The main force of the demon legion had essentially all perished in Sky City.
Though some elite demon soldiers had stayed behind, the truly formidable ones were few and far between.
Faced with the underworld creatures led by Harlunsa and the Twelve Knights, these demon soldiers stood no chance. They were either killed or transformed into underworld beings.
"So many demons... are we really going to kill them all?" Yuanen Yehui couldn't help but speak as she watched the demons fall in droves.
"Oh? Weren't you the one who, as a monarch, said to kill them all?" Xia Yi asked indifferently.
"You—" Yuanen Yehui was stunned for a moment, then immediately flapped her fallen angel wings and fled into the distance without hesitation.
"You think you can get away?" Leng Yulai snorted coldly, stepped forward, and instantly appeared before Yuanen Yehui. She extended her finger and gently tapped her forehead.
"Ah... impossible…" A pained scream echoed from within Yuanen Yehui. The next moment, Alba's soul was forcibly extracted by Leng Yulai.
"Impossible! I clearly already possessed her! How did you do this?" Alba's soul cried out weakly. Yuanen Yehui and her mother's powers had originally stemmed from a split of Alba's own energy. A seed formed from this demon energy had been sent through space to the Douluo Continent in the form of a fallen angel spirit.
On top of that, Yuanen Yehui had received the reward of a pure demon monarch's bloodline.
At this point, Yuanen Yehui was no different from Alba's other demonic avatars. In a crisis, Alba could shift his consciousness into any of them to escape.
What Alba couldn't understand was how Xia Yi knew he was inside Yuanen Yehui, when he had revealed no flaws.
Nor could he understand how Leng Yulai had so easily ripped his soul out.
"To have escaped from Ziji's hands, I'll give you that—some skill." Leng Yulai muttered, tossing Alba's soul to Xia Yi.
"Talk. How did you find the Douluo Plane? Even if the fallen angel is your power, to manifest it as a spirit on the Douluo Plane, you'd need a deep understanding of its laws. How did you manage that? And this Demon Gate—it's beyond your abilities too, isn't it?" Xia Yi asked coldly, fixing his gaze on Alba. An intermediate plane, even with a plane lord's help, would struggle to locate a higher plane.
The key issues were the Fallen Angel Spirit and the Demon Gate.
Spirits are unique to the Douluo Plane. To transmit one's power in the form of a spirit on this plane requires both comprehension of one's power and the plane's corresponding laws.
To achieve this, one would typically need at least the cultivation of a First-Level God.
Just like the Sea God Spirit of the Poseidon bloodline or the Six-Winged Angel Spirit once possessed by Spirit Hall.
Yet Alba had done it.
And he wasn't even a fallen angel himself, yet had managed to manifest his power as one on the Douluo Plane.
Then there was the Demon Gate.
Much like the Abyssal Passage from the Abyss Plane, it was essentially an interdimensional teleportation array.
Constructing such a teleportation array was no easy feat.
As a quasi-god, Alba shouldn't have been capable of it.
"If I tell you, will you spare me?" Alba asked coldly.
"I could ask the demon god you worship the same thing," Xia Yi sneered. Just a remnant soul, and he dared try to bargain?
Spare Alba? Impossible.
If they let him go, he might truly possess Yuanen Yehui next time.
This time, they were prepared—Leng Yaozhu had set traps within Yuanen Yehui's spiritual world.
But next time?
Xia Yi gave Alba no further chance to speak. He directly crushed Alba's already feeble soul, then turned to Gu Yue and said with a smile, "Yue'er, shall we go visit this demon god together?"
Gu Yue's lips twitched slightly, and she shot Xia Yi a glare. "This demon god isn't simple. Be careful."
Gu Yue led Xia Yi to Alba's palace. In its deepest chamber sat a pitch-black altar.
Gu Yue snorted, summoned her Silver Dragon Spear, and swept it across the altar, toppling it to the ground. Beneath it was a blood-red magic array.
