"I'm fine. Don't worry. This little bit of karmic debt can't hurt me. Just focus on repairing it."
Xiu Yuan was no fool. The barrier had stopped making cracking sounds, but he had just heard them start again.
He knew Xiao must have lost his focus.
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. At last, he had weathered this wave of karmic debt.
Then he swung his spear, sweeping through the monsters with fierce, savage strikes.
But...
The monsters weren't attacking from just one direction. They poured in from all sides.
Stopping them with nothing but a single spear was hardly realistic for Xiu Yuan.
So even though he gave it everything he had, their hopelessly overwhelming numbers still left him powerless.
Within moments, several monsters were already slashing down at Xiao.
Just as a blade was about to fall, a spear shot across and pierced the attacking monster's body.
Xiu Yuan arrived an instant later and dispatched the monsters nearby.
But there was barely any room left to maneuver. Monsters lunged at Xiao every moment, and even Xiu Yuan's desperate defense was nowhere near enough.
Xiu Yuan had just killed the monster before him when three more slashed down.
He raised his arm to block them.
Expecting to be cut, Xiu Yuan instead heard a metallic clang.
As though they had struck steel, the blades curled on impact.
Watching sparks fly from his arm, Xiu Yuan finally remembered that he was wearing the Demon Qilin Garment!
That garment was made from a Demon Dragon's scales. Besides granting immunity to fire attacks and strengthening its wearer's fire attacks...
Its own defensive strength was extremely high!
Xiu Yuan immediately put away his spear and used his limbs to attack and defend.
After all, monsters packed the area so tightly that he barely had room to swing his spear.
Soon, even his limbs couldn't keep up.
Two fists were already hard-pressed against four, yet Xiu Yuan faced seven or eight attacks at every moment.
Forget fighting back. Merely keeping Xiao safe had already pushed him to his limit.
"Burn!"
Left with no choice, Xiu Yuan unleashed Blackflame again, setting every monster around him ablaze.
In an instant, he had burned a large clearing around them.
His head felt ready to split. His vision swam, his ears rang, and even his internal organs seemed to churn.
The immense mental drain left him nauseated, as though he were carsick.
Xiu Yuan withdrew Blackflame, summoned his spear, and forced himself to stand.
But the moment he rose, an immense force slammed straight into his mind.
His head buzzed, and his mind went blank.
"Come... join us... unleash your true nature..."
"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill..."
"Stop resisting... accept us willingly... we'll show you what pleasure truly means... the pleasure of slaughter..."
"You're so tired... you're suffering so much... sleep... sleep..."
Xiu Yuan no longer seemed quite so resistant to those voices. Suddenly, he felt that perhaps they weren't wrong.
Struggling any longer would only bring more pain.
Why not lie down and enjoy it?
All I have to do is close my eyes and lie down.
"I haven't seen you before, but since we both have the surname Hu, we should be able to become good friends." Hu Tao planted her hands on her hips and chuckled.
"Xiu Yuan...? ...Hmm... I don't remember... do we know each other...?" Qiqi tilted her head, her eyes wide with confusion.
"Husband? I'm not considering that right now, but if you're looking for a girlfriend, I could introduce you to someone in the Knights of Favonius. Maybe you'd hit it off?" Shenhe said with a faint smile.
"No!!!!" Just as he was about to plunge into the abyss, Xiu Yuan abruptly snapped out of it.
The first thing he saw was an enormous battle-axe cleaving toward his head.
Xiu Yuan's pupils shrank sharply.
Just as the axe was about to strike his head, a spear appeared before him.
Boom!!!!!
The deafening crash and tremendous impact sent Xiu Yuan flying.
When he recovered his senses, he saw Xiao holding his spear against the battle-axe.
Xiu Yuan whipped his head around toward the barrier, only to find that the hole hadn't been sealed at all. Instead, it was growing larger now that Xiao had left it.
"Xiao, you..."
"There's no time. I need at least another hour to repair that hole. In your condition, you can't possibly last an hour!"
Xiao knocked the monster's weapon aside and killed it with a thrust of his spear.
Whoosh!!!
In that instant...
A dark figure shot out through the hole.
It was a strange creature with the bare upper body of a man and a lower body made of violet, eerie flames.
Long iron chains hung from his hands. His features were rather delicate, and his long hair was almost exactly the same color as the pale violet flames.
Amy, Solomon's fifty-eighth demon god.
Xiu Yuan recognized him because, while researching Genshin Impact, he had learned about the origins and details of every demon god in it.
All the demon gods in Genshin Impact came from the occult tradition of the Seventy-Two Pillars of Solomon.
They were also known as the Seventy-Two Demons of Solomon.
The Raiden Shogun came from Baal, Solomon's first demon god.
The Anemo Archon, Barbatos, came from Solomon's eighth demon god.
Paimon came from Solomon's ninth demon god.
Rex Lapis, Morax, came from Solomon's twenty-first demon god.
Even Albedo, Guoba, and the others all had counterparts among the Seventy-Two Demons of Solomon.
And the one before them was Amy, the fifty-eighth demon god.
It seemed he had failed in the struggle for the position of an Archon back then and had therefore been sealed away by Morax.
"Finally, I'm out... damn you, Morax..."
He spoke slowly and unhurriedly, then turned his gaze toward Xiu Yuan and Xiao.
With a casual wave of his hand, he sealed the gaping hole in the barrier.
Seeing this, Xiu Yuan and Xiao both understood his intentions.
He had sealed the way out after emerging himself. Apparently, he had no intention of letting the other suppressed demon gods escape. He wanted everything to himself.
That was just as well. Now they only needed to deal with this one demon god!
But a demon god...
Wasn't so easily dealt with.
Even the strongest adeptus, the Conqueror of Demons, still fell short of what it took to fight a demon god.
Although Xiu Yuan was no weakling either, his current condition was truly terrible.
His head ached constantly, as though ten thousand electric drills were spinning madly against the crown of his skull.
"Bane of All Evil."
Xiao donned his Yaksha Mask.
He had to hold nothing back against this opponent!
Xiu Yuan also slowly rose to his feet. Though he was suffering, that didn't mean he had no strength left to fight.
Xiu Yuan believed that even a demon god might not be able to withstand Blackflame's scorching heat.
Besides, his Demon Qilin Garment further enhanced the damage dealt by his flames.
As long as he could set Amy ablaze, this calamity might be stopped...
Before you continue