Haotian followed with one of the Demon God Killing Martial Arts, directing the second strike through the fracture and toward the deeper structures beneath the shoulder.
The Demon God's own fist met him before the attack reached full depth.
Haotian changed the strike into a block.
The collision drove him several steps backward.
His right forearm went numb from wrist to elbow.
The Demon God followed.
Haotian broke his movement twice, first scattering several possible routes before changing the retreat across the Demon God's front. The enlarged hand continued following, and Haotian suddenly reversed the direction of travel and drove inward beneath the extending arm.
His shoulder struck the Demon God's torso while his left palm drove toward the ribs.
The impact felt like striking a moving wall.
The Demon God barely shifted.
Its knee rose.
Haotian turned away before the strike landed cleanly, but the outside of the knee caught his hip and threw him across the ground.
Lianhua attacked the chest during the turn.
The Demon God reinforced it before Voidpierce arrived.
She changed the blade toward the neck.
Abyssal power condensed there.
Yueru approached from the other side with Lightning.
The Demon God turned toward her.
Lianhua redirected the sword back toward the shoulder.
The blade reached flesh.
Yueru stopped outside the enlarged arm's reach.
The Demon God did not chase her this time.
Instead, it spread both hands.
Abyssal energy gathered across the palms and forearms before releasing in several dark arcs that curved outward through the battlefield. The first attacks forced Lianhua and Ziyue away from the torso, while another passed low enough that Xiangyin had to lift the spear rather than keep pressure on the legs.
Yinxue cut one apart.
Yanfei disrupted another with Frostfire.
The remaining arcs changed direction after passing their first targets.
Lianhua saw one curving back toward Yueru and changed course. Her sword split the dark blade before it reached the younger woman, but the correction pulled against her injured ribs and slowed the next movement.
The Demon God used that delay.
Its movement art carried the enlarged frame directly toward Lianhua.
She saw the approach and began moving before the hand arrived, but the first transition cleared only the fist. The Demon God turned with her, and the second transition shortened because of the ribs.
The Demon God caught her.
Its forearm struck across the sword she raised over her side.
Lianhua was thrown through the remains of a broken wall.
Stone collapsed around her.
Haotian's attention moved toward her only long enough to see her already pushing herself free before the Demon God turned toward Yueru again.
Yueru's Lightning had become one of the few threats it refused to ignore even while the sacrificial reinforcement covered the scar. She gathered current along the sword and shifted inward only far enough to make the Demon God respond.
The chest defense thickened.
Ziyue struck the opposite side.
The Demon God accepted the cut.
Yinxue's Sword Dao attacked the arm.
The Demon God pushed through it.
Xiangyin threatened the rear leg.
The Demon God shortened the step.
Yanfei moved the Frostfire closer.
The Demon God struck the ground and destroyed it.
Haotian entered during the downward strike. He drove along the enlarged arm toward the torso and struck the shoulder before the Demon God could bring the hand back. The protective layer cracked.
His follow-up turned toward the scar.
The Demon God rotated its torso.
The chest disappeared behind the opposite forearm.
Haotian struck the arm instead.
Fist of Ruin compressed the defense.
Yueru moved.
Lightning flashed along her blade.
The Demon God's attention snapped toward her.
Haotian saw power leave the forearm to reinforce the chest and struck the arm again.
The outer layer broke.
Lianhua returned from the ruined wall and drove Voidpierce Sword Sutra through the same region.
The spatial edge cut into the wounded arm.
Dark blood ran down the enlarged limb.
The Demon God turned on her.
Yueru reached the chest.
Her sword touched the sacrificial layer.
Lightning entered.
Alter's crimson current flared beneath it.
The reaction was weaker than before the sacrifice, buried beneath too much accumulated Abyssal essence, but it remained there.
The Demon God's chest tightened.
Haotian saw several damaged pathways contract around the old Sky Piercer route.
Yueru withdrew before the counterattack.
The Demon God released a pulse of power from the torso.
Haotian took the edge across his arms, Lianhua moved with it, Ziyue crossed her sword against the pressure, Xiangyin planted the butt of her spear against the ground without locking her hands around the shaft, and Yanfei hardened the stone beneath her feet. Yinxue yielded farther rather than allowing another Dao backlash to travel through her injured arm.