"Again with this Shura power. Hmph!" Without mercy, Gu Yue thrust her spear into the array. A brilliant red light shot skyward, painting the entire hall in crimson. A murderous aura akin to a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood erupted instantly.
Gu Yue snorted again. Unfazed, her spear radiated seven-colored halos, blocking all the killing aura.
"What terrifying recovery... She's already returned to the peak of First-Level Godhood." The Crimson Mother's beautiful eyes locked onto Gu Yue. Even she wasn't confident in defeating her now.
Crack! The array suddenly shattered. A terrifying black pillar of light surged into the sky.
"I truly didn't expect... the one who rescued me would be the Silver Dragon King herself. But you seem... different than before." A cool voice echoed from within the pillar. Six pairs of jet-black wings stretched out, followed by a stunning woman with long black hair and flawless features.
"Angel God? You've become... this?" Gu Yue was momentarily stunned.
"You two know each other?" Xia Yi asked curiously.
"She's the first Angel God. I felt her divine aura when she ascended. I don't know why she shifted from light to darkness, but it's definitely her," Gu Yue replied with a wary gaze.
"Soul Beast Monarch, you're mistaken. I'm merely the dark side of the Angel God," the woman licked her lips, eyes greedily scanning the group. "The first Angel God pursued absolute light. But where there is light, there is darkness. The brighter she shone on the outside, the darker she became inside. I am her inner darkness. To chase pure light, she forcibly split me from herself and exiled me into the universe. I struggled endlessly before finally finding this Demon Plane."
"You want to devour our life force?" Gu Yue asked coldly, eyeing the fallen angel's greedy expression.
"If you were a bit weaker, I might've tried." The fallen angel wore an eager expression.
She'd been sealed for many years and desperately needed energy.
But before Gu Yue, she didn't dare act.
"If you know you're no match, then answer my questions," Gu Yue said icily. "Otherwise, I'll gladly seal or kill you again."
"No need for that—I'll talk." The fallen angel gave in quickly. She had no desire to be sealed again. After a moment's thought, she said, "After being exiled, I drifted in the cosmos for a thousand years before discovering the Demon Plane. I devoured its former ruler and became the new one. All was well until the new Shura God located the Demon Plane through the Divine Realm's core, forcibly expelled me, and injected Shura power into the plane's source. A new ruler slowly formed, and I was sealed here. Since then, the demon plane has split into two factions—some serve me, some the new ruler. I once commanded many demon lords; now only two remain. If not for the fact that even plane rulers fear enraging me completely, I'd already be all alone. But now, your people have killed them too."
"It was you who gave Alba the Douluo Plane's coordinates?" Leng Yaozhu asked coldly.
The fallen angel glanced at Yuanen Yehui. "No. I was sealed—I didn't have the ability. The Shura God left many space coordinates and Demon Gate arrays in the Demon Plane. Most are held by the plane lord, who gave them to the Blood Fiend Demon Lord. He used them to plunder other planes and grow stronger, while my followers were gradually devoured. Alba was my strongest demon lord. He stole the Douluo coordinates from the Blood Fiend Demon Lord. I knew it was a trap—that Alba would be heavily wounded in the Douluo Plane, giving the Blood Fiend a chance to eliminate him."
"Still, I saw it as a possible chance to escape. So I gave Alba a bit of my power and helped him create the Fallen Angel Spirit, sending it to the Douluo Plane. Sure enough, the Douluo Plane's top powerhouses came here, allowing me to be freed." She smiled brightly, scanning the group—then, to everyone's shock, dropped to one knee before Xia Yi.
"Master, if you let me be ruler of the Demon Plane again, I swear to obey your every command and gather the faith you need to ascend to godhood."
"Gather faith? How?" Xia Yi's lip twitched. As expected of a fallen angel—she knew what mattered at a glance.
Seeing her kneel reminded him of Leng Yulai's similar submission in the past.
