Haotian advanced into the convergence region without allowing the family or Sixth Legion to separate from the pressure already carrying them forward. The last trusted elites had lost enough ground that they could no longer form another complete line between the coalition and the sacrificial formation, but scattered defenders still occupied several reinforced points around the fixed positions. Haotian ignored any group that could no longer physically interfere with the route, keeping his attention on the surviving Demon Generals and the relationships beneath their feet.
The change in the Generals had accelerated since the final moments of the previous advance. Their cultivation was no longer leaving them through measured streams that they could regulate carefully, and the sacrificial formation had begun drawing directly against the deeper foundations sustaining their strength. The current beneath each fixed point had become more violent as a result, pulling cultivation, Abyssal energy, and life force into the same structure while the enormous flow gathered from the rest of the stronghold continued feeding the convergence from every direction.
Haotian kept the Dao of the Universe spread across the region as he moved. The dimensional boundary at the center remained intact, but it had been forced far enough from its natural relationship that the space surrounding it no longer behaved consistently. The stone beneath one section of the formation appeared several steps closer than it actually was, while the alignment between two support structures shifted whenever the pressure around the convergence changed. None of those distortions stopped the coalition from advancing, but they made it dangerous to move through the region without understanding which distances could still be trusted.
"Keep the mixed formations on my route," Haotian told Xuanyin. "Do not let anyone cut directly across the convergence because the ground looks shorter."
Xuanyin studied the movement of the forward companies before transmitting the warning. "The distortions are changing the actual distance?"
"In some places. The formation is bending the relationships around the center, so what they see is not always where the ground actually lies. Follow the route Sixth Legion is already using until I confirm another path."
"I will keep the later formations inside that line."
Sixth Legion continued behind Haotian and his wives, its leading mixed teams maintaining enough width to prevent scattered defenders from closing on the family from both sides. Second Legion filled the depth behind them and absorbed the companies rotating out of Sixth whenever accumulated strain made another exchange inefficient. Xuanyin kept the rear structure intact at the same time, ensuring that the coalition remained one organized force rather than allowing the urgency around the Generals to pull its strongest members beyond supporting distance.
Tianlan remained farther back with the Celestara cultivators and the two Frost Rainbow Falcons. The fighting near the convergence had not yet reached his assigned depth, and Haotian preferred to keep him there rather than bring his strained arm into a battle where the spatial relationships themselves were beginning to shift. Shuyue stayed among the formations rotating backward from the spearhead, while Liora and the healer groups remained deeper still behind several layers of mixed teams.
The nearest Demon General stood northwest of the distorted center from Haotian's current approach. His fixed point was embedded beneath a broad circular section of reinforced stone and surrounded by several formation supports that had been built into older foundations beneath the stronghold. The General remained upright despite the amount of cultivation leaving him, but his armor had lost much of its protective energy and the Abyssal light around his body had thinned enough for Haotian to see the physical strain beneath it.
The General could not simply step away from the fixed point. Haotian confirmed that before committing to the approach, because several active relationships were using the General's cultivation as a stabilizing reference and holding one portion of the dimensional distortion in alignment with the others. If he abandoned that location before the formation finished transferring enough of his foundation into it, part of the structure would lose the living connection maintaining its shape.
That made him vulnerable in a way an ordinary battlefield commander would never accept, but it did not make him harmless. The fixed point beneath him still possessed access to a considerable portion of the sacrificial current, and Haotian watched one of the surrounding channels change direction as the coalition approached. Energy that had been flowing toward the center divided through a secondary relationship beneath the General and rose into the defensive structures around him, forming several barriers across the approach while Abyssal pressure gathered through the surrounding stone.
Lianhua noticed the change as well. "He is using the sacrificial formation to defend himself."
"He is redirecting only what his fixed point can control," Haotian said. "The main current is still feeding the passage."
"So he cannot take enough power to stop the ritual."
"No. If he pulls too much away from the center, his own position becomes useless."
The remaining trusted elites around the position understood the same limitation. They compressed between the coalition and the fixed point rather than trying to meet Sixth Legion across the entire convergence region, using the barriers and local structures to create as many layers of resistance as possible along the shortest approach. Their numbers were too small to hold a broad front, so they concentrated around the ground Haotian actually needed.
Xuanyin watched their movement from behind the leading companies. "They are giving up the surrounding space and protecting only the fixed point."
"That is all they have left to protect."
"Do you want Sixth to widen around them?"
"No. Keep the pressure where it is. If we spread around the position, we give them more room to use the local barriers between our teams. We break the shortest route and reach the General."
The forward mixed teams struck the first defensive layer while Haotian remained close enough to read the formation as it reacted. Blue Sphere cultivators absorbed the pressure from the barrier while Pyrelith members concentrated attacks against the sections drawing the greatest amount of energy from the channels beneath the road. Marephoros support stabilized the fractured ground under the formation, preventing the defensive pressure from turning damaged stone into another obstacle beneath the coalition's feet.
