"Hahaha, Qin Feng, now I have helpers too. How about that?"
Morgana spread her arms and looked down at the island below, which was turning into a demon nest, her eyes brimming with smug arrogance.
She could hardly wait to see the look of helpless fury on Qin Feng's face.
Yet Qin Feng showed none of the panic she had expected.
He glanced down at the seething island beneath his feet, and the corners of his mouth even lifted.
When he looked back up at Morgana, his voice carried an airy mockery.
"Heh, you call these low-rank demons helpers? Then I'm afraid you, the Demon Queen, will have to stay here today."
At those words, Morgana's smile froze.
Her gaze darkened, and she quickly glanced over the demon warriors who had just finished transforming.
One look was enough to make her heart sink.
These newborn demons had such poor genetic foundations that the vast majority were only at the level of first generation super soldiers, nowhere near the Night Bat Corps soldiers under Qin Feng, who started at the second generation.
They had numbers, but frankly, they were nothing but cannon fodder.
Then Morgana reconsidered. Even cannon fodder had its uses.
She did not need these low-rank demons to defeat Qin Feng. She only needed them to buy time.
If they could hold Qin Feng and his Night Bat Corps back for even one more minute, she would have enough time to open a wormhole and escape this damned place.
"Demons, obey your queen's command! Take them down!"
Morgana raised her hand and pointed at Qin Feng and the three women, her voice carrying unquestionable royal authority.
The instant the command went out, the entire island below erupted.
Thousands upon thousands of low-rank demons spread their dark purple, leathery wings and rose from the ruins, swarming toward the clouds.
Their roars merged into a scalp-prickling wall of sound, blotting out half the sky like a plague of locusts.
Watching the approaching black tide, Yan felt fine beads of sweat seep into the palm gripping her Flame Sword.
Even with her experience in countless battles, her face could not help tightening at an encirclement on this scale.
"Qin Feng, what do we do now?"
Qin Feng turned to glance at her, a composed smile on his lips. "Don't worry. Watch me."
He looked away, his gaze sharpening, and his voice clearly pierced the entire sea of clouds despite its low volume.
"Shadow-Eater Corps, come out. It's time to eat."
As soon as he spoke, scarlet lights simultaneously lit up in every shadow on the demon-occupied island below.
Immediately afterward, densely packed Shadow-Eater Corps soldiers emerged from the shadows.
They pounced on the low-rank demons who had not yet managed to fly high into the sky, biting down on their shadows with precision.
Roar after roar rang out below.
The low-rank demons whose shadows were bitten collapsed instantly as if their souls had been sucked out, the dark energy within their bodies greedily drained dry by the Shadow Eaters.
As for those already high in the sky, Qin Feng had other arrangements.
"Night Bat Corps, see our guests out."
He raised his hand and pointed ahead.
The Night Bat Corps soldiers surrounding Morgana instantly changed targets, moving in groups to meet the oncoming tide of demons.
Battle erupted high in the sky.
The Night Bat Corps soldiers were clearly more than one level above their opponents in combat ability. Every diving strike severely wounded a low-rank demon with precision, crippling them before knocking them out of the sky.
The falling demons plummeted toward the city ruins below like kites with severed strings.
The Shadow-Eater Corps soldiers on the ground had already lined up.
One low-rank demon after another crashed into the ruins, and before each could climb to its feet, a pack of Shadow Eaters pounced and bit down on its shadow.
The Shadow Eaters' bodies swelled visibly, their scales growing thicker, their claws sharper, and the dark aura surrounding them increasingly dense.
The entire battlefield resembled an assembly line, with the Night Bat Corps packaging and delivering from the air while the Shadow-Eater Corps received and devoured on the ground.
Their efficiency made the scalp prickle.
At the sight, Morgana's face darkened completely.
Her Demon Legion had yet to take shape, while Qin Feng's troops operated across the battlefield like a precision meat grinder.
The only consolation was that once the main force of the Night Bat Corps withdrew from her side, the pressure around her dropped sharply.
Yet she felt no relief at all.
The cannon fodder she had assembled was being utterly crushed. Every extra second she stayed meant that much more danger.
She hesitated no longer.
The Demon's Claw swept out violently, swatting away the last few Night Bat soldiers harrying her.
At the same time, a space wormhole rapidly opened behind her.
She stepped inside and, with only half her body still outside, looked back at Qin Feng one last time.
"Qin Feng, your queen will remember you. Sooner or later, you'll bow before your queen's leather-clad legs!"
Morgana's voice carried a note of unwillingness, yet she had no choice but to concede defeat.
The wormhole closed, and her figure vanished completely.
Quiet returned to the sky.
Yan stared at the dissipating dark purple ripples, her fingers turning white around her sword hilt, but in the end, all she could do was give a disgruntled snort.
Leng and A Zhui wore much the same expressions.
The three of them together had failed to hold Morgana here, yet Qin Feng had forced her to retreat only after he arrived. They could not say whether they felt relieved or frustrated.
"All right, all right."
Seeing the three women looking so dejected, Qin Feng smiled and clapped his hands. "Stop hanging your heads. Once I finish cleaning up these demons, you can use Heavenly Blade Judgment to cleanse this island of its bad luck."
Yan rolled her eyes at that. "What do you take Heavenly Blade Judgment for? A crematorium to burn demon corpses for you? Purging an island this big with Heavenly Blade Judgment wouldn't be easy even if we wanted to. You can deal with it yourself."
"Fine, then I'll do it my way."
Qin Feng shrugged and turned his gaze back to the island below, which had already been cleared.
The Night Bat Corps and Shadow-Eater Corps had worked together with exceptional efficiency, disposing of every last demon in just over ten minutes.
The whole island fell silent, leaving nothing but devastation.
The only thing that caught his attention was that after devouring large numbers of demons, quite a few Shadow Eaters had actually swollen to an astonishing fifty meters tall, the dark aura radiating from their bodies now every bit as strong as that of third generation super soldiers.
Yan watched the enormous dark figures below, her brows drawing tighter and tighter.
"What's going on with these soldiers of yours? How can they get stronger just by devouring other people's shadows? And grow taller too?"
Qin Feng chuckled and turned toward her. "There are some things you're better off not knowing."
"Tch, as if I care!"
Qin Feng stopped teasing her and instead raised his hand to gesture downward.
The enormous Shadow Eaters simultaneously transformed into masses of thick shadow and silently sank into the shadows on the ground, returning to the Shadow Realm.
Then Qin Feng sank into the Dark Plane, and at his mental command, the Great Clock's computing power went into rapid operation.
Golden streams of data surged through his eyes, precisely locking onto the entire island.
"Target locked... searching attack methods... recommend activating Matter Definition... calculating energy output... Matter Definition ready."
"All right, time to wrap this up."
Qin Feng opened his eyes and casually pressed his right hand toward the island below.
A mass of pale golden light patterns gathered in his palm, then descended.
The light patterns expanded as they fell, until they enveloped the entire island.
Immediately afterward, everything within the light patterns began rapidly disintegrating.
By the time the light patterns dispersed, the island had completely vanished from the sea.
Seawater rushed into the empty space from every direction, white waves churning a few times and erasing the final traces.
The sea became calm again.
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