So insidious, so ruthless, so utterly inhuman.

A ten-li-wide, bottomless chasm had replaced the former volcanic crater.

The edges of the giant pit were smooth and even, as if cut by a sharp blade. The rock at the bottom had been melted into liquid by the intense heat, bubbling with scorching steam. The clouds in the sky had been torn to shreds by the shockwave, revealing the deep purple firmament higher above.

Of the original forty War Gods and eight hundred Void Travelers on the battlefield, only eleven remained.

Li Cangming stood at the edge of the chasm, his crimson robe reduced to a few tattered strips hanging from his body, covered in blackened wounds. The flesh on his left arm had been mostly stripped away, exposing stark white bone beneath. Half his hair had been burned off, and the other half hung in disheveled strands over his shoulders. A trail of blood clung to the corner of his mouth, and his breaths came as harshly as a bellows wheezing.

Behind him stood seven late-stage War Gods. Each was ragged, their auras in disarray, but at least they were still alive.

Further back were three mid-stage War Gods, who had survived the shockwave only by resorting to their most desperate secret techniques. Their injuries were even worse than the seven. One of them had lost his left leg below the knee to the blast, stemming the blood with sheer force of his qi.

All the other War Gods—the early-stage and most of the mid-stage ones—had been blown to pieces in the explosion of the Evil Flower. The eight hundred Void Travelers had been wiped out to a man, not a single intact corpse left behind.

Of the eleven survivors, Li Cangming—the most powerful among them—had less than thirty percent of his peak strength remaining. The other seven late-stage War Gods had at most twenty percent fighting capability, and the three mid-stage warriors could barely even stand.

Li Cangming gazed down at his charred arm—the first time he had ever suffered a wound so severe. He looked at the shattered bodies strewn across the ground, the scattered remains of magical artifacts. Among those corpses were his junior brothers, his juniors, his disciples—the four War Gods of the Scarlet Sky Sacred Grounds were now reduced to only him.

"Wang Hao!"

Li Cangming's howl echoed across the chasm, filled with bone-deep hatred and stunned disbelief.

"How dare you how dare you!"

He had witnessed countless battles, but never had any opponent dared to use a suicide bomb to annihilate an army of forty War Gods. This wasn't combat; this was the madness of one willing to blow himself apart just to drag his enemies down with him.

That kind of madness did not belong to a sane man.

"Great demon! Calamity! Butcher!"

Li Cangming's curses rang through the night sky, his voice raw with unprecedented loss of control.

He was just about to order a retreat when a lazy voice sounded from the other side of the chasm.

"Li Cangming, I hope your mouth is still this sharp next time."

At the edge of the giant pit, a figure stepped through the air.

He had changed into a new set of imperial robes—a brand-new black dragon robe that flapped in the night wind, the five-clawed golden dragon embroidered on the hem gleaming faintly in the moonlight.

Wang Hao's hair was tied flawlessly behind his head. The blood and grime on his face had been wiped clean, and that unmistakable brilliant smile hung at the corner of his mouth.

In his right hand, he carried the Heavenly Sword, its blade still cracked but its light burning anew. In his left hand, he held the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, its silver-white lightning faint but still crackling.

His aura was full and vigorous—though not at peak strength, it formed a stark contrast with the eleven battered survivors across from him.

Li Cangming's pupils contracted sharply.

He stared fixedly at Wang Hao—at that smiling face, that spotless new robe, that blazing sword.

And then he understood.

Everything became clear.

From the very beginning, it had all been a setup.

The Life-Exchange Doll—an extremely rare artifact that allowed the caster to substitute an object for death in a lethal situation.

Wang Hao had never intended to fight head-on. He had deliberately sent Wang Wudi away because that was when he had already placed the Life-Exchange Doll in a hidden spot dozens of li outside the Dark City. He had faced forty War Gods alone, feigning despair, feigning a fight to the death. All his desperate struggles, all his apparent doom, all his seeming "willingness to die together"—it was all an act.

