With another beam of starlight, Zhang Lie descended from the skies and bisected another cultivator in a spray of blood.

"A demon king—he's a demon!" the flamedemon howled. He clenched his fists tightly.

Deep within the rock forest, the fighting continued in the arena, but victory had already been decided. Zhang Lie's hair scattered around him as his eyes glowed like beacons. He terrorized the cultivators around him.

Since stepping on the arena, he had already taken down over a dozen cultivators. He was dripping in blood—not his own, but that of others.

"I'll kill you!" One flamedemon challenger charged forward, his hair scattered, his face stained with blood. He was in dire straits; an all-out assault was his only hope of survival.

Bone swords appeared in the air one after another. There were eight of them in all, which he sent arcing forward in Zhang Lie's direction.

Zhang Lie's eyes gleamed with light. Pale blue genetic energy formed a lake so beautiful it enraptured everyone in sight. It was crystal-clear and sparkling.

The lake frothed. Within an instant, the lake had transformed into a storm, a tsunami, which combined with the starlight in the void and filled the air close to bursting.

The starlight, interspersed with the tsunami of genetic energy, knocked aside all the weapons flying toward Zahng Lie. Runes and explosions like fireworks appeared in the air.

The pale-blue genetic energy possessed an awesome might, shattering weapons and drowning all cultivators targeting him.

The flamedemon shrieked as he was sent flying, struck by the devastating starlight, his skull charred and blackened.

His body split apart in the air, then vanished in an explosion.

The flamedemons screamed at the horrifying sight. They couldn't accept that one of the strongest fighters in the clan had been dispatched this readily.The arena was in utter chaos. The flamedemons had all fallen, many of their bodies destroyed.

"You're still alive? I suppose you have quite the vitality." Zhang Lie pursed his lips at one of the 'corpses'.

The cultivator was lying face-down in a puddle of blood, but was actually still alive. He was simply pretending to be dead.

"You strutted around like you were all that—and now you're playing dead on the ground? What happened to all that panache?"

Zhang Lie's words were like a slap on the flamedemon's face.

Ashen, the flamedemon crawled up from the ground. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you, you bastard!"

"Someone like you isn't strong enough to challenge me, but if you want to die, I'll grant you that wish," Zhang Lie replied calmly. He picked up a blade of bone from the ground.

A flash of light whizzed by as the pearlescent blade nailed itself to the flamedemon's skull. A red line of blood spread over the flamedemon's body as it was bisected down the middle.

Meanwhile, Zhang Lie had already leapt over the corpse, whizzing through the battlefield in a beam of light and scything down all cultivators in his way.

All the spectators gathered on the nine holy mountains were astounded, and even the young proteges of the supreme forces were watching the fight with interest. Zhang Lie was sure to be a strong rival in the future.

"You are calm, aren't you? Inciting everyone to fight, then standing right there as they fall to their deaths," Zhang Lie said, staring at the flamedemon who had just spoken.

The flamedemon blanched, never having expected that things would progress to this extent. How could he be scared of a cultivator from an unknown race?

Zhang Lie sauntered over, bone blade in hand. With his energy restrained, his hair was dark and glossy, his features fine and fair. He looked like a handsome young man, but that was precisely what scared his enemies. The dissonance between his appearance and personality was too extreme—he fought like a demon king!

"Charge!" another flamedemon yelled out. He knew there was no retreat; this would be a fight to the death.

Who among the flamedemons could have predicted such an outcome?

The entire group of flamedemon challengers had perished, all save two."[The Boundless Blade: the River Lethe]!"

The temperature dropped to sub-zero values, and a strong wind buffeted the battlefield. Blood-colored frost appeared around the two combatants.

A stellar river materialized in the air. As though the doors to hell had just been thrown open, tens of thousands of serpents rushed out in a flood.

Each serpent was pitch-black like the abyss, like the dark of night, and speckled with starlight, a miniaturized version of the Milky Way. The serpents were guides and ferrymen both, leading departed souls into sky and space, freed from the mortal coil.

As Zhang Lie's sword swung down, the stellar river struck the mortal world.

As one flamedemon made an invocation, tens of thousands of red feathers appeared in the air, transforming into divine arrows as they tracked and shot toward Zhang Lie.

With every slash of Guicang, Zhang Lie's serpents fell like meteors, whizzing down to the ground and knocking aside the arrows aimed at him.

The other flamedemon followed suit and struck Zhang Lie. Lightning filled the air.

Fire and lightning criss-crossed in mid-air, spreading across the sky like vines.

Everyone atop the holy mountains was shocked. Flower petals danced in the air as lightning and flame wove an intricate choreography. Vitality filled the air, gathering around one of the two final flamedemons.

This was the pinnacle of lightning and fire—to rouse creation from destruction, life from death.

All the cultivators gathered understood how difficult it was to glean this level of understanding.Grass and trees sprouted, branches and leaves outstretched as they formed a protective lattice against Zhang Lie's attacks. A huge tree fell to the ground, intending to crush Zhang Lie and root itself in him.

Unfortunately, all resistance was futile against an enemy like Zhang Lie.

"[The Boundless Blade: the River Lethe]!"

The genetic energy looked as though it had come from the abyss, or perhaps from the expanding, limitless universe. Starlight struck the genetic energy in a flash of surprising beauty.

The night sky morphed into a raging sea. Waves surged forward, sounding like peals of thunder, like stampeding hooves. The universe itself seemed to shake, as though the stars were shifting positions.