The attack reached flesh.
The Demon God answered with the knee.
Haotian caught enough of the movement through the Eyes of the Universe to turn his hips, but the leg still struck him above the thigh and carried the force into his lower ribs. He was lifted from the ground and thrown several paces, landing badly enough that the right hand touched down before the shoulder wanted to bear the weight.
Pain flared through the joint, and the hand collapsed beneath him. Haotian continued the roll rather than trying to support himself with the weakened arm, came back onto one knee, and tested the fingers once while the others closed around the Demon God. They moved, but the response was slower and the shoulder resisted when he tried to raise the arm above chest height.
The Demon God had no reason to wait for him to recover. It moved through the remaining five, forcing Lianhua and Ziyue apart with the width of an arm sweep while Yinxue's Sword Dao broke against a surge of heavier pressure. Yanfei laid Frostfire beneath two consecutive steps and was forced to abandon the first section before the second could fully form, while Yueru stayed farther from the chest until the others could create another opening.
Haotian forced the right arm back into position and reentered. He stopped using it for full strikes. The left hand carried the attacks while the right performed smaller tasks: touching the Demon God's wrist to alter a line, catching the edge of an elbow long enough to change its relationship with the shoulder, bracing against the enlarged forearm for a fraction of a breath before releasing. The difference was small enough that another cultivator might have missed it, but Lianhua saw the change the first time he crossed beside her and shifted her own attack to cover the side his right arm could no longer pressure as strongly.
Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to explain.
The Demon God drove between them before the next exchange could settle. Haotian moved outside the first fist, Lianhua passed beneath the opposite arm, and both attacks still reached farther than the routes they had chosen would once have allowed. Haotian took the edge across his left forearm while Lianhua's sword absorbed another impact that pulled sharply against her injured ribs. She shortened the next turn before the pain could lock the movement.
Ziyue reached the resulting opening and cut the Demon God's upper arm. The blade passed through part of the sacrificial reinforcement and opened a dark line beneath, but the Demon God ignored it and continued toward Yanfei, whose Frostfire had become the only remaining method consistently altering the lower battlefield while Xiangyin remained with Liora.
Yanfei saw the approach and concentrated everything into the ground immediately around herself. Cold spread through the stone in several intersecting lines before heat followed, creating overlapping weaknesses that would collapse differently depending on where the Demon God stepped. The technique was smaller than the broad fields she had shaped earlier, but within that tighter area it carried far more density.
The Demon God entered it anyway. Its first step broke through the outer section and sank several inches as the stone collapsed. Yanfei shifted the next layer before the body could recover, turning the second footing into a fractured shelf rather than a stable surface. The Demon God shortened the stride, avoided the deepest section, and brought the enlarged hand down toward her before she could rebuild the pattern a third time.
Haotian was too far away to reach the wrist.
Ziyue arrived first.
She struck the forearm with the flat of her sword and changed the center of the descending palm enough for Yanfei to move outside it. The Demon God turned the same arm toward Ziyue, and she gave ground rather than trying to remain between them once Yanfei had cleared the line.
Yinxue's Sword Dao entered during the turn, pressing along the shoulder and back from farther out. The Demon God pushed through it, but the resistance bought Lianhua enough time to cross behind the enlarged torso and force Voidpierce into the opposite shoulder.
Yueru moved toward the scar again.
The chest protection thickened.
Haotian reached the lower body while that reinforcement shifted upward. He struck near the knee with the left palm and used the Dao of the Universe to alter the relationship of the descending weight, replacing some of what Xiangyin's spear had been doing with his own body. The movement succeeded well enough to make the Demon God adjust the step.
It also placed Haotian inside the range of the returning arm.
The Demon God struck him across the side before he could clear it. The impact carried him through a broken section of wall and into the stone beyond. Dust and fractured masonry collapsed around him, and for several breaths the medicinal warmth from the earlier healing pill was buried beneath pain running from the ribs into the shoulder and hip.
He remained conscious.
That was not the same as being ready to move.
The fight continued outside the broken wall without him for the first few breaths. Lianhua and Ziyue kept the Demon God from following by attacking opposite sides of the torso while Yinxue maintained enough Sword Dao pressure to complicate the upper body's movement. Yanfei spread Frostfire through the open ground behind them, and Yueru remained near enough to the chest to keep part of the sacrificial reinforcement tied to the scar.
Haotian pushed broken stone away with the left hand and tried the right. The arm responded slowly.
