“Xue Yu.” Cang Ju suddenly spoke, gazing at the ink-black hue covering the sky, his voice taut and direct: “You and Su You are both very clever. When the human sacred artifact struck, you should have already anticipated what would happen next.”

“So he would use the Heaven-Imprisoning Cage at this moment.”

In the torrential rain, his voice wasn’t clear, causing Jiu Feng, Yin Ling and others to turn their heads in attention.

As the formation locking down Xiao City was shattered, vast numbers of humans and demons rushed out through that city gate like smoke over the sea, scattering into the surrounding high mountains and dense forests. The torrential rain fell swiftly, licking clean all the blood color from the entire city. In the distance, an endless stream of people continued approaching.

It appeared that everything bore the fresh appearance of survival after catastrophe.

Xue Yu bent her waist, drawing out an impregnable small formation where Su You had disappeared. Within the formation, spiritual power transformed into chains, almost forcibly grasping onto Su You’s last wisp of breath, preventing it from dissipating too early.

Sui Jinyu and Sui Yu rushed over, gazing at those feathers, biting their lips and teeth until flesh tore, their throats completely blocked.

“I knew it.” Sui Jinyu looked toward Xue Yu, her throat filled with uncontrollable sobbing: “Before he came, I already thought nothing good would come of it.”

Xue Yu moved her lips, repeating somewhat numbly: “I couldn’t possibly let him stay here.”

“But now, we still have other matters to attend to.” Cang Ju reached into the air and grasped a mass of invisible, dense black qi, completing her unfinished sentence: “The Heaven-Imprisoning Cage has resolved our worries about what comes after. What follows is the most important battle.”

“What most important battle? What do you mean?” Jiu Feng hesitantly moved closer, thinking she had misheard.

Wasn’t this all over?

“There are two waves of Mei.” Xue Yu didn’t know what state she was in now. Her fingers had never been so stiff, her entire body was cold, yet the blood in her body gradually boiled—that was the effect of the pills taking effect. She looked toward the sky, following Cang Ju’s direction, her lips parting: “The Dragon’s Breath had cracks long ago. The Mei suppressed in ancient times were attracted by the blood qi and broke their seals to emerge—this is the first wave. The human sacred artifact slaughtered demons, killing too many innocent beings. The world couldn’t bear it and sent down backlash—this is the second wave.”

“Which means.” Jiu Feng’s pupils contracted, her gaze sharp as a blade, sweeping toward the surroundings: “The Mei that appeared due to heaven and earth’s backlash, they—”

“They’re here!”

Xue Yu drew her long sword from her spatial ring with her backhand, at a delicate moment, simultaneously striking toward the southwest corner with the furiously roaring Cang Ju. Sword light and fist prints interwove, and the gloomy corner of the sky was violently torn down by an extremely brutal method, causing the entire firmament to tremble.

The torn cloud layer finally revealed its original appearance before the eyes of the world.

An abyssal fissure opened like a giant maw, wrapped in thick green liquid that reeked to high heaven. Some still tender and weak Mei clan members hissed as they crawled out of the fissure, like exploding dandelion seeds.

Seeing such a situation, Cang Ju breathed a sigh of relief. He turned his head and said quickly, “Those from ancient times that had already grown and evolved to high levels were sealed by Su You. These are all newborn Mei. Most of them aren’t powerful and can be directly annihilated.”

“There are still too many of them!” Shen Jingshi swept his gaze over them and was startled cold by the densely packed mass grave, while striking out and exclaiming: “These things can even fuse.”

“However many humans and demons died, a corresponding and multiplied number of Mei will be produced.” After Cang Ju finished speaking, thunder suddenly crashed down from the sky. He glared with fury, drew his blade, and slashed back with considerable anger: “At this point, if we don’t speak up, we’ll all be finished. Still hiding and concealing? Are you sick?”

His veins bulged as he fought alongside Xue Yu, who was silent to a terrifying degree, battling at the forefront of the sky pit, shouting: “Get out of my way!”

The heavenly thunder made a puffing sound, deflating like a punctured balloon, gradually hiding behind the cloud layer.

