A week had passed, yet the battle still raged on.
Hengsheng's eyes never left the dimensional map—he watched intently, unwilling to miss the right moment to enter the battle.
During the week, the battle continued to develop—beginning with the moment Hengsheng interfered with the Blood Moon portal. By using his Dimensional Shift ability, he disrupted the dimensional passage that the demonic cultivators had used to bypass the Dynasty's spatial disruption formations.
His interference threw the entire invasion plan of the demonic cultivator into chaos.
The Blood Fiend Palace was forced to redirect resources; ten of their Grand Elders had no choice but to hold up the Blood Moon portal with their combined power in order to prevent it from collapsing, unable to reinforce their forces on the battlefield.
As a result of the unstable portal, the rate at which demonic cultivators emerged from the Blood Moon slowed drastically. What was once a great river had turned into a small stream. Though the Dynasty's side was still outnumbered, the pressure was no longer suffocating.
After that, the battle didn't slow down, but grew even more intense.
The higher-ups of the Blood Fiend Palace issued new commands with cold urgency—their objective was now clear: sabotage the ritual at all costs and prevent the Dynasty forces from bringing down the Blood Moon.
Originally, their strategy relied on overwhelming numbers to gradually encircle and crush the defenders. But with the portal's instability slowing the arrival of reinforcements, the situation had shifted. They could no longer afford to count on the previous strategy that relied on the speed of the reinforcements.
Their new plan demanded intensity and brutality.
They had to end this quickly. If the enemy completed their ritual, not only would the Blood Moon be gone—but their path of retreat would disappear with it. For the Blood Fiend Palace's demonic cultivators, that outcome meant disaster.
Of course, they could give up on this and retreat immediately, but it seemed like they didn't intend to do so, at least not too early.
And then, on the third day of the intense battle, reinforcements from the dynasty's side arrived—composed of powerful individuals and allied forces who had once joined the Northern War a few years ago.
This included Hengsheng's Dark Gold Army. He had instructed Zhang Minghao to lead them into battle—not only to gain real combat experience against the demonic cultivators, but also to support Xia Zhenxue, who had been fighting continuously without rest.
With their arrival, the tide of battle gradually turned. The demonic cultivators were slowly being pushed back, unable to get any closer to the ground where the ritual was taking place—allowing the millions of ritual practitioners below to remain safe from direct attacks.
The momentum of the Myriad Dynasty side continued for a couple of days; it was clear that they were going to win this war. They just needed to secure the ritual until it was complete, only a few more days—then the Blood Moon would disappear from this continent's night sky.
At this moment, the demonic cultivators seemed to give up on the invasion and began to retreat, gathering around the Blood Moon portal above, becoming the defending side.
However, things were not as they seemed—another change occurred on the battlefield, turning the tide once more.
This happened just yesterday.
At first, Hengsheng thought the demonic cultivators were about to retreat when they moved toward the Blood Moon Portal—but they were not. He slapped himself as punishment for failing to think ahead; he had completely forgotten what they were capable of when gathered in such overwhelming numbers.
They gathered around the Blood Moon portal because they were forming a battle formation—just like when they fought him and Yunsu many years ago. Hundreds of millions of demonic cultivators combined their power and summoned a terrifying Blood Fiend in the middle of the sky.
Unlike the previous time, when it was just an incomplete image, this time the Blood Fiend absorbed the blood of the countless dead on the battlefield, forming a physical body and attaining power that surpassed the limits of the Seventh Heaven—a power that stepped into the Dao Territory.
Many weak True Body Realm experts died instantly—their bodies exploding the moment they were exposed to the Blood Fiend's overwhelming aura, unable to withstand its terrifying pressure.
Fortunately, those on the ground were protected by the formation. Although they could still sense the pressure, it wasn't nearly as intense as what those in the sky experienced.
The moment the Blood Fiend's physical body fully formed, it immediately made a move.