He drew another healing pill but did not swallow it immediately. The first medicine was still active in his system, and layering another dose without need would waste resources the battle might demand later. Instead, he circulated the remaining medicinal energy through the most recent impact, forcing his breathing into a steadier rhythm while the Eyes of the Universe followed the Demon God through the fractured wall between them.
Yanfei was spending too much.
He could see it now in the Frostfire itself. The technique remained controlled, but each new alteration faded sooner after the Demon God passed, and the heat and cold took longer to establish at the farther edges of her range. Without Xiangyin's spear to deny one route and funnel the body toward another, Yanfei had been forced to shape two or three possibilities every time the Demon God advanced.
Haotian came out of the ruins before the others were driven far enough to expose her again. The Demon God had just forced Lianhua away from the upper body and was turning through Ziyue's cut when Haotian entered from the side. He did not gather enough force for a larger exchange. His left hand struck the elbow, his shoulder moved into the turning arm, and his foot stepped across the Demon God's path just long enough to force the enlarged body to choose between continuing after Ziyue or correcting toward him.
It corrected.
Haotian released the contact immediately and moved outside the fist that followed, giving Yanfei time to stop spreading Frostfire and draw some of the remaining technique back around herself. The Demon God continued toward Haotian, forcing him through two changes of direction before its stable Immortal Emperor circulation erased the small distances he created and made him receive the next attack rather than evade it completely.
He turned the fist with the left palm and used the right forearm only as secondary support. The injured shoulder protested immediately, and Haotian released the right side before the joint took the full load. The fist carried his left arm outward, followed by an elbow that he dropped beneath after the Eyes of the Universe showed the upper-body relationship tightening for the second strike.
His palm struck the ribs on the way past.
Dark blood appeared through the cut Ziyue had opened.
The Demon God turned, and Lianhua attacked the opposite side. Her blade reached the shoulder, but her ribs tightened during the final step and shortened the cut before Voidpierce could reach its deepest angle. The Demon God struck toward her immediately.
Haotian changed course and reached the forearm, altering enough of the line for Lianhua to avoid the center, but the intervention placed his own ribs in the path of the shoulder that followed. The enlarged body struck him before he could disengage, carrying him several paces alongside Lianhua.
She landed first. Haotian hit the ground harder.
Yinxue's Sword Dao descended between them and the enlarged body, not as a wall capable of stopping the Immortal Emperor but as several crossing lines that forced it to push through changing resistance. Ziyue entered along one of those lines and attacked the exposed arm, while Yueru shifted toward the chest without Lightning. The Demon God reinforced the scar anyway.
Yanfei saw the lower body lose some protection and used the opportunity to concentrate Frostfire beneath a single foot rather than spread it across several routes. The stone contracted and expanded before the Demon God could simply choose another landing point, and the foot sank.
Haotian and Lianhua moved together. Lianhua attacked the shoulder, Haotian entered low, Ziyue cut the flank, Yinxue maintained pressure from farther out, and Yueru waited outside the scar. For a brief exchange the six active fighters finally compressed their pressure tightly enough that the absence of Xiangyin mattered less. Yanfei controlled one footing instead of three, Haotian replaced the missing spear pressure around the opposite leg, and the three sword users kept the upper body occupied while Yueru forced the chest to remain protected.
Haotian saw the sacrificial reinforcement stretch thin across the flank. Ziyue saw the opening from the surface, and her sword entered first, reaching deeper than the earlier attacks and opening dark blood across the enlarged side. Lianhua immediately changed Voidpierce from the shoulder to the ribs, widening the damage rather than wasting her limited turn trying to reach the scar.
The Demon God forced both women away with a surge of Abyssal pressure. Yinxue's Sword Dao broke under the same release, and Haotian stayed closest, taking the pressure across his body while moving toward the leg to keep the lower stance unstable long enough for Yueru to approach.
Yueru gathered Lightning.
The Demon God abandoned the compromised footing and drove through Haotian.
The enlarged knee struck his forearm and chest together. His right arm failed to hold, and the blow folded the guard inward before throwing him backward.
Yueru stopped the approach immediately rather than entering without the opening he had been trying to create. Ziyue shifted between her and the Demon God while Lianhua withdrew far enough to breathe through the pain in her ribs.
Haotian landed on his back.
For several breaths he could not feel the right hand.