But Leng Yulai did it for Leng Yaozhu, and because she knew following Xia Yi was the right move.
This fallen angel, though, did it mostly out of fear of Gu Yue.
She knew she was no match for her.
As a dark being—and after multiple demonic invasions of Douluo—Gu Yue wouldn't show mercy.
If she wanted to survive, showing loyalty was her only option.
Whether Leng Yulai before or this fallen angel now, both lived in darkness. To them, as long as they could survive, any method was acceptable.
Honor? Dignity? If the price was right, if the situation demanded it, they would never act like those so-called righteous fools who'd rather die than yield.
In the fallen angel's eyes, so long as she could avoid being sealed again, any price was worth it.
Only she knew how unbearable those countless years of imprisonment had been.
More importantly, beings like her and Leng Yulai understood reality very well. If there was even the slightest chance, they wouldn't die in vain.
Xia Yi wasn't surprised by her submission—it was better than being beaten and then submitting.
What intrigued him was—why was she so sure Gu Yue would defer to him?
Gu Yue freed her, yet she knelt to Xia Yi.
Wasn't that a direct provocation to Gu Yue?
If their relationship had been any less solid, that alone might've caused a major rift.
"Master, do you know why the Shura God didn't kill me, but only sealed me?" the fallen angel asked.
"To keep an enemy alive to justify their power," Xia Yi replied with a slightly inappropriate idiom.
The fallen angel looked at him in surprise. She hadn't expected Xia Yi to see through the Divine Realm's schemes so clearly. "Exactly. To keep up appearances. The world needs devils. In worlds where belief is fading, devils cause chaos. Then gods appear to 'save' the people and gather their faith. Even in worlds where gods are already worshipped, devils help shift that belief to the ones the gods prefer. That's what the Demon Plane has always done. They never plunder a world completely—just enough to let the chosen heroes rise, defeat the devils, and complete the narrative."
"But I was too strong. Too hard to control. So I was sealed. But I knew I wouldn't be killed—they still needed me. If they needed to harvest faith from a high-level plane, lesser demons wouldn't be enough. Then they'd have to release me," she said with pride.
"Now that you mention it, maybe the Abyss Plane was just your scapegoat," the Crimson Mother said slowly. Maybe the Shura God sealed the fallen angel to release her later as part of an invasion of the Douluo Plane to harvest faith.
But then he discovered the better option: the Abyss Plane.
She remembered the Abyss Sovereign saying he'd found the Douluo Plane by accidentally triggering a cosmic restriction—a remnant of a fallen Divine Realm. He'd explored and found the Douluo Plane, then began attempts to devour it.
Putting all this together, and combining it with what the fallen angel had said, she had reason to suspect the Abyss Sovereign had been deliberately guided by the Divine Realm.
The so-called restriction he found might've been a setup.
But the Divine Realm was swept away by temporal chaos, and lost its grip on Douluo. That gave Xia Yi and the soul beasts a chance to rise.
And that's how the soul beasts lucked out.
Without the Abyss Plane, maybe it would've been the fallen angel leading the invasion of the Douluo Plane.
In that case, she would've been the one to die.
But the Abyss Plane... that was born from her own Crimson Domain. All that energy, gathered over eons, and even the super divine artifact Heavenly Sacred Rift Abyss, ended up benefitting the soul beasts.
Every time she thought about it, the Crimson Mother felt a pang of regret.
But thankfully, it hadn't been for nothing. At least she'd found a chance to break through to Divine King.
If she could become a Divine King, she'd gladly trade the entire Crimson Domain.
"There really is such a possibility." A flash of brilliance appeared in Leng Yaozhu's beautiful eyes as she asked, "The planes currently connected to the Demon Plane—are they the kind of situation you're talking about?"
"Yes!" the Fallen Angel answered truthfully. "If my master and your friends are willing, you can go now to help those planes resist the demons. I'll fully cooperate on my end."