The pulse scattered them across the battlefield.
The Demon God advanced before they could fully close again.
Its larger body no longer needed to choose the nearest fighter. Each step reached farther, each swing covered more area, and every impact carried enough force that even successful blocks accumulated damage.
Haotian intercepted another strike aimed at Yueru and lost ground. Lianhua took a glancing blow across her sword and landed harder than before. Ziyue avoided the fist itself but was thrown by the pressure around it. Xiangyin stopped placing the spear where the Demon God would land and instead used the weapon to change the routes available after it landed, reducing the number of times her injured palms had to absorb direct contact.
Yanfei narrowed Frostfire even further, no longer trying to reshape large sections of ground the Demon God could simply destroy. Yinxue kept the sword farther from her body and relied increasingly on the Dao Palace of the Sword to attack from angles that did not require her numbed arm to meet anything directly. Yueru stopped spending Lightning on attacks that had no chance of reaching the scar.
The Demon God continued through them.
It drove at Xiangyin, forcing her spear aside with one arm while the other struck toward her shoulder. Xiangyin let the spear fall from one hand and turned around the shaft, avoiding the center of the blow, but the pressure clipped her and sent her rolling.
Yanfei sent Frostfire across the Demon God's knee during the follow-through.
The Demon God broke the technique with a surge of Abyssal energy and stepped through it.
Ziyue's Severing Arc struck the same knee.
The enlarged leg bent slightly.
The Demon God kicked.
Ziyue crossed the sword before her torso.
The pressure threw her away.
Yinxue's Sword Dao descended from above.
The Demon God raised one arm and pushed through it.
Haotian attacked beneath that arm.
Fist of Ruin hit the ribs.
Seraph Shatter Palm followed against the sternum.
The second strike reached the sacrificial layer over the old wound.
It cracked.
Haotian drove forward.
The Demon God's forehead struck his.
The impact stopped him before the third attack formed.
Haotian staggered backward with light bursting across his vision.
The Demon God caught his shoulder.
Its grip tightened.
Haotian struck the wrist with his free hand.
The Demon God lifted him.
Lianhua's sword reached the gripping arm.
Voidpierce cut through part of the reinforcement.
The Demon God released Haotian and struck toward her.
Lianhua moved.
Haotian landed and turned back immediately, breaking his rhythm at close range as the Eyes of the Universe followed the currents moving toward the Demon God's striking arm. He reached the inside of the elbow and drove a Demon God Killing strike into the joint.
The limb moved only slightly.
It was enough for the fist to miss Lianhua.
Yueru entered.
The Demon God saw her.
She had no Lightning gathered.
It reinforced the chest anyway.
Ziyue's blade hit the flank.
Xiangyin's spear struck the supporting leg.
Yanfei's Frostfire crawled over the rear foot.
Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the shoulder.
The Demon God exploded with Abyssal power and broke every attack away from it.
Haotian crossed both arms before the pressure reached him and was driven backward across the ground until he stopped beside Lianhua. Her breathing had become shallower, and blood darkened one corner of her mouth where the repeated impacts had finally drawn something deeper from the injured ribs.
Haotian glanced once. "Can you keep moving?"
"Yes."
Her answer came without hesitation, though she adjusted the next breath before straightening fully.
Yinxue landed several paces away and flexed the fingers of her sword hand. "My arm's getting worse."
"Switch hands when you need to," Lianhua said as she moved past her.
Yinxue had already done so.
The Demon God came again.
Its gaze moved between them before the body followed, reading which movements had slowed, which attacks had become less frequent, and which injuries were beginning to alter the way they fought.
The next charge went toward Yanfei.
Haotian saw it.
Yanfei saw it too.
She drew Frostfire inward instead of spreading it beneath the Demon God, forming a dense band across the space directly in front of herself. Cold and heat layered together, not as a wall meant to stop the Immortal Emperor but as an unstable region the Demon God would have to cross.
It crossed.
The outer defense cracked under the temperature shift.
Yanfei moved away.
The Demon God changed direction after her.
Xiangyin's spear entered from the side.
The Demon God struck the shaft down.
Ziyue attacked the shoulder.
The Demon God let the sword cut shallowly and continued toward Yanfei.
Lianhua intercepted.
Voidpierce reached the forearm.
