The Archon's eyes began glowing gold as his gaze swept across the battlefield. He was no longer casually looking around. Divine energy spread outward from his body in expanding waves, passing through mountains of corpses and shattered terrain as he searched for whatever had interfered with the conch.

Liam was merely a Transcendent. However, the other party was at a rank Liam couldn't even fathom. Even though soul arts were complex and his mist had concealed him from countless powerful enemies before, the difference between them was simply too large.

The concealment did not last long. In the blink of an eye, the Archon's golden gaze stopped directly on him. The mist shuddered. At the same instant, space hardened around Liam and Alex.

Liam had already activated the teleportation token he had kept ready since arriving on this damned battlefield, but the familiar spatial fluctuations barely appeared before they were crushed out of existence. The token flashed once in his hand and went completely dark.

A spatial lock. Liam sucked in a deep breath of air. It was about to start.

He had already expected this much the moment he decided to go for the soul. There had never been any illusion that he could casually steal something from beneath an Archon's nose and walk away without consequences. He had simply hoped the odds would fall in his favor. They hadn't.

"Liam..." Alex whispered beside him.

"Stay behind me."

His voice remained calm, but his mind was moving rapidly. Teleportation was blocked. Their concealment was gone. Running through ordinary means was pointless considering how quickly the Archon could move, and fighting him directly was even more ridiculous.

Liam had watched beings who could flatten mountains get slaughtered on this battlefield, while this man had survived the entire battle without suffering so much as a scratch.

The man arrived in front of them in a single instant.

For the first time, Liam got a clear look at the Archon from close range. The man was covered from neck to toe in pale golden armor, with intricate divine inscriptions carved across every plate.

He looked surprisingly young, perhaps somewhere in his thirties, though Liam knew appearance meant absolutely nothing for beings at this level. His golden eyes moved briefly over Alex before settling on Liam.

The Archon frowned. "A Transcendent?" There was genuine confusion in his voice. He had clearly expected something else after discovering that someone had interfered with the conch. "You hid from me for this long?"

Liam understood one thing. This man probably wanted to know more about his background, and that was the only reason he was still alive. The next few seconds were probably the only time he was going to get.

Liam decisively acted. He knew exactly what he needed to do. It was now or never. He had acted with this backup plan, and now it was time to put this plan into action.

Liam fully intended to use those few seconds of curiosity before the man decided to kill him. Without wasting any time, his consciousness plunged into his soul space.

The demon general's soul was already there, bound beneath layer after layer of mist, while the vampire general was still connected to him through the thin strand he had used to pull it away from the conch.

Liam had originally intended to take his time with both souls, slowly break them down and absorb everything they possessed without losing anything valuable. That was no longer an option.

He needed power immediately.

His entire soul was trembling from the exertion of holding these two monstrous souls, but he was no longer the same person. Even though he was on the verge of collapsing, he held on.

Liam gritted his teeth and seized the demon general's soul. The reaction was instantaneous. The massive soul convulsed as Liam's soul energy invaded it from every direction, tearing through whatever defenses remained after death.

Memories, emotions, and thousands of years of accumulated experience erupted into Liam's consciousness all at once. His entire body stiffened.

The amount of information was absurd. He saw worlds he had never visited, wars fought thousands of years before he was born, enormous demonic cities built beneath black suns, creatures whose names meant nothing to him, techniques capable of destroying mountains and oceans, and fragments of Dao comprehension so dense that merely touching them sent pain ripping through his mind.

The demonic Dao core inside him reacted violently. It began spinning faster and faster as the demon general's comprehension poured into it, and the incomplete core that had been developing throughout the battle suddenly became far more substantial. Cracks spread through its surface before closing again, each cycle making the core denser.

The Archon's expression changed slightly. He could sense Liam's aura rising. "What are you doing? How are you able to stand in front of me?"

Liam didn't answer. He pulled harder. The demon general's soul finally awakened.

A deafening roar exploded inside Liam's consciousness as two enormous burning eyes opened within the darkness of his soul space. The demon's remaining will immediately understood what was happening and fought back with terrifying force.

Liam nearly blacked out. Even dead, the bastard was monstrously strong. Unfortunately for him, this was Liam's soul space.

Mist flooded the entire space and crashed down on the demon general from every direction. Liam didn't bother fighting the demon's will head-on. He had spent too much time dealing with souls to make such a stupid mistake. He isolated pieces of it instead, stripping away fragments one after another and feeding everything useful directly into himself.

The demon roared again, but its enormous form was already shrinking.

Outside, only a few seconds had passed.

The Archon watched with growing interest. Liam could feel divine energy spreading around them, sealing every possible route of escape, but the man still hadn't attacked. Instead, his focus shifted to Alex. "A paladin with a tier A physique? Are you from the celestial court? Why are you still here?"

The man's expression then swiftly changed as he sensed something else. The pressure immediately intensified. The archon's eyes turned cold. It looked like he was done being curious. He moved his hand a little, and an enormous wave of divine energy surged towards them.

The power contained within it was enough to make the surrounding space buckle. Liam immediately understood that he couldn't block it.

His barriers, his body, even the enormous amount of soul energy he had accumulated would be torn apart the instant that wave reached him. He didn't try. Instead, he called for someone else, someone who could possibly block this sort of attack.

Instantaneously, his soul avatar appeared, and right next to his soul avatar was a woman. Long snow-white hair cascaded down her back almost to her waist. She was tall and strikingly beautiful, with a mature, voluptuous figure wrapped in a simple white dress. Two white fox ears rose through her hair, while several enormous tails unfurled behind her.

"You dare attack my Master?" Luna roared, eyes blazing.

The little fox Liam had once carried around was nowhere to be seen. She had grown. More importantly, she had become terrifyingly powerful.

Even Liam couldn't swallow how much she had changed. He knew that she had evolved again but to actually see it in person was a different phenomenon. Her raw power was astounding.

The moment Luna appeared, an aura unlike anything Liam had ever felt erupted from her body. The Archon's divine pressure, which had covered the entire battlefield only moments earlier, was immediately forced backward.

White energy spread around Luna in gentle waves, yet wherever it passed, the Archon's oppressive divine power simply ceased to advance. The Archon's expression changed. His attack arrived.

Luna raised one hand.

BOOOOOOM!

The collision erased everything around them.

The already devastated ground disappeared beneath their feet as a massive crater opened across the battlefield. Mountains of corpses were blasted apart, broken weapons vaporized, and violent spatial cracks spread outward for miles.

Liam instinctively pulled Alex closer. Yet neither of them felt anything. A thin layer of white light surrounded them.

"She has really grown a lot." With a smile, Liam once again focused inward. He knew Luna could handle things for a few seconds. She was also out of her league her but Luna was a special beast. She was one of the reasons Liam dared to continue lingering in this spot.

However, even she had her limits. It was about time he stepped it up, or they all needed to get the hell out of here.

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