Pathway

"Hehehe. Celebrations! We love celebrations too. Let's celebrate together! ATTACK!!!."

One of the four daemon lords screamed the command at the demon warriors. The demons, covered in shimmering dark energy and brandishing radiant obsidian sabres, started moving in the direction of the delegates with terrifying speed. Atrament energy was not from this universe and shouldn't be here. Seeing the demons speeding in their directions, the nascent soul and Jindan cultivators launched their own attacks.

Under unrelenting and superior attack, the first wave of demons were quickly destroyed.

The second set of demons — demon chiefs — who were much more powerful than the demon warriors, were sent forth. But instead of attacking individually, they morgue into dangerous formations of spiralling wave of atrament energy. Sensing the danger of the formations, Tu Yun Fan glanced at Chu Shang Wu with grave eyes.

"Chu Shang Wu, I know you are looking forward to the friendly spar after the last time, you'll probably have your chance. But for now, we have to stop those attacking formations before they find their ground."

"Fair enough, Tu Yun Fan."

Just like lightning mirage, the delegates engaged the demon chiefs in battle as they tried to stop them before they could gain battle momentum. It was a terrifying battle due to the demons' strange formations being extremely difficult to break.

With the need to protect her grandson, Zhang Wang Jing tried to use a teleportation seal to transport herself and her grandson away from the place, but she couldn't activate it. The whole mountainous area appeared to be in a lock-down. She looked at her husband who was standing with them like a shield but had his eyes on his daughter was already battling the demons.

They all knew she couldn't desert a battlefield as a nascent soul cultivator. It would be a grievous dishonour to abandon her village in any serious battle.

"Pa, please stay with ma and protect my son."

Zhang Xiu Ying sent a booming mind-voice to her father as the noise of the pandemonium continued to escalate. With her phoenix sword in hand, she turned her attention towards Chu Shang Wu who was already engaging two of the demons' formation, along with Tu Yun Fan. She saw Chu Shang Wu, brandishing his large war hammer, smashed the ground with it as he launched a massive terra wave towards the spiralling atrament. The atrament was blasted apart, but slowly reformed with less tenacity.

As the demons sent a vortex of dark energy towards him, he raised his war hammer, forming pillars of terra force in front of him. The vortex of raging dark energy collided with the pillars, creating a loud bang before they both dissipated in a blast. Zhang Xiu Ying arrived beside him as he was launching another attack —Terra Carver. She swiftly released her own most-powerful attack — the Phoenix Descent — the third stage of the phoenix inferno technique.

Tens of giant Phoenix made of liquid fire joined the terra beam blast and covered the area of the spiralling darkness, disintegrating it into nothingness, and badly injuring the six demon chiefs. The injured daemon chiefs were quickly destroyed by blasts of terra and fire, before they could crawl back to their masters.

Around the mountainous area, the demons were suffering the same fate. The four daemon lords, seeing what was going on, quickly brought out some items and seals. After activating the seals, they raised their staves and formed the Void Cube. For it to be powerful enough to warp the fabric of the space-time, it was an ultimate formation, although of an unknown origin.

Colossal mass of atrament energy, quickly surrounded the vast area and started closing in on them. They launched counter attacks at the mass of dark energy but their attacks were effectively rebuffed. They had little or no effect on the atrament.

"Hahaha. Stop trying. No mortal or immortal of this world can break this lock. Not even your heavenly deities. Sad, we could have continued celebrating together, but time is not on our side as you can see. Hehehe."

Said one of the daemon kings, laughing heartily as the other three joined him.

"We must bring this to an end now."

The four daemon lords raised their staves higher and the obsidian skulls at the top of their staves, shone with intense blackness. The massive mass of atrament had increase in speed, and the energy coming from it was becoming incredibly overwhelming. There was no way they could survive this after giving it their all, but was still lacking.

Zhang Xiu Ying contemplated about their lives and what could have been. She was beginning to regret bringing her son to the festival, but she couldn't have left him at home in the first place. After all, it was a festival. Anyway, she would give it everything she got, even her last breath, before succumbing to the demons. She prepared herself to use her true nascent soul — her avatar. A

lthough it was a huge risk — her true nascent soul was still young and weak — which could backfire on the her, she had no other choice. As she was about to use her avatar, everything stopped, freezing space-time in place.