The Demon God turned through the spatial edge and drove its elbow into her guard.
Lianhua was thrown aside.
Haotian reached Yanfei before the next attack.
He caught the Demon God's wrist from the outside and turned with the strike, using the Dao of the Universe to follow the relationship between the arm, shoulder, torso, and supporting leg rather than trying to overwhelm any one part of them. The redirection changed the hand enough for Yanfei to clear the line.
The Demon God stepped closer.
Its other hand struck Haotian's ribs.
He twisted.
The blow still landed.
Pain drove through his side and folded his stance for a fraction of a breath.
The Demon God raised its arm again.
Yueru's Lightning struck the chest from the side.
The current never reached the old scar directly, but it hit the sacrificial reinforcement hard enough for Alter's crimson lightning to flash beneath it.
The Demon God stopped its attack against Haotian and turned toward Yueru.
Haotian drove Fist of Ruin into the exposed ribs and used the recoil to leave the Demon God's reach before the counter came.
The family spread around it again.
The Demon God's larger body bore more wounds now than it had immediately after the sacrifice. Cuts crossed the shoulder and flank, one arm bled from repeated attacks, the thigh carried Ziyue's earlier damage, and fractures had begun appearing in the sacrificial reinforcement over several regions where Haotian's palms and fists had repeatedly struck.
None of those injuries had slowed it enough.
The sacrificial essence remained dense around the damaged foundation, the old Sky Piercer wound remained covered, and its Immortal Emperor reserves remained far fuller than theirs.
Haotian's Eyes of the Universe followed the energy moving through that reinforcement while the Demon God started forward again. The sacrificial power did not circulate perfectly with the Demon God's own cultivation. It entered damaged areas, absorbed strain, and gradually thinned as the body used it to preserve structures that should have been deteriorating under the fight.
Every heavy attack consumed some of it.
Every defense around the scar consumed more.
Every time the Demon God used the remnants of its former True God pathways, the sacrificial energy bracing those cracks dimmed before fresh power moved in to replace what had been lost.
The army was gone, and no new currents were entering from outside the battlefield. Haotian shifted beneath the Demon God's next fist and drove Seraph Shatter Palm into the wrist, changing direction when the arm refused to move enough and clearing the returning elbow before it could reach his ribs.
Lianhua reached the opposite side.
Yueru moved toward the scar.
The Demon God reinforced it.
Ziyue struck the flank.
Xiangyin changed the rear route.
Yanfei narrowed the ground beneath the correcting step.
Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the shoulder.
The Demon God broke through the sequence again, but Haotian saw the sacrificial layer around the chest dim more noticeably when the Demon God forced enough power outward to scatter them.
The reinforcement was finite.
Knowing that did not make the Demon God slower.
Its enlarged body drove forward before Haotian had taken more than two breaths, one leg filling with Immortal Emperor power while sacrificial essence tightened around the deeper pathways supporting the movement. The first step pointed toward Yueru, but the circulation changed before the second touched the ground, current rising instead through the back and shoulder as the torso began turning toward Lianhua. Haotian crossed toward that side at the same time Lianhua shortened her own movement, both of them reading the change before the Demon God's arm completed the sweep.
Lianhua passed beneath the center of the strike while Haotian's palm hit the descending forearm from outside, Seraph Shatter Palm cracking the sacrificial reinforcement without shifting the heavier limb enough to stop it. The remaining force clipped Haotian across the shoulder and drove him sideways, but the damaged covering around the arm thinned as fresh Abyssal essence flowed from the torso to replace what his strike had broken. Ziyue entered during that transfer, her sword carrying a narrowed Severing Arc into the ribs that had just surrendered part of their reinforcement.
The elemental edge bit through the outer protection and reached flesh before the Demon God could complete the redistribution, leaving another shallow cut along the enlarged flank. The Demon God answered by driving one arm into the ground rather than chasing her directly, sending Abyssal power through the fractured stone beneath Ziyue's retreat and forcing her to abandon the clean withdrawal she had begun.
She landed on one knee several paces farther away, sword already turning back toward the fight, while Yinxue used the disruption to place Sword Dao against the Demon God's shoulder and neck from outside its reach. The heavier Abyssal Dao broke the first pressure cleanly, but Yinxue allowed the second to bend with the resistance and slide lower toward the arm rather than feeding her damaged sword arm into a contest it could no longer tolerate.
