<h4>Chapter 193: Soldiers Armed with Xiyi Talismans</h4>


    The demons began to swarm the Vast Heaven Inds en masse. It wasn’t a disorganized charge, though. Groups of demons entered the domain of the Vast Heaven Inds from strategic locations from three hundred and sixty degrees in intervals, preventing the demons from gathering too closely together and repeating their earlier mistake.


    Unlike the previous time, when the demons invaded the Vast Heaven Inds, there was a reaction, but it was not the appearance of the cultivators as the demons suspected. Instead, the second ind to the ninth ind began to move from their orbit.


    The eight inds gathered around the central ind in a circr fashion and equally spaced apart. With the change in the structure of the Vast Heaven Inds, the domain changed into a spheroid and altered the gravity within.


    Before, if gravity was pushing down, now, gravity was pushing any intruders outward from the central mountain. Any demons who entered from the top or bottom would feel their bodies dragged towards the central ne and outward, out of the domain.


    The demons struggled and resisted the force, but they were too weak to oppose the gravitational force of the Vast Heaven Inds. Seeing this, Ashme Crow discussed it with his fellow elders and ordered twenty percent of the demons to charge. He believed the change in gravitational force was due to a technique, and he wanted to exhaust it.


    After more than twenty percent of the demons charged in, they were all repelled towards the outer rim of Vast Heaven Ind’s domain. With their unountable numbers, the demons formed a ring around the Vast Heaven Inds.


    When a demon was ejected outside of the domain, they would fly towards the central mountain from the top or bottom, forming a continuous cycle. Hours passed like this with no sign of the cultivators, but Ashme Crow wasn’t in a rush.


    Seven dayster, Ashme couldn’t help but worry.


    He’d thought it would take at least a day to exhaust the user of the technique, but the reality was different than his expectations. It was they, the demons, that were beginning to be exhausted. The demons were using their qi to counter the gravitational force of the Vast Heaven Inds, so after repeated cycles, they could not generate enough qi to sustain their tactic.


    Ashme Crow contemted switching the group of demons to the second group. This way, after the demons sent to exhaust the user of the gravitational technique started to get low on qi, they could rotate the groups, continuing the process.


    Ever the cautious one, Ashme Crow did just that. What he didn’t know was that Tianyi wasn’t expending his qi at all, and even if he was, Tianyi’s qi output was higher than the input needed to sustain such a technique. The change in gravitational force was the result of Tianyi changing the formation that sustained the Vast Heaven Ind’s nature as a pseudo realm. It did not cost any energy as the gravitational force was something more akin to the exertion of aw of physics.


    All Ashme Crow was doing was mentally exhausting his forces and lowering their morale. In contrast, the cultivators and residents of Fan City had their morale boosted. Anyone would balk at the sheer numbers of demons that came to assault them, but after continually seeing them fail, their fear turned into mockery.


    But Ashme Crow did not know any of this, so he continued with his strategy of exhausting Tianyi.


    Only after six months did Ashme Crow notice something wrong. Actually, he had already suspected something wrong earlier, but he had been unwilling to give up after the time he had already invested. Finally, he called the demons to retreat. By now, the demons were staring at Vast Heaven Inds with fear as if it was some sort of eldritch location. They had evenunched numerous projectile and elemental attacks, but they were pushed out as well.


    Ashme Crow gathered the elders and discussed how to deal with the situation. At this rate, no matter how much time passed, they wouldn’t be able to break through the Vast Heaven Ind’s defense.


    At the very least, Ashme Crow was sure that the majority of the cultivators were hiding in the Vast Heaven Inds. You’d had to be stupid to choose to escape and flee from the demon army instead of bunkering down in the perfect fortress.


    After numerous rounds of discussion, the demon elders decided against sending any more of the lower realm demons until they could solve the issue of the gravitational force. Although they wanted to lie in ambush among the weaker demons and prevent the cultivators from discovering their abilities, they would be forced into a stalemate at this rate.


