Abyssal energy condensed around both enlarged hands and spread outward into curved blades that entered the battlefield at different heights. The first forced Lianhua away from the chest, another crossed low enough that Xiangyin had to lift the spear from the route she was controlling, while two more curved toward Yanfei and Yinxue from opposite directions.
Ziyue cut through one that passed near Yueru, and Haotian moved between two others without wasting a strike on either as he followed the Demon God's body through the moving screen.
The dark blades were not the real attack.
The Demon God entered behind them.
Its enlarged frame disappeared from one line of sight as several Abyssal arcs crossed between Haotian and the torso, then emerged beside Lianhua while she was still changing direction around the first blade. Lianhua recognized the approach from the shift of pressure and began moving before the hand arrived, but the injured ribs limited the deepest turn of her footwork and forced her to shorten the second transition.
The Demon God reached her.
She raised the sword across her side and turned with the strike, allowing the blade and both shoulders to move together rather than letting the impact fold the weapon into her ribs. The force still threw her through the remains of a broken wall, where stone collapsed around her before she rolled clear of the heavier debris.
The Demon God started after her.
Yueru moved toward the scar.
The pursuit stopped.
The Demon God turned so quickly that the sacrificial covering around the chest had already thickened before Yueru completed the first half of her approach. She widened her route immediately, drawing the attention with her rather than committing the Lightning arm to an attack she knew would be blocked.
Ziyue reached the flank.
Her sword cut through the region the chest reinforcement had just robbed, and Xiangyin's spear entered toward the rear leg while Yanfei changed the next footing rather than the current one. Yinxue's Sword Dao gathered against the shoulder supporting the turn, and the Demon God found several separate pressures arriving during the same movement without any of them requiring Haotian to direct the others into place.
The Demon God did not try to answer them equally. It accepted Ziyue's cut through the flank, allowed Xiangyin's spear to score the outer reinforcement around the thigh, and used raw Immortal Emperor Dao to push through most of Yinxue's pressure while keeping the chest covered.
The foot avoided Yanfei's altered landing point by shortening the stride, but that correction changed the relationship through the hips just as Haotian entered from the opposite side.
Fist of Ruin struck the ribs before the body could settle.
The Demon God absorbed the impact and drove a palm toward him.
Haotian saw the shoulder and moved outside the center of the blow, but the enlarged hand still caught his forearm and sent another jolt of numbness through the limb. He continued with the force instead of stopping, let the hand carry him across the Demon God's front, and brought his other palm into the shoulder during the turn.
The strike opened another fracture through the sacrificial layer.
Lianhua had already recovered from the broken wall and entered behind him. Her movement was shorter on the injured side now, but she no longer tried to force the old range from her ribs. She approached from the direction that allowed her healthier turn and drove Voidpierce through the fracture Haotian had opened.
The Demon God's arm bled.
Its gaze passed over Lianhua and moved immediately toward Yinxue, whose sword had shifted to the opposite hand again after the last Dao clash. The next movement went toward her without the explosive assistance of the old pathways, yet the Immortal Emperor speed still forced Yinxue to retreat before her Sword Dao completely formed.
She did not try to hold ground. The sword moved farther from her body, allowing the Dao to extend from the blade while her injured arm remained outside the direct exchange, and she placed the pressure against the Demon God's shoulder only long enough to complicate the reach coming after her.
Xiangyin's spear crossed the lower route at the same time, but the Demon God changed direction after the weapon had already committed and drove toward Yanfei instead.
Yanfei had seen the turn through the hips and left the position before the full body followed. Frostfire spread behind her retreat rather than beneath the Demon God's first step, forcing it either to cross unstable ground during the pursuit or shorten the stride again.
The Demon God chose neither and opened one of the damaged former True God pathways through the leg.
Sacrificial essence flared around the old fractures.
The enlarged body accelerated across the altered ground before Yanfei's technique could finish changing it.