Xiangyin's spear entered toward the opposite hip as that arm rose. She no longer tried to seize the Demon God's movement with hard stops, because blood had made both palms slick and every direct contest reopened the cuts across them; instead, the shaft slid through her grip as she placed the spear where the enlarged body would have to pass.
The Demon God shortened the step before the spearhead could close the route, but Yanfei had already sent Frostfire into the nearer landing point. Rather than accept the altered footing, the Demon God lifted the leg entirely and rotated through the air, using the increased mass of its body to carry a kick across the space between Xiangyin and Yanfei.
Xiangyin drew the spear away from the foot and yielded with the movement, while Yanfei left the direct line before the enlarged leg reached her. The pressure trailing behind the kick still struck the Frostfire she had been shaping, breaking the technique apart and catching her through the side of the guard. Her injured shoulder folded closer to her body as she was driven backward, and she changed the landing to favor the other side rather than forcing that arm to absorb more weight.
Haotian saw the Demon God's reinforcement thicken around the leg immediately after the kick and watched the covering around the ribs grow correspondingly thinner.
He changed direction before the transfer completed. His approach broke into several false continuations across the Demon God's perception, then narrowed suddenly into a direct entry toward the ribs Ziyue had already opened. Fist of Ruin struck the weakened layer and drove it inward, after which Haotian shifted the second attack into the same damaged relationship rather than chasing the covered scar at the center of the chest.
The Demon God pulled sacrificial essence from the upper torso to reinforce the side, and Haotian saw the dark covering over the old Sky Piercer wound become thinner before the body itself had finished turning.
Yueru saw enough of the same change from outside. She crossed half the distance without gathering Lightning, waiting until the Demon God had committed more power toward Haotian before the current finally appeared along her sword. The reaction was immediate as sacrificial essence reversed toward the chest, leaving the newly reinforced ribs before Haotian's fist had even separated from them.
The Demon God abandoned its effort to trap Haotian and turned toward Yueru with enough speed that she gave up the attack rather than allowing the enlarged hand to close around her.
Lianhua entered where that turn exposed the shoulder. Voidpierce Sword Sutra passed through the thinning outer layer and opened flesh before the Demon God restored enough protection to the region, while Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the opposite side and prevented the upper body from rotating cleanly without another expenditure of power.
The Demon God solved the problem with cultivation rather than finesse, releasing an outward surge of Abyssal pressure that broke the spatial edge around Lianhua's blade and forced Yinxue's Dao backward at the same time. Even so, the reinforcement around the shoulder had been consumed twice in only a few breaths, and Haotian saw the Demon God draw another portion of the stolen essence from the thigh to restore it.
The pattern became clearer every time the body answered them. The sacrificial essence did not strengthen every region equally, nor did it remain fixed once distributed; it moved wherever the Demon God needed it most, collecting around threatened limbs, filling cracks in damaged pathways, or thickening over the old wound whenever Yueru or Haotian approached the chest. Each transfer preserved one part of the enlarged body by leaving another with less support, while the Immortal Emperor's greater speed often allowed the Demon God to redistribute and counter before their Lesser Immortal Lord bodies completed the attacks those openings made possible.
The Demon God drove toward Yueru again, this time without using the deeper pathways Haotian had been watching. Its stable Immortal Emperor circulation alone carried enough speed to force her backward, and she widened her route rather than trying to outrun the larger stride in a straight line.
Xiangyin placed the spear near the knee, but the Demon God allowed the point to scrape across the sacrificial covering instead of changing direction, accepting a shallow injury so it could continue pressing the one fighter whose Lightning still threatened the scar beneath the dark reinforcement.
Ziyue cut across the reaching arm from Yueru's other side. The sword opened another line through the outer defense, and Yinxue pressed Sword Dao against the shoulder supporting the pursuit, but the Demon God refused to release the chest protection to answer either attack fully. The hand continued forward until Yueru slipped beneath the edge of its reach, using the space Ziyue had bought rather than forcing her numbing arm through another direct clash.
As she passed, she did not discharge Lightning. Simply carrying the blade close enough to threaten the chest kept the Demon God's sacrificial essence concentrated there for another moment.