    As Unity Realm level demons of the Golden Crow n, they were able to utilizebination techniques that required the cooperation of at least two or more elders. The technique they chose to use this time was Descending Eruption.


    The eleven elders appeared in a circle around the edge of the Vast Heaven Inds. The elders began to exude a ferocious demonic qi that caused the environment to twist and darken under the pressure. When the qi interacted with the domain of the Vast Heaven Inds, it was as if an invisible barrier separated the space within and outside and prevented the qi from affecting anything inside the domain. As this happened, clouds began to conglomerate above the Vast Heaven Inds.


    An uneasy silence descended on the people hiding within the Vast Heaven Inds as the clouds began to darken and rumble as if in preparation for a storm. However, no rain fell. Instead, red orbs began to materialize within the clouds, and momentster, they descended.


    Hundred upon hundreds of fireballs descended upon the Vast Heaven Inds. Each fireball was formed from some sort of core and burned ravenously and even burned the very air it passed. It was a scene of an apocalypse where giant meteorites descended, intent on eradicating all life on thend.


    When they passed through the domain space of the Vast Heaven Inds, they continued their descent, and their trajectory only altered slightly. Because of this, several of them crashed into the outer inds, creating craters on and around the mountains. Most, however, crashed into thend below the Vast Heaven Inds.


    At the central mountain, Tianyi frowned as he saw this. Since the mountains were the anchors for the formation that sustained the Vast Heaven Inds, any damage to them wouldpromise the existence of the Vast Heaven Inds. If he did nothing, the majority of the strategies created would have to be scrapped. In fact, it would be a repeat of Sheng Ni’s experience.


    Under Tianyi’s control, the ck seas began to churn and rumble. ck streams of liquid began to interweave with the streams from the other ck seas, creating an interconnected web. The ck sea then dispersed a ck fog with numerous glitters of light sparkling within. That fog ascended above the nine inds, creating a barrier.


    When the fireballs made contact with the ck fog, a change urred. As they traveled through the fog, the fireballs began to grow smaller and smaller as their glow dimmed. When they eventually passed through the ck fog, they were only a fraction of their original size. When they struck the mountains, they dispersed into harmless sparks of fire that only singed the ground, unlike earlier, where they devastated the inds with craters.


    “Continue,” Ashme Crow ordered. He didn’t believe that Tianyi could maintain the state for long.


    Unfortunately for him, Tianyi was an abnormality. And even if he couldn’t, the demon elders were doing an excellent job of supplying him with energy. After several more rounds, Ashme Crow noticed his mistake and quickly ordered the others to stop thebination technique.


    Every time the fireballs passed through the ck fog, the fog increased in size. Ashme Crow quickly figured out the reason. Somehow, the fog was disintegrating parts of the fireballs, destabilizing them so that they would not have as much impact when they crashed and absorbing the fireball’s energy for its own use.


    Still, although it wasn’t the optimal result, Ashme Crow had aplished his goal. Spreading his spiritual sense, he could sense that the Vast Heaven Inds’ domain had shrunk, and he could partially prate the domain, unlike before.


    Under his order, the second group of demons started their assault, allowing the first group to rest. And just as Ashme Crow expected, although the gravitational force was still present, its strength was far weaker than before. The second did not experience the same repulsion as the first, but they still had to force their way through from the outer edges as the force on the top and bottom of the domain was still strong.


    At this time, humans began to appear at the edge of the inds facing the demon. Although Ashme Crow’s spiritual sense was blocked at that point, he could discern that they were ‘immortals’ but the human denizens of the Demon Cage Realm.


    <i>What are the immortals nning? </i>Ashme Crow wondered. <i>The strongest humans have only reached the point of forming their cores, but far more haven’t. And even then, they’ve never passed that point. Do the immortals n to use the humans as cannon fodder? But that doesn’t make sense either. The weakest demons present have already formed their demonic cores.</i>


    Ashme Crow soon received his answer as every human pulled out a rectangr piece of metal, small enough to hold in their hands. Just as the crow demon wondered what the metal rectangle’s purpose was, the demons started to fall by the thousand.