Xue Yu turned her head to look at him: “What else is there? Say everything you know.”

“What I know isn’t much either.” Cang Ju said rapidly, “Tai Hua is an evil place. We’re somewhat like the Fusang Tree—we can’t interfere too much in worldly affairs, or we’ll face backlash. I’m an exception because I’m a Sacred Land successor. Sacred Land successors protect worldly stability. Although the responsibility on my shoulders isn’t as heavy as yours, I can still exploit a loophole and say a few words to you.”

“I originally thought there was no salvation. The Mei from ancient times had mostly grown to a troublesome and thorny degree, but those things had been sealed for so long that they couldn’t bring out their fighting power for a while. Before they could recover, they were locked up by Su You.” Cang Ju faced the torrential rain while comforting this companion who had lost the most and contributed the most from beginning to end: “Don’t worry. When this battle ends, we’ll go to the Fusang Tree to claim merit. I can’t speak for others, but I’ll stack my share onto yours. Su You must have a thread of hope for survival.”

“Don’t make yourself sound so unique—there’s me too.” Jiu Feng leaped over in a few bounds, throwing a punch and joining Xue Yu and Cang Ju in holding this largest breach, her hands moving in endless afterimages, her mouth never stopping: “Count me in.”

Xue Yu lowered her eyes, the formation line she drew cutting all the Mei charging horizontally in half at the waist, her voice light and shallow: “Thank you.”

While speaking, Sacred Land successors like Shan Shu, Yin Ling, Ji Tingxi, along with Sui Jinyu, Sui Yu, and Qin Qingchuan all caught up.

They had no time to say anything before being forced to battle with waves of Mei that surged up, then fused, died, and reorganized again.

In the midst of absurd chaotic battle, Lu Chen rushed up and grabbed Song Heng, who was cowering in the formation, gritting his teeth: “How could the human race have creatures like you.”

Lu Chen’s master was an elderly man with the bearing of an immortal sage. Though he looked kindly, he showed no mercy in his actions, directly pressing Song Heng down to kneel.

This generation of young people had mostly grown up after being tempered at Feiyun Peak, and Sacred Land successors, demon capitals, and the younger generation led by Lu Chen had already reached the forefront of contemporary combat power. Logically, the elderly man before them shouldn’t be able to suppress Song Heng.

But Song Heng’s body did stumble. He rolled his eyes, looking at the sky and streets that had completely descended into chaos, slowly clenching his fists.

He was only—and indeed was—doing this for the good of the human race.

However, others cursed him or spoke of him didn’t matter, but accusations and resentment from his race carried the weight of a thousand pounds each, pressing on his shoulders until he couldn’t breathe.

“Song Heng, take a good look.” Lu Chen applied force, speaking word by word: “If today’s vast unrest cannot be quelled and the world is destroyed in your hands, if by fortune the great turmoil subsides and the Fusang Tree settles karmic debts, the human race’s status will fall lower and lower because of your actions today.”

Yes, yes indeed.

Veins bulged at Song Heng’s temples.

He had planned this demon-extermination scheme, but the result was attracting Mei. Su You sealed himself in a cage for the sake of the world—he was a hero whom everyone would be grateful to, while Xue Yu and other Sacred Land successors had been saving people from beginning to end. The Sacred Lands’ prestige would reach new heights after this battle.

Meanwhile, the human race, with ulterior motives as the instigators, would bear endless infamy.

There were too many Meis.

Too many.

Their killing speed was far from matching the rate at which those things crawled out of the giant sky pit. They became excited at the sight of blood, making grunting sounds in their throats, unafraid of injury, pain, or death—they were monsters symbolizing death and slaughter.

But Xue Yu and the others would tire, would have moments when their physical strength was exhausted. Fortunately, more and more people who received the news came to provide support, giving them brief moments to catch their breath and rest.

Every moment, someone fell, and others came up to fill their positions. The scene was left with nothing but a crimson sea of severed limbs and broken arms.

Xue Yu faced off against the first Mei that had fused into a royal class.

