"Mm, that late-stage Demon Venerable was quite troublesome indeed, but I've already slain him." Han Li had no need to conceal this, and he gave a faint smile as he nodded.
"Brother Han has truly rendered an unprecedented merit — with this, our victory in this battle is all but certain!" The silver-haired elder's words carried visible relief, and the last trace of worry in his heart completely dissipated as he spoke in elation.
Then, without a moment's hesitation, he took a deep breath and suddenly bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"The Demon Race's Holy Ancestor has been slain by our hands! You demon whelps have no more ground to strut upon! Soul obliteration is the only fate awaiting you!"
The elder's voice thundered across the entire battlefield like rolling peals, reverberating without cease, clearly audible to nearly every human and demon present.
On the human side, the announcement naturally erupted into a wave of cheers, their morale soaring several times over in an instant. On the demon side, however, the words set off a wave of commotion and unrest.
Those high-ranking Demon Venerables swept their gazes toward the elder's position, and when they confirmed that neither the blood-robed youth nor the demon giant could be seen anywhere, a jolt of horror struck their hearts — and they could not help but feel a measure of bewilderment.
Meanwhile, the silver-haired elder and Zen Master Jinyue seized the opening, forming a series of hand seals in unison before hurtling toward the nearest battle cluster with several treasures in tow.
There, two Elders of Heavenly Abyss City and two Demon Venerables were locked in a fierce, deadlocked struggle. The moment the pair bore down on them with such ferocity, the two demon cultivators' expressions shifted dramatically, and they exchanged a glance.
"Let's go!" one of them — a demon elder clad in green battle armor — barked in a sharp, low shout.
The other Demon Venerable, whose entire body was shrouded in black qi, let out a cold snort without a second word, then brought both palms together and rubbed them before flinging them outward toward his opponents.
A deafening roar erupted!
Countless black lightning-fire bolts rained down from the sky in overwhelming torrents, forcing the two human elders to temporarily fall back. The demon cultivator then tossed a single hand into the air, and a pitch-black wooden boat materialized in midair.
He flickered and appeared on it in an instant.
The wooden boat roared to life and transformed into a black streak of light, piercing through the sky and vanishing into the distance.
As for the green-armored elder on the other side, he had long since produced a green banner. With a violent shake, a wave of emerald radiance blazed outward, swallowing his figure entirely.
The green light flickered — and he vanished on the spot without a trace.
An instant later, the spatial fabric rippled several hundred zhang away, and a faint silhouette emerged briefly before the green light flared once more, and he disappeared again.
These two Demon Venerables had fled without the slightest hesitation.
Their opponents, the two Heavenly Abyss City Elders, were far from willing to let them escape. After scattering the black lightning-fire with a combined strike, they prepared to mount their own pursuit on their flying lights.
But just then, the silver-haired elder and Zen Master Jinyue flickered to their side and immediately called out to halt them.
"Fellow Daoists, there's no need to chase these fleeing demon cultivators — go and reinforce the others first!" The silver-haired elder's lips moved slightly, sending a voice transmission to the pair.
Then his own streak of light shifted direction as he plunged toward yet another battle cluster.
The two Elders came to a swift understanding, immediately abandoned any thought of pursuit, and soared off to support other engagements.
In the blink of an eye, the entire demon army descended into total chaos!
Many of the Demon Venerables, seeing how dire the situation had become, fled on the spot without a second thought.
A few of the more savage ones tried to rally their squads to continue fighting, only to be swarmed by the Integration-stage cultivators of the human and demon races who had now freed their hands. They were either cut down on the spot or forced to flee with grievous wounds.
As for the low-ranking demons, deprived of their Venerables' command and leadership, panic seized them thoroughly. One after another, they lost all will to besiege the city and turned to retreat — and once the rout began, it became utterly unstoppable.
Although the human and demon races had suffered devastating losses of their own, their spirits soared in the wake of victory. Streaming down from the city walls, they surged forward in relentless pursuit.
In an instant, cries of battle echoed across a radius of tens of thousands of li as countless demons fled in disarray toward the horizon.
Close behind, a blinding storm of multicolored light pursued them without mercy. Low- and mid-ranking demons were swept by these beams one after another, tumbling from the sky like dumplings, their fates uncertain.
Han Li did not join Zen Master Jinyue and the others in striking at the Demon Venerables. Instead, he remained quietly in place, watching the entire process of the demon army's collapse unfold before his eyes.
When he finally saw every last demon fleeing from the vicinity of Heavenly Abyss City — pursued by the human and demon cultivators like ducks being herded, vanishing from the surrounding void in the blink of an eye — he finally let out a long, slow breath.
In a situation like this, the defeat of the demon army was now truly and irreversibly sealed.