The Demon God drove through the Frostfire instead of changing direction again. Cold fractured across the sacrificial covering around the ankle, heat followed through the same line, and the stone beneath the foot collapsed while the enlarged body forced its weight downward. Haotian saw the old damaged pathway inside the leg tighten beneath the sudden burden, sacrificial essence rushing toward the crack to hold it together as the Demon God continued pushing through Xiangyin and Yanfei's pressure.
Haotian crossed the remaining ground while Lianhua and Yinxue kept the guarding shoulder occupied. He did not head directly for the scar, because the Demon God still had enough protection gathered there to turn another chest attack into a direct contest he could not win. Instead, he struck the ribs Ziyue had opened and drove Fist of Ruin through the already damaged defense, forcing the enlarged torso farther into the turn created by the unstable footing.
The Demon God answered by bringing the guarding arm down toward him. Haotian saw the movement early, shifted his body along the inside of the elbow, and used Seraph Shatter Palm against the joint while the Demon God's attention remained divided between Yueru's approach and the pressure around its lower body. The limb moved farther than it had during the previous exchanges, not because Haotian had suddenly become stronger but because too much sacrificial essence had already been committed elsewhere.
Yueru entered as the arm moved away from the scar.
The Demon God tried to turn toward her and found Xiangyin's spear already against the rear leg. Xiangyin could not hold the weapon there under a direct collision, but she did not need to. The spearhead forced the first part of the step wider, and Yanfei's Frostfire caught the new landing point before the Demon God could settle its weight cleanly.
Ziyue attacked the opposite flank at the same time, widening the cut Haotian had just used. The Demon God could either pull more reinforcement away from the chest or accept the blade reaching deeper, and it chose to take the wound while keeping the scar protected. Dark blood ran across the enlarged side as Ziyue withdrew before the returning arm could catch her.
Yueru's sword reached the outer covering over the Sky Piercer wound.
She did not stab. The edge touched the sacrificial layer for only a fraction of a breath, and Lightning passed through that contact before the Demon God's hand could close the distance.
Alter's crimson current answered immediately.
Haotian saw the old wound contract from within as the foreign Lightning spread through the reconstructed pathways surrounding it. Sacrificial essence rushed toward the scar from the shoulder and lower torso, but Lianhua's Voidpierce remained against the former region while Xiangyin and Yanfei continued forcing the lower body to spend power simply to maintain its stance.
The Demon God struck toward Yueru. Ziyue reached the wrist from outside and changed the line enough for Yueru to withdraw without taking the center of the blow. The arm continued through Ziyue's interference, but Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the elbow as the Demon God tried to recover, forcing another expenditure through the upper-body pathway already destabilized by the currents moving around the scar.
Haotian entered before that redistribution could settle.
The Eyes of the Universe showed Alter's crimson lightning running through the same old route that Sky Piercer had carved toward the structures surrounding the demon core. Haotian aligned his body with that relationship instead of striking wherever the chest appeared weakest and drove a Demon God Killing Martial Art into the outer edge of the scar.
The sacrificial covering resisted for an instant. Yueru's Lightning had already disturbed it, and Haotian's strike passed through. The old wound split wider beneath his palm, and dark blood broke through the condensed Abyssal layer as the force reached the reconstructed structures underneath. One of the broader pathways leading away from the damaged region convulsed and lost part of its reinforcement, forcing the Demon God's Immortal Emperor circulation to detour around the disruption before the current could return toward the shoulder.
The Demon God's torso lurched under the internal reaction, but the body did not collapse. Its hand came across Haotian before he could completely leave the chest, and although he saw the attack through the Eyes of the Universe, he had already committed too much of his stance to the strike. He turned the ribs away and raised both arms, taking the blow across the guard rather than letting it land through the center of his body.
The impact drove him across the battlefield. The healing pill prevented the ribs from immediately seizing under the shock, but it could not erase the force that had just travelled through them. Haotian landed hard, rolled through broken stone, and used the momentum to bring himself back to one knee while his right arm trembled from wrist to shoulder.
The Demon God did not remain where he had struck it. Abyssal power surged outward from the enlarged body as it forced the unstable pathways back beneath the control of the stable Immortal Emperor circulation. The expanding pressure hit Lianhua before she could deepen the shoulder wound, drove Yinxue's Sword Dao away from the upper body, and forced Ziyue to abandon the flank rather than let the wave trap her against the Demon God's reach.
Xiangyin withdrew her spear from the leg as the pressure reached her. She loosened both hands rather than brace the shaft against it, allowing the weapon to slide while her feet gave ground. The decision kept the already damaged wrist from taking the full impact, but the force still travelled through the shaft and shoulder and sent her stumbling several paces before she recovered the point.