A godly force-field?

Slowly, a tall, seemingly muscular man who was wearing a thick yellow robe, came out through an opening that suddenly formed at the base of the mountain. His shining bald head would make the solar hide. And on closer look, he had thick eye brows and yellow pupils which moved like that of an ancient predator. He was taken aback in shock when he saw the dark shimmering energy.

"Atrament? In human world? This is not right. Energy so powerful to manifest in physical form. Not right at all."

He continued to stare at the massive mass of atrament, slowly shaking his head.

"This shouldn't be here. Not in this universe, talk-less of a human world."

He waved his hand and a massive terra wave covered the dark energy in its entirety. Taking out a seal and activating it, the seal flew into the terra wave and the mass of atrament dissipated into nothingness. With eyes emitting anger, he flipped his hand and one of the demon lords appeared immediately before him.

"Daemon, yet not daemon. There's atrament energy inside you. How? Why are you even here in a mortal world with an energy that came from the void. Speak up!"

"You can't even imagine it, can you? I will never tell you anything."

"Very well then."

The bald man flicked his hand and with a release of earth bust, the daemon lord exploded. He continued this act until he was on the last daemon lord.

"We are here for those two."

The daemon lord voiced, pointing to Zhang Xiu Ying and Ju Feng.

"The boy cultivator, in particular."

"Why?"

"We only have our instructions. We don't ask why."

"Mhm."

Whatever the reason behind this, it was surely of no good. He contemplated as he took a step forward and appeared in front of Zhang Xiu Ying. Standing in front of her, he shook his head as he released his force-field on the area.

"A demigod. Your life force is really powerful and solid, however, you should be stronger than this. I truly don't know why the daemons were after you and the boy, but if you remain like this, you will simply die. Whoever is after you must be a very powerful entity. It could be from any of the planes or could be from the void, although, I doubt that. Why would an entity from the void be after you? Anyway, atrament is one of the deadliest energy in the void, and it's used by extremely dangerous entities. Know this, when you are attacked by the atrament, the inside of your body will instantly decompose into black liquid, and your soul will be ripped from the body becoming part of atrament. Avoid this at all cost."

He flipped his sleeves and produced two white stones, giving one to Zhang Xiu Ying.

"Terra's light. It will keep atrament and other total dark energies, away from you for a period of time. When any of these energy nears you, it will flare brightly and that's a warning to you. This is a gift to you as a true demigod."

With a glance around, he discovered that few villagers had been killed, but no nascent soul or golden core cultivator was killed. He shrugged before looking at the boy with the threads of karmic virtues around him. Although he couldn't say what exactly, there was something about the boy that drew his attention. His virtues? Surely something.

"Who is the boy?"

"He's my son."

Zhang Xiu Ying replied mildly, despite slightly trembling inside. They should have been dead by now, dead. But somehow, they were saved by this exceedingly powerful man. Although he couldn't be a god — since no god's image could be that powerful — he was definitely an immortal beyond the mortal plane. There was surely an ancient aura about him.

"Senior, thank you so much for saving us. We are all in your debt."

He gently waved-off her words.

"No. You are not in my debt. I was around and did what was necessary."

He took another step and appeared in front of Zhang Li Qiang, Zhang Wang Jing and Ju Feng. He watched Ju Feng for some seconds, then gave him the other stone.

"Terra's light against the dark energy and the likes. Take it. A gift to you for your virtues."

"Thank you senior, sir."

Receiving the stone, Ju Feng bowed deeply from his waist, receiving acknowledgement from the bald entity.

"Hm. Be stronger and gain more knowledge. Only by knowing what you are really facing can you truly confront it. Come visit in the future."

"Senior, forgive me for asking. Who are you?"

Asked one of the village headmen respectfully.

"You can call me Lord Primus. For billions of years, this place has been my home. I was here when there was no living soul in this world. When the nine siblings came."

A titan lord!!!

"Thank you, lord Primus."

"No need. It was simply necessary."

Primus let out a soft breath and turned to Chu Shang Wu.

"Impressive terra force. Maybe we can exchange pointers in the future?"

And with that, he disappeared back into the mountain, leaving no traces behind.

Ten minutes later, the first of the lunaries started to descend the mountain, holding the lunar stones high in his hand.