Northern Jambudvipa, Cangxi Kingdom, Northern Yellow Mountain.
The trees stood still in the dense forest, birdsong rang light and clear, and beasts roared like bells. Everything was as usual.
Then, suddenly, a streak of deep green rainbow light shot across the sky from Northern Yellow Mountain, spanning a thousand feet in an instant and blasting a mountaintop flat with a single strike.
Amid the tremendous boom and billowing dust, hundreds of Incense Gods who had assumed their original true bodies, along with the demon generals under their command, swept in on a yellow gale, their might shaking the heavens.
But in the next instant, several streaks of crimson rainbow light flared and connected into thin lines. In the blink of an eye, they sliced apart the yellow gale that blotted out the sun.
Miserable howls erupted at once, and the yellow gale scattered.
Then attacks came from every direction: dozens of fire dragons swept in, stone pillars thrust out of the earth and reshaped the entire terrain, and thousands upon thousands of flowing sword lights surged across it.
Spiritual power blazed, and oppressive might filled the air.
The instant the yellow gale dispersed, a furious roar rang out.
The Incense Gods in their true bodies scattered, charging toward the attacks lighting up around them. Wherever spiritual power surged, there lay their targets, utterly fearless of life and death.
Most Incense Gods were demons. Apart from following a convention tacitly accepted for a thousand years, their greater reason for cultivating human forms was to learn the Human Race's cultivation and spell arts.
Yet however much they learned, most demons were ultimately inferior to humans at employing these methods.
The Demon Race's strength still lay in their own true bodies, which could withstand spell arts and split mighty mountains with their palms.