Yanfei was farther outside the center of the pulse and managed to harden the ground beneath herself before the pressure reached her. She remained on her feet, though the injured shoulder tightened when she raised the arm to protect the side of her body. Yueru had already moved away from the scar, and the pressure caught only the outer edge of her protective energy before she cleared the enlarged reach.
The Demon God followed immediately. It did not pause over the reopened wound or the blood running down the chest. The scar remained exposed beneath a thinner layer of sacrificial essence, but its stable Immortal Emperor circulation still carried enough power to drive the enlarged body into the family before they could rebuild the same sequence.
Haotian had barely regained his feet when the Demon God reached Ziyue. She met the first strike with the sword angled across her body and let the weapon rotate under the impact rather than trying to stop the enlarged arm. The force still drove her backward, but Lianhua crossed into the space before the Demon God could continue after her, using the side of her movement that placed less strain across the ribs.
Voidpierce entered against the forearm. The spatial edge opened another cut, but the Demon God drove through it and struck Lianhua with the shoulder. She turned before the full mass reached her, but the impact caught the sword and upper body together and threw her sideways. Her injured ribs tightened hard enough that she remained lower through the landing, one hand briefly touching the ground before she forced herself upright again.
Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the Demon God's back during the turn. The heavier Abyssal Dao surged outward and broke most of the pressure, but the resistance slowed the upper body just enough for Yueru to move toward the scar again.
The Demon God turned before she got there.
Its longer arm crossed the space between them with the chest still bleeding beneath the remaining reinforcement. Yueru redirected the first part of the strike with her sword, but the pressure around the hand carried through the guard and sent another wave of numbness from her Lightning arm into the fingers. She withdrew rather than forcing current through the limb immediately.
Haotian reentered from the opposite side. The medicinal warmth from the pill had settled deeper into the damaged ribs now, but every hard breath still told him that the recovery was temporary. He used the left hand to strike the Demon God's wounded flank and the right only to alter the forearm that came toward him, trying to reduce how often the recovering shoulder had to bear a direct collision.
The Demon God changed the attack halfway through. Instead of continuing toward Haotian's chest, the arm dropped and swept across the space where Xiangyin was moving to reestablish her spear line.
Haotian saw the change, and Xiangyin saw it too. She brought the spear shaft down between herself and the arm, not to block the strike completely but to give herself something she could turn around while leaving the center. The Demon God hit the weapon near the middle, and the force travelled through the shaft before Xiangyin could release both hands.
Her recovering wrist buckled.
The spear remained in her grasp, but the hand around the forward section opened involuntarily and did not close again. Xiangyin moved away with the weapon controlled entirely by the other hand and the crook of her arm. The healing pill had reduced the earlier swelling and sealed much of the bleeding, but the new impact had reached deeper than the injuries it had stabilized.
She shifted the spear once, testing the wrist while keeping her body outside the Demon God's next approach. The hand trembled without completing the turn.
Yanfei moved across the space Xiangyin could no longer cover and laid Frostfire directly into the Demon God's next step. The larger body powered through the technique, but the additional resistance gave Xiangyin enough time to change the spear to a predominantly one-handed grip and move farther toward the outer battlefield.
Haotian understood what she was doing without looking away from the Demon God. She was trying to remain useful long enough for an opening to retreat.
The Demon God gave her none. It crossed through Yanfei's altered ground and drove toward the space Xiangyin was leaving, forcing her to bring the spear around with the healthier arm while the damaged wrist supported the shaft only when necessary. The change let her place the point against the Demon God's approach, but the weapon no longer shifted between angles with the precision it had shown earlier.
The Demon God knocked the spearhead aside and continued. Ziyue came between them, her sword striking the forearm and forcing the hand farther outward while Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the same shoulder from range. The Demon God accepted both pressures and brought the other arm around toward Ziyue, forcing her to leave before she could maintain the protection around Xiangyin.
Lianhua entered from the side despite the pain across her ribs. Voidpierce cut toward the elbow and drew enough of the Demon God's attention that Xiangyin finally gained several paces of clear ground.
She did not waste them.
Xiangyin began withdrawing toward the backline while Haotian, Lianhua, Ziyue, Yinxue, Yueru, and Yanfei compressed their positions around the Demon God to keep it from following.
The battlefield changed as soon as the spear moved away. Haotian felt the absence before Xiangyin had travelled far enough to reach Liora. The Demon God's next step no longer met a spearhead controlling the knee or hip, and Yanfei had to spread Frostfire across a wider region to compensate for the route that had opened. Her injured shoulder forced her to shape the technique more heavily from the opposite side, leaving one section of ground slower to change than the rest.
