Feeling the oppressive aura that made even him uneasy, Wu Liao glanced at the trembling demons below and cursed his rotten luck.
He truly hadn't expected Alba to stir up such a huge mess.
Dying on the Douluo Plane was one thing—but to actually lead such terrifying enemies back here? Did Alba have no brain at all?!
Huo Yuhao surveyed the demons below and quickly focused on Wu Liao, the strongest among them.
So this was Wu Liao?
A three-headed hellhound... he didn't look the type to be cunning and treacherous.
But Alba's situation had already proven that Wu Liao was indeed cunning and scheming, and that Alba wasn't as smart as this dog. Huo Yuhao wouldn't let his guard down.
Wu Liao was still agitated when he suddenly felt Huo Yuhao's gaze settle on him. His whole body stiffened, causing him to overlook the planar passage beside him.
Just then, a roar suddenly exploded from the passage: "WU LIAO!"
Alba burst through the planar passage. His armor was shattered, his body covered in blood, and his purple-gold vertical pupils burned with blazing fury. Behind him, the surviving great demons followed, their gazes equally filled with hatred for Wu Liao.
The demons loyal to Alba looked up sharply, their eyes widening.
Their Lord wasn't dead? Their Lord had returned?
Wu Liao also jolted, snapping out of Huo Yuhao's deathly stare. He turned to Alba in shock. "Alba, you're actually alive?"
"Disappointed I'm not dead?"
Alba sneered, then bowed to Huo Yuhao. "Master, your subordinate requests permission to fight—to kill this treacherous demon and settle this grudge."
"Ma... Master?"
Hearing Alba's address to Huo Yuhao, the demons erupted in chaos, instantly understanding that Alba had submitted to Huo Yuhao. Wu Liao felt a growing sense of unease.
If it was speculation before, now it was certain.
The human male before them was definitely a deity—only that could make Alba, an existence nearing the divine level, submit so completely and look to him for guidance.
Against a deity, a head-on fight was clearly not an option.
Wu Liao, who considered himself clever, made a decision almost as soon as Alba's request had faded.
He swiftly bowed toward Huo Yuhao and the others. "Three Lords, I am willing to submit just as Alba has, to fight for you in the future. Please spare my life."
Since he couldn't fight, he would submit. As long as he knelt fast enough, with the right posture and sincere attitude, surely these deities wouldn't mind taking on one more obedient dog.
The air fell silent.
Alba, who had been waiting for Huo Yuhao's word to tear Wu Liao apart, froze. His face contorted in disbelief.
Wu Liao, you bastard—did you have no pride left as a Demon Lord?!
Surrendering before battle even began—where was he supposed to vent his rage?!
Alba and the Yuanen family instinctively looked at Huo Yuhao.
If Huo Yuhao decided to accept Wu Liao, they clearly wouldn't be able to take their revenge.
Even Huo Yuhao and the others were somewhat surprised by Wu Liao's attitude. But Huo Yuhao ignored Wu Liao's surrender offer and simply nodded to Alba and the Yuanen family.
"Every wrong has its perpetrator. Today, let those with grievances settle them, and those with debts collect them!"
Alba and the Yuanen family were overjoyed.
With Huo Yuhao here, justice would prevail!
Wu Liao's face turned ashen.
He hadn't expected that even after kneeling so quickly and cleanly, this human deity wouldn't even give him a chance to beg for mercy.
"Lord—"
Before he could say more, Alba had already blurred into motion.
"SHUT UP!"
Alba roared, his demonic greatsword carrying overwhelming hatred as it cleaved toward Wu Liao's head. Before the blade even arrived, the fierce gale had carved a deep trench into the ground.
Wu Liao was forced to fight. All three heads opened their jaws wide, spewing three different types of breath—shadow, flame, and corrosion—interweaving into a deadly web of fire.
Alba slashed through the breath and charged in.
In terms of strength, Alba ranked among the top Demon Lords—otherwise, he wouldn't have believed Wu Liao's lies and attacked the Douluo Plane.
Seeing Alba closing in, Wu Liao, who had no desire to fight, tried to create distance. But behind him came the sound of an avalanche.
"Titan—Sky Breaker!"