"Heh, you're quite familiar with this routine." Gu Yue let out a sneer. Back when humanity was weak, hunting soul beasts for cultivation was extremely difficult. It was the Angel God who led humanity to resist the soul beasts, changing that situation. The Angel God also quickly gained a massive amount of faith power and ascended to godhood.
Although the Fallen Angel couldn't be compared to the Angel God, she was still a part of the Angel God. That didn't stop Gu Yue from using her as a target for her anger.
"What level is your current strength at?" Leng Yaozhu asked curiously, looking at the Fallen Angel.
"Barely a first-level god," the Fallen Angel answered honestly. "But I don't have a god position. If I had enough life energy, I could probably reach the mid-level of a first-level god. Beyond that, life energy alone wouldn't be enough—I only understand the power of darkness to that extent."
Although she was sealed, she had clearly felt Leng Yaozhu's earlier display of divine power—killing a peak third-level god-level Plane Lord with a single blow using quasi-god strength.
Leng Yaozhu's comprehension of the laws of heaven and earth clearly far surpassed hers. It might have even reached the level of a God King.
That was one of the reasons she offered to help collect faith power. Someone like Leng Yaozhu obviously lacked the energy needed to break through—faith power was what she needed most.
And her method was the fastest way to gather faith power. Bar none.
She believed that Xia Yi and Leng Yaozhu would not refuse.
"The Angel God is only a first-level god. How do you have the cultivation of a first-level god?" Leng Yaozhu asked with confusion.
"She is light, I am darkness. The more radiant she is, the deeper my darkness becomes. Yes, I am her dark side. But put another way, she is also my bright side. I'm not her subordinate—we are equals. I just lack enough faith power and the support of the God Realm, so I haven't condensed a god position. Excluding god positions and divine artifacts, in terms of divine power alone, I am not weaker than her." The Fallen Angel spoke proudly.
If she weren't outstanding enough, the Asura God wouldn't have kept her around, much less gone to the trouble of sealing her and using her as part of his grand plan.
"Perhaps in some aspects you aren't weaker than the Angel God. But it's useless to me. I don't care how the God Realm collects faith power. I will not use your method." Leng Yaozhu's voice was filled with disdain. Her cultivation was based on the Huangdi Neijing (The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor)—what she needed was a path of kingship and dominance, not the schemes and tricks the Fallen Angel spoke of.
Indeed, the Fallen Angel's method was efficient. But if she really used it, it would definitely affect her chances of breaking through to a higher realm in the future.
Hearing Leng Yaozhu's disdainful tone, Gu Yue sneered inwardly, but on her face, she wore a radiant smile and said, "Let's start dividing things up. The Fallen Angel, the Demon Plane, and the planes connected to it—Yaozhu, how do you think we should divide them?"
The Fallen Angel was a first-level god and had voluntarily submitted. How could Leng Yaozhu possibly be disdainful? Even if she didn't adopt her method of harvesting faith, the Fallen Angel was still a significant combat asset.
As long as the Divine Realm Core was used to help her condense a god position and anchor it to the Core, they would effectively control her.
And the chance to obtain a god position? The Fallen Angel would never refuse that.
How could Leng Yaozhu possibly look down on such a good deal?
Leng Yaozhu was clearly banking on the animosity between the Angel God and soul beasts, assuming that Gu Yue wouldn't want the Fallen Angel and would give her up.
She wanted the Fallen Angel without paying the price and also wanted to take the initiative in the division of spoils.
But where in the world does such a perfect deal exist?
There was no way Gu Yue would let things go her way.
She insisted on including the Fallen Angel in the division list.
Hearing Gu Yue's sarcastic tone, Xia Yi rubbed his nose and quietly stepped to the back of the group.
He had no desire to get involved in this thankless and contentious matter.
Fallen Angels, Demon Planes—Gu Yue and Leng Yaozhu could divide them however they wanted.
As long as they didn't start fighting.