Haotian saw the burst begin.
Yanfei saw the Demon God's posture.
Neither had enough time to remove her completely from the attack.
She twisted away from the center, keeping the damaged shoulder back, and the palm struck the other side of her guard. The impact threw her across the battlefield, but she used Frostfire beneath the landing to harden the stone before her feet touched, stopping the slide without forcing the injured shoulder into the ground.
The Demon God turned toward Xiangyin before Yanfei had fully recovered.
Another damaged leg pathway opened.
Xiangyin moved the instant the hips changed, taking the spear with her instead of leaving it stretched across the route. The Demon God still reached her and swept one hand toward the weapon, forcing her to release the forward grip when blood made the shaft begin slipping through her fingers.
The next strike came toward her body.
Lianhua crossed the route from the side, Voidpierce cutting into the forearm before the hand reached Xiangyin. The Demon God shifted the strike enough to miss the center, but the pressure caught Xiangyin across the torso and drove her backward while Lianhua had to leave before the returning arm could trap her inside the enlarged reach.
Ziyue attacked the back.
Severing Arc narrowed into the damaged reinforcement beneath the shoulder, opening a deeper line than her previous attempts. Yinxue's Sword Dao entered the same region while the Demon God was still turning, adding enough pressure that the covering there failed to restore immediately.
Yueru moved toward the chest again.
The Demon God turned away from the wounded shoulder without hesitation.
Haotian saw three things happen inside the enlarged body almost together. Power remained in the damaged leg pathways from the bursts toward Yanfei and Xiangyin, another current rose through the upper body to answer Lianhua and Ziyue, and sacrificial essence began rushing inward toward the scar as soon as Yueru approached.
The cracks around the former True God structures trembled beneath the overlapping demands.
The Demon God forced more sacrificial essence into them.
Its body stabilized.
Haotian entered before the reinforcement settled completely.
His fist struck the ribs, not the chest, and the impact forced the enlarged torso to shift while the Demon God's attention remained fixed on Yueru. Seraph Shatter Palm followed into the shoulder already weakened by Ziyue and Yinxue, driving through a sacrificial layer too thin to absorb the entire strike without another transfer.
The Demon God pulled essence from the lower body.
Xiangyin saw the thigh protection weaken and attacked.
The spearhead struck the outer leg and reached flesh before the Demon God could return reinforcement there. Yanfei, recovering beyond the same side, laid Frostfire beneath the supporting foot and forced the larger body to shift its balance while the leg was already under pressure.
The Demon God opened the damaged leg pathway wider.
The foot tore free of the unstable ground.
Its body turned toward Xiangyin.
Lianhua entered high.
The upper-body pathway flared.
Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the arm.
The Demon God's Dao surged against it.
Ziyue cut the flank.
The chest remained reinforced.
Yueru stopped advancing.
The Demon God kept the protection there anyway.
Haotian watched the sacrificial essence move through too many damaged regions at once. It braced the leg pathways carrying the burst, flowed upward to keep the shoulder functioning under Lianhua and Yinxue's pressure, and remained packed around the Sky Piercer wound because the Demon God refused to trust Yueru outside the scar's reach.
The amount surrounding the wounded flank dropped sharply.
Ziyue's sword entered farther.
Dark blood opened across the side.
The Demon God struck toward her, and she abandoned the cut before the longer arm could trap her. That movement forced another portion of power into the shoulder, and the old upper-body pathway trembled when the current crossed a fracture already strained by the previous exchanges.
Haotian shifted closer.
The Demon God saw him and deliberately let the guard over the scar loosen again.
This time the opening was smaller.
Haotian did not even begin toward it.
He drove his palm into the damaged shoulder instead.
The sacrificial layer fractured under Seraph Shatter Palm, and Lianhua's sword followed the opening without aiming anywhere near the chest. Xiangyin struck the leg at the same time, Yanfei narrowed Frostfire around the rear footing, and Ziyue returned to the wounded flank while Yinxue maintained pressure against the arm.
