The battle between Grand Artisan Qi and Mo Huang lasted an entire day.
Among high-level cultivators, battles that dragged on this long were nothing unusual. Though Mo Huang was weaker than Grand Artisan Qi, it was no weakling either, and could hold out for a long time-until its strength was spent, its options exhausted, and it was worn down to death.
It seemed to have sensed its own fate as well. Unwilling to sit and await death, it used mysterious qi-momentum guidance to summon large numbers of true demons, which rushed over and attacked the mountain forests where the Five-Element Flags stood.
The distant demons had not found their bearings, but instinct likewise drove them into a restless frenzy, and they ravaged the human cities they encountered along the way.
The entire demon legion displayed the madness of a cornered beast fighting for its life.
Li Chen's position, by contrast, enjoyed the calm of the eye of a storm.
According to the messages he received, the demons to his west had all rushed toward Xiling City to lay siege to it, while those to his east attacked the battle formation, attempting to support the great demon.
To prevent Mo Huang from escaping underground, the Qi Family Army had deployed an arcane spell called the "Five-Element Binding Formation," effectively confining the battlefield to an area a thousand li across.
Drawing upon a stretch of heaven and earth, this formation sealed the void and barred passage between inside and outside, yet it could not make that seal watertight.
True demons and ordinary demons alike could freely cross its boundaries, surging like an army in an endless stream toward the key positions where the Array Flags stood.
The rogue cultivators who had hurried here and finally reached safety could not help breathing sighs