He rolled onto the left side and pushed himself upright with the arm that still answered cleanly. Sensation returned gradually, beginning as heat around the shoulder and spreading down toward the fingers in uneven pulses.
This time he took the second healing pill.
He swallowed it while moving away from the Demon God's immediate line, circulated the medicinal energy through the shoulder and arm, and returned before the numbness had completely cleared. The pill restored enough circulation for the fingers to close and reduced the sharpest pain around the joint, but Haotian no longer trusted the arm to receive another Immortal Emperor strike directly.
He adapted. The left side became the center of his close-range fighting. The right hand touched, redirected, trapped for fractions of a breath, and released before the Demon God could load enough force into the contact. He used his shoulder, hips, forearms, and footwork more often, allowing the breadth of martial arts he had mastered across different worlds to replace strength he could no longer safely demand from one damaged limb.
The changes kept him in the battle.
They also kept placing him close enough to be hit.
A forearm caught his shoulder while he redirected a strike from Yueru. A sweep across the lower body forced him to roll beneath the enlarged reach when he crossed toward Yanfei. The pressure from a compressed Abyssal palm broke part of his guard while he gave Lianhua room to leave another shortened turn.
Each time Haotian returned, and each time the others used whatever space he bought without waiting for him to tell them what to do. Ziyue covered Yueru whenever the Demon God's reach threatened the Lightning user before she could withdraw. Lianhua used Voidpierce more often to cut attacking limbs away from their preferred routes rather than chase the scar herself. Yinxue maintained Sword Dao from outside, changing angles around the Demon God's upper body as her injured sword arm remained protected. Yanfei kept shrinking the area of Frostfire she controlled, trading breadth for enough density to continue affecting an opponent whose power could destroy anything weaker.
The six of them remained dangerous.
The Demon God remained more dangerous.
Every time their attacks created a wound, its next movement forced two or three of them to give ground. Every time Haotian altered a step that Xiangyin might once have controlled with the spear, he had to place his own body within reach to do it. Yanfei's reserves continued falling because the missing spear forced her to create more terrain than before, while Haotian's pills allowed him to keep moving without restoring the endurance he was spending faster than the medicine could replace it.
Far behind them, the Life Dao around Xiangyin had grown steadier.
Haotian caught the change only because the Eyes of the Universe followed everything within the battlefield. The swelling around her damaged wrist had begun to recede, the torn palms were closing under Liora's treatment, and the medicinal current moving through her body had restored part of the energy she had spent before withdrawing.
She was not ready to return yet.
At the front, the Demon God crossed another section of Yanfei's Frostfire and drove its enlarged body into the six before they could settle around the next opening.
Haotian went to meet it again.
The pressure resembled the combinations they had built earlier, but without Xiangyin's spear denying one of the lower routes, every opening demanded more from the remaining six. Haotian had to move toward the leg as soon as Yanfei's Frostfire began failing, leaving the upper body before Ziyue's cut had completely settled, while Yanfei was already spreading another patch of cold and heat several paces farther away. The Demon God needed only one successful correction to stretch those movements apart again, and its greater speed repeatedly found that correction before the Lesser Immortal Lords could close the spaces they created.
Yueru waited at the edge of the enlarged reach with her sword held in the hand that responded more cleanly. She did not gather Lightning whenever the scar appeared visible, because by now the Demon God had repeatedly used that expectation against them. Instead, she moved only far enough to keep part of the sacrificial reinforcement gathered around the chest, allowing the others to continue attacking the limbs and flank from which that protection had been drawn.
Haotian saw the effect each time the Demon God turned. The reinforcement around the scar remained dense, but the layer covering the left shoulder had become noticeably thinner, and the wounded flank no longer restored itself as quickly after Ziyue's blade opened it. The finite reserve they had identified in the previous chapter was being consumed exactly as expected, though the family was paying for every portion of it with injuries the Demon God could inflict far faster than their medicine repaired.
Another heavy step carried the enlarged body toward Lianhua. She read the approach, shortened the turn around her injured ribs, and used Voidpierce Sword Sutra to make up the angle her body could no longer comfortably create. The spatial edge cut through the thinner protection near the shoulder, but the Demon God continued through the wound and forced her sword across her body with the forearm, making Lianhua yield before the pressure could travel into her ribs.