The Demon God had to move reinforcement in four directions before Yueru took a single step.
When she finally did, the entire circulation shifted toward her.
Lightning gathered late along the sword.
The Demon God's chest covering thickened, drawing essence from the leg and shoulder even while those regions were still under attack. Its enlarged body turned toward Yueru and opened the damaged leg pathway again to close the distance before she could reach the scar.
Haotian saw the fracture inside that pathway widen beneath the burst.
Lianhua attacked the shoulder as the body turned.
The Demon God forced more current upward.
Xiangyin's spear entered toward the leg carrying its weight, while Yanfei altered the ground beneath the correcting step and made the lower body consume still more power to remain stable. Ziyue's blade opened the flank once again, and Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the arm reaching for Yueru, spreading the Demon God's response across nearly every region whose reinforcement had already been thinned.
Yueru changed direction away from the reaching hand.
The Demon God followed.
Haotian entered along the opposite side of the chest.
Fist of Ruin struck the ribs and turned the torso farther than the Demon God intended. The larger arm came toward him, but Yinxue's pressure remained on the shoulder and delayed the final line enough for Haotian to slip beneath it.
The sacrificial covering over the scar had become visibly thinner through the Eyes of the Universe. Essence continued rushing toward it, but the same finite reserve was still supporting the leg pathways, the damaged upper body, the wounded flank, and the strains created by every heavy movement the Demon God had made since the sacrifice.
Haotian drove another palm into the outer edge of the chest protection.
The Demon God caught his wrist before he could reach deeper.
The grip tightened.
Haotian stepped with it rather than pulling away, turning his body around the captured arm while the Demon God raised the other hand to strike. Lianhua's blade entered against that arm and forced it outward, while Ziyue attacked the flank hard enough to make the torso shift another fraction.
Yueru reversed direction.
The Demon God saw her coming.
It released Haotian and turned toward her.
The damaged leg pathway remained open from the pursuit, and the upper-body pathway was still carrying power from the exchange with Lianhua, while sacrificial essence continued pouring toward the chest from regions Ziyue and Xiangyin had already stripped thin.
Yueru did not try to drive her sword through the center of the scar.
She passed the enlarged hand as it reached for her, letting Ziyue's pressure on the flank and Yinxue's lingering Dao against the shoulder pull the line just far enough away from her body. Her Lightning arm had grown stiff over the course of the battle, so she kept the movement compact and used only the contact she needed.
The edge of her blade touched the outer covering of the old wound.
Lightning entered.
Alter's crimson current answered from beneath the sacrificial layer, and the damaged structures around the Demon God's former True God foundation contracted violently as both currents met along the old Sky Piercer path.
The Lightning entered the sacrificial covering without breaking it immediately. Yueru had used too little power for that, keeping the current concentrated along the narrow line where her blade touched the old wound, but the crimson lightning Alter had left behind answered with a violence that did not depend upon the strength of her cultivation alone. The two currents met inside the scar and raced through pathways already carrying the strain of the Demon God's pursuit, while the Abyssal essence packed around those fractures tried to contain forces moving in directions it had never been meant to reconcile.
The failure did not remain inside the chest. One of the damaged pathways descending toward the leg shuddered under the strain, while another running through the shoulder lost the smooth circulation it had maintained only moments earlier. The Demon God forced additional Abyssal essence toward both places, but doing so thinned the reinforcement around the ribs and arm that Lianhua, Ziyue, and Haotian had already damaged.
Haotian saw the redistribution while he was still moving and changed his approach toward the scar before the covering there could settle again.
The Demon God turned toward him immediately. Its larger hand crossed the distance first, forcing Haotian to slip outside the center of the strike while the pressure around the fingers tore through the protective energy covering his shoulder. He did not try to overpower the arm or remain close enough for the next movement to trap him; he followed the rotation of the torso, stepped through the space opened by the turn, and placed a strike from the Demon God Killing Martial Arts along the same route Sky Piercer had once carved through the chest.