Having grown to this extent, this royal-class Mei didn’t appear ugly. It had a human body and a snake tail, coiling up to the size of a small mountain. Its scales gleamed with cold, sharp luster, but its eyes remained murky, filled with the black qi Cang Ju had mentioned.

This creature had fused with at least a thousand Mei, possessing terrifying combat power. It quickly focused on Xue Yu, who was silent but killed most ruthlessly. Its snake tail, hundreds of meters long, coiled like a thousand-pound staff, carrying unstoppable force as it crashed down, only to be dodged by Xue Yu.

She was indeed dodging, but not entirely. Whenever this Mei thought she was too slippery and wanted to join other battles, she would provoke it with formation lines, making it turn back to focus on fighting her.

In one intense exchange, the royal-class Mei’s sharp teeth opened and closed. While Xue Yu severed most of its snake tail, it also tore off a piece of flesh from her arm.

Blood flowed freely.

Xue Yu didn’t even furrow her brow, only gathering the threads in her hands, lifting them into mid-air, her voice cold: “Execute.”

The royal-class Mei looked down to discover its massive body had somehow been entangled by hundreds of snow-white threads in twists and turns. It paused slightly, then roared in anger, rearing its head and struggling. Immediately after, the mountain-like massive body was cut into countless pieces that fell away one by one.

It was like a rain of flesh falling from the sky.

Countless people turned to look.

After resolving this one, Xue Yu didn’t blink as she searched for her next opponent. Without royal-class Mei, she killed high-level Mei, or otherwise walked directly into the Mei clan’s main camp.

Wherever she went, there was a storm of blood and carnage.

“Xue Yu, rest for a bit.” Jiu Feng blasted open Mei’s head, pressing her palm on Xue Yu’s shoulder: “You haven’t stopped yet.”

Xue Yu slowly halted her steps, looking toward Cang Ju, who nodded and said hoarsely: “As you wish, we’ve driven them all toward the flat ground southwest. Most ordinary people in the city have fled, and those remaining are elites from various races. The human race is closest, so they came in the greatest numbers.”

Xue Yu nodded. Other successors from various places who had gradually retreated after receiving news also gathered over, their rapid breathing rising and falling, occasionally mixed with angry curses at Song Heng and others’ actions.

She found over a dozen porcelain bottles from her spatial ring, piling up a small mountain of bottles and jars beside her, pouring out one bottle and swallowing over ten pills down her throat.

Before today, she had never used recovery-type medicinal pills, using this to temper her toughness and physical body. This also caused the initial effects to be quite rapid.

After a moment, Xue Yu stood up, glanced at the Mei scattered like a honeycomb throughout the flat ground and collapsed buildings, and spread her palms in mid-air.

She could be seen weaving the Multitude Formation as the main structure, with dozens of other formidable formations as support, forming into a giant sword suspended in the air.

She pressed the formation down completely. The giant sword immediately received its command and slashed toward where the Mei clan gathered. Simultaneously, other formation lines sketched out a stable golden border, firmly locking them inside.

“Everyone retreats.” Xue Yu knelt in the formation’s center, her blood-stained arms braced in the formation, her fingernails cracking from the strain of channeling too much spiritual power, blood serpentining out and seeping into the formation, quickly being absorbed.

The giant sword crashed to the ground, creating an unbearable fissure in the earth.

Using this method to kill Mei was many times more effective than individual hand-to-hand combat. Visibly, that single sword strike separated Mei clan heads from bodies wherever it passed, clearing out a conspicuously empty patch.

But after this sword strike, the slight color that had returned to Xue Yu’s face was almost instantly drained, quickly showing a weak pallor.

“This is what a Heaven-grade Spirit Array Master is like.” Someone spoke up, murmuring: “Fortunately, we have heaven’s blessing, and the Spirit Array Master left contingencies.”

Indeed, according to the current situation, after another dozen or so sword strikes, these creatures would be finished.

“What contingencies?” Cang Ju immediately turned back, cursing under his breath: “A bunch of fools.”

