A swarm of massive scorpion-type magical beasts had surrounded Sadius.
He looked toward the leader of the group.
A Black-Armored Giant Scorpion; a Saint-level magical beast.
Most members of the Black-Armored Giant Scorpion species were ninth-rank magical beasts, but a rare few were able to break through to the Saint-level.
In the original novel, there was a peak Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion deep within the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, a creature of immense strength.
Sadius had unified the entire magical beast mountain range. At present, he commanded only seven Saint-level magical beasts. Adding the two he had personally slain, that made up the entirety of the Saint-level magical beasts he had encountered.
In truth, there were far more Saint-level magical beasts in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, but most were in hiding, quietly cultivating.
Sadius stared at the Black-Armored Giant Scorpion before him. This one obviously wasn't the peak Saint-level one from the original story.
But to have reached the Saint-level at all was no small feat.
Moreover, this one commanded an entire tribe of ninth-rank Black-Armored Giant Scorpions. Their combat strength naturally couldn't be underestimated.
Sadius locked his eyes on them.
"Just you lot?"
As a peak Saint-level magical beast himself, Sadius had no reason to take this scorpion swarm seriously.
"Ignorant fool. This is the Planar Prison, where elemental essence is extremely scarce. If you use energy-based attacks, you'll soon run out of power and be at my mercy. But if you stick to basic physical attacks, my scorpion tribe will wear you down to death," the Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion said with a sinister smile.
"Is that so?" Sadius suddenly launched all thirty-six of his bone spikes outward.
Although he couldn't guide them with gravitational magic, a full-range barrage was more than enough.
The sudden attack caught the scorpion horde off guard. Many of the ninth-rank Black-Armored Giant Scorpions died on the spot.
The Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion was horrified and immediately led the surviving members of his tribe to burrow underground.
But Sadius had no intention of letting them escape.
New bone spikes grew rapidly and were fired again.
Scorpions that hadn't yet escaped were directly skewered by the spikes.
"Damn it! If I meet you again, you're finished!" the Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion cursed.
"There won't be a next time."
Just because Black-Armored Scorpions were skilled at burrowing didn't mean Sadius was bad at it.
He dove underground to give chase.
As a peak Saint-level beast, Sadius' underground movement speed far exceeded that of the Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion. Very soon, he grabbed the scorpion's tail.
"Ahhh!" the Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion shrieked in terror, immediately unleashing his ultimate move. A finger-thick black beam shot from his tail, aiming directly at Sadius.
Sadius quickly raised his hand to block, but the beam struck him directly on the head.
And then… nothing happened.
"How is this possible?!" the Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion was stunned.
A Black-Armored Scorpion's tail beam was a soul attack. But how could it possibly harm Sadius, whose soul was mutated in three elements?
Sadius dragged the Saint-level scorpion by its tail and hauled it back to the surface.
"Spare me, Lord! Please spare me!" the Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion panicked beyond reason.
"Spare you? Not a chance."
Realizing he was doomed, the scorpion stopped holding back. He channeled the energy of his magic core and lashed out with terrifying darkness-elemental energy at Sadius.
"Hmph. A fresh Saint-level dares strike at me? Courting death."
Sadius swiped his claw. Destruction aura surged between his fingers.
The Saint-level Black-Armored Giant Scorpion's head was smashed into pieces.
Sadius held the scorpion's magic core in his hand.
"That damned Hodan! He took my interspatial ring!"
At that moment, Doehring Cowart who had been resting within the Coiling Dragon ring floated out.
"Where are we? I can barely sense any elemental essence in the air."
"Doehring, you're finally awake. Sigh… I got tossed into the Planar Prison by the Plane Overseer."
"You idiot. How could you provoke Lord Hodan? Even the Grand Priest of the Yulan Empire shows him respect!"
Doehring had once been invited by Hodan to visit the Divine Plane, but had declined.
"I was too naive. I really believed he wouldn't interfere with the material plane."
Sadius had always relied on his knowledge of the original novel to navigate this world. But now it seemed the rules in the book weren't set in stone. He couldn't blindly trust everything written there. In a world where Gods walked freely, staying low was the only way to survive.
Still, he silently vowed that once he had the power, he would settle this grudge.
"You'd best return to the ring. The elemental essence here is far too scarce; it'll sap your strength."
Sadius had decided to search for a way out of the Planar Prison. He couldn't wait three hundred years for Linley to become a Deity and then cleave apart the Bosha Great Chasm before tagging along to escape.
He didn't have that kind of time. This prison was crawling with Deity-level experts. He could easily offend one and get swatted like a fly.
Or worse, he might run into a passing Deity of the Death element, who'd immediately refine his soul into a soul pearl; leaving him not even the chance to enter the Netherworld.
The main reason Sadius believed he could escape the Planar Prison was that he still retained a faint connection to the Violet Blood Sword.
Though the Gebados Planar Prison and the Yulan Plane both belonged to the same material plane, a membrane separated the two.
And the Violet Blood Sword served as the core of the sealing formation over the Planar Prison's spatial weak point. Although the sword itself remained in the Yulan Plane, Sadius could still sense its presence from within the prison.
He believed that if he got close enough to that location, he could control the sword from afar, activate the formation, and open the spatial weak point; allowing him to leave the Planar Prison.
"It's likely that Dylin is near that location. I can't just charge in recklessly."
Just now, by killing the Saint-level Black-Armored Scorpion, he felt a faint improvement in his comprehension of the Slaughter Sword Dao.
In other words, if he killed enough powerful beings, he could fully master that path.
Sadius' gaze turned resolute. He would become a Deity through slaughter, right here in the Planar Prison.
Of course, he'd only kill Saint-level beings.
Getting caught by a Deity would be suicide.
Yulan Plane – Dark Forest
The three Amethyst Rat Kings had just returned to their metal fortress. Their true bodies had merged with their divine clones and were pretending to be in seclusion cultivating.
Suddenly, Beirut appeared before them.
"F-Father…" The three rats swallowed nervously, their hearts pounding.
"Hmph. We'll settle this later."
With that, Beirut turned into a gust of wind and vanished.
"We're screwed. He's definitely going to work us to death for a thousand years…" The rats were utterly dejected.
The next moment, Beirut appeared over the Far Northern Icefields.
Hodan was examining Sadius' interspatial ring.
The ring had already lost its master imprint, and it contained quite a few treasures.
Just as Hodan was rifling through the ring; Beirut appeared before him.
Startled, Hodan immediately hid the ring away.
"L-Lord Beirut!" Hodan was in a panic.
"Hodan… it seems being Plane Overseer of the Yulan Plane has made you far too comfortable."
Beirut was in a terrible mood.
He had planned to bring that Saint-level Armored RazorbackDragon back to the Dark Forest for study.
But Hodan had directly banished Sadius to the Planar Prison.
Sure, Beirut could retrieve Sadius from the Planar Prison, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Even in the original novel, when Beirut freed Bluefire, he did so through Linley and Olivier.
This mysterious Chief Sovereign of Destruction had always played the role of hidden manipulator in the Yulan Plane, never revealing his true strength to the world.