The force did not tear through healthy Immortal Emperor flesh. It entered where the sacrificial reinforcement had already been destabilized by Yueru's Lightning, pushed through reconstructed tissue that had never recovered its original integrity, and reached the cracked spiritual structures beneath. The resistance against Haotian's palm changed abruptly as the outer layer failed, and dark blood burst from the wound while Alter's crimson lightning flashed through the opening.
The Demon God's counter came before Haotian could withdraw completely. Power entered the enlarged arm through the damaged upper-body pathway, but the current stumbled once along the fracture and forced the shoulder to compensate before the fist completed its motion. Haotian still took the blow across both forearms and was thrown several paces, yet the interruption robbed the attack of enough force that he remained conscious and regained his footing without being driven completely out of the battle.
Lianhua used the same disruption rather than following Haotian toward the chest. Her ribs no longer allowed the deepest turns of Cloud-Sundering Steps without pulling pain through her side, so she entered from the direction that let her movement stay shorter and drove Voidpierce Sword Sutra into the shoulder whose circulation had just faltered. Space narrowed along the sword and carried the edge through a sacrificial layer already thinned by the Demon God's attempt to reinforce the scar, opening flesh before the heavier Dao pressure forced her blade away.
Ziyue reached the opposite flank while the Demon God turned after Lianhua. Her sword followed the wound that had been opened repeatedly through the earlier exchanges, and the narrowed Severing Arc struck where the sacrificial covering had become uneven from constant redistribution. The Demon God accepted the cut rather than pull protection away from the chest, allowing the elemental edge to reach farther than before even as its attention remained fixed on Yueru and Haotian.
Xiangyin's spear entered toward the leg carrying most of the body's weight. Blood had made both palms slick enough that she no longer closed her grip fully around the shaft, instead letting the weapon travel through her hands as she changed its angle. The spearhead did not need to pierce deeply; it only had to make the Demon God alter the joint while the damaged pathway inside the leg was still carrying the strain left by the backlash.
Yanfei had already begun changing the ground beneath the correcting step. Frost tightened the fractured stone around the descending heel, heat widened the same cracks immediately afterward, and the surface gave way just enough to force the Demon God to send more power through the leg to keep the enlarged body from settling unevenly.
Haotian saw the old pathway flare around the added load, and the sacrificial essence bracing one section of it burned away faster than it could redistribute from the torso.
The Demon God forced the step through anyway. The ground broke under the weight and Yanfei's Frostfire scattered through the crater, but the leg no longer moved with the same clean relationship between hip, knee, and foot. Yinxue pressed Sword Dao against the shoulder during that imbalance, avoiding a direct contest with the Demon God's heavier Dao by narrowing the pressure along the region Lianhua had just cut.
The Abyssal Dao still pushed through most of it, though answering the attack drew another portion of reinforcement away from the chest.
Haotian returned before that transfer finished. Rather than driving directly toward the scar again, he struck the wounded ribs with Fist of Ruin and allowed the force to push the enlarged torso farther into the turn already created by Xiangyin and Yanfei. The Demon God tried to stabilize the body by opening the damaged leg pathway wider, and Haotian saw the sacrificial bracing around one old fracture contract until part of it ceased carrying the strain.
The pathway did not disappear, nor did the Demon God lose control of the leg. Current rerouted through the surrounding Immortal Emperor network almost immediately, but the dark reinforcement packed around the damaged structure thinned sharply while the chest and shoulder drew from a reserve that had already been forced to repair too many separate regions.
Yueru remained outside the enlarged reach. Her Lightning arm had grown stiff enough that she kept the sword closer to her body and no longer gathered current until she knew she could use it. The Demon God continued watching her anyway, and that attention forced it to keep the scar protected even while Lianhua, Ziyue, Xiangyin, Yanfei, and Yinxue kept pressing the regions from which that protection had to be taken.
