"Obliteration?" A voice colder than the deepest abyss echoed from Windcloud Wujii's lips. Morpheus stiffened and looked up—only to see the human before him raise his head. Beneath the veil of long, dark hair, a pair of icy, star-like eyes pierced through the void.
A thin trail of blood slid down Wujii's forehead as his hair began to float unnaturally around him. Morpheus sensed something was off. This human's body was all but ruined—blood soaked him from head to toe, and several white, jagged ribs had pierced straight through his side. And yet… those eyes still burned with defiance and unyielding will.
A sense of unease gripped Morpheus's heart. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. Before he could react, the hellfire he had driven into this frail human's body, the Inextinguishable Demonic Flame, vanished like water into sand. Worse still, the human's limp arms suddenly shot forward like lightning, pressing against Morpheus's chest.
A violent killing aura erupted from Windcloud Wujii's body, making Morpheus tremble. He stared into those glacial eyes, roaring inwardly, "Impossible! I am a warlord of the Demon Realm—how can I feel fear from a mere human?!"
Desperate, Morpheus poured more demonic fire into his enemy. But the outcome did not change—no matter how much energy he unleashed, none escaped. In fact, Wujii's body seemed to be mending itself. His collapsed chest began to expand, and with a crackling sound, the protruding ribs drew themselves back under his skin.
"Devour…"
"Star…"
"Grand…"
"Art!"
With each word spat out from Wujii's mouth, the ground trembled. A dense, alien demonic aura burst from beneath his skin. As the fourth word was uttered, a small swirling vortex formed before him, spinning wildly as if feeding on the very essence of the abyss.
"What… What kind of technique is this?!" Morpheus's face twisted with horror. For the first time, the demon general—who had always regarded humans as worthless insects—felt genuine fear.
The vortex intensified. Under its pull, Morpheus's tightly guarded life force began to unravel. Stream after stream of demonic energy poured from his body and vanished into the spinning core—into Windcloud Wujii himself.
"You…" Morpheus's eyes widened with rage. His fingers twisted into claws, inching slowly toward Wujii's throat. Yet even as he tried to resist, his energy surged uncontrollably into his enemy's body like a dam that had burst.
An intoxicating surge of power filled Wujii's soul. He threw his head back and let out a long, wild howl. His cultivation soared, and the demonic energy around him surged tenfold.
"Damn it!" Morpheus spat a mouthful of blood and screamed, "Someone! Help me! This human is… not normal!"
But even without his cry, the surrounding demons had already been monitoring the battle with their spiritual senses. From a distance, they had seen the two frozen in a deadlock and assumed Morpheus had the upper hand. None expected the sudden turn—Morpheus coughing blood and howling for aid.
Near the sealed gate of the water prison, a tall and striking young man stood surrounded by demons. Before him, a black-robed sorcerer chanted an incantation, and a mirror-like screen of black magical energy hovered in the air.
The young man—none other than the Demon Realm's Second Prince—lowered his gaze to the fresh, pink arm that had regrown beneath his royal sleeve. His eyes flared with murderous intent as he glared at the image of the human in the mirror.
"For months, my father forced me to cultivate the Demon Emperor's Scripture, and I let you go… Count yourself lucky. But now, the time has come." His voice was venomous. "You dare injure my body, you worthless insect? Unforgivable."
He waved his sleeve and barked, "You few—go. Subdue him. But leave him alive. I still have use for this one."
Two demons with bat-like wings answered the call. With a powerful flap, they shot toward Morpheus like bolts of lightning.
By this time, the 360,000 incantations of demonic arts had been mostly processed in Windcloud Wujii's mind. A nascent form of a new cultivation technique—a primal embryo—had taken shape within his consciousness. Though still incomplete, its raw power had already begun to manifest.
The massive tremors above the water prison had long since stirred every human captive. Thousands of spiritual senses rose through the gloom. When they saw what was happening above, they were dumbstruck—no such disturbance had occurred here since the earliest days of their imprisonment.
"Stop! What you're doing will get everyone killed!" a voice rang out inside Wujii's mind.
"How could you? Do you want to become a traitor to your race?" another sent.
"We came here knowing we'd never leave. For the sake of our people, you must surrender. Submit to the demons."
One after another, pleas echoed through his mind.
But the Devouring Star Grand Art, refined through tens of thousands of demonic incantations, was already distorting Wujii's soul. Once, he might have remained silent. But now, under its sinister influence, his nature had shifted—toward ruthlessness, toward wrath.
"I've had enough! Enough of everything!" Wujii roared. "Peace? Sacrifice? Racial pride? I don't care anymore! I will kill! I'll slaughter every demon I see!"
His voice thundered through the entire water prison, rumbling like a divine tempest.
"You—offer yourselves now! Sacrifice your lowly lives and your power to me!"
With a maniacal grin, Wujii slammed his fist into Morpheus's chest, sending him crashing thousands of meters into the earth. Streams of violet demon blood sprayed in every direction.
The bat-winged demons arrived, smashing through rock and standing before Wujii.
"Die, human scum!" they snarled. Their legs spread wide, hands raised. Two obsidian spheres, each the size of a basin, formed between their palms. Around them, twisting cracks of space appeared, collapsing and re-forming.
With a deafening cry, they hurled the spheres forward. The black orbs, trailing arcs of lightning, ripped through space itself, reducing the stone around them to nothing but dust and ruin…