Great Demon King

Every person that managed to cultivate to the overgod realm was incredibly powerful, and Dhaka was no exception. Han Hao’s soul tremor attack couldn’t really deal any real harm to him, for he managed to easily dispel the soul attack by focusing his attention.

Unable to disable Pandemonium’s defenses despite having wantonly destroyed many of the formations, Dhaka chose to hunt down Han Hao instead.

His mind steeled with resolve; he was worried there wouldn’t be anyone there to guide or welcome him. Now that Han Hao had showed up, there was no way he would let him leave just like that. Dhaka followed behind Han Hao fearlessly and no longer attacked any stone pillars he saw. He focused on chasing down Han Hao instead.

“It’ll be fine, right?” Stratholme said worriedly as he watched it from the magical mirror.

Bollands seemed calm as always, as if he wouldn’t panic and try to escape even if the sky was to crumble. He watched Dhaka chase down Han Hao through the mirror and said in an uncertain voice, “I don’t know either. But I bet Senior Brother has explained how dangerous that place is to him. I believe he’s at least confident enough to return after bringing Dhaka there!”

“Hope it’ll work out. Otherwise, I don’t know how we’ll be held accountable for this…” Stratholme said with a bitter smile. He knew how deep the relationship between Han Shuo and Han Hao was. If the latter really fell in Pandemonium, Han Shuo would no doubt be filled with anger and no one in the chamber would want to face his wrath.

“He’ll be fine, definitely!” Though Bollands sounded certain, he actually felt a little ambivalent about it.

“Look!” Phoebe cried and pointed at the magical mirror. “He’s gone in!”

Bollands, Stratholme and the rest ceased talking and looked at where she was pointing at, all tense with suspense and anticipation.

After the various defenses in Pandemonium were set up, Han Shuo had informed them about it so that they didn’t accidentally enter these dangerous formations themselves.

The spot they were looking at was the Sky Annihilation Formation, which none of the members of the House of Han should ever approach once it was activated. Those that did would no doubt die.

Han Shuo had made sure to repeat his warning more than a couple of times and made sure to bring up the formation’s danger whenever he briefed them about Pandemonium without exception.

……

Han Hao was now standing still at the outer edge of the formation. All of a sudden, nine bolts of ferocious lightning came launching towards him like an unstoppable force of nature, as if it would completely annihilate Han Hao’s soul. Endless amounts of hatred condensed and formed into nine towering mountains that hurtled towards him, each as powerful as a full-force strike of an overgod.

The ground was nowhere to be seen, having been replaced by an endless dark abyss. A pulling force similar to gravity could instantly be felt. It was so powerful that Han Hao seemed to be unable to resist it as it dragged him towards the depths.

The forces of lightning, mountains and gravity all targeted him clearly. It seemed like he wouldn’t be able to escape the attacks no matter how he dodged, and that was only with him stepping into the outer edges of the formation.

Just as he was about to block the incoming attacks as he continued his descent, he noticed a figure enter the abyss from the outside. Elated, he immediately gave up on blocking the three attacks, choosing to unleash all the power contained within his trump card in an instant.

Outside the Sky Annihilation Formation, the part of the bone spear that poked out of the ground shone rightly. One talon after another sprouted from the spear itself. All of a sudden, the negative energies that festered in Pandemonium seemed to be drawn towards the spikes that just appeared on the spear.

Before long, a pillar of light roughly as broad as a human zipped into the range of the formation to form a path that reached Han Hao as he fell towards the very bottom of the abyss.

His eyes brightened before he jumped into the column of light. All of a sudden, the column quickly narrowed itself as it receded towards the surface.

The moment Dhaka entered the Sky Annihilation Formation, he suddenly noticed that his edict of destruction was heavily affected. That area seemed to have changed the laws governing destruction in an instant. The divine energy of destruction contained within his body grew more chaotic, making it impossible for him to form the Orbs of Destruction even though it used to be effortless for him.

Not only that, the powerful lightning bolts and force from the crushing mountains as well as the gravity that tugged at him from the abyss’s depths was certainly felt by him. The killing intent and hatred that were essential to the attacks greatly disturbed his peace of mind.