The Demon God changed the problem rather than continue answering each attack separately. Abyssal energy condensed around its arms and broke outward in several curved blades that crossed the battlefield at different heights, some aimed toward bodies and others cutting through the routes the family had been using to support one another.
Haotian moved beneath one while Lianhua split another before it could turn back toward Yueru, and farther out Yinxue redirected a third away from Yanfei without bringing her injured sword arm into another hard collision.
The attack did not stop there. The Demon God moved behind the dark blades, using them to occupy the spaces through which the family had repeatedly closed around it, and the enlarged body drove toward Xiangyin while two arcs forced Ziyue and Yanfei farther apart.
Xiangyin recognized the target before the first blade had finished passing and brought the spear across the route, though she kept the shaft mobile rather than trying to brace it against a body several realms of physical force beyond her own.
The Demon God struck the weapon near the head. Xiangyin released one hand before the impact could travel through both wrists, but the shaft still tore across the damaged skin of the remaining palm as it swung away. She stepped with the weapon instead of resisting, recovered the point during the rotation, and placed it between herself and the Demon God again before the larger hand could reach her chest.
Haotian crossed toward them while following the circulation inside the Demon God. No damaged former True God pathway had opened for the approach; the movement came entirely through the stable Immortal Emperor network, which meant there was no flare for him to exploit before the strike reached Xiangyin.
He accelerated anyway and drove Seraph Shatter Palm into the wrist just as the enlarged hand passed the spear, changing the angle enough for Xiangyin to slip outside the center of the attack.
The Demon God turned the failed strike into a backhand toward Haotian. He dropped beneath the arm and felt the pressure strip away part of his protection as it passed above, then moved through the opening created by the turn and drove his other palm against the ribs.
The blow reached the weakened defense, but the Demon God ignored it and continued turning toward Xiangyin instead of allowing Haotian to drag the fight back toward the chest.
That choice became clearer over the next several movements. Lianhua reached the arm and opened another cut with Voidpierce, Ziyue attacked the flank, and Yinxue placed Sword Dao across the shoulder, yet the Demon God accepted each lesser wound so long as the body remained positioned to keep Xiangyin under pressure.
Every time she tried to establish another spear line near the legs, the Demon God altered its stride or struck the shaft before the route could settle, forcing her damaged hands to keep changing grip under impacts they could no longer absorb cleanly.
Yanfei shifted closer to Xiangyin and began shaping Frostfire around the spaces the spear could no longer hold alone. Her injured shoulder limited how widely she could spread the technique in one direction, so she worked through smaller regions near the feet and forced the Demon God to break each one individually rather than controlling a broad section of ground.
Ziyue moved with those changes, covering whichever side opened when Xiangyin or Yanfei had to yield, and the increased burden on her became visible in the deeper breaths she took between attacks.
Haotian saw the Demon God watching all of it.
It did not need to know their techniques by name to understand the functions they were performing. Xiangyin kept limiting where its enlarged body could step, Yanfei made those forced routes more expensive, and Ziyue repeatedly occupied the spaces created whenever either woman had to withdraw.
Breaking one of those relationships would widen the ground around the Demon God and reduce how many simultaneous pressures it had to answer whenever Yueru threatened the scar.
The Demon God moved toward Haotian again, drawing him inward with an attack through the stable circulation rather than one of the damaged pathways. Haotian shifted outside the fist and began turning toward the chest, only for the Demon God to abandon him after the first exchange and cross directly toward Xiangyin before he could recover the distance.
Xiangyin had already moved the spear into the approaching route, but the Demon God no longer tried to avoid the point. It allowed the weapon to scrape through the sacrificial covering over the thigh and struck the shaft farther down, where the force could travel through the weapon into her hands.