Yuanen Zhentian had already transformed into his Titan True Body. His massive form stood tall, his fists clasped together and crashing down like a falling meteor.
Wu Liao's three heads looked up simultaneously, his pupils contracting.
He barely managed to raise his forelegs to block, but the punch drove him deep into the ground. Rocks shattered, and cracks spread outward like a spiderweb.
"You—" Wu Liao was both shocked and enraged, struggling to rise, but Yuanen Zhentian's fists and Alba's blade were already raining down like a storm.
"Old bastard, look at you now!"
Alba's sword slashed across the neck of Wu Liao's left head, sending black blood spraying.
He'd been tricked by Wu Liao into entering the Douluo Plane, nearly died, and lost all dignity as a Demon Lord. Now, finally, he could reclaim it all.
The blade left a wound deep enough to see bone.
Wu Liao howled in pain. The middle head twisted toward Alba and belched dark purple hellfire, forcing Alba back.
Just as one attack ended and before the next could begin, Yuanen Zhentian's fist arrived.
Though they'd never practiced together, their shared desire for revenge made their coordination flawless.
The punch landed solidly on the jaw of Wu Liao's middle head. The impact sent the entire head snapping backward, shattering several teeth.
"Wu Liao, over a decade ago, you opened the Demon Passage and brought slaughter to our clan. My people died at your hands. Now is our time for revenge—the time for you to pay!"
The battered Wu Liao looked at Yuanen Zhentian, whose eyes gleamed coldly, and realized—this was the one who had blocked the Demon Gate back then. All hope of surrender died in his heart.
These humans had come for revenge. There was no way they'd spare him.
With that thought, Wu Liao discreetly assessed the situation. He noticed that while he was fighting Yuanen Zhentian and Alba, his subordinates were being held off by Yuanen Tiandang and Ye Hui—no help coming. He was on his own.
He glanced at Huo Yuhao and the others and suddenly shouted, "Wait! I have a secret—something involving deities! Don't you want to hear it?"
In this situation, he couldn't think of any other way to save himself. He had to offer something that might pique their interest.
Alba and Yuanen Zhentian paused, instinctively looking at Huo Yuhao and the others.
Huo Yuhao was speechless. "What's there to hear? Once we capture him, we can just search his soul directly."
Hesitating at a time like this—he genuinely suspected the fortune protection from the Demon Plane came with a stupidity-inducing aura.
Wu Liao: "..."
What a ruthless bastard. He was done for.
Even so, Wu Liao didn't give up on survival. Seizing the moment when Alba and Yuanen Zhentian's attacks faltered, he suddenly erupted.
BOOM!
A sphere of pitch-black hellfire exploded from him. The blast wave forced Alba and Yuanen Zhentian back several steps. Seizing the opportunity, Wu Liao opened all three jaws wide—not to spew breath, but to release three streams of thick black fog.
The fog spread rapidly, shrouding the area in total darkness for kilometers, even blocking spiritual probes.
"Trying to run?"
Alba sneered. His purple-gold vertical pupils flared to life, his perception-cutting power allowing him to see through the fog's disguise instantly.
He was about to give chase when his peripheral vision caught a spatial rift opening before Wu Liao.
"Don't you—"
Alba bellowed, his form became a purple-black streak as he lunged. Yuanen Zhentian also struck, his blood energy surging, following close behind.
But when their attacks landed on the figure simultaneously, the expected spray of blood and flesh didn't come.
The figure shattered like a bubble, dissolving into black mist.
"What?!"
Alba's pupils contracted.
The black mist cleared, and Wu Liao was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was a crumbling afterimage.
The real Wu Liao had used the clone as cover to escape tens of thousands of meters away.
"A clone!"
Yuanen Zhentian's face darkened. "That beast—"
Alba's vertical pupils snapped toward the distance. His perception-cutting power pushed to its limit, he finally caught Wu Liao's trail—the three-headed dog was flickering through the void, each blink taking him thousands of meters further.
And an aura comparable to Wu Liao's was rapidly approaching from another direction of the Demon Plane.
"Hahaha, quite the commotion over here today. What's going on?"
Laughter rolled in from the distance. A massive figure tore through the void, appearing in the direction Wu Liao was fleeing.
It was a demon with a head shorter than Alba, covered in dark golden scales, its four arms crossed over its chest, a grin of amusement on its face.
