The earth groaned, and all living creatures suffered unspeakable devastation.
The demonic invasion had already lasted a full two years. During that time, the two races had clashed tens of thousands of times. Barbarian tribes were annihilated one after another, and demon armies were slaughtered in turn. The northern reaches of this land had become nothing but battlefield upon battlefield, with people dying almost every single moment.
The Witch Saints and Demon Saints had collectively finished their healing a month ago and emerged from seclusion. The two sides clashed once more, but this time both showed restraint—nothing like the savage ferocity of two years ago. This confrontation was mostly probing in nature.
The barbarian side had fallen to a disadvantage, because the demons now possessed one more Demon Saint than they had two years ago—this additional Demon Saint, Moduo, had shattered the balance between the two factions.
Two years of bloody warfare had made every survivor grow enormously.
The sole surviving force of the Southern Barbarians had grown steadily throughout the war, swelling to a strength of over a hundred thousand. The name of the Witch Ox had spread far and wide across both races. That he kept ten Demon Kings as slaves was no longer a secret, and it was precisely by relying on these ten Demon Kings that the Witch Ox Tribe had prevailed in every engagement throughout this protracted war.
Two years was more than enough time for great changes to occur.
The greatest change was that demon reinforcements had been pouring endlessly from the Realm Wall. Though the Realm Wall was unstable enough to prevent the passage of truly powerful fighters, the rank-and-file could come through in whatever numbers they pleased.
Still, this could not diminish the barbarians' resolve to reclaim their lost territory.
The demon race comprised hundreds of tribes, nearly all of which possessed their own innate supernatural abilities. Without the ten Demon Kings that Yang Kai had subdued, the barbarians would surely have suffered far greater losses. The Demon Kings knew the ins and outs of the demon race inside and out, and Yang Kai had long since compiled all the intelligence they possessed and passed it on to the leaders of every major tribe. With this information, the barbarians had indeed been spared much harm, and the war would not have gone so smoothly otherwise.
Despite the endless stream of demons pouring out of the Realm Path, two years later the demon defensive line had been squeezed down to a perimeter of two thousand li centered on the passage itself.
All the remaining demons were gathered in that area, and beyond the two-thousand-li mark, the major barbarian tribes stood arrayed against them—millions of clansmen facing off at a distance.
Across the sky, an immense and bottomless rift stretched endlessly, refusing to close. Within it, demonic energy churned and roiled in terrifying torrents. It was so vast and fearsome that every person could clearly perceive the rift's existence.
It was like a scar across the heavens, one that would never fade.
This was the passage torn open through heaven-defying means by the Grand Demon God of the Demon Realm—what the barbarians called the Realm Path.
As long as the Realm Path remained open, this war would never end.
Every leader among the barbarians knew this full well. And so, over these two years, all the barbarian tribes had been striving toward that single goal, pressing the demons at every turn, fighting to reach the Realm Path and find a way to seal it shut.
Once the Realm Path was sealed, the source of the demons' power would be cut off. No more demons would be able to cross over from the Demon Realm, and those already stranded on this land would weaken and become fish on the chopping block.
The barbarians had launched several massive charges, but each time the demons held them back. Both sides took casualties, yet neither could break through to the Realm Path.
Yang Kai himself had gone to investigate the Realm Path on several occasions, but he discovered that the passage was far too vast. It connected to an entirely separate great world, entangled with that world's fundamental laws of heaven and earth. Even with his mastery of the Spatial Laws, his current strength was simply insufficient to repair it.
Unless he could ascend to the rank of Great Emperor.
He was merely a high-rank Witch King at present. The rank of Great Emperor might appear close, but in truth it was impossibly distant.
In just over a year, he had advanced from low-rank Witch King to high-rank Witch King. It was an absolute miracle—in the entire history of the barbarian race, no one had ever cultivated so quickly. Yang Kai had accomplished it. While his foundation as a former Emperor Realm cultivator certainly played a role, the greatest assistance had come from the sacred relic that Wudang had entrusted to him on his deathbed.
When he had first obtained the sacred relic, he had not noticed anything remarkable about it.
Only after advancing to Witch King did the sacred relic reveal its true nature.
Every time he entered seclusion for cultivation, the relic seemed to serve as a conduit, connecting him to the Witch God Temple.
The Witch God Temple was the most important place in the entire barbarian race. It housed the memories and precious witch arts of countless powerful barbarians spanning millennia. By wielding the sacred relic, Yang Kai was able to let his soul wander through the Witch God Temple, witnessing the marvelous abilities displayed by countless ancient sages and mighty practitioners, and absorbing the knowledge they had imparted.
This knowledge was even more vast and profound than what the Evergreen Divine Tree had taught him.
Only after discovering this did he understand why those Witch Kings of the Bone-Eating Tribe had been so desperate to seize his sacred relic. They had clearly known all along how much the relic aided in cultivation—that was why they had harbored such ambitions.
A tribe anchored by a high-rank Witch King was not to be taken lightly, to say nothing of one that also harbored ten Demon Kings.
The Witch Ox Tribe, as the last surviving tribe of the Southern Barbarians, had carried on the legacy and earned the recognition of all the major barbarian tribes. The Rain-Dew twins had also successfully advanced to the Grand Witch realm, becoming the most powerful figures in the Witch Ox Tribe after Yang Kai. The other witches had all improved to varying degrees, and those who had once followed at Yang Kai's side now formed the backbone of the Witch Ox Tribe.
Die remained the same as ever. Two years of warfare seemed to have left not a single mark upon her, and her cultivation had not improved in the slightest.
She appeared utterly indifferent to the war, simply shadowing Yang Kai wherever he went. Whenever Yang Kai did not seek her out, she never appeared—but the moment he called for her, she would materialize without delay.
As though she could see through every thought in Yang Kai's mind.