Xiangyin released immediately, yet the brief contact still reopened the cuts across both palms and sent the spear spinning away.
She followed the weapon for one step and stopped when the Demon God changed direction between her and the shaft. Without the spear in hand, she moved rather than trying to recover it through the larger body's reach, and Yanfei filled the space beside her with Frostfire to slow the next step.
The Demon God broke through the altered ground and continued.
Lianhua reached the pursuit from the side. Her movement shortened around the injured ribs before she could take the deepest angle, but the sword still entered against the forearm and forced the Demon God to turn enough for Xiangyin to leave the immediate line.
Ziyue recovered the fallen spear with the outside of her foot and sent it sliding across the ground, where Xiangyin caught it several paces later without having to cross back through the Demon God's reach.
The Demon God answered the recovery with another burst of Abyssal pressure. Haotian saw it gathering through the torso and moved before the wave spread, but the enlarged body released enough force to drive everyone outward regardless.
Lianhua yielded with the pressure rather than letting it fold her around the rib injury, Yinxue widened her distance before her weakened arm was caught in the Dao collision, and Xiangyin planted the lower end of the spear against the ground while keeping her hands loose enough that the shaft absorbed part of the movement.
Yueru used the widening space to approach the scar.
The Demon God turned before Lightning appeared.
She stopped.
The chest reinforced anyway.
Haotian saw sacrificial essence leave the shoulder and wounded flank and move inward toward the old Sky Piercer route, thinning the exact regions Lianhua and Ziyue had been attacking since before the sacrifice.
He changed direction toward the shoulder while Ziyue entered the flank, and the Demon God was forced to answer attacks it would otherwise have ignored because too much of the surrounding protection had already been spent elsewhere.
Seraph Shatter Palm fractured the outer covering around the shoulder. Lianhua's blade followed through the same region, and Yinxue's Sword Dao pressed against the arm as the Demon God tried to restore it.
The larger body turned away from the three attacks and drew more sacrificial essence upward, leaving the supporting leg with less protection just as Xiangyin brought the spearhead back into range.
Her thrust reached the thigh.
Yanfei changed the footing at the same time.
The Demon God forced power through the damaged leg pathway to tear free of both pressures at once, and Haotian saw the fracture that had already lost part of its bracing widen again.
Sacrificial essence rushed toward the failure, but the chest remained heavily reinforced because Yueru had not moved far enough away to stop being a threat.
The strain began linking regions that had previously failed separately. Power forced through the leg drew support from the torso, the wounded shoulder demanded another transfer as Lianhua and Yinxue continued pressing it, and the old Sky Piercer wound remained covered under a concentration of essence the Demon God refused to release.
Haotian followed those currents while moving with the fight and saw the same finite reserve stretched between too many damaged structures.
Yueru moved again.
This time Lightning gathered only after she had already entered behind Ziyue's attack.
The Demon God turned toward her and opened the upper-body pathway to bring its guarding arm across the chest. Lianhua's sword was already against that shoulder, and Yinxue's Dao pressed through the movement from farther out, not enough to stop the stronger limb but enough to make the damaged pathway carry more force than the Demon God had needed a moment earlier.
Xiangyin's spear struck the rear leg.
Yanfei broke the ground beneath the correcting foot.
Ziyue's sword opened the flank.
The Demon God forced all three adjustments through the same enlarged body without surrendering the scar.
Haotian saw the sacrificial reinforcement around the leg flare and then thin, while the upper-body pathway trembled under the additional force needed to pull the guarding arm across. The scar remained covered, but the essence supporting that covering had begun arriving through currents that were themselves losing stability.
Yueru changed direction before the hand could catch her and let the Demon God follow for one step. The pursuit pulled more power into the leg. She turned back only after Ziyue forced the torso farther around with another cut to the flank, and the Lightning gathered along her sword as Lianhua kept the guarding shoulder occupied.
The Demon God recognized the reversal and drove its hand toward her.
