Three days, in ordinary times, passed in the snap of a finger for any cultivator with even a little skill.
But amid the Great Competition of Two Daos, especially in the Northwest, where Demonic Dao forces had launched a surprise attack, three days were enough to change far too much.
"Don't... don't come any closer... Stay back! Take one more step and I'll kill them!"
On the Northwest battlefield, behind the Demonic Dao lines in the central sector, a Demon Child trembled as he shouted at the man before him.
He held two righteous cultivators who were barely clinging to life as hostages, yet his eyes were still filled with terror. He was plainly scared witless of the white-robed, ghost-masked man before him.
The white-robed cultivator paid his threat no mind. He kept walking toward him at an unhurried pace and said evenly, "Let them go, and I'll give you a quick death."
As he spoke, he beckoned toward the rear and dragged another Demon Child to his feet. The man was all skin and bones, withered as a corpse.
This Demon Child appeared utterly lifeless, no different from a dead man.
But anyone probing him with spiritual sense would detect a thread of life within him, thin as gossamer, and a plea lodged in his sea of consciousness that had hardened into an obsession.
"Kill me... Please, kill me..."
It was hard to imagine what ordeal could reduce a Demon Child, one who rivaled the prodigies of the righteous path, to such a state.
Now he truly could neither live nor die.
About half a day earlier, Yang Lingrui had arrived at this central battlefield.
Though he had traveled north from the Southwest border without a moment's delay, he had still arrived one step too late.
The two generals