The Blood Fiend gathered a vast amount of Demonic Qi before its enormous maw, condensing it into a massive crimson sphere of destruction. The aura radiating from it was so intense that all cultivators—except those who had already taken a half step into the Dao Territory—were frozen in place. They couldn't move even if they wanted to. From their perspective, death was certain the moment the sphere was unleashed.
At that moment, Hengsheng believed it was the right time for him to join the battle. He prepared a skill scroll—Reflection Wall (Tier 7), intending to use it against the Blood Fiend's attack.
However, before he had the chance to act, someone else made a move—shocking the entire battlefield.
Ji Wushuang, who was also on the battlefield, revealed his true power, which was his mastery over the Dao of Sword—it wasn't an incomplete Dao Seed level like those possessed by Half-Step Dao Treader experts, but a complete Dao Seed. Something that should have been impossible for someone at his cultivation realm.
He unleashed a powerful Sword Qi in a single sword slash. The Sword Qi soared toward the sky, it split heaven and earth—an apocalyptic arc of light that tore through the sky like a divine judgment.
Heaven and Earth trembled. The clouds and the golden dust parted as a Sword Qi traveled through the distance. The battlefield froze under the sheer pressure of the sword strike. The fabric of space seemed to ripple as the sword light roared across the horizon, obliterating everything in its path.
With a single sword slash, the newly formed Blood Fiend and a massive crimson sphere before its maw were instantly obliterated—along with the hundred million demonic cultivators who had summoned it. The devastation did not stop there.
The sword light extended toward the sky above, reaching all the way to the Blood Moon itself—where the ten Grand Elders of the Blood Fiend Palace stood. In the flash, they too were obliterated by the unstoppable surge of Sword Qi.
Without the power of the ten Grand Elders stabilizing the portal, the Blood Moon Portal completely collapsed, cutting off both the reinforcement route from their main base and the retreat path for the demonic cultivators fighting here.
With this, the invasion of the Blood Fiend Palace was completely ended.
The demonic cultivators lost their will to fight and started to flee from the battlefield. Most of them retreated north toward the Blood Origin Continent, with the Blood Prince and the remaining Grand Elders leading the way.
This time, they seemed to have truly given up on the invasion, not just pretended to. Although their numbers were still greater than the dynasty's side, it was clear they wouldn't succeed in stopping the ritual.
They wouldn't stay to fight either—the longer they stayed here, the more dangerous their situation became, as they were deep within enemy territory. There was a good chance that reinforcements would arrive. For all these reasons, the higher-ups of the Blood Fiend Palace chose to retreat swiftly to preserve their forces.
The dynasty side saw this as a great opportunity to weaken the Blood Fiend Palace. They chase after the fleeing enemy, knowing that if they succeed in killing this group of demonic cultivators—including the Blood Prince and the remaining four Grand Elders—it would dramatically weaken the Blood Fiend Palace's strength.
As for Ji Wushuang—the one who had ended the battle—he disappeared completely from the battlefield after unleashing that imposing Sword Qi. No one knew when and where he had gone, except for Hengsheng, who had observed the entire event from a faraway place.
Currently, there were no more demonic cultivators present around the Blood Moon altar—only ritual practitioners and a few million cultivators hovering in the sky, guarding the ritual. The rest of the cultivators moved north, chasing after the demonic cultivators who had fled in that direction.
Under Hengsheng's watch, the ritual entered the final stage.
The golden dust didn't just fill the sky above the altar but spread across the whole continent. The golden dust that filled the entire sky began to shift. All of them surge toward the Blood Moon, as if it were being swallowed.
After a week of observation, he had grasped something about the ritual. Though it didn't seem logical at first, its essence lay in order and connection—it was a method for mortals to communicate with the heavens.
The golden dust wasn't merely produced from the offerings at the ritual's start. It was the manifestation of the practitioners' collective thoughts, a unified attempt to request heaven to do something for them.