“Xue Yu can’t hold out that long.” Shan Shu shook her head, deeply worried: “No one’s body is a bottomless pit—it can’t withstand being drained like this.”

No matter how strong, she was still human.

A living, breathing human.

“Xue Yu never planned to escape unscathed.” Cang Ju covered his forehead, watching the truly tragic scene in the formation, moving his lips: “Earlier, if Su You hadn’t acted, Xue Yu would have drained half her body’s blood, used the Multitude Formation to suppress the Mei escaping from Dragon’s Breath, then activated these dozen formations, combining with the Spirit Array Master’s self-immolation to seal this giant pit.”

In other words, she would die.

“But now, with Su You’s self-imprisonment removing future worries, Xue Yu doesn’t need to reach the step of self-immolation, but after these dozen sword strikes, severe injury will be unavoidable.”

“Everyone knows that the Heavenly Wolf can seal everything in the world. Before the great battle began, I once discussed this matter with Xue Yu. I said this was probably fate’s arrangement, destined the Heavenly Wolf’s survival to seal the Mei that might appear again. Su You is an auspicious beast—auspicious beasts cannot die, but opening the Heaven-Imprisoning Cage doesn’t count as death. He would just wait to die for thousands of years in there.”

Cang Ju looked toward Sui Jinyu, slowly enunciating: “She told me more than once that this was impossible, not even worth thinking about.”

“She’s just not good at expressing herself. She was the one who seized time to comprehend the Multitude Formation, fearing that one day a situation like today would truly appear, requiring Su You to sacrifice himself for the world. She also researched many books, bit by bit replicating the natural patterns on Su You’s tail feathers, hoping to use her power to create a heaven-imprisoning formation. But there was too little time.”

While speaking, Xue Yu struck three consecutive sword blows, and the Mei clan in the pit decreased by half. But she fell within the formation, her figure swaying unsteadily like an overburdened, cracked vessel.

She said nothing more, showed no extra expression on her face, and fiddled with porcelain bottles, silently swallowing pills, then gathering strength to strike again.

She had practically swallowed all the medicine she hadn’t taken in her lifetime.

“Are we just going to watch?” From the crowd, such voices gradually arose: “We may not match the Sacred Land successors, but we shouldn’t hide behind them waiting to be saved.”

“She can’t hold on much longer.”

“Taking too many pills—the body can’t bear it either.”

“Xue Yu… her eyes are bleeding.”

When Jiu Feng saw the two bloody tears streaming from Xue Yu’s eyes, her scalp exploded. She rolled up her sleeves, about to charge forward to help, shouting that even mutual destruction with the Mei would be better than just watching companions die one by one.

“Can’t we help?” Shan Shu also had wounds on her body, and when looking at Xue Yu, the heartache in her eyes was almost impossible to conceal: “How can she bear all this alone?”

“When Spirit Array Masters lay formations, our help has minimal effect and might cause backlash.” Cang Ju also couldn’t bear this heart-wrenching, tragic heroism like cutting with a dull knife. He suddenly closed his eyes and said: “Can’t worry about so much anymore—any little bit of strength we can contribute counts.”

Others would face backlash; he might also have to endure heavenly tribulation simultaneously.

But now, he really couldn’t worry about so much.

This landscape, this world, didn’t belong to Xue Yu alone. With so many of them having sound limbs and remaining strength, how could they watch one person stand before them with peace of mind, accepting protection?

How could they?

Led by Cang Ju and Jiu Feng, dozens of people pressed their palms against the Multitude Formation, pouring in spiritual power and demon power without reservation, converging into rivers, then into vast seas. After filtering out eighty to ninety percent, only the remaining ten to twenty percent reached Xue Yu’s side.

Gradually, more palms pressed against the great formation.

They were humans, demons, Sacred Land ancient immortals. Normally when walking the roads they might find each other disagreeable, ready to fight at the slightest disagreement, but now the scene was harmonious and coordinated. When a demon found a human beside them, they would shift aside, silently making space.

The backlash Cang Ju mentioned was real.

Before long, many people groaned in unison, with the severely affected even bleeding from their lips, but not one person retreated.

