He had clearly already grievously wounded the opponent. He had clearly sacrificed every living being on the Zhoutian Continent to deplete what remained of his strength. After so much time, the opponent should have grown weaker and weaker until finally having no power to resist and perishing here — then being digested by the laws of the Demon Domain. So why could the opponent still fight back? And from the traces of Ming Yue's attacks, this fellow's aura was actually steadier and more powerful than when he had first been trapped here — it was almost as if he had recovered to his peak state.
What on earth was going wrong? Where had the flaw crept in? Blood Li's expression was grim, and no matter how he racked his brains, he couldn't figure it out.
Ming Yue's injuries were plain for all to see. Before being trapped here, he had been wounded by several Demon Saints attacking in concert, and that wound on his abdomen had been inflicted by none other than Blood Li himself. To deliver that blow, he had even resorted to a secret technique that damaged the enemy a thousand while harming himself eight hundred. Those injuries — Blood Li believed that apart from himself, no one under heaven could inflict a comparable wound. As for healing it, Ming Yue was a Great Emperor of the Star Boundary; he certainly had no shortage of spirit pills and miraculous medicines. But could mere pills contend with his secret technique?
Blood Li longed to plunge to the very depths of the blood sea and see for himself exactly what state Ming Yue was in.
But the blood sea, which should have been under his complete control, contained a single circle of pure land bathed in a soft, gentle radiance. That light blocked the full might of the great formation, preventing Blood Li from seeing anything inside.
Since he couldn't see, he would have to strike and verify. He was personally guarding this place, yet Blood Demon clansmen were still being slaughtered like vegetables by the other side — countless lives cut down. If word ever got out, it would be a laughingstock.
With a low shout, Blood Li raised both hands, his tall frame shuddering as torrential demonic yuan surged outward. The ceaselessly boiling blood sea fell into an eerie instant of stillness, as if an invisible hand had pressed down on all disturbance. The next moment, the blood sea began rotating clockwise, summoning colossal force, and in the blink of an eye a massive sphere of blood coalesced between the twelve crimson pillars.
The sphere was a deep, vivid red — visible even from over a thousand li away. It was as though the full moon in the sky had been dyed crimson and come crashing down to earth, bringing with it an indescribable sense of horror, as if the world itself were on the verge of annihilation.
At the very center of that sphere, a faint glimmer of white light refracted outward — Ming Yue's sole pocket of pure land, carved out of the blood sea through cultivation of supreme magnitude. Yet that pocket of purity was so minuscule relative to the entire blood sphere as to be almost imperceptible.
Within the blood sea, blood-shadow forms took shape by the thousands — palm-sized figures that, upon closer inspection, were blood-colored bats. Under Blood Li's control, they surged toward the pristine pure land in a sky-blotting swarm, only to crumble to dust and vanish the instant they touched that gentle radiance.
The blood bats were endlessly produced, endlessly annihilated, yet no matter how many materialized, they could not dim the pure land's light by even a fraction.
Blood Li's face grew even darker. He needed no further probing — Ming Yue's condition had clearly improved. Even if not fully healed, the Great Emperor had likely recovered a great deal. One truly could not underestimate a Star Boundary Great Emperor.
He had believed that the Twelve Heavenly Demon Formation, combined with a blood sea condensed from every living being on the Zhoutian Continent, would be enough to extinguish Ming Yue's Dao and end his life. Who could have predicted that man's plans could never match heaven's designs — Ming Yue still had the strength to struggle.
His original strategy was no longer viable; adjustments would have to be made. The moment that thought crystallized, a flash of resolution crossed Blood Li's scarlet eyes. His hands flew through a rapid succession of seals, demonic yuan rolling from his body as the blood sphere's rotation accelerated to an unimaginable speed, conjuring a cyclone that, viewed from high above, made the earth and sky below look like a spinning top threatening to drag the entire Zhoutian Continent into its whirl.
Blood Demons surrounding the great formation retreated in haste, afraid of being caught in the crossfire.
Under Blood Li's command, all manner of blood creatures spawned ceaselessly within the blood sea, hurling themselves toward that island of purity — only to dissolve into nothingness upon contact with the immaculate light.
The blood sea possessed fearsome corrosive power, while that gentle radiance held purifying virtue beyond compare. This was a contest between corrosion and purification. Ming Yue and Blood Li were like natural predators to one another, their respective Grand Daes colliding and igniting a brilliance so blinding it made the rest of the world fade to grey.
Time trickled past. The blood sphere gradually shrank in volume, but the pure land remained utterly immovable, without the slightest inclination to recede.
The myriad half-saints and demonic tribes watching from afar felt their hearts ache at the sight.
That blood sphere was the product of sacrificing every living being on the Zhoutian Continent. In other words, Blood Li was wielding the combined life force of an entire continent to fight Ming Yue. Every reduction in volume represented hundreds of thousands — even millions — of demons expended, and whether such expenditure was even meaningful, no one could say.
Blood Li, on the other hand, remained expressionless after launching his assault. The sphere's shrinking affected him not at all. In his eyes, if it could drive Ming Yue into further weakness, never mind emptying this blood sphere entirely — sacrificing the inhabitants of two or three more continents would be well worth the price.
The Demon Domain held hundreds of continents, yet only twelve Demon Saints existed among them. If two or three continents' worth of beings could be traded for a single Demon Saint, the deal was practically a steal. Besides, the sacrifice claimed only the living creatures, not the continents themselves. These bottom-tier demons meant nothing to the Demon Saints. The Demon Domain lacked for many things, but not for population. Once the sacrifice was done, migrants from other continents could be relocated in, and those emptied lands would naturally regain their vitality.