The Demon God found that section simply by moving through it.
Haotian crossed into the route Xiangyin would normally have threatened and struck the enlarged leg from outside, using the Dao of the Universe to alter the relationship of the descending foot instead of trying to stop the step directly. The Demon God corrected through the hip and brought the opposite hand down toward him, forcing Haotian to leave before he could turn the movement into another attack.
Ziyue took the space he abandoned and cut the flank. The Demon God's reinforcement there remained thinner after the chest sequence, allowing the blade to reach flesh before the enlarged elbow drove her away. Yinxue pressured the returning arm with Sword Dao, while Lianhua crossed beneath the shoulder and used Voidpierce to prevent the Demon God from turning cleanly toward Yueru.
Yanfei worked constantly beneath them. With Xiangyin gone, she had to alter two landing points where previously the spear might have closed one of them. Frostfire spread farther through the broken ground, and the additional expenditure became visible in the way the cold and heat no longer lingered as strongly after the Demon God moved beyond each region.
Yueru waited until the scar covering thinned and approached again. The Demon God still reacted immediately. It changed direction toward her and forced Yanfei to abandon the wider Frostfire pattern she had been building so she could instead alter the nearest landing point before the Demon God reached Yueru. The enlarged foot destroyed the unstable ground, but the brief reduction in speed let Ziyue reach the approaching arm and guide it farther outside.
Haotian followed the opening. He struck the ribs rather than the scar, forcing the torso away from Yueru and giving her enough space to escape without spending more Lightning through the numbed arm. The Demon God responded by driving its other palm into Haotian's guard, and the force carried him across the battlefield before the medicinal energy from his earlier pill had finished repairing the damage from the previous impact.
He landed upright this time, though barely. The right knee bent under him before he recovered, and the ache across the ribs deepened enough that the next breath came through clenched teeth. He could still move, and the Eyes of the Universe still showed every important current within the Demon God, so he returned.
Farther behind the frontline, Xiangyin finally reached Liora.
Haotian did not turn to watch the treatment, but the Eyes of the Universe caught the Life Dao blooming through the backline while he moved, a gentler current spreading around Xiangyin's injured wrist and palms as Liora received her. The healing energy settled over damage the battlefield pill had only stabilized, while a second medicinal current entered Xiangyin's meridians and began replenishing part of what the prolonged fighting had consumed.
That treatment would take time.
There were six of them in front of the Demon God until she returned.
The Frostfire beneath the Demon God's next step broke apart before Yanfei could deepen it, and the enlarged foot came down through the disturbed stone with enough force to scatter the remaining heat and cold across the ground. Without Xiangyin's spear controlling the second route, Yanfei had already begun spreading her technique toward another landing point, but the effort required more ground than she had needed to manage earlier and pulled harder against the shoulder she had been protecting. Haotian saw the Demon God turn toward the section that had not yet fully changed and crossed the distance before the next step could carry it through.
He struck the outside of the descending leg rather than trying to stop it. The Dao of the Universe followed the relationship between the foot, knee, hip, and weight of the enlarged torso, and Haotian placed his palm where a small change in the knee would carry farther through the rest of the motion. The Demon God's leg shifted enough for the foot to land outside its cleanest position, but the Immortal Emperor simply drove more strength through the hip and used the imperfect step as the beginning of a sweeping arm attack.
Haotian was already leaving the leg when the arm came across. He turned with the pressure instead of retreating directly and used the movement to pass beneath the elbow, but the larger reach carried the forearm far enough that its outer edge struck his shoulder before he cleared it. The medicinal energy from the pill softened the shock through the surrounding tissue, yet the impact still drove him away and reminded him how little difference there was between stabilizing an injury and actually restoring the body that had accumulated it.
Ziyue entered through the space Haotian left behind. Her sword cut toward the ribs, where the sacrificial reinforcement remained thinner after the wound they had reopened earlier, and the Demon God turned enough to let the blade scrape across the outer layer instead of reaching the deeper damage. The movement placed the opposite shoulder beneath Yinxue's Sword Dao, forcing a surge of Abyssal pressure upward while Lianhua crossed from the other side and drove Voidpierce toward the arm carrying that pressure.
The Demon God did not stop to answer either attack separately. It rotated through Yinxue's Dao, accepted the shallow cut Lianhua opened along the forearm, and used the larger body to carry the turn into Ziyue before she could withdraw along the same path. Ziyue let the sword move with the collision and escaped the center, but the impact still pushed her several paces farther from Yanfei and Yueru, widening the spaces the six of them were already struggling to keep covered.
