Chapter 202: Dimensional Sphere
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The demon, who until a moment ago was in a good mood, upon hearing this voice so close to him, immediately felt a fright,
while experiencing a sensation of danger that he had never felt before, resonating throughout his entire being.
In an instant, the demon's figure vanished from his initial position and reappeared several dozen meters away.
Once repositioned, his gaze immediately focused on the place where he had previously stood, and there he saw the figure of a beautiful woman with long gray-white hair, standing and gazing curiously at the black sphere floating in the air.
'When did she appear?' he thought, alarmed by the fact that until the other had spoken, he hadn't even known she was there.
The mere fact that someone else was in this place besides him and Long Hao was a cause for concern, as it would mean the other party had a way to enter the dimension opened by the formation; in other words, she was no simple figure.
What's more, the fact that she could evade his demonic sense was further confirmation that this woman was not someone simple.
With just one glance, he could tell she was extremely powerful.
Her body radiated with repressed energy, which sent the danger receptors in his body into even greater turmoil.
The more the demon thought about the woman who had appeared, the darker his expression became.
Finally, he shook off the feeling of danger he was sensing and said:
"I can tell you are not a human.
Who are you, and what do you want from me?" he said, detecting the woman's aura and confirming it was not that of a human being.
Bai Yu, who was standing near the black sphere that was beginning to distort space around it even more, extended her hand to capture the sphere while saying:
"What do I want from you, you ask?
Do not be so full of yourself, demon.
Even among demons, you are of the lowest rank.
Aside from your life, I don't need anything else from you," she said calmly, as if what she had just stated was not an outright threat.
Seeing the woman's action to capture the sphere, the demon immediately rushed forward, intending to stop her, but then, hearing what she had said, his mind went blank, and fury rose to his head.
"I don't know why you decided to interfere, but now that you are here, leave your life behind," he said, ignoring the sense of danger he felt, throwing himself at her.
Just as he had vanished from his position earlier, he reappeared there, aiming his enormous claw directly at Bai Yu's head, intending to eliminate her instantly.
She, not halting her actions as she successfully captured the sphere, scoffed at this and immediately released a slight wave of her spiritual Qi.
In an instant, the demon's claw, now only inches away from her head, froze, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then, at a terrifying speed, the demon's entire body crystallized, and subsequently exploded, leaving behind nothing but shimmering shards of ice.
The demon, who had given a cultivator at the peak of the fifth stage such a hard time, had just been disintegrated into nothingness by her in less than a single breath.
Long Hao, who still had a glimmer of consciousness, saw what had just happened and muttered something in disbelief before completely losing consciousness.
"Who are y-"
Bai Yu, who paid no attention even as the demon was swept away by her attack, examined the black sphere in her hand for a moment before turning her gaze towards the figure of the emperor of the Long Empire, who lay on the ground, on the verge of death.
If the people of the empire had seen him in this state, they would have thought they were hallucinating, seeing as he was the most powerful being in the empire, and to see someone like him in this state was not something they considered possible.
Even the masters of the three governing sects of the Long Empire, if they combined their forces and attacked him, would hardly gain the upper hand; after all, the level difference between them was considerable, and while this disparity could be somewhat ignored at lower levels, in the fifth stage, even a single level difference could determine the victor and the vanquished.
Only in certain cases would this rule not apply, and in such cases, there would be those defined as anomalies, beings beyond the comprehension of the people, entities like Ethan who, despite being at the first level of the fifth stage, could rival those surpassing him by several levels in this stage.
Finally, Bai Yu, seeing the pitiful figure of the emperor whose life was visibly slipping away bit by bit, simply shook her head and, with a wave of her hand, extracted the blade of the sword from his body, sealing the wound with her ice.
With the emperor's body now floating, she used the black sphere in her hand to open a spatial distortion in this dimension.
A portal, in other words.
She recognized this device, and how could she not, since it was something widely used on the celestial plane.
It was a dimensional sphere, and in simple terms, it acted as a key, allowing entry and exit from certain dimensions.
Though not an extremely rare object, it was possessed only by certain individuals of a certain standing on the celestial plane.
As she passed through the portal with the emperor's unconscious floating body, she could not help but wonder how such an object had ended up in the hands of demons.
It was one thing for demons to somehow make it to the mortal plane, but another thing entirely for objects like these to appear here.
Technically, it shouldn't have been possible unless someone had personally brought it here, but who would do that?
The few figures capable of such a feat were entities who, under no circumstances, would allow the sphere to fall into the hands of the demonic race, and this only made everything more confusing for her.
If it were up to her, she would have extracted the demon's soul and interrogated it, but unfortunately for her, unlike a half-demon, this was, as he had claimed, a product of demonic Qi.
And as an entity who wielded pure Qi, she was not capable of manipulating demonic energy, hence why she eliminated the demon without hesitation.
She knew she would not obtain anything useful from him.
"Haa, it seems that peace on this continent is about to come to an end," she said as she vanished into the portal, which promptly disappeared, leaving the dimension of the eternal prison silent and desolate once more.