Why did a phantom of Venerable Jiyan suddenly appear inside the war fortress? Lin Moyu didn't grasp it for a moment, but he soon understood. As the phantom manifested, a pinprick of fire flared in the distance, swelling rapidly; countless firebirds, firedragons, even volcanoes swept over from afar at a speed that faintly surpassed the Perfection realm. These flame-congealed visions opened the way, paving a road of fire. Wherever the flames passed, space was burned to pieces; once space is shattered, it can no longer be "chaotic."
Venerable Jiyan strode upon the flames, racing through the broken void. The vanguard fire phantasms plunged into the war fortress; the fortress seemed "watered," its strength recovering somewhat. It thrummed, resonating with Jiyan, a fire-path linking the two. "So the war fortress is yours," Lin realized. The phantom the fortress had triggered was in fact a summons for Jiyan. The war fortress belonged to him, and only Jiyan could fully command it; no one else could.
With the fortress about to fail, they had called Jiyan back. A streak of blood-light followed behind him—Pan Sihai, Sect Master of the Four Seas Sect, was in hot pursuit with killing intent. Lin saw wounds on Jiyan—clearly from his battle with Pan—and Pan was injured as well. Judging by the state of their souls, there wasn't much between them; they were evenly matched.
A thought struck Lin: with Jiyan back, he would surely try to take the fortress and withdraw. Pan would block him, but here neither could unleash their full power without endangering Wang East Boundary. The most likely outcome was watching Jiyan carry the East Extreme force away. After fighting to this point, how could Lin let them leave easily? Even if they left, they had to pay a price.
He told the Four Seas cultivators, "Fall back inside Wang East Boundary first." Its formations could bear the shockwaves better than men could. He merely reminded them; whether they listened was their affair. As he spoke, he flung a vast palm-print at the rapidly approaching Jiyan—this time all out, far stronger than when he had slapped the Dog-Rat Patriarch.
"Courting death!" Jiyan roared. Ten thousand fire-threads lanced from his body like arrows, slamming into the giant palm—only to be slapped apart like tofu. To Jiyan's shock, the palm crashed into him with a boom, blasting the speeding Jiyan back a thousand miles.
"Don't you dare run!" Pan bellowed from behind—words that almost made Lin laugh. Run? The man was already running; if Lin hadn't checked him, Pan wouldn't have caught up—so what was he shouting for, to save face? Lin threw another slap, forcing Jiyan to defend and buying Pan a fraction of a breath—enough to close and tie him down again.
"Sect Master Pan, hold him. I'll destroy the fortress," Lin called. Pan laughed. "Do it, little friend. Leave him to me." The blood sea surged, weaving into a prison that locked down a swath of space with Jiyan inside it. Jiyan shot Lin a killing look; without those two slaps, Pan would never have caught him. Lin ignored him and fixed on the fortress, now hanging by a thread.
A thought flashed to the Time-Soul Python. "Blow it." The python immediately sent his three puppets hurtling into the fortress to self-detonate against its hull. Even a top-tier treasure cannot endure Perfection experts exploding point-blank—much less one already weakened by the Heaven-Earth Aqualume's corrosion. Three horrific blasts tore three gaping holes; the fortress was gravely damaged, nearly ruined. Countless East Extreme cultivators died in the explosions, but Lin knew none of the Perfectionists had—yet. And now that the python had no puppets, there were vacancies; whoever came out would be volunteering to become his next thrall.
The python revealed his true body, a massive coil wrapping the fortress and squeezing; harsh scraping shrieked from the hull—it sounded ready to shatter. Xiaopeng prowled outside, watching for chances. He did not enter; the interior was unknown and barging in was unsafe. With the python and the Aqualume working in tandem, the fortress would break sooner or later; there would be plenty of chances to reap lives. The Undead Servants feared no death; they flooded inside, wreaking havoc and hastening the collapse.
Through their vision Lin saw the fortress interior: numerous independent pocket-spaces, many already blown apart; piles of corpses, hauled out in droves. Counting earlier casualties, there were thousands of Chaos-realm Great-Achievement bodies and five Perfection bodies. "Little Tree—time to work. Let's blow them to our hearts' content." At his word, Little Tree was ready. Roots thrust through time and space into the fortress. "Corpse Burst." Lin murmured; his will spun, and the heaps of corpses turned to ash. World-shaking detonations rolled through the fortress; its tremors grew more violent. Each blast was like a Great-Achievement self-detonation—inside the fortress. It was being dismantled from within; no number of inner spaces could endure such an onslaught.
Little Tree became Lin's eyes, piercing space again and again to pop up in corners throughout the fortress, pointing targets out. Corpses kept turning to ash; under the ceaseless bombardment, the mighty fortress finally collapsed. In this war it had accomplished almost nothing; from now on it would do less—it would be smelted down as fodder to nurture Lin's domains and vanish forever.
With the fortress shattered, throngs of survivors burst out—over eighty Perfectionists among them. None wanted to emerge, yet they had to. Faces were pale with fear and taut with suspicion—who would the Time-Soul Python target next? Who would become a puppet in the next breath? Even if not oneself, one had to guard against one's comrades. They scattered the instant they appeared, bolting in all directions.
The python's gaze swept; he locked onto three targets and seized them within a breath. The three turned at once and savaged their own. Those spared exhaled in relief—only to have their smiles die an instant later.