What he wanted was to make Li Cangming and everyone else believe that he was out of options, that he was cornered, that he was ready to perish with them.

But when the forty War Gods and eight hundred Void Travelers had completely let down their guard and gathered around him—when he had lured them all into the center of the Evil Flower's blast zone—the true killing blow was revealed.

"You set this trap from the start." Li Cangming's voice was terrifyingly hoarse, every word forced through clenched teeth.

"You had Wang Wudi retreat because you had already hidden the Life-Exchange Doll on him. You charged the formation alone, pretended to be cornered, just to make me believe you were out of options. That Evil Flower was never a final desperate act—it was the last piece of your trap."

Wang Hao's smile didn't waver. He nodded. "Elder Li is indeed sharp. But there's one thing you got wrong. I really didn't want to use the Evil Flower at first. After all, its power is so great that if it accidentally caught my own people in it, that would be a heavy loss. Fortunately, your men were cooperative enough to follow me outside the Dark City."

He glanced back at the Dark City. The wall had suffered a few cracks from the shockwave, but the city itself was largely intact. The seven hundred thousand charging soldiers and civilians had, under the timely command of the Demon Lord, all retreated back within the defensive range of the Eternal Night Canopy.

Though the Eternal Night Canopy was trembling and on the verge of collapse, it had ultimately not been broken by the blast.

This, too, was part of Wang Hao's plan—because the Dark City's full force had sallied out, drawing the attention of the Sacred Ground Alliance, making Li Cangming and the others overlook Wang Hao's hidden maneuvers.

"But I still need to thank you." Wang Hao turned back to Li Cangming and the ten wounded War Gods behind him.

"If you hadn't played along, this trap of mine wouldn't have been so successful. Thirty-nine War Gods, eight hundred Void Travelers—honestly, if it came to a straight fight, I couldn't have beaten you. But setting traps? That's my specialty."

For the first time, fear flickered in Li Cangming's blood-red, flame-like eyes.

Not fear of Wang Hao's cultivation, but fear of his cunning.

This man was terrifying.

He had already calculated the outcome before the battle even began. Every step, seemingly a desperate gamble, was actually meant to lure the enemy deeper into the snare.

In the council hall, six people—including the Demon Lord—stood on the observation deck, watching this scene unfold from afar at the edge of the chasm.

Xue Wuhen's lips trembled for a long while before he finally blurted out, "What the hell was that?"

Ghost Granny's ten pitch-black nails were clenched tight around the railing, veins bulging on the backs of her hands. "The Evil Flower—that's the legendary flower of annihilation. A demigod from ancient times died under that very flower. That battle turned a hundred li of land into scorched earth, and ten thousand years later, the ground still hasn't recovered."

"His Majesty charged the formation of forty men alone, pretending to fight to the death, just to lure them to the center of the Evil Flower's explosion?" Feng Wanli's voice trembled as he spoke.

“He had planned for this from the very beginning?”

The Demon Lord said nothing.

His eyes, like swirling black vortices, were fixed on the distant black-clad figure standing in the void. For the first time in his life, he felt overwhelming relief.

When he had signed the agreement in the council hall that day, he thought he had simply lost to a cultivator with greater martial strength. Now he understood—he and Wang Hao had never been on the same level to begin with.

Ghost Granny swallowed hard, her withered, chicken-claw-like fingers trembling slightly. “And we thought we were going to fight alongside him just now. This Young Emperor—too cunning, too ruthless, too damn inhuman!”

Yin Jiouyou’s figure flickered unpredictably, but his ethereal voice carried a deep shock and a trace of fear he hadn't even realized he felt: “He alone wiped out half the Martial Saints of the Sacred Lands. Who would dare touch him now?”

Xue Wuhen suddenly burst into laughter, a sound filled with the relief of survival and the wild excitement of someone who loved watching chaos unfold. “Forget settling the score! Just now I wanted to get even with him for that palm strike, but now—screw that! I want to buy him a drink!”