The demons behind the barrier fought without trying to preserve a retreat. Several heavy cultivators positioned themselves directly behind the strongest sections and attacked through openings whenever the Blue Sphere front pressed close enough, while ranged techniques came over their shoulders from the deeper ranks. Umbrel members inside the mixed teams prevented smaller groups from using the surviving structures beside the road to strike at the formation from behind.
Haotian followed the energy feeding the barrier and found that it did not originate from one central node. The General's fixed point had divided the defensive supply through several buried relationships, allowing one section to continue functioning even if another was damaged. Destroying the barrier through raw power remained possible, but doing so would consume more time than identifying where the distributed channels rejoined beneath the surface.
He found the relationship several breaths later.
"Three steps left of the center," Haotian said. "The support channels meet beneath the stone there."
Lianhua moved with him rather than leaving the mixed formation behind. She crossed the short distance with Cloud-Sundering Steps while Yinxue remained close enough to cover the opening created by her movement. Lianhua's sword entered the formation relationship at the point Haotian had identified, and Voidpierce Sword Sutra cut through the connection carrying power toward two sections of the barrier.
The defensive light weakened unevenly, and Yinxue struck before the operators behind it could redistribute the burden. Her Sword Dao tore through the exposed section, and the Blue Sphere teams pressed into the opening at the same time rather than waiting for the entire barrier to fail. The defenders responded quickly, shifting several cultivators toward the breach and abandoning one of the outer positions to strengthen the center, but that movement gave Yueru and Ziyue access to the formation structure along the opposite side.
Lightning entered the weakened network. Yueru did not try to overwhelm the full barrier through force, instead driving the discharge through the damaged channels already struggling to redistribute the load. Ziyue followed by severing one of the physical supports revealed through that instability, and the local barrier lost enough structure that the mixed teams no longer needed to stop before it.
The coalition moved through.
The defenders fell back toward the fixed point instead of attempting to restore the position they had just lost. Their retreat remained organized, with the strongest cultivators covering the movement and ranged attacks continuing through whatever surviving channels could still carry them. They were buying distance measured in steps now rather than streets, and Haotian allowed them only what their resistance physically forced him to give.
The General saw the coalition break through the outer barrier and increased the flow through his fixed point. The change strengthened the next defensive layer, but it also deepened the damage to his own cultivation foundation. Haotian could see the trade through the Dao of the Universe as the relationships tying the General to the formation drew more aggressively through his meridians and core.
"He is accelerating the sacrifice to keep the local defense active," Lianhua said.
"Yes."
"Then every barrier he strengthens is also consuming him faster."
"He knows that."
The General had no reason to conserve himself anymore. If Haotian reached the fixed point before the dimensional passage stabilized, preserving cultivation would accomplish nothing. His remaining value was measured in how much time and power he could still give the formation before Haotian killed him.
The next defensive layer used that desperation more effectively. Instead of creating another broad barrier, the General redirected energy into several overlapping protections around the fixed point itself and allowed his elites to fight in front of them. The narrowed arrangement forced the coalition toward a smaller area where the defenders could concentrate attacks without needing enough soldiers to cover the entire region.
Xiangyin moved closer to the center of Sixth Legion as the pressure increased. Two elite demons attempted to establish themselves in front of the fixed point with heavy weapons and defensive techniques suited to holding ground, but she struck before they could settle into one stable line. Her spear forced the first cultivator to turn his weapon away from the mixed teams while the Blue Sphere formation continued pressing beside her, and the second was driven backward when Yanfei's Frostfire damaged the ground beneath the position he had chosen.
The demons tried to replace them immediately. Yueru and Ziyue attacked the formation support behind the new line while Lianhua and Yinxue remained close to Haotian at the center, and none of the wives ranged far enough from the coalition to create separate fights around the fixed point. Their pressure remained part of the same forward movement, with the mixed legions occupying every opening they created.
The General redirected another surge of sacrificial power. Abyssal energy rose from the fixed point and struck across the approach in a dense wave intended to push the coalition backward rather than kill individual cultivators. The front barriers bent under the impact, and several leading teams were forced to give up a step before Marephoros support stabilized the ground and the deeper mixed formations absorbed the pressure behind them.
Haotian examined the wave while it was still moving through the formation and saw that the General had pulled more power than before. The fixed point beneath him flickered as the dimensional relationship briefly weakened.
"He cannot keep defending and stabilizing the passage at the same strength," Haotian said. "Push now."
Fresh teams from the second layer moved through the gaps beside those that had absorbed the wave, taking over the front before the defenders could use the brief backward movement to rebuild their line. Pyrelith cultivators concentrated attacks against the protections surrounding the fixed point, while Blue Sphere fighters kept the trusted elites occupied closely enough that they could not freely reinforce the barrier.
