With the World-Serpent's interference, the Black Phoenix King had to take it up a notch. It used its talons to stop the tail of the World-Serpent. The impact of the tail strike with the talon of the Black Phoenix King released a shockwave that sent the low-level demon beasts in the air.
Even with that much force, the Black Phoenix King was barely able to scratch the body of the World-serpent that had been covered in strong scales. It was like its body had been encased in a layer of protective armor that the Black Phoenix King was unable to penetrate.
Black Phoenix King was furious to see that its attack had no effect on the World-Serpent. Since the physical attacks were a no go, the Black Phoenix King decided to burn the World-Serpent to cinders.
It released the eternal flames that it had been so proud of but diminished the area of attack in order to not burn everything down. The area of attack had been restricted so that only the Black Phoenix King and the World-Serpent were in the affected region. Flames covered the sky and hellish heat spread in the air, even the air itself was burning. Every time the World-Serpent inhaled, the terrifying flames would enter its body and burn it from the inside.
The Black Phoenix though dominating the situation was unable to keep it on for very long. The World-Serpent could only endure silently until the Black Phoenix King grew tired since the flames had the ability to restrict its movement. The more it got tired, the more it would need to breathe and the more would be the possibility to be barbecued alive. Hence, it stayed in its place waiting for the Phoenix to get tired while enduring the terrible and scorching heat.
The fight between the two was destined to be a long drawn-out battle in which the winner would be decided on the basis of endurance and patience alone.
While the World-Serpent and the Black Phoenix King were stuck in a deadlock, Wu Ming was dancing his way through the demon horde. He was recklessly swinging his fishbone dagger with all the strength that he had. The blood of his victims flowed on endlessly dying the ground in the color of a horrible red that depicted madness and destruction.
The dagger that he had just refined gave him a boost in strength and helped him slaughter anything in his way. To Wu Ming, the dagger cutting through solid bones only felt as if it was slicing through tofu; even cutting through tempered steel was not a problem for it.
Cerberus had transformed into its two-headed form. The constant sound waves from its enhanced bark would force out the stealthy Ge Kai who had been trying to hide himself in order to attack spiritually. Ge Kai, despite being an assassin was nowhere close to the physical strength of the Demonic beasts like Cerberus and World-Serpent. The only edge he had over them was his mental strength that was enough to overpower any Demonic beast since they were inherently weaker against mental prowess.
Other than finding the location of Ge Kai, it was also able to shake his insides with every sound wave that was able to find his location. Ge Kai needed to hide its body while in the middle of releasing a spiritual attack while Cerberus was not leaving a single moment for him to release an attack. Each of its attack was superimposed on top of the previous one and was increasing to an intensity that Ge Kai was unable to handle anymore.
After a long time of trial and error, Ge Kai was able to land in some attacks but was disturbed to see that Cerberus was still attacking as if nothing could faze it.
What Ge Kai was unable to determine was that each of Cerberus' heads had a spiritual mind of its own. All of Ge Kai's spiritual attacks, due to him being an assassin, were focused towards dealing with a single individual.
Despite his best efforts he was only able to affect one of its head at a time which was not enough to stop Cerberus from wreaking havoc.
On the surface it looked as if Cerberus had been dominating but the constant spiritual attacks had in fact been taking a toll on it. It had started to feel drowsy and it would soon be unable to maintain its transformation due to its loosing focus.
Even though Wu Ming had been constantly cutting down the enemy forces with his golden dagger, the number of enemies was enough to keep him engaged for a long while.
Due to this reason both sides were in a temporary deadlock that could break at any moment.
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Ge Kai who was previously very optimistic about the situation that they had found themselves in was gradually losing his confidence after witnessing the power of his enemies first-hand. He could see that his forces were barely holding on due to their massive number alone.
Ge Kai had put in a lot of effort to get the leadership position in this mission. If he were to lose now, all his effort and the promise of Zero would be rendered void. He needed to show his worth by retrieving the Purple Sapphire. Only by doing that could he sustain his current position as the first liaison of the Demon World leader Zero.
Therefore, Ge Kai decided to risk it all by using the trump card that he had brought along for this mission. The Tiger was an unreachable existence in Ge Kai's eyes. It was a master who had crossed over the bounds of the Ascension Stage. If not for the order of Zero, the Tiger would never even have bothered to come along for this mission. It was quite a lofty character in the Twilight Zone and wouldn't just listen to anyone.
Therefore, Ge Kai had to keep in mind the position of the Tiger before asking it to do anything since he couldn't just order it around like he could do to the rest of them.
"Elder Tiger, I implore you to help us out. As it is, we can't get a hold of the Purple Sapphire. The enemy is stronger than we had previously imagined. If you take action, we are bound to win. I am sure that you can lay waste to the enemies with a single wave of your hand. So, I beg you to lead us into battle with your wits and strength."
The Tiger only snorted after hearing all the flattering words from Ge Kai's mouth. It knew that Ge Kai was only trying to use it but who doesn't like being flattered and complimented.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. I will not fight with you. I have not fallen so far as to bully those weaker than me. You are on your own when it comes to this battle. BUT what I can do is go and retrieve that Purple Sapphire from the girl hidden inside the hut. Order your people to not set foot inside the hut and let me handle the girl."
As soon as Ge Kai heard the Tiger's answer his face contorted into a hideous one. Ge Kai knew that the Tiger was trying to steal credit for the mission. Originally the Tiger was not supposed to interfere in the mission but owing to the special circumstance, Ge Kai had asked for its help.
The Tiger, who had previously been hiding in the space cracks, came out upon being asked for help. As soon as the Tiger set foot on Earth, major waves swept across the surface of the Earth and all the major powers that were active on Earth were alerted to its presence.
Long ago after the ancient battle between the Immortal World and the Demon World, it was decided that no Demon could ever invade earth but the implementation of such a law was quite unrealistic in reality. After all policing such matters on small scale proved to be quite time consuming.
As such the Immortal World had sent some high level cultivators to guard and eliminate only those Demonic Cultivators who were above the Ascension Stage. Such cultivators were also being hunted after the war so they had taken refuge in the Twilight Zone. The Tiger was one such individual whose cultivation was in the Divine Soldier Stage and it had been staying in the Twilight Zone up until then.