Haotian crossed toward her while Ziyue attacked the opposite side. The Demon God changed direction before either could settle, driving the enlarged frame through the space between them and forcing Haotian to receive another strike with the left arm leading. His earlier healing pill kept the shoulder and ribs functional, but the collision still pushed him backward and left the right hand tingling again when he used it to steady the redirection.
Behind the frontline, the Life Dao surrounding Xiangyin changed.
Haotian noticed it only because the Eyes of the Universe were already following every current within the battlefield. The gentle flow Liora had kept wrapped around Xiangyin's wrist and palms began withdrawing from the deeper tissues, leaving the repaired meridians stable enough to carry cultivation without immediately reopening the injury. The medicinal energy within Xiangyin had also settled more evenly, replacing part of the reserves she had spent before retreating.
Liora had not restored her to the condition she possessed before the Demon God descended. The wrist still carried swelling beneath the repaired flesh, and the palms had only recently closed over injuries that had been torn open several times. Even so, Xiangyin flexed the hand around the spear, changed the grip twice, and rose from the backline without needing Liora's support.
At the front, the Demon God forced Yanfei to abandon another Frostfire field before she could complete it. Its longer stride crossed the weakened ground, and the hand that followed reached her before Haotian could make up the distance created by his previous interception. Yanfei turned the injured shoulder away and brought the other forearm across the strike, reducing the direct impact while the remaining pressure drove her several paces backward.
Ziyue arrived before the Demon God could continue after her. Her sword entered along the forearm and opened another shallow wound, while Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the supporting shoulder and Lianhua moved through the opposite side. Those attacks gave Yanfei enough room to retreat toward firmer ground, but they also drew the upper-body pressure away from Haotian and left the lower movement briefly open.
A spear entered that space.
Xiangyin returned from the backline without announcement, her first thrust aimed not at flesh but at the path of the Demon God's turning knee. The repaired wrist did not carry the same authority it had at the beginning of the battle, so she kept the movement compact and allowed the shaft to rest more heavily across the forearm while the hips supplied most of the change in angle. Even with that limitation, the spear arrived where the Demon God had grown accustomed to finding open ground during her absence.
The step changed.
Yanfei immediately saw the route created by that correction and sent Frostfire into the new landing point rather than spreading the technique across several possibilities. Because Xiangyin had already removed one option, Yanfei no longer needed to divide the same reserves across as much ground, and the cold reached deeper before heat followed through the fractured stone.
The Demon God crushed through the altered footing, but the movement was no longer clean enough to preserve the turn of the torso. Haotian entered the imbalance from the front, struck the outer thigh with his left palm, and used the Dao of the Universe to carry the small displacement upward through the hip. Ziyue's blade reached the flank at the same time, opening the dark wound farther while Lianhua's Voidpierce kept the shoulder from correcting freely.
Yinxue remained outside the enlarged reach and pressed Sword Dao along the guarding arm. The Demon God's heavier Dao resisted immediately, but it had to spend power through that arm at the same moment Xiangyin threatened the lower stance and Yanfei forced the footing to remain unstable.
Yueru finally gathered Lightning.
The scar reinforcement thickened.
Haotian saw essence leave the flank and thigh to reinforce the chest.
Xiangyin's spearhead struck the leg where the covering had just thinned, reaching flesh before the Demon God could completely reverse the transfer. Her repaired wrist trembled under the contact, but she released pressure before the strike became a contest of strength and let the shaft slide back through the palms instead of holding it against the leg.
Yanfei placed Frostfire under the correcting foot.
The Demon God drove through it.
Lianhua attacked the shoulder during the step, and Ziyue widened the flank wound again, forcing enough reinforcement outward that the layer over the scar stopped thickening for a fraction of a breath.
Yueru moved.
The Demon God's arm came across the chest.
Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the elbow.
The stronger Abyssal Dao broke through the pressure almost immediately, but the arm still lost part of its clean path before the resistance disappeared. Yueru passed beneath the outer edge and touched her sword to the scar covering without trying to drive the blade inward.
Lightning entered.
Alter's crimson current answered through the old Sky Piercer wound.
Haotian was already moving before the reaction spread. He did not use the weakened right arm to attack, instead driving the left palm through the outer edge of the sacrificial covering while his right hand touched the Demon God's forearm only long enough to keep the guarding limb from collapsing over him. The Demon God Killing Martial Art followed the same route he had exploited earlier, reaching through reconstructed tissue that Yueru's Lightning had disturbed and forcing another pulse of instability into the cracked structures beneath.
Dark blood broke through the scar.