Chapter 291 - 290: Human Couple

The Hollow Beyond was a physical manifestation of eternal malice. The sky above was a bruised, rotting canvas of deep purple and sickly black, swirling with acidic storms that rained corrosive miasma upon the jagged, blood-stained earth below.

There was no orthodox spiritual Qi here, no gentle breeze of the Five Elements. The air itself was a weapon, thick with the suffocating stench of decaying flesh and ancient, cannibalistic slaughter. In the Demon Realm, weakness was not a circumstance; it was the ultimate, unforgivable sin.

At the absolute center of a vast, jagged plateau forged from the compressed ash of a billion slaughtered beasts, a towering pavilion constructed entirely of polished bone pierced the purple smog.

Within the highest chamber of this macabre palace, shielded from the howling, acidic winds by a barrier of pure, localized spatial compression, sat two entities of unfathomable power.

They were Demon Lords. Entities who stood at the absolute precipice of the Peak Void Refinement realm, merely a hair’s breadth away from the mythical Demon Emperor stage.

Currently, they wore human forms, a testament to their absolute mastery over their own physical and conceptual nature.

To the left sat Lord Mo Tian, the Sovereign of the Abyssal Shadows. He appeared as a slender, scholarly man draped in robes of liquid darkness, his skin possessing the pale, translucent quality of a drowned corpse. His eyes were entirely black, devoid of sclera or pupil, radiating a cold, and infinitely calculating intellect.

Opposite him sat Lord Bai Sha, the Warlord of the White Slaughter. He appeared as a towering, heavily muscled man with wild, untamed silver hair cascading down his broad back. He wore no upper garments, his chest crisscrossed with ancient, glowing crimson scars that pulsed with a terrifying, untamed vitality. His eyes were the color of molten gold, burning with a restless, predatory hunger.

Between them rested a Go board.

"The board shifts, Mo Tian," Lord Bai Sha rumbled, his voice a deep, reverberating growl that caused the ambient miasma in the room to ripple. He picked up a black stone, casually crushing it between his thick fingers before dropping the screaming dust onto a specific intersection. "For ten thousand years, the Central Continent has cowered behind the glass of the Nine Heavens Ward. But the cracks are finally widening. Our men has crossed."

Lord Mo Tian pitch-black eyes gleamed with cold amusement. He gracefully lifted a white stone, placing it with meticulous precision to flank Bai Sha’s aggressive push.

"Do not celebrate the opening of the door before you have confirmed the structural integrity of the frame, Bai Sha," Mo Tian replied, his voice a smooth, chilling whisper that seemed to echo from every corner of the bone pavilion simultaneously. "The Grand Ascendant ancestors of that world were cowards, but they were not fools. The seal is fractured, yes. But the spatial nature of the Nine Heavens Ward remains inherently discriminatory."

Mo Tian gestured gracefully to the air above the board. "The fissure is currently only wide enough, only structurally stable enough, to allow the passage of a maximum of Demon King level entities. But if you or I, possessing the might of Peak Void Refinement, attempted to cross that threshold right now? The residual Grand Ascendant laws woven into the seal would react to our mass. It would snap shut, severing our Primordial Spirits in twain."

"A temporary inconvenience," Bai Sha scoffed, leaning back upon his throne of fused spines. "Mo Du, Qian Yan, and Yuan Kong have crossed over. Three of our finest Demon Kings. They are more than sufficient to butcher countless there. Yuan Kong alone possesses enough brute force to crack the floating pagodas of Sky Jade City, while Mo Du’s plague will rot their pathetic cultivation from the inside out."

"You underestimate the desperation of cornered prey," Mo Tian countered smoothly, analyzing the Go board. "The Five Emperors of the Nine Province are not entirely incompetent. They will put up a resistance."

"Let them resist!" Bai Sha laughed, a booming, arrogant sound that rattled the bone pillars. "Resistance only sweetens the taste of their marrow! Once Mo Du and the others destabilize the ambient Qi of their world and shatter the remaining anchoring arrays from the inside, the Nine Heavens Ward will collapse entirely. Then, you and I shall walk across the ruins, and we shall feast on their Emperors!"

Before Mo Tian could place his next piece, the heavy, iron-wood doors of the chamber groaned open.

A Demon General—an entity possessing combat power equivalent to the Soul Transformation realm—stepped into the room. In the outside world, this general would be a revered sovereign, a nightmare capable of slaughtering entire cities.

But here, in the presence of two Peak Void Refinement Lords, the general kept his head bowed, his body trembling violently. He did not walk; he practically crawled across the floor, terrified that his mere presence was an insult to the game.

The Demon General approached Lord Mo Tian, falling to his knees. He leaned forward, his voice a frantic, terrified whisper meant only for the Sovereign of the Abyssal Shadows.

As the subordinate whispered the report, Lord Mo Tian’s hand, which was hovering over the Go board, suddenly froze.

The smooth, calculating composure of the shadow demon fractured. The ambient temperature in the pavilion plummeted to absolute zero.

CRACK.

The white stone Mo Tian was holding violently shattered between his slender fingers.

Bai Sha’s golden eyes narrowed, his predatory instincts flaring as he sensed the profound, uncharacteristic shock radiating from his peer. "Speak, Mo Tian. What petty inconvenience has caused you to crush a piece out of turn? Did the Emperors manage to stall our men?"

Mo Tian slowly turned his head. His pitch-black eyes were wide, swirling with a mixture of absolute disbelief and rising, venomous fury.

"They did not stall them," Mo Tian whispered, his voice trembling with a barely contained, homicidal edge. "The report comes directly from the viewing array tethered to the spatial fissure. Mo Du is dead. Yuan Kong is dead. Qian Yan is dead."

The silence that fell over the pavilion was absolute, deafening, and suffocating.

"What?" Bai Sha’s voice dropped an octave, the sheer physical pressure of his aura cracking the Go board in half. "Repeat that, Mo Tian. Do not speak riddles to me. Three Demon Kings? Butchered? In the span of a single hour? Did the Five Emperors sacrifice their foundations to execute a combined attack?"

"No," Mo Tian replied, slowly standing up from his throne, the shadows in the room writhing aggressively around his feet. He looked at the trembling Demon General, as if hoping the subordinate would declare it a lie. But the general merely pressed his forehead harder into the floor, whimpering in terror.

Mo Tian looked back at Bai Sha. "They were not killed by the Five Emperors. According to the viewing array... three Demon Kings have been killed by a human couple."