How Much For Your Soul?

Thousands of screaming Nether Realm warriors surged towards the Empire's army in a murderous wave. Those that fell were quickly replaced by their eager brothers, everyone hell-bent on killing the invaders. Unfortunately, they were stopped by a wall of demon spiritualists that had merged with their demon spirits.

A Demi-God was only stronger than a Legend ranked expert, going against a Heavenly Fate demon spiritualist was asking for death. Their meagre grasp of the World's Laws was not enough to save them from the vast amounts of strength, soul force and demon spirit innate skills that the frontline unleashed upon them.

Shen Yue watched from Blaze's back, safely surrounded by troops as the two armies clashed together with a thunderous explosion of pandemonium. Screams of fury and agony filled the battlefield as the tsunami of Nether Realm fighters crashed against the immovable human defensive formation. As they continued to push against the steel wall of humans, he could only smile and shake his head.

This universe had very little in the way of tactics or army formations. Sure, some of the Clans in the Draconic Ruins had battle arrays that could combine the might of people working together, but they were rare or simply not used. It seems that personal strength had become the driving force behind their tactics, as two groups of enemies would simply charge at each other in a swarm of individuals.

Even though the human army had powerful soldiers equipped with better gear and in a defensive formation, casualties did occur. But before they could result in deaths, the reserve troops took their place, and the injured were shuffled to the back of the army. This was the first real battle that Shen Yue had witnessed, and it was intense.

The invasion so far had mainly been made up of small teams destroying pockets of resistance inside the city walls. A battle of this scale was something completely different. Just the noise of pain-filled screams and clashing of weapons shocked him to his core. Even though he had killed before, it did not prepare him for this, it was almost primal in the severity of slaughter.

But he could meditate on this later, the enemy had finally bunched up enough for the traps to be activated. If only the Spiritual Gods had moved forward, instead of watching from behind their army. Shen Yue could have injured some of them and reduced the threat of their unknown powers. But they were waiting for Yu Yan, Zhu Long and Su Qiang to make a move, they were content to watch the mortals fight each other. It was only Ming Fei that grieved as he watched his subjects die, the others could care less at his predicament.

But the Spiritual Gods expressions changed when Shen Yue initiated the arrays that saturated the abandoned camp. First to activate were the gravity arrays, dropping the warriors flying above on top of their companions. Next, was an assortment of different elemental killing arrays. It was a massacre, even the Gods were horrified at the sight of destruction that laid waste to their army.

There was a symphony of Wilhelm screams and cries of despair as the Nether Realm army was torn to pieces by the elemental eruption. Those that were lucky died instantly. Much better than those that suffered through their skin melting off from the hellish flames, or having half their bodies frozen only to be shattered by someone stumbling over them in their panic to escape certain death.

Those that had already engaged with the Empire's men were killed as the humans advanced. The Nether races were pushed back into the whirlwind of death that was raging behind them or cut down as they tried to surge forward. Shen Yue had made sure that Su Qiang drilled the plans into the men, making sure that they would not be surprised by the explosion of death and knew it was the signal to advance.

When the arrays were spent of power, the elemental energies died down, leaving the devastating after-effects visible to those not caught in it or fortunate enough to survive. The initial army a hundred thousand-strong with different races were reduced to twenty or so thousand demoralised troops. Shen Yue's men advanced into the wailing survivors showing no mercy, they had made it clear throughout their campaign that all that resist would die.

Even if he accepted their surrender, the majority were crippled or seriously injured. The effort to heal them and integrate them into his Empire was not worth it. Now it was time to capture the horrified Spiritual Gods to save himself future trouble. The problem was that it was impossible to contain them all if they decided to flee.

Zhu Long had already been stronger than the Nether Lord, who was the strongest God among them, but he could not capture them all. Both Yu Yan and Zhu Long had vastly updated their Power of Law thanks to Shen Yue, but it was two against seven. The army of Heavenly Fate experts would unquestionably tip the fight in their favour, but these Gods had existed for over a hundred thousand years and mastered Laws that would make them hard to capture.

Both Yu Yan and Zhu Long took one thousand fresh troops each and circled the devastated camp being cleared by their army. They took opposite sides, hoping to incircle the Gods and force them to stand and fight instead of fleeing from overwhelming odds. Other than the Nether Lord, it was not vital that they capture the other Gods. Although it would save future problems, they would be practically toothless if he controlled the Nether Realm and the portal to the Draconic Realms.

Ming Fei looked like he was ready to fight to the death as he gawked at the ruins of his elite forces. Their cries as they were put down like wounded animals cut him deeply. He only had one job as an Enforcer in the Outer Division of the Divine Feathers Sect, recruit promising members to the sect. With the conscripted army from the cities under his control destroyed, he had no talents to submit for this year's recruitment.

He suddenly sensed danger and looked up to find the two enemy Spiritual Gods charging at him from opposite sides.

"Come, my friends, if we can kill these Gods then we can turn this battle around!" Ming Fei shouted as he turned to look to his allies.

Only to find that the ambassadors of the Hidden Cloud, Skyblaze and the Thousand Flowers Sects had disappeared. 'Idiots!' he silently fumed, 'don't they know that if we don't stop them here, their worlds would soon suffer the same fate?' Ming Fei could only curse them in his mind as he turned to the three allies that stayed behind.

The ambassadors of the Phaseless, Sky Origin and the Heavenly Note Sects looked at him with grim determination. They realised that they had seriously underestimated these humans, it was unbelievable how strong their army was! It was as if they were Heavenly Fate experts with the ease that they destroyed the Demi-Gods, but they knew that was impossible as this Realm's highest rank was a Spiritual God.

"We must kill these gods here and now! With the head cut off the snake, the body with cease to function! We must not hold back any power!" Shouted Ling Yun, conveniently forgetting that she had desired this battle to happen.

With a determined look, the gods faced the two approaching groups and unleashed the full power of their Laws. Two gods each unleashing their fury on each group, a two versus one battle for Yu Yan and Zhu Long as they shielded themselves and the men behind them. Unfortunately for the Nether Lord and his allies, they easily held off the godly Law energy, giving the men being protected time to take out their javelins.

What followed next was a rain of steel projectiles of destruction. With all their effort employed on attacking Yu Yan and Zhu Long, they had little power to spare for protecting themselves. Most of the javelins were destroyed by the Law energy that spilled across the distance between them, but enough proceeded to strike the stationary gods.

After that, it was a complete smackdown. With the Spiritual God's focus divided between containing the overwhelming Law energy and the thousands of spears flying at them, they were quickly at a disadvantage. Especially when Tian Hun from the Sky Origin Sect escaped without a word, using the resistance from the other three gods to cover his escape.

Shen Yue watched as the three near immortals were taken down and restrained. Seals were plastered over their bodies while they were immobilised by both soul force and Law energy. With the rest of the army finished with executing any survivors, he gave an order to secure the area and lock it down.

As Shen Yue flew down to where the three captured people struggled against their spiritual and physical shackles, he couldn't help but smile. It was time to enslave some Gods.