The Demon General tried to restore the dimensional relationship beneath him while maintaining the defenses at the same time. He could not do both without sacrificing more of himself, and Haotian saw the draw deepen into the General's foundation while the Abyssal energy around the man thinned even as the barriers protecting him brightened.
Xuanyin came within speaking distance behind the leading formation. "If we force him to keep defending, will the fixed point weaken enough to collapse on its own?"
"Not before the formation consumes enough of him to replace what he is losing."
"So we still need to kill him."
"Yes. But every measure of power he uses against us reduces what he can give the passage before we reach him."
The trusted elites immediately around the fixed point began dying faster as they lost room to maneuver. Haotian struck one cultivator who tried to establish another heavy defense in front of the barrier, driving him sideways into the formation before the mixed teams passed through the space he had occupied. Yinxue intercepted a second elite approaching from the right, while Lianhua cut through the defensive relationship protecting the man rather than stopping to exchange repeated attacks with him.
Xiangyin and Yanfei prevented another group from compressing into the same area. Yanfei's Frostfire damaged the approach and forced the demons to divide around the unstable ground, while Xiangyin used the resulting separation to keep the stronger fighters from reaching one another. Yueru and Ziyue continued striking the formation supports whenever the General tried to redirect power through them.
Enough of the protective formation failed that Sixth Legion could hold the surviving elites away from the center while Haotian and the wives entered striking distance of the General.
His face had lost much of its color, and dark cracks had begun spreading across portions of his exposed skin where the sacrificial draw was damaging his body from within. He still possessed enough cultivation to be dangerous, but the formation had already taken so much that Haotian no longer sensed the strength expected from a Demon General at full condition.
The man did not try to escape.
Leaving the fixed point would surrender the role for which he had already sacrificed too much.
The General raised one hand and forced another surge of Abyssal energy through the local formation. Instead of throwing it outward across the entire coalition, he compressed the power around his own position and used it to reinforce the barriers between himself and Haotian.
Haotian followed the support beneath the visible barrier rather than attacking it directly. The General's local protection had become stronger because almost every remaining channel attached to the fixed point now fed the same structure, but that concentration made the relationship easier to understand. The defensive power, sacrificial draw, and dimensional stabilization all passed through a narrower set of connections because the General no longer possessed enough strength to manage them separately.
Haotian shifted left with Lianhua and Yinxue.
The General turned the barrier toward them.
That exposed the opposite relationship.
"Yueru. Ziyue."
Lightning struck through the exposed channel first, forcing the energy inside it out of alignment, and Ziyue's sword hit the physical support beneath the destabilized relationship. The barrier did not disappear, but one side lost enough strength that the protection around the General became uneven.
Xiangyin attacked through the same weakness, striking the support structure rather than the General and widening the damage Ziyue had already created. The formation was forced to draw even more power through the surviving side, and Haotian entered through the imbalance.
The Demon General met him directly.
Abyssal energy gathered around the man's fist as he attacked from within the fixed point, but the sacrifice had reduced both the speed and density of the technique compared with the Demon Generals Haotian had fought earlier in the stronghold. Haotian shifted past the first strike, caught the General's forearm before the second could form, and drove him backward without allowing enough distance for another large technique.
The fixed point reacted immediately. Energy surged around the General's feet as the formation attempted to preserve the relationship his body maintained, and the stabilizing channels tightened around him as he was forced away from the center.
Haotian struck with Fist of Ruin.
The impact broke through the General's damaged protection and drove force through a body already weakened by the sacrifice. The man was thrown backward far enough that the formation relationships attached to him stretched beyond the range they had been maintaining, destabilizing the fixed point beneath him.
Haotian crossed the remaining distance before the General could force himself back into position and struck again. The second impact broke through the final protection around the General's chest, and his cultivation collapsed with it.
The Demon General died before the sacrificial formation could finish consuming him.
The fixed point immediately lost the living reference that had maintained part of its structure. Several channels recoiled when his cultivation disappeared abruptly, while the dimensional pressure associated with that section of the convergence lost alignment with the other stabilizing points. The distorted space near the center shifted hard enough that part of the formation pattern beneath the General flickered and several overloaded channels cracked through the surrounding stone.
Lianhua looked toward the convergence. "It weakened."
"Yes."
"Then killing them before the sacrifice finishes works."
"This fixed point lost the living connection before it could transfer everything into the formation. The others are still active."
Xuanyin reached the edge of the broken position while Sixth Legion held the surviving defenders away from the family. "Can the passage still form with one General dead?"
"It is less stable now, but the structure has more than one fixed point. We need to reach the others before they compensate."
The surviving Demon Generals had already felt the disruption. None left their positions, and none attempted to reach the General Haotian had killed. Instead, the controlled streams entering the remaining fixed points increased sharply as each survivor surrendered more cultivation to the sacrificial formation.