    The humans had pointed them at the demons and unleashed an attack that instantly killed or fatally injured numerous demons at once. It was a power that the humans of the Demon Cage Realm should have never possessed.


    “What is going on!?” Ashme Crow shouted out, breaking his cool for the first time. Not even when the spatial distortion killed thirty percent of the demons present did he lose his cool.


    The loss of the demons was because of the cultivators outside the realm. They eventually had to leave, so the status quo would return to normal for another thousand years at least. But if the humans of the Demon Cage Realm came to possess such power, it would disrupt the demon’s reign over the realm!


    The attacks poured forth nonstop. It was as if the humans were at the Nascent Soul Realm and were able to continuously unleash techniques without rest. At this point, Ashme Crow thought the humans possessed even more Nascent Soul Realm levelbatants than the demons!


    Ashme Crow’s immediate action was to retreat, but he stilled in his decision as he recalled Golden Crow Ancestor’s orders.


    <i>“Continue attacking. It doesn’t matter if you have to sacrifice all the Leviathan n demons present.”</i>


    Gritting his teeth, or rather, gritting his beak, Ashme Crow ordered the first group of demons to attack.


    Ashme Crow had separated the remaining demons into three groups. The first two groups were primarilyposed of demons from the Leviathan n. In contrast, thest group wasposed of the Golden Grow and Jade Rabbit n members and the strongest Leviathan n members. Thest group was supposed to be the trump card against the cultivators when they were too tired after waves and waves of assault.


    Ashme didn’t order a retreat to regroup because he didn’t want their efforts in weakening the gravitational force to go to waste. Ashme Crow didn’t believe that the damages to the inds could be easily fixed, but now, he didn’t dare to leave anything up to chance. After all the surprises he saw for the past few months, he believed nothing would surprise him anymore.


    At the central mountain, the top echelons of the disciples were present and watching the battle. Large versions of Xiyi Talisman were floating around the room and disyed the battle’s events in real-time.


    Yes, even now, Tianyi was advertising his Xiyi Talismans.


    Daoist Moneybag’s eyes turned towards Tianyi after the shock at seeing the Xiyi Talisman at work. He wasn’t the only one, as the other disciples disyed simr expressions of shock.


    Compared to elite disciples like them, the techniques unleashed by the talisman were subpar at best, but that wasn’t the main focus. With a Xiyi Talisman, a foundation establishment disciple could unleash the power of a nascent soul grandmaster. More importantly, Xiyi Talisman had multiple uses. As long as you had enough Xiyi Talisman and even servants, you could have the power of a squad or small armyposed of nascent soul grandmasters!


    Well, there was the downside of needing spirit stones as energy or naturally absorbing the spiritual qi. However, inside Tianyi’s Vast Heaven Inds, the qi was supplied to the talismans almost immediately.


    “Brother Xi, how many talismans can you make?” Daoist Moneybag asked, several other disciples also perked up their ears.


    “Not much, as long as I have the materials, about fifty a week?” Tianyi wasn’t sure. He left most of the logistics to Xi Ri, after all.


    Not much?


    Numerous disciples found their emotions leaking through their masked expression at Tianyi’s words. Fifty a week was already a lot! It meant that Tianyi could have a force of fifty nascent soul grandmasters every week!


    They respected Tianyi’s strength, but Tianyi had no personal force or connection like Xia Yushan did. Now however…


    As long as Tianyi willed it, he could amass a massive amount of influence with time.


    In truth, the Xiyi Talisman wasn’t as impressive as they thought it was. The only reason they showed such a stunning performance was due to the terrain they were used in, the Vast Heaven Inds. Outside, the number of spirit stones needed to fuel the Xiyi Talisman to repeatedly unleash such techniques would be astronomical. Still, Tianyi might have downyed thebat ability of the Xiyi Talisman too much.


    “Brother Xi, how about we enter cooperation? I want to act as an intermediary for the sale of these Xiyi talismans outside of Buzhou Immortal Sect’s territory.”