Noticing the confusion in her eyes, Yang Kai said, "Mo Sheng is dead!"
Beili Mo blinked, certain she had misheard. She turned to glance at the colossal figure beside him—the Great Demon God was standing right there, so why was Yang Kai claiming he was dead?
But in short order, Beili Mo's expression changed. She fixed her gaze on Wu Kuang and said, "You aren't the Demon God!"
Though the massive body before her still belonged to the Great Demon God, the aura emanating from within was entirely different—not the Great Demon God's at all.
A chuckle sounded. "I am Wu Kuang!"
Beili Mo's beautiful eyes contracted to the size of needlepoints. Horror dawning on her face, she gasped, "You've possessed him?" She was no fool—quite the opposite. As a Demon Saint, her experience and knowledge ran extraordinarily deep. The moment she sensed Wu Kuang's spiritual body inhabiting the Great Demon God's form, she had grasped the crux of the matter.
"Something like that," Wu Kuang replied offhandedly, not bothering with a lengthy explanation.
Beili Mo drew a sharp breath. She looked at Wu Kuang, then at Yang Kai, then at the Great Emperors scattered around them, and found herself momentarily dazed.
The Great Demon God had actually died—not only that, but he had been possessed by Wu Kuang… No matter how unwilling she was to believe it, the truth was laid bare before her eyes, leaving no room for denial. She had not participated in the previous battle, but judging from the residual ripples of combat still permeating the world and the battered condition of the Star Boundary's Great Emperors, it must have been an appallingly brutal affair.
And this was the final outcome! The Demon Realm had lost, the Star Boundary had won—but only at a devastating price. The very fabric of this world had been battered to the brink of collapse, its Yuan Qi thoroughly depleted.
As a Demon Saint, Beili Mo felt surprisingly little grief. After all, she had already defected to the Star Boundary due to that spiritual imprint, cutting ties with the other Demon Saints. What was more, being controlled by the Great Demon God had always felt wretched. With him dead, she was almost relieved. True, Yang Kai's spiritual imprint could likewise command her, but it was nowhere near as suffocating as the Great Demon God's had been.
"So that's how it is," Beili Mo murmured, nodding gently. "And what about the others?"
She surveyed the surroundings. Of the Great Emperor- and Demon Saint-level powerhouses, she was the sole survivor. A pang of solitude crept through her.
"Chang Tian and Yu Rumeng are unharmed. All the other Demon Saints have fallen."
Beili Mo gave a slight nod. An outcome she could accept, all things considered. A faint smile crossed her lips. "Congratulations."
Yang Kai let out a rueful laugh. After a battle this devastating, what was there to congratulate? He waved a hand. "There are still plenty of demons left on their side. Go deal with them."
Beili Mo nodded, turned, and flew off.
The final battle between the Great Emperors and Demon Saints had been catastrophic, but had the other battlefields fared any better? Among the Half-Saints and Pseudo-Emperors, casualties had been staggering. After the Great Demon God's appearance, those Half-Saints who had previously defected to the Star Boundary had turned coat on the spot. Now that the Great Demon God was dead, they too were free of his control.
As for the remaining demons, seeing that the tide had turned irrevocably against them, they had long since abandoned all resistance. They now stood huddled together, eyes vacant with uncertainty about the future—handing them over to Beili Mo to sort out was the best course of action.
The Star Boundary's losses had been equally enormous. Nearly every spiritual peak of the Heavenly Martial Holy Land had been leveled, and what had once been a place of ethereal beauty was reduced to ruin in every direction.
Tallying the dead and wounded, tending to the injured—the Star Boundary in the aftermath of battle was a hive of frantic activity.
A day later, Yang Kai was the first to recover. He released Chang Tian and Yu Rumeng from the Small World. Yu Rumeng was largely unharmed, though Chang Tian, much like Beili Mo, had sustained spiritual injuries that would require an extended period of recuperation.
Moreover, after this ordeal, Chang Tian had aged visibly—even his hair had gone partially white.
He had already been nearing the end of his natural lifespan, and if not for that, he would never have sought out Yang Kai as his successor to take over the Hundred Spirits Continent. Now, with his spirit wounded, recovery would be extraordinarily difficult. His remaining lifespan was likely only a few hundred years.
For an ordinary person, a few hundred years would span multiple lifetimes. But for a powerhouse of Chang Tian's caliber, a few hundred years was the blink of an eye. Yet a man like him had long since set life and death aside. Having lived a life of brilliance, he could face his end with equanimity.
The three Demon Saints were busy reassembling the remnants of their demon forces while Yang Kai, drawing upon his Great Emperor's authority, communed with the will of heaven and earth to purge every trace of demonic energy from the Star Boundary. He had done this during the great battle as well, but with the Great Demon God obstructing him, he had never been able to finish the job. Now that the Great Demon God was dead and no one stood in his way, it was time to set everything right—leaving residual demonic energy behind would only invite endless trouble down the road.
After a full day of effort, the sky over the Star Boundary was clear once more, and Yang Kai was thoroughly exhausted.
However, the world remained unstable. The void was riddled with enormous spatial rifts, each one a terrifying sight. The laws of heaven and earth throughout the Star Boundary were in complete disarray, seemingly having lost most of their capacity for self-repair.
The Great Emperors, who had been acknowledged by the world itself, felt this acutely. At present, they could barely channel any of the world's power. A Star Boundary in this condition—if left unattended—would eventually spiral toward destruction. And it would not take long: within a thousand years at the shortest, ten thousand at the longest, the Star Boundary would follow the Demon Realm into oblivion, its heaven and earth collapsing, the world itself shattering beyond recognition.