More and more reinforcements arrived, and the energy surging beneath the formation became increasingly tremendous, eventually reaching an almost explosive degree.

At this moment, no one held back.

At a certain moment, countless threads suddenly lit up on the Multitude Formation. Their colors were rich and full, as if some switch had been activated. They consecutively struck three sword blows toward the Mei in the sky pit, then wove together into an independent net that flew directly toward the giant fissure in the firmament without Xue Yu’s control.

Xue Yu wearily raised her eyes, her mind filled with countless voices rising and falling, finally condensing into one sentence.

“What constitutes the multitude?”

“You, I, he—for mountains and rivers, for peace, for this land we inhabit, setting aside distracting thoughts, working together with one heart—this constitutes the multitude.”

In the sky, the corner broken by the Mei was densely sealed shut.

The Multitude Formation, enhanced by the multitude, exerted its maximum effectiveness. After this battle, it also completely disappeared from the world.

After an unknown amount of time, the torrential rain ceased, the sky cleared, and the foul breath in the entire city was washed completely clean. But the liquid inside the Mei bodies was too disgusting and pungent, its smell lingering long and making people dizzy.

But at this time, no one had the leisure to care about such things.

In this city that had gathered almost all young prodigies, as sunlight fell, a scroll appeared in mid-air that reached from heaven to earth, spreading flat like mountain ridges. On the front of the scroll, four human figures became clear, while the back bore two lines of large characters, each word heavy as mountains.

This was the first time the beings of the three realms heard the voice of the Heavenly Mechanism Book.

That voice was ethereal and gentle, carrying a spring breeze’s soothing essence, yet like a sharp blade that could instantly pierce through the chest and penetrate to the heart.

“Congratulations to all for completing the five-star mission—Mei.”

“Among all things in the world, right and wrong are hard to distinguish, correct and incorrect hard to separate. There is only one principle: the prosperity of all races’ beings should never be built on the foundation of another race’s fate.”

“Equality of all beings, mutual respect of all things—this is the beginning of peace.”

“The calamity of the Mei clan is left for you all to reflect upon.”

While everyone was stunned, Chao Nian and Chao Hua supported Xue Yu from left and right. She was splattered with blood and liquid, moving very slowly, her eyelashes and forehead covered with cold sweat, making Chao Nian’s eyes well up with tears.

While others were stirred to tremendous waves by the Heavenly Mechanism Book’s statements, Xue Yu waved at Chao Hua, her voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable: “Go search Song Heng—he has Dragon’s Breath on him.”

Chao Hua immediately left.

Chao Nian, worried about Xue Yu, insisted on staying to watch over her.

Xue Yu crouched before the small formation set around the feathers. After a long while, she reached out and touched one of the formation threads.

Sui Jinyu and Sui Yu were both crouching here, watching. The former had been overstimulated by Su You’s silent self-sealing action, her eyes still red. Sui Yu was calmer. He looked at Xue Yu: “What are your plans now?”

While speaking, Jiu Feng, Yin Ling, and others also limped over, gasping.

“I want to bring him out.” Xue Yu had hardly any intact places on her wrists, her voice showing uncontrolled, instinctive weakness and exhaustion: “Complete Dragon’s Breath can unleash the Azure Dragon’s strongest strike from when he was alive. The Azure Dragon is the sharpest blade in the world, the Heaven-Imprisoning Cage is the most solid prison in the world. Since this is so, use the sharpest blade to cut open the cage.”

“Even if Dragon’s Breath completely fuses, it still lacks the most essential bit of spirituality—otherwise, Qiu Tong wouldn’t have been able to mess around with it.” Sui Yu said, “Even if we break open the cage, what about those Mei locked inside?”

“Me.”

Xue Yu twisted the thread at her fingertip, meeting Sui Yu’s gaze: “If the shortcut doesn’t work, then I’ll lay the most solid formation to imprison and annihilate the Mei, then become the sharpest blade, enter the cage, and bring him out.”

She could do it—it would just take time.

Sui Yu met her gaze: “A blessing in misfortune—things haven’t reached the worst step yet.”