Haotian attacked the price of that concentration. He entered along the opposite side and struck the wounded ribs before the reinforcement could return, Fist of Ruin collapsing the diminished outer layer enough for the enlarged torso to shift beneath the impact. The Demon God's other hand came toward him immediately, and Haotian changed the follow-up into a redirection instead of trying to finish another chest attempt.
The forearm still struck his guard with enough force to send pain through the numb right arm and bruised ribs, but he allowed the momentum to move him out rather than locking his body against it.
The Demon God turned after him and allowed its guard to drift farther from the chest than it had at any point since absorbing the army. The opening was wide enough that Haotian could see the sacrificial covering stretched thin across the old wound, and for an instant the path resembled exactly the kind of opportunity the family had spent the last several exchanges trying to create.
The Eyes of the Universe followed the apparent weakness deeper and found the opposite shoulder already filling with power while the rear leg settled behind it, both arranged to close on anyone who entered directly.
Haotian did not take the bait.
He changed his path before crossing the final distance and drove Seraph Shatter Palm into the arm that would have delivered the counter, breaking part of the reinforcement around the elbow instead. Lianhua read the exposed chest from the Demon God's posture rather than its internal circulation and also refused to enter, turning Voidpierce toward the opposite shoulder while Ziyue cut the flank below it.
The Demon God's prepared counter found nothing in front of the scar and had to unwind while its arms and side took the attacks it had expected them to ignore.
Its gaze settled on Haotian after the exchange. The Demon God had learned that exposing the scar was no longer enough to draw him blindly forward, just as Haotian had learned that every visible weakness in the enlarged body had to be read together with the currents behind it. Neither stopped moving long enough for that recognition to become a pause.
The Demon God shifted toward Xiangyin before the last cut across its flank had finished bleeding.
The change of target came with a low burst through one of the damaged leg pathways. Sacrificial essence braced the old cracks as the larger frame accelerated, and Xiangyin abandoned the spear line she had been forming before the Demon God reached it. She let the weapon travel with her retreat rather than remain stretched across the approaching route, forcing the Demon God to enter farther if it wanted to take control of the shaft.
It did.
The enlarged hand caught the spear near the middle and twisted hard enough that Xiangyin released one hand before the force could travel through both wrists. Blood slicked the remaining grip, and she let the shaft rotate instead of resisting until the Demon God wrenched the weapon completely free.
She did not chase it when the spear left her hands. The first step carried her away from the weapon while the Demon God turned the captured shaft toward her body.
Haotian saw the arm fill with power and crossed the distance before the throw completed. The spear left the Demon God's hand with enough force to turn the weapon into a straight dark blur, but Seraph Shatter Palm struck the shaft from the side and altered the route just enough for it to pass Xiangyin.
The weapon buried itself deep into the ruined ground behind her, while the Demon God used the throwing motion as the beginning of another advance and drove its shoulder into Haotian before his striking arm could withdraw.
The collision sent Haotian backward, but he had already turned enough that the shoulder did not strike squarely across the ribs. The Demon God's hand followed and closed around his wrist as he moved, fingers tightening before he could rotate through the grip completely.
Lianhua's sword entered against the gripping arm without hesitation, forcing the Demon God to release him rather than let the spatial edge sink into the elbow, while Xiangyin ran past the outer edge of the fight and pulled her spear free from the ground.
Yueru approached the chest during the turn.
The Demon God stopped pursuing Haotian before she was fully inside striking range and dragged reinforcement back toward the scar, leaving the wounded arm and flank darker only at the edges where the sacrificial covering had become thin.
Ziyue cut into the flank as soon as the transfer became visible from outside, Yinxue pressed Sword Dao against the back, and Yanfei wrapped Frostfire around the supporting leg without trying to engulf the larger body.
The Demon God forced Abyssal power downward through the leg and broke Yanfei's technique before the opposing temperatures could travel deeply into the reinforcement. Yinxue's pressure bent beneath the stronger Dao, while Ziyue's blade reached flesh but failed to slow the body enough for Yueru to finish closing on the scar.
The Demon God's hand came around toward her, and Yueru widened her path before the longer reach could trap her.
For several exchanges the Demon God kept the deeper former True God pathways closed and fought almost entirely through its stable Immortal Emperor circulation. Even without the violent bursts, its attacks arrived fast enough that Lianhua had to shorten one turn when her ribs tightened, and Xiangyin twice abandoned a spear placement because the larger body changed direction after she had already committed the weapon.
