The Unorthodox Path's siege ended in utter failure, with troops lost and commanders laid low.
Lu Tianyao and the others joined forces to battle Tian Heng, but achieved nothing. Even the Beast King took a heavy palm strike and was nearly swallowed by Taotie.
Yet the next day, they came storming back. They had made up their minds to keep Tian Heng embroiled in battle to the bitter end.
This clash likewise shook heaven and earth. Having learned their lesson the day before, the Unorthodox Path forces made no deliberate attempt to settle victory or defeat with Tian Heng. Instead, while they held him back, the Phantom King attacked the search parties.
The Phantom King hailed from beyond the secular world. People knew little about him, regarding him only as an unfamiliar, nameless rogue cultivator.
He secretly summoned his spirit creature: a draconic demon spirit with antlers on its head and a red mane around its neck-a Mirage Dragon.
The Mirage Dragon under the Phantom King's command could be called an emperor among demons. Its body was over a hundred times larger than an ordinary Mirage Dragon's, its scales grew backward, and its feet were broad as webs. It had also refined its racial talent, developing it to the point of communion with the laws and successfully advancing to Heaven Tier.
It revealed itself only as a faint phantom image. Its true body remained elusive and insubstantial, hidden somewhere within dozens of miles.
Under the Phantom King's control, the Mirage Dragon opened its great maw and exhaled a strange, smoky vapor. Phantoms sprang up all around, bizarre and dazzling. Within moments, clouds rose and coalesced into towers over an illusory sea, turning the entire battlefield into a hazy realm shrouded in thick mist.
Taotie likewise opened his great maw, swallowing