"It's Demon Lord Baru. His territory is far from here. For him to arrive at this moment—the Demon Plane is shielding Wu Liao."
Alba's expression darkened.
He knew this situation all too well.
As Sons of Destiny of the Demon Plane, fortune's blessing and survival against all odds were par for the course. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but within the plane, they were practically invincible in their own way—even another Demon Lord couldn't kill a fellow Demon Lord.
However...
Alba looked at Huo Yuhao and the others, who had been watching the show.
Today, even the Demon Plane's protection would be useless.
Invincible in this world?
Then let enemies from beyond this world come!
"Interesting, indeed."
Huo Yuhao observed this with his spiritual power, seeming thoughtful. "But a beggarly plane can only protect its Sons of Destiny within its beggarly capabilities. Beyond that, it's useless."
On this point, he had authority to speak.
He too was a Son of Destiny of the Douluo Plane. Yet ten thousand years ago, hadn't he still been powerless against Tang San?
A plane's child was ultimately just the child of a world. Fortune's protection had its limits.
Wu Liao understood this too. So when he noticed Baru, after the initial joy, he quickly shouted a warning: "Baru, run!"
Wu Liao's three heads roared in unison, their voices echoing under the dark red sky. "Outsiders are invading our plane! Can't you see? Alba has already betrayed us! He's sided with humans, trying to kill us all and become the sole Demon Lord of the Demon Plane! We must gather our armies quickly and destroy them!"
In a few sentences, he'd laid out the situation and pinned a label on Alba—trying to kill all the other Lords—to cut off any thought Baru might have of defecting.
Baru had initially thought Alba was just pursuing Wu Liao over some personal grudge. But now, drawing closer and hearing Wu Liao's words, he noticed Yuanen Zhentian and the distant Huo Yuhao and the others. Something was wrong.
"Human experts? Is Wu Liao telling the truth?"
Baru hesitated. He found it hard to believe that Alba had defected to humans, but the facts were right before his eyes. He had to believe it.
His expression grew grave.
The Demon Plane was under invasion, and a Demon Lord had betrayed them—this was unprecedented, a crisis for their entire plane.
His first instinct wasn't to flee, but to send word to the other Lords and summon armies to intercept these enemies.
And indeed, that was what he did.
But this frightened Wu Liao.
Because the moment Baru acted, Huo Yuhao appeared before him.
"You should have listened to him and run. Though it wouldn't have helped anyway."
Reincarnation True Body!
Emperor's Sword—Seven Luminaries Return to Void!
In Baru's stunned eyes, all he saw was a brilliant sword light—and then his consciousness ceased.
The moment Baru's head fell, the sky split open. A thunderbolt carrying the Demon Plane's fury struck directly at Huo Yuhao.
But the Spirit Transmission Tower hovering above Huo Yuhao trembled slightly, absorbing the tribulation for him.
Only a few strands of lightning reached Huo Yuhao, causing him no trouble.
Seeing Baru instantly killed and the heavenly punishment powerless against Huo Yuhao, Wu Liao despaired completely.
This was a deity. Against such beings, they truly had no hope of resistance!
He wanted to flee, but there was no escape. After a bout of fighting and running, he was eventually subdued and devoured by Huo Yuhao's Reincarnation Domain.
At this sight, Yuanen Zhentian threw his head back and roared, his voice shaking the wilderness. Over a decade of hatred exploded in that moment, pouring out in a cathartic cry that echoed under the sky for a long time.
At the same time, Ye Hui and Yuanen Tiandang had finished off Wu Liao's followers.
Huo Yuhao, having searched Wu Liao's memories, found that his earlier talk of a "secret involving deities" had been a lie. He felt no regret and issued his order calmly. "This matter is settled here. Begin the attack. Divide into four groups. Within five days, suppress the Demon Plane!"
With that, he raised his hand. The planar passage expanded further, and wave after wave of gray-white figures poured out like a tide. Skeletons, liches, death knights, bone dragons—undead spread across the Demon Plane, dyeing the dark red sky a dead gray.
These undead were divided into four groups, led by Huo Yuhao, Gu Yuena, Snow Empress, and Alba, rapidly sweeping in four directions.
***
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