Yanfei compensated by spreading Frostfire across the nearest route before the Demon God could exploit it. The technique no longer covered the ground with the same density it had while Xiangyin's spear reduced the number of places she needed to prepare, and the Demon God crossed the first altered section with a short leap that avoided most of the weakened stone. Yanfei shifted the technique toward the landing point while the enlarged body was still airborne, but the injured shoulder slowed the final expansion just enough that the foot reached the edge of the effect instead of the center.
Haotian intercepted there. He entered beside the landing leg and drove his shoulder into the outer thigh while one hand redirected the knee. The difference in physical power made the attempt nearly meaningless as a contest of strength, but Haotian only needed the landing to turn a fraction farther so Yanfei's Frostfire could reach the foot before full weight settled.
Cold climbed across the ankle, and heat followed through the same path. The Demon God broke the technique with raw power, but the disruption delayed the next stride long enough for Yueru to move toward the chest. She approached with the sword low and Lightning absent, forcing the Demon God to decide whether the movement itself justified another reinforcement of the scar.
Dark sacrificial essence thickened over the old Sky Piercer wound before Yueru had committed to an attack. She changed direction without drawing Lightning at all, and the reinforcement remained concentrated there long enough for Lianhua and Ziyue to attack two thinner regions at once.
Lianhua's blade entered the wounded shoulder while Ziyue cut the flank. The Demon God allowed both attacks to reach flesh rather than strip protection from the chest, and Yinxue added Sword Dao against the arm that turned toward Lianhua. Haotian saw the lower body remain relatively unsupported while the upper torso carried most of the reinforcement and moved toward the space where Xiangyin's spear would normally have been waiting.
He had no spear to place across the route.
He used himself.
The Demon God stepped toward Lianhua, and Haotian entered beside the knee, caught the outer line of the thigh with one forearm, and struck lower with the opposite palm. The relationship between the two contacts gave him enough leverage to alter the first part of the step, but the enlarged body continued through the correction with far more force than he could control. Haotian released before the leg could drag him underneath the movement and used the turn to strike the ribs as he escaped.
The Demon God's hand reached him before the second attack finished.
Haotian shifted his head outside the palm and took the forearm across the left shoulder instead of the face. The impact threw him hard enough that he crossed the section of ground Yanfei had just altered, and he landed with one foot breaking through the weakened stone before he could recover.
Lianhua changed her route immediately rather than following the Demon God toward him. She entered through the side Haotian's interception had opened and forced Voidpierce into the elbow, keeping the enlarged arm from extending fully while Ziyue attacked the ribs from the opposite direction. The Demon God turned through both pressures, and Yueru used the movement to approach the scar again.
This time Lightning appeared.
The Demon God abandoned the counter against Lianhua and drove toward Yueru.
Yanfei tried to catch the pursuit with Frostfire, but the distance between her and the next landing point was wider than before. The cold reached first, spreading thinly across the ground, while the heat that should have followed remained a fraction behind because the injured shoulder resisted the broader motion.
The Demon God stepped through the incomplete technique.
Haotian reached Yueru before it did. He spent the final crossing through Heaven-Piercer Step only when there was no other way to arrive in time, his palm striking the inside of the Demon God's wrist as the hand extended toward Yueru. The Dao of the Universe followed the movement into the elbow and shoulder so Haotian could bend the line away from her without challenging the whole arm directly.
The strike missed Yueru, but the Demon God changed the arm into a downward sweep. Haotian could not clear it after committing to the interception. He turned his chest away and let the forearm strike across the back and shoulder, taking the force through a broader section of his body instead of allowing it to land entirely on the injured ribs. The blow drove him toward the ground, but he caught himself on the left hand and rolled through the impact before the enlarged foot could descend where he had fallen.
Yueru had already moved beyond the reach. She did not waste the Lightning she had gathered; as the Demon God turned after Haotian, she sent the current along the sword and struck the outer edge of the scar from the side. The contact lasted only an instant, but Alter's crimson lightning answered beneath the sacrificial covering.
The Demon God's chest tightened as the two currents met, though the reinforcement over the wound remained dense enough that Yueru's Lightning did not reach as deeply as it had during the previous combination. The reaction still forced more sacrificial essence inward and made the old damaged structures contract around the Sky Piercer route.
Haotian saw the movement from the ground and changed his recovery accordingly. Instead of rising away from the Demon God, he rolled toward the enlarged body, came up inside the reach, and drove his left palm into the ribs where Ziyue had repeatedly cut. The first impact forced the torso away from Yueru, and a short Demon God Killing strike followed through the weakened layer before the Demon God could restore it.