The damaged portion of the dimensional relationship did not recover completely, but it did not collapse either. The formation had been designed with enough redundancy that the loss of one stabilizing point could be absorbed temporarily if the others carried more of the burden.
Xuanyin saw Haotian's attention shift toward the remaining Generals. "The first General's death weakened the passage, but the others are taking over his share."
"Yes. The formation cannot replace the fixed point completely, but they can keep the pressure from collapsing if they give it more of themselves."
"How quickly are they burning through what remains?"
"Faster than before."
Lianhua looked across the convergence toward the next nearest General. "Then we cannot stay here."
Haotian had already reached the same conclusion. The first fixed point was damaged badly enough that no one needed to remain and dismantle the surrounding structures piece by piece, and the road beyond it had opened.
"Leave this one. We go to the next General."
Xuanyin shifted the leading formations toward the new route while Second Legion filled the ground Sixth had just taken. The family moved with the spearhead rather than racing ahead, maintaining the same pressure that had allowed them to reach the first General without isolating themselves inside the sacrificial formation.
The second nearest fixed point lay farther east and slightly closer to the distorted center. Unlike the first, it sat behind a cluster of old formation structures connected to the sacrificial foundation through several buried channels. The Demon General standing there had already surrendered enough cultivation that the Abyssal energy surrounding him had become thin and unstable, but the local defenses remained stronger because the formation was drawing from multiple intact relationships beneath the surrounding structures.
Haotian examined the approach before committing the spearhead. The General had redirected some of the sacrificial current into barriers covering the roads around his fixed point, but he had learned from the failure of the first position and avoided concentrating everything into one obvious defensive relationship. Several overlapping channels fed different sections of the approach, allowing one barrier to weaken without immediately exposing the others.
Lianhua studied the same structures from beside him. "This one divided the defensive load."
"Yes. Destroying one support will not open the entire approach."
"Do you want us to attack more than one at the same time?"
"We attack whichever relationships become exposed while the legion presses forward. Do not separate farther than the mixed formations can support."
Yinxue looked toward the eastern side of the fixed point. "Then we make the defenses redistribute until one part cannot keep up."
"That is the easiest way through."
Sixth Legion entered the first layer of resistance without changing its pace. Blue Sphere cultivators carried the initial collision against the forward barriers, Marephoros members kept the formation stable over ground already fractured by overloaded sacrificial channels, and Pyrelith techniques struck where the local protections thickened most heavily. The defenders responded by shifting power and cultivators toward whichever section came under the greatest pressure, making the advance slower but forcing repeated redistribution through the fixed point.
Haotian watched those relationships instead of attacking the strongest barrier directly. The more often the General moved power between the local defenses and the dimensional stabilization beneath him, the more clearly the underlying channels revealed themselves. Several routes that had appeared independent eventually converged beneath the eastern side of the fixed point, where the sacrificial current divided between local defense and the pressure being applied to the dimensional boundary.
Haotian pointed toward the relationship. "That is where the defense and the fixed point share the same support."
Yueru followed his direction. "If we disrupt it, both sides lose power."
"For a moment. The formation will try to reroute immediately."
"That is enough."
Yueru stayed with the mixed teams until the next advance brought them within range. Lightning entered the exposed channel at the same moment the General redirected more power toward the center barrier, forcing the current inside the support to fluctuate before the formation could stabilize it. Ziyue attacked the physical structure carrying the same relationship, widening the disruption without leaving the protection of the coalition.
The General withdrew energy from one outer barrier and forced it through a secondary route beneath the fixed point, preventing the entire defensive layer from collapsing. The dimensional relationship beneath him weakened briefly as a result, but the formation compensated by drawing more aggressively from his cultivation foundation.
His body jerked as the sacrificial current reached deeper through his meridians, and dark lines spread farther across his neck and arms where the formation had begun damaging him from within.
Lianhua followed Haotian's attention. "He restored the barrier by giving the formation more."
"Yes. He does not have another source."
"Then every time we force him to redistribute, he has to choose between the defense and the passage."
"He is choosing both by spending himself faster."
The coalition continued applying pressure across the same front. Haotian did not allow the family to chase every fluctuation in the formation because the General could still use those movements to pull them away from Sixth Legion. Instead, the mixed teams kept forcing the barriers to absorb attacks while the wives struck only when the underlying support relationships became exposed by the redistribution.
Yinxue cut through one defensive technique that had been reinforced too quickly and left its supporting relationship poorly aligned. Lianhua followed with Voidpierce Sword Sutra, severing enough of the formation connection that the demons behind the barrier had to abandon the position. Xiangyin and Yanfei prevented the defenders from compressing into the opening, giving Sixth Legion enough room to move through without stopping to destroy the entire outer structure.