The Gold-Munching Mouse clan numbered in the hundreds of millions — perhaps even billions or tens of billions.
Meanwhile, the Northern Alliance had sent tens of thousands of warriors.
In terms of sheer numbers, this was no contest between equals. In terms of momentum, the disparity was even more crushing, an overwhelming mismatch.
If not for the Emperor-realm powerhouses holding the line through sheer force, the Northern Alliance would have collapsed long ago.
Yet even so, the situation at this very moment was riddled with crisis and could crumble at any time.
Once the defensive line gave way and the Gold-Munching Mouse clan punched through a gap, what followed would be a massacre — an unambiguous, one-sided slaughter.
Every cultivator present was elite, and each had experienced life-or-death combat. They could all see that the situation had reached a precipice.
The Northern Alliance had tens of thousands of elite cultivators — not a small number by any means.
But against the endless tide of Gold-Munching Mice, tens of thousands of elites were simply insignificant, barely worth mentioning.
The Emperor-realm powerhouses were formidable as well. Any Gold-Munching Mouse that ventured near their zones of control was blasted to dust almost without exception.
Yet this level of killing could not meaningfully dent the Gold-Munching Mouse clan. Their numbers were simply too vast to ever be exhausted.
One wave was obliterated, and another surged forward to fill the gap.
Behind that wave, an inexhaustible sea of mice pressed ever closer to the central battle zone, scrambling over each other in their frenzy.
The relentless assault was like floodwaters battering an unreliable levee — sooner or later, it would break through.
"Aaah!"
A piercing scream rang out. A single cultivator's defensive perimeter had developed the slightest moment of tension, and immediately the rushing Gold-Munching Mice swarmed into the opening.
In the span of a single breath, that cultivator was gnawed down to bare bones by the countless mice that poured over him.
The moment the gap opened, a massive breach appeared in the overall defensive structure. More and more Gold-Munching Mice flooded in like madmen.
Two cultivators fell. Then three...
Screams erupted one after another. One by one, cultivators on the verge of exhaustion were tackled and devoured by the surging mice.
In an instant, the sky was filled with wailing.
Once the Gold-Munching Mouse clan caught the scent of blood, they grew even more frenzied. The mice in the rear erupted into full madness, charging forward with savage abandon.
It was like a levee giving way — the surging tide devoured swathes of space. The living beings caught within that space were consumed and harvested without mercy.
In the blink of an eye, several hundred cultivators were brought down by the tide of mice.
Endless waves of Gold-Munching Mice poured relentlessly into the defensive circle formed by those tens of thousands of cultivators.
By now, the defensive system on the battlefield had utterly collapsed.
"I can't hold on anymore — run for your lives!"
Someone screamed the words, and the majority of the cultivators on the scene frantically summoned their escape lights and streaked into the sky.
But the moment their escape lights activated, countless Gold-Munching Mice shot up like fireworks, intercepting them midair and dragging them back down.
Aside from a handful of cultivators with exceptional speed who barely managed to escape into the upper sky, most of them were swatted down by the dense swarm of mice before they could even gain altitude.
Once pulled back down, there was no possibility of survival beneath the jaws of the Gold-Munching Mouse clan.
"Run! Everyone, run together!"
"Running means death, and staying means death too. Might as well fight — maybe we can break through?"
The so-called Northern Alliance had never truly been a solid alliance to begin with. It was merely a ragtag mob of groups united by shared interests.
Under the threat of imminent death, this tenuous alliance disintegrated in an instant.
The only reason no one had fled earlier was out of fear of the Danji Emperor — and because the Danji Emperor had forcefully suppressed those wavering cultivators, preventing a premature rout.
But now, with the mouse tide erupting and the defensive system shattered, their formations had been torn apart entirely. The cultivators were no longer linked to one another; instead, they had been cut off into scattered clusters.
Even the Danji Emperor could not possibly cover every pocket of battle at once.
Moreover, even if the Danji Emperor could somehow control every area, he would no longer be able to stop the cultivators from fleeing.
Survival was the most basic instinct of all living things.
More and more cultivators attempted to escape skyward.
The Gold-Munching Mouse clan had some particularly powerful individuals among them that could fly through the air as well, but most of the mice had not reached that level.
The minority that could fly streaked across the sky, crisscrossing back and forth to form lines of attack, clearly trying to prevent the cultivators from escaping.
However, the density of mice in the air was far lower than on the ground.
And so, although many cultivators in the sky were still forced back down, a fortunate few managed to break free from the battle zone.
The moment they escaped, each and every one of them fled without so much as a backward glance.