The method of destroying the Teleportation Formations had indeed proved effective. In particular, the cultivators from the Dark Pavilion and Mist Hidden Sect had volunteered to cover the retreat, making it much harder for the Nine Nether Nether Soldiers to capture Starfield cultivators than before. On top of that, the soldiers had to pursue them much farther, which meant it would take longer to return to the Demon God Forbidden Ground. This would undoubtedly delay the next probing attack even further, and perhaps, just as Chi Xue and the others had predicted, the Lord of the Universe would deliberately stall for time.
Time slipped by. In the blink of an eye, another thousand years had passed, leaving less than a thousand years until the five-thousand-year deadline Ling Tian had agreed upon with the Lord of the Universe. Yet even now, not a single Nine Nether Nether Soldier had returned. This heartened Chi Xue and the others even more. They felt their analysis might well be right: the Lord of the Universe really might be deliberately stalling.
It made sense. Even if the Nine Nether Nether Soldiers started returning now, they couldn't all make it back within a thousand years. In Chi Xue and the others' minds, the Lord of the Universe naturally wouldn't launch another probing attack until every last soldier had returned. Nor would he immediately attack Ling Tian. What's more, the Lord of the Universe would need time to tamper with the Starfield cultivators. Clearly, a thousand years wouldn't be enough.
Since there wasn't enough time, the Lord of the Universe, who had the situation in hand, could naturally find all sorts of excuses to drag things out. Of course, this was exactly what Chi Xue, Ling Tian, and the others wanted to see. The longer the Lord