Ziyue struck the wrist from the side.
The arm barely shifted.
Yinxue added Sword Dao against the elbow, and the combined pressure changed the line enough for Yueru to pass beneath the fingers rather than meet them directly. Her blade reached the outer covering of the scar and touched it without attempting to pierce.
Lightning entered.
Alter's crimson current erupted from beneath the sacrificial layer.
Haotian saw the disruption race through the old wound and into the damaged structures around the demon core before the Demon God could isolate the contact. The leg pathway was still carrying the force of the pursuit, the upper-body pathway remained loaded against Lianhua and Yinxue, and the sacrificial essence bracing both structures was also being dragged toward the chest to contain the crimson lightning spreading through the scar.
The Demon God tried to turn away from Yueru.
Xiangyin's spear remained against the rear leg.
Yanfei's Frostfire collapsed the ground beneath the shifting foot.
Ziyue kept pressure against the flank, while Lianhua's blade forced the shoulder to remain farther open than the Demon God wanted. None of them overpowered the Immortal Emperor individually, but every correction the Demon God made required another damaged region to carry force while the sacrificial reinforcement was already being consumed somewhere else.
Haotian entered through the relationship their attacks had created.
The guarding arm started closing across the scar. He struck the elbow first, driving Seraph Shatter Palm through the weakened covering and forcing the limb outward just enough that the old wound remained exposed for another fraction of a breath.
Rather than spending that fraction on another broad destructive attack, Haotian stepped closer and aligned his next strike with the internal route the Eyes of the Universe had been following since the wound first reopened.
The Demon God Killing Martial Art entered along the old Sky Piercer path.
The sacrificial covering gave way where Yueru's Lightning had disturbed it, and Haotian's force passed through the reconstructed tissue into the cracked spiritual structures surrounding the demon core. The impact did not reach the core itself, but the relationships around it had already been carrying incompatible currents from the leg, shoulder, chest, and sacrificial reinforcement, and Haotian's strike compressed all of that instability into the same damaged route.
The backlash moved inward before it came out.
Abyssal current reversed through one of the broken pathways, forcing the stable Immortal Emperor circulation to reroute around it while the upper-body channel spasmed beneath the enlarged shoulder. The damaged leg pathway lost alignment along the fracture Xiangyin and Yanfei had been pressuring, and the sacrificial essence around the scar collapsed as Alter's crimson lightning flashed through the blood that suddenly poured from the reopened wound.
The Demon God staggered under the internal disruption. One enlarged foot struck the ground farther back than intended, breaking the stone beneath it, and blood rose into its mouth before it could force the circulation around the damaged structures back into order.
A heavy spray struck the ground when it coughed, though the body never dropped and the Immortal Emperor pressure surrounding it did not disappear.
Haotian withdrew before the backlash finished moving through the foundation. He had already learned what happened when he remained close enough to admire an opening against an opponent whose cultivation still exceeded his own by an entire major realm, and the Demon God proved the lesson again almost immediately.
Its arm swept outward through the surrounding attackers, catching Ziyue's sword hard enough to throw her across the battlefield and breaking Yinxue's remaining Dao pressure before Lianhua could deepen the wound at the shoulder.
Xiangyin pulled the spear away from the leg, but the Demon God's kick followed the withdrawal. She avoided the foot itself and still took the pressure across her side, tumbling through broken stone before the spear caught against the ground and twisted from her hands.
Yanfei moved toward her and was forced back by another surge of Abyssal power, landing on the shoulder she had been protecting and rolling immediately to keep the impact from remaining there.
Yueru had already begun leaving the chest when the Demon God turned toward her. Haotian crossed the route and took the fist against his guard, and the blow reminded him that the internal backlash had not erased the realm difference.
Both forearms went numb under the impact, his ribs tightened painfully as he was thrown backward, and he struck the ground with enough force that his right hand failed to close properly for a moment after he landed.