Laughter echoed through the council hall, like the revelry of survivors and a tribute to Wang Hao.

At the edge of the massive crater, Li Cangming’s face was ashen. His blood-red, flame-like eyes churned with a humiliation and fury he had never known in his life.

In all his years of cultivation, he had never been outmaneuvered like this.

Forty Martial Saints, eight hundred Sky-Stepping cultivators, the elite of the Sixteen Sacred Lands—enough power to crush any faction on the continent. And yet, in the span of a single incense stick’s burn, this force had been reduced to crippled remnants by one newly ascended Martial Saint.

Thirty-nine Martial Saints now reduced to ten. Eight hundred Sky-Stepping cultivators annihilated to the last man.

This was not defeat.

This was a massacre.

Li Cangming slowly raised his head, his gaze like two venom-tipped blades, boring into Wang Hao’s beaming face. “Wang Hao, do you think setting a trap to slaughter the Sacred Lands’ elite means you’ve won? I am still alive. Seven late-stage Martial Saints still live. Three mid-stage Martial Saints remain. Do you honestly believe you—alone—can take us all?”

Wang Hao tilted his head, the motion as casual as picking fruit at a market stall. “Elder Li, that’s not quite right. When did I say I was alone?”

He raised his hand and waved toward the direction of the Dark City.

The Demon Lord, Yue Ji, Feng Wanli, Ghost Granny, Yin Jiouyou, and Xue Wuhen—six figures tore through the air, each still burning with the embers of life force. Though their auras were much weaker than before, together they remained a force not to be underestimated.

Six Martial Saints landed behind Wang Hao, standing in a single line.

Wang Hao’s Demonic Blossom had obliterated the Sacred Alliance’s main force. Now, only eleven broken soldiers remained on the opposing side—the strongest, Li Cangming, at merely thirty percent of his full strength, and the other ten together not matching even a single full-powered peak-stage Martial Saint.

A flicker of complex emotion stirred in the Demon Lord’s pitch-black, vortex-like eyes. When Wang Hao had defeated him, he had thought Wang Hao was merely a madman with overwhelming power. When Wang Hao signed the agreement, he thought him a calculating opportunist. When Wang Hao faced forty Martial Saints alone, he thought him a reckless fool.

Now he knew—none of it was true.

What made this man truly terrifying was not his cultivation, but his cunning.

“Your Majesty, what’s the strategy?” The Demon Lord’s voice carried genuine respect for the first time—not submission born of raw force, but reverence born of brilliant tactics.

“First, collect the bill.” Wang Hao began counting on his fingers. “By the head—how many spirit stones is a late-stage Martial Saint worth? How many for a mid-stage?”

Li Cangming’s face darkened completely.

The ten Martial Saints behind him exchanged glances, and for the first time, fear—utter and absolute—filled their eyes. These were beings who had lived for four or five thousand years, weathered countless storms, and seen it all. But never had anyone, on any battlefield, ever set a price on their heads in spirit stones.

This was no battle.

This was a hunt.

“Wang Hao!” Jian Wuchen’s severed arm still dripped blood, but he grasped his broken sword with his remaining right hand, the tip trembling as it pointed at Wang Hao. “Are you truly determined to make enemies of the Sixteen Sacred Lands?”

“The Sixteen Sacred Lands?” Wang Hao raised an eyebrow. “Old Sword, count how many of you are left. Twenty-nine Martial Saints dead out of forty. All eight hundred Sky-Stepping cultivators gone. No matter how deep the reserves of the Sixteen Sacred Lands, this battle alone will sting for millennia. Making enemies with me? You attacked first. I was just defending myself.”

“Bullshit!” Chimed Chilian Xianzi of the Danxia Sacred Land, her left arm severed at the shoulder, her face pale as death but her voice still shrill. “Luring the Sacred Lands’ elite into a trap and slaughtering them—you call that self-defense?”