Those Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits weren’t about to sit back and wait for death either. Finding themselves unable to counter Ye Liuyun’s soul attacks, they began throwing everything they had at his defensive array disc.

This was their last refuge—with no way to retreat, they had no choice but to fight with everything they had.

Their soul power may not have been a match for Ye Liuyun’s, but their overall strength was nothing to scoff at.

Facing the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits that had suddenly erupted in an assault on his defensive array disc, Ye Liuyun and his two clones struck back with full force, slashing down every evil spirit soul that rushed to the front.

But then he noticed something alarming—some of the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits were devouring the dissipating mist of their fallen kin to strengthen themselves. Worse, these particular spirits were hiding behind the others, making them impossible to target. Clearly, these evil spirits possessed a higher level of intelligence and weren’t going to be easy to deal with.

Ye Liuyun and his clones slashed away with their soul blades while simultaneously unleashing Netherworld Ghost Fire from their golden pupils, burning the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits until they howled in agony. The evil spirits thundered against the defensive array disc in retaliation, sending it shuddering violently, and the whole scene descended into chaos.

Seeing the Netherworld Ghost Fire being snuffed out repeatedly, Ye Liuyun immediately used his spatial power to lock down the surrounding space as tightly as he could, then released another wave of Netherworld Ghost Fire, incinerating every Mist-Hidden Evil Spirit that had drawn near.

One of the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits had been in the middle of devouring a fallen companion’s mist when it found the space locked around it and felt the Netherworld Ghost Fire ignite on its body. With a shrill howl, it shattered through the locked space and hurled its entire form at Ye Liuyun’s defensive array disc.

With a thunderous boom, the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirit crashed into the array disc with full force—shattering it, but dispersing itself in the process.

A clone immediately followed up by releasing Golden Crow Sacred Fire, burning away every trace of mist in the surrounding space.

Ye Liuyun swiftly set up another defensive array disc and resumed his defense.

The Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits here were too powerful—he couldn’t afford to be careless.

At this point, the evil spirits around them all retreated far beyond the range of his spatial perception. Ye Liuyun could no longer detect the movements of the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits, only knowing that they wouldn’t be attacking for the moment.

But unlike before, this time agonized howls from Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits began echoing from the distance. To Ye Liuyun, these cries could only mean one thing—those evil spirits were under attack.

From the moment he had entered until now, the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits never made a sound unless they were being attacked. And the only ones capable of attacking them now were the stronger members of their own kind.

Ye Liuyun’s brow furrowed. "Could it be that some Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits are devouring their own kind to grow stronger?"

He and his clones wasted no time—they unleashed Golden Crow Sacred Fire and lightning power in all directions without a specific target, burning as much as they could. Even if they couldn’t hit anything directly, burning away the mist would at least make it easier to spot their targets.

For a time, they managed to engulf a great number of Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits in the flames. Together, the three of them cut down quite a few more with their soul blades.

The area around them cleared out considerably. All the remaining mist was pushed back toward the outer edges of the cavern. Ye Liuyun and his clones continued releasing Golden Crow Sacred Fire, but the subsequent attacks were all dodged by the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits, burning nothing but mist.

"Keep burning—burn all that mist away. Whatever’s left will be the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Ye Liuyun transmitted his voice to the two clones and continued unleashing Golden Crow Sacred Fire through his golden pupils. Golden crow after golden crow surged toward the banks of mist.

Then suddenly, a gray-hued true essence attack came crashing into their defensive array disc. With a deafening boom, before Ye Liuyun and his clones could even react, the array disc was blown apart entirely.

"They’ve gotten stronger!" Both Ye Liuyun and his clones felt the force behind that single strike.

The three of them immediately activated their spatial power in unison, layering the space around their bodies with overlapping voids to prevent the attacks from reaching them.

At the same moment, from several different directions within the mist, multiple attacks came hurtling toward them from range. Ye Liuyun struck back at once—first releasing Netherworld Ghost Fire to burn through the mist clusters and pinpoint the locations of several Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits, then launching soul blade attacks to cut down their souls. He followed up with more Netherworld Ghost Fire to burn away the remaining mist.

Then they immediately piled more void layers around themselves to block the attacks from the other Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits. But by the time they finished stacking the voids and sent the fire burning outward, those evil spirits had already shifted positions.

"At least four left!" one of the clones had already been keeping count of the enemy numbers.

Just then, howls erupted again from within the mist—the Mist-Hidden Evil Spirits were likely still devouring their own kind to power themselves up.

Ye Liuyun’s golden pupils flashed immediately, and a golden crow blazed toward the source of the sound. But all he saw was a larger shadow of mist vanish in an instant. He directed the golden crow to chase after it, but it was clear he couldn’t catch up—the spirit had escaped.

Yet the sight of that larger mist silhouette filled both Ye Liuyun and his two clones with unease. That evil spirit had clearly grown far more powerful.

“Compress space, slice space—hit any patch of thick fog you see.”

Ye Liuyun made the call on the spot and started lashing out at random.

What they hadn’t expected was how well it worked. Almost every dense pocket of mist concealed a fairly powerful Mist Wraith. Caught off-guard by spatial strikes, the wraiths either died outright or had their cloaking fog shredded.

But while they were busy hammering the wraiths, another blast slammed into their formation disk—one shot and the shield shattered again.

“There’s a heavy hitter among them!” Ye Liuyun warned his two clones.

That elite had struck the disk twice now, each blow stronger than the last. With the shield gone, lesser wraiths poured in, attacks already rivaling late Unity Nine cultivators. The layered space they’d folded around themselves buckled; residual force still reached their bodies—painful, but survivable.

They retaliated with soul sabers and Nether Ghostfire, erasing every wraith whose position they’d exposed.

Then all three—Ye Liuyun and both clones—felt ice-cold death brush their necks at once. A towering fog-mass charged them, an attack already launching from within.

No time to think: in perfect unison they fired black light straight into the monster’s sea of consciousness.

BOOM!

The explosion hurled them backward, bodies webbed with cracks. If their physiques hadn’t been tempered recently that single hit would have killed them outright.

“That was late Unity Nine—late stage!”

Ye Liuyun gauged the force while gulping life spring to knit his wounds. Together with his clones he released all fifty elite warriors to ring them in a living wall.