The Demon God did not pursue him. It forced its circulation back into the stable Immortal Emperor network instead, closing the most damaged former True God pathways rather than risking another immediate failure.
Through the Eyes of the Universe, Haotian watched Abyssal power detour around the partially collapsed leg channel and bypass the worst section of the upper-body pathway, while the remaining sacrificial essence gathered around the reopened scar in a thinner layer than before.
Blood still ran through the gaps.
The family had hurt it more seriously than at any point since the battle began, but none of them emerged from the exchange in the condition they had entered it.
Haotian's breathing pulled against ribs that now hurt even while he stood still, and sensation returned only gradually to the forearm that had absorbed the last fist. Lianhua continued moving without hesitation, yet every turn toward the injured side had become shorter, while Yinxue kept the sword in the other hand and relied increasingly on Dao pressure rather than risk another hard collision through the numbed arm.
Xiangyin recovered the spear only after using the shaft to help herself straighten. Blood covered both palms and had begun running down the weapon, forcing her to spread the grip farther apart whenever she moved it.
Yanfei returned beside her with one shoulder held lower, and Yueru changed hands briefly before testing the fingers of the arm that had carried Lightning into the scar. Ziyue came back into position sooner than the others, but even her steps had lost some of the effortless speed they possessed before the Demon God consumed its army.
Haotian saw the Demon God studying those changes while its own circulation stabilized. Its gaze remained on Xiangyin longer than before, then moved toward Yanfei and Yueru as though comparing the relationships between their positions rather than simply deciding which body was easiest to reach.
The battle around its legs had repeatedly depended on Xiangyin determining where the enlarged frame could move, with Yanfei turning those restricted routes into unstable ground and Ziyue covering the openings produced whenever either woman had to give way.
The Demon God tested that relationship without exposing the damaged pathways again. It advanced through the stable Immortal Emperor circulation toward Haotian first, drawing him across the front with a heavy strike that forced both of his numbed arms into another redirection.
Before Haotian could recover enough distance to attack the scar, the Demon God abandoned him and cut toward Xiangyin instead.
She recognized the change through the hips and shoulders and brought the spear across the approach. The weapon no longer stopped as precisely as it had earlier because blood allowed the shaft to slide within her grip, but she compensated by keeping it closer to her body and changing the angle before the Demon God reached it.
Yanfei altered the ground beside her while Ziyue moved into the space that would open if Xiangyin had to retreat.
The Demon God changed its stride before any of those preparations settled. It entered outside the spearhead, placed the enlarged body between Xiangyin and the position Ziyue was trying to reach, and drove one hand toward the shaft rather than the woman holding it.
Xiangyin released her forward grip to keep the impact from tearing through both palms, but the blow sent the spear wide and forced her to move in the opposite direction from Yanfei's prepared ground.
Haotian crossed toward them.
The Demon God had already changed the angle again.
Rather than follow Xiangyin immediately, it stepped between her and Yanfei, forcing the Frostfire user farther from the spearwoman before turning back toward Xiangyin with enough reach that Ziyue had to abandon her original route and cut across from another side.
The family adjusted correctly, but those adjustments were becoming more expensive as injuries shortened their movements and the Demon God used its higher speed to keep changing the relationships before they could fully rebuild.
Haotian followed the widening spaces while fighting to close the distance. By driving Xiangyin away from Yanfei, forcing Ziyue to cover the gap, and making him cross farther every time he tried to intervene, the Demon God could loosen the structure that had allowed seven Lesser Immortal Lords to keep returning to the scar despite the realm difference.
Xiangyin shifted her bleeding hands along the spear and lowered the weapon as the Demon God came toward her again. Yanfei was several paces farther away than she had been in the previous exchange, Ziyue had been forced to the outside of the enlarged body, and Haotian could already see the Demon God shaping its next step to keep those distances from closing.
He moved before the step landed.