Lin lifted a finger and tapped, calling names. One after another, Perfectionist bodies turned to ash before him. "Corpse Burst." Explosions boomed through the void; whoever he pointed at blew apart on the spot, soul annihilated. The blasts came without pause. With his present soul power he could easily lock onto them; none he named survived. They were blown to pieces amid the rolling detonations; even their corpses could not remain—Lin would reuse them as fuel for the next blast. Waging war with war's spoils—this was Lin's specialty and his enemies' worst nightmare. Once he set his mind to kill and unleashed his methods—no one would live today.
Inside and outside Wang East Boundary's formations, everyone was stupefied. Until now Lin had merely been slapping the Dog-Rat Patriarch senseless; they knew he was strong, but not like this. When he raised his hand to kill, the tone of the world changed: these seemingly invincible Perfectionists were infants before him. Whoever he named fell in the next second, blown apart. No one could fathom his method; it was too terrifying. With the void in chaos, even Perfectionists could not break out and flee; they could only fly as fast as they could—yet nothing outran Lin's thought. His finger kept tapping; death kept falling. In less than two minutes of soul-shaking blasts, every East Extreme Perfectionist had fallen, save the three under the python's control. The Dog-Rat Patriarch as well—the fearsome, all-poison being whose very soul was toxic—was blown to death. A raid that should have succeeded was utterly ruined by Lin Moyu's presence.
The Undead Servants' war still raged. The Time-Soul Python with three puppets—and Xiaopeng now joining in—were butchering the East Extreme Great-Achievement ranks. Despair swallowed them; at this stage they knew survival was impossible. Some self-detonated, to no avail. There were simply too many Undead Servants—one blast might take thousands or tens of thousands, and they revived at once, uninjured. Who would not despair against such foes?
Some Undead Servants lugged the shattered fortress over. Lin waved and tucked it into his storage space. Though the treasure was ruined, its materials could be repurposed. Lin was frugal now—he wasted nothing.
Roars and laughter rolled from afar. Seeing the field—his Perfectionists all dead, his treasure fortress wrecked and seized—Jiyan's eyes burned with hatred as he stared at Lin. It was no longer about face but boundless enmity. Pan Sihai, however, laughed wildly. "Well killed! They all deserved it. Jiyan, you old undying—save your breath. You're next. Once I kill you, I'll march into the East Extreme and raze your forces—leave nothing alive!"
"I'll butcher you first!" Jiyan roared. Boom—flames detonated; he became a giant of fire. A sea of flame surged out, blasting Pan back thousands of miles. The giant, a million miles tall, stood in the void; three more heads and six more arms sprouted—four heads, eight arms. Endless fire gathered in his hands, forming flaming treasures.
Pan flew back in, shouting, "He's burning his life—this is his secret true body. Be careful!" Before he could close, Jiyan swung six arms at once; three heads fixed on Pan; the treasures flared, turning into countless fire dragons that tore toward him. The void shattered; space was beaten to shreds; the dragons sealed all escape.
"Blood-Sea Banner—rise!" Pan roared, wrenching a giant banner from the blood sea beneath his feet. Instantly the sea boiled; countless wronged souls wailed and raged, bursting forth to clash with the fire dragons. The blood sea exploded; their soul-piercing screams cut to the bone. Some swallowed the dragons; others were burned away. The collisions were ferocious. With every shake of the banner it grew, and Pan with it; in a blink he too was a million-mile giant, no worse than Jiyan. Wielding the banner, he waded in. Fire dragons swept in all directions; a trillion miles around was a sea of fire. Pan, in turn, unfolded a sea of blood to collide with it again and again; the banner thrummed, waves of soul-attacks rolling out. The Four Seas' two strongest divisions—the Blood Sea and the Soul Sea—both inherited from this very banner.
Jiyan fought like a madman; Pan seemed to as well. It looked even, with Pan faintly pressing the advantage. Yet Lin, watching, felt something off. It wasn't that simple. Jiyan looked desperate, but he was holding back; the pulse of his soul was wrong—not the cadence of one burning his life.
Boom! In a thunderous clash, the two collided head-on. Endless flames swallowed Pan; he grunted and was blasted back. The domain behind him unfolded, its power rolling out to douse the fire. His banner blazed too, riddled with holes—damaged. But his eyes shone; retreating, he laughed, "In the end, it's my victory!"
Cracks crazed Jiyan's body; his four-head, eight-arm form exploded apart and fell limp into the fire sea. On the surface, he had lost.
Lin, however, frowned. At the fire sea's edge, billions of miles away, a hair-fine filament of flame slipped into the void, fleeing into the distance. It was so tiny almost no one noticed—except him. Jiyan only looked beaten; in truth he was escaping. That was the wrongness Lin had sensed. He sent a thought to Xiaopeng. "After him—don't let him get away!" Xiaopeng streaked off. The flame-thread was fast—faster than most Perfectionists—but far slower than Xiaopeng. Xiaopeng gave chase; Lin followed at an unhurried pace.
Pan, who had been laughing, paused—then realized. He shook his tattered banner; the blood sea smothered the fire sea; then his face changed. "He isn't dead!" Duped, he too gave chase.
The battle here had entered its final cleanup. The East Extreme force was mostly dead; gigantic bodies drifted in the void, gathered by the Undead Servants. Most were alien beasts laden with treasures—refine them and you have materials to nurture domains; many also carried storage artifacts likely stuffed with resources. Lin was a miser these days—none of it would be wasted.
Within Wang East Boundary, people finally exhaled. They hadn't fought at all—just watched a grand performance. Cultivators below the Chaos realm had witnessed what true power meant; the battle tempered their Dao-hearts to striking effect. Many wanted to grow stronger—now they had a goal.