At that moment, Han Hao used his bone spear to quickly leave the abyss. Dhaka finally seemed to realize he had fallen for his trap and forced his destruction energy to stabilize before desperately propelling himself upwards to escape.

Wham! Even though he felt almost no resistance as he entered the abyss, any attempt to ascend felt like it would be met with the combined weight of tens of thousands of formless mountains pressing down on him. There wasn’t a single way for him to break through that obstacle, especially with his unstable power.

“Phew…” Han Hao finally managed to leave the Sky Annihilation Formation. He drew his bone spear out of the ground and it returned to its usual form almost immediately, looking no different than it did before.

“He’s back out!” Bollands cheered with relief. While he was the one who asked Stratholme to calm down, he wasn’t any bit as confident as the latter that Han Hao would be able to escape.

“Wonderful!” Stratholme cheerfully took a swig of booze. “Now that Dhaka has been trapped, our job just got much easier. Dagmar and Asser will have many other formations waiting for him. No matter how careful they are, they’ll never be able to avoid them. I’m guessing they’ll need at least ten days to make their way out.”

Bollands’ gaze calmed as he said, “It’s about time we launched a counterattack. I’ll inform Sanguis, Gilbert and the others about it. The godhunters outside are now leaderless and they’re not our match.”

They cheered as they prepared to face the godhunters with a light heart.

……

Han Shuo and Wasir zipped towards Pandemonium at full speed. After Wasir heard about the Dhaka trio’s huge loss, he felt even more respect for Han Shuo now, though he didn’t make it a point to tell him about it. The way he saw it, Han Shuo was undisputedly superior to Tyre, the leading one of the Five Sovereign, both in terms of personal power and his team’s might.

On the way, one question constantly weighed on Wasir’s mind: why didn’t Han Shuo seem worried at all about the impending battle? Where did his confidence come from? No matter what, the Five Sovereigns of the Fringe wouldn’t be enough to take on the Godhunter Alliance. After all, they were just five overgods, while the alliance had far more. Not only did the number of experts in the alliance greatly outnumber that of the Fringe, their strengths were definitely far superior too.

No matter who one asked, the Fringe didn’t seem to stand a chance against the Godhunter Alliance. Wasir had made preparations to leave the Fringe with his subordinates before the battle began. Had it not for Han Shuo’s assurance that Glacial Peak wouldn’t suffer one bit throughout the battle, he wouldn’t have stubbornly remained.

“Bryan, why do you think Tyre, Logue, and Ossora stayed to fight this bloody battle?” He decided a direct approach at questioning would be better.

“Tyre and Logue want to use this chance to control the Fringe. The two of them definitely don’t have any kind intentions, so they must have some sort of hidden trump card. As for Ossora, to be frank, I just don’t really understand his motives. However, he definitely has his own agenda. Perhaps he’ll do something that surprises,” Han Shuo replied after some thought.

“Ever since you came to the Fringe, Ossora has tried to get on your good side. Why, then, did you choose to cooperate to work with me instead of him?” This was something that bothered him so much, yet he wasn’t able to figure out why.

“Ossora?” Han Shuo smiled. “He’s definitely been trying to butter me up. Yet, what did that end up causing? A fight with Salas, a grudge with Tyre and Logue, as well as a huge fight with you. And what exactly did he risk? Nothing but one Sovereign shop and the chance to appear stronger than Salas.”

He shook his head and continued, “He’s far too ambitious. I don’t dare to get too close to him nor let him know about my plans. I worry that he’ll mess me up at the crucial moment, and I won’t be able to do anything about it.”

“He is someone you can’t easily figure out indeed,” Wasir agreed after some pondering.

……

Meanwhile, the person they were talking about was now outside Pandemonium with a group of remnants.

The forces of the House of Han, led by Bollands, Sanguis and Gilbert, were killing off the godhunters that invaded their territory. The enemies were mercilessly crushed before the remnants scampered off in shambles.

Ossora looked like he had just been a part of the great battle. His men’s hands were bloodstained and many had to be supported to remain upright. Ossora ordered, “Help the House of Han defeat the godhunters!”