave of flood-dragons, charring them black. Those behind recoiled, their charge faltering.

He slipped into the void to pull back, letting his flesh recover; the beasts surged forward.

With a dragon roar, Long Nü erupted in draconic might that cowed the flood-dragons. Lei Ming hammered a ninth-level flood-dragon with a fist wrapped in demonic qi and lightning, sending it howling.

Nine-Headed Demonic Dragon swept a beam of white light and erased two more. Vermilion Bird opened her crimson pupils—illusion and soul strike—killing another early ninth-level beast. Snow Wolf raked his claws at yet another.

Every beast except the two puppets and the two captive cultivators picked targets at seventh or eighth level, striking only what they could handle. The two Black Tortoises ripped the inner cores out of two seventh-level flood-dragons in a single motion.

Ye Liuyun dove back in, cleaving with the Demon-Slayer Sabre while launching soul attacks. His soul blade plunged into flood-dragon seas of consciousness, shredded their souls, morphed into a Heaven-Swallowing Beast to devour them, then swept the corpses into storage.

With the two strongest dead on arrival and more elites falling fast, Ye Liuyun and his clones carved a bloody swath; the entire pack broke.

Long Nü activated Frenzied Dragon Combat Arts—every flood-dragon she met died. Vermilion Bird’s soul attacks, the metal puppet, and the two cultivators faced almost no resistance.

Vermilion Bird followed Long Nü in a sweeping advance: one body unstoppable, one soul lethal, collecting corpses as they went. Snow Wolf stored each kill, downing several early ninth-level beasts.

Lei Ming led the other beasts and spatial puppets against anything below ninth level; a single Demonic Thunder Blast ended one flood-dragon per strike.

Ye Liuyun and his three clones focused on eighth-level beasts for tempering, leaving ninth-level ones to the metal puppet and the two cultivators.

Demonic Lion, Little Blue Ice, and Scarlet Refinement dodged attacks while draining bloodlines and souls; spatial puppets guarded them from stronger foes.

Nine-Headed Demonic Dragon, White Tiger, Stone Ape, and the two Black Tortoises hunted sixth- and seventh-level beasts; any eighth- or ninth-level strays were erased by black-white beams.

Soon the flood-dragons knew they were outmatched. A ninth-level beast at the rear roared, ordering the remnants to retreat.

“Cut off a portion!”

Knowing he couldn’t stop them all, Ye Liuyun and Vermilion Bird ignited the sky—one golden Fiery Sun Crow, one blazing Vermilion Bird—trapping the vanguard in walls of flame.

The metal puppet and the two cultivators halted, forming an outer ring to block escape.

Suddenly a colossal claw tore from the void and crushed one cultivator’s skull; the corpse plummeted.

“Spatial expert!” Ye Liuyun warned, dispatching a spatial puppet.

The claw vanished, reappeared above the metal puppet, and struck again—yet the puppet remained unscathed, arms flashing to sever a talon and slash the beast.

Even wounded, the flood-dragon flickered away, aiming its remaining claw at the second cultivator.

As the claw closed in, the first clone pinpointed its location and loosed an arrow straight into the void.

Bang

A headless, one-clawed flood-dragon tumbled from the void, still gripping the second cultivator’s severed head, dragging the body down.

The spatial puppet burst out after it; seeing the head gone, it lowered its sword.

“That flood-dragon’s spatial power is terrifying.”

Ye Liuyun’s heart still pounded. The beast was merely early ninth-level, yet its mastery of space surpassed his own.

He judged it equal to the spatial puppet; feedback showed the puppet had already landed a non-lethal slash before the clone’s arrow found its mark.

The demon beasts were all wound tight with nerves; apart from the dragon girl, who was still fighting like a madwoman, everyone else had frozen. None of them figured they could survive that spatial ambush from the fiend flood-dragon—only the demon lion might have a chance to dodge.

Luckily, the flood-dragon had set its sights on taking out the strongest martial cultivators and puppets first, letting the encircled flood-dragons escape; otherwise, the unlucky ones might have been them.

Ye Liuyun was worried about the beasts too; he’d already primed his time power, ready to rewind the clock. But when he saw the two dead were the martial cultivators, he held back. His second avatar had already drawn the Great Desolation Bow to full draw, an arrow nocked and ready to arc over the beasts’ heads.

In that moment of stunned silence, several flood-dragons burst out of the encirclement. The second avatar loosed instantly, yet one bow couldn’t wipe out so many at once.

The metal puppet tore off the flood-dragon claws gripping its skull and charged to intercept the fleeing dragons.

Snapping out of their daze, the beasts swiftly finished the remaining flood-dragons, then retreated into the avatar’s spatial world to recuperate.

Ye Liuyun ordered the puppets to scour the battlefield and gather the corpses, then produced the black teleportation tower and left the fiend-beast realm at once, unwilling to risk another ambush.

After that battle, the beasts’ storage stones were nearly drained of true essence. His own divine essence wasn’t much better; he dared not court further danger. If they ran into another powerhouse wielding unique abilities, someone might actually die.

Back in the Ferrybridge Galaxy, Ye Liuyun immediately regrouped with Ye Tiandao and the others. Both Ye Tiandao’s and Tang Xinyao’s squads had taken minor injuries—nothing serious, and no fatalities—much to his relief.

They’d also encountered cultivators strong in spatial force and world energy several times, but with the demon vine standing guard and several mid-Ninth-Order experts present, every clash had ended in nothing worse than a scare.