Yanfei's injured shoulder slowed the spread of Frostfire toward one side, forcing her to work more through the ground immediately around her feet, while Yueru discharged no Lightning at all unless the scar was genuinely reachable.
Ziyue carried more of the transitions as those limitations accumulated. She intercepted when Lianhua's shortened movement left a wider angle than before, covered Xiangyin when blood forced another change of grip, and twice struck the Demon God's reaching arm before it could take advantage of Yinxue's slower recovery. Her attacks rarely penetrated deeply, but the Demon God could no longer ignore every one of them because the sacrificial reinforcement around its limbs had been repeatedly drawn toward the chest and restored from a reserve that no longer received anything from outside.
Haotian followed those movements while fighting inside them. The Eyes of the Universe no longer showed any fresh sacrificial current entering from the stronghold; every dark layer he watched reform around the Demon God came from essence already stored within the enlarged body. When a palm strike broke the covering over one arm, reinforcement moved from the thigh to replace it. When Yueru shifted toward the scar, that replacement slowed and part of the same essence rushed back toward the chest instead.
The Demon God had noticed the pattern they were exploiting. Its next redistribution began before anyone attacked, drawing reinforcement away from the left flank and leaving a weakness obvious enough for Ziyue to recognize without Haotian's perception.
She changed direction toward it, but the Demon God had already gathered power through the arm on that side and used the apparent weakness to shorten the distance between them.
Ziyue abandoned the cut as soon as the shoulder changed. The hand still reached farther than her retreat and struck the sword near the guard, folding her arm inward before she let the impact carry the weapon away from her body. She yielded several paces rather than contest the larger strength, and the Demon God used the same movement to turn toward Yanfei, who had already begun retreating from the line rather than waiting for the target change to become obvious.
Yanfei laid Frostfire across the space directly between them instead of trying to prepare a distant landing point. Cold tightened the sacrificial layer around the approaching leg, heat followed through the same surface, and the abrupt stress forced the Demon God to spend more power through the limb before the technique could interfere with the joint.
It crossed anyway, breaking the altered layer through cultivation and reaching Yanfei before she could completely clear the enlarged arm's sweep.
She turned the injured shoulder away and took the outer pressure across the other side of her guard. The force threw her several paces, but Xiangyin's spear entered beneath the Demon God's arm before it could continue after her. Rather than trying to stop the pursuit, Xiangyin lifted the spearhead into the path the elbow would need to complete the second strike, forcing the Demon God either to take the point or change the arm.
It changed.
Lianhua entered where the adjustment exposed the shoulder and cut through the thinning reinforcement with Voidpierce Sword Sutra. The spatial edge reached flesh before the Demon God's Dao pushed it away, and Ziyue struck the opposite side almost immediately afterward.
Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the arm closest to Yueru, preventing the Demon God from bringing every defense toward the chest without surrendering something elsewhere.
Yueru moved only after the other pressures had settled.
She did not gather Lightning.
The Demon God reinforced the scar anyway.
Haotian saw essence leave the wounded arm, then the thigh, then the outer flank as the chest covering thickened. Instead of following Yueru inward, he attacked the region that had just been stripped around the elbow, driving Seraph Shatter Palm through the diminished protection while Lianhua's earlier cut remained open.
The arm shifted more than it had under his previous strike.
Ziyue's sword reached the same region before the Demon God could restore it.
Dark blood ran down the enlarged forearm.
The Demon God pulled the limb back and sent a dense Abyssal pulse through the battlefield, forcing Haotian and Ziyue away before either could deepen the damage. Lianhua changed direction with the pressure instead of resisting it, while Xiangyin planted the butt of her spear against the ground and let the shaft guide her backward without closing her damaged hands hard enough to tear them farther.
The pulse consumed more reinforcement than the Demon God had spent on several ordinary exchanges. Haotian saw the dark layers around the thigh and wounded flank dim afterward as essence moved inward to stabilize the torso, while the covering over the arm remained visibly thinner than before.
The old True God structures beneath all of it were still broken, but the sacrificial essence prevented those fractures from separating farther whenever the Demon God forced higher output through them.
The Demon God stopped using the same answer.