When that foot came down, everyone standing within several kilometers felt their balance falter.
Only Jiang Yan, Draymond, and Himeko managed to evade it.
The Mangfang Elephant's charge was finally forced to a halt. Its scarlet eyes—each larger than a car—locked onto its enemies, and scorching breath poured from its gaping maw.
Himeko didn't waste time observing.
She raised Wolf's Gravestone high, the power of the Plague Gem surging into the blade—
And in an instant, it transformed into a colossal sword that pierced the heavens.
Behind her, wings of flame condensed, spreading out like a torrent of laser fire.
For a fleeting moment, Himeko felt a faint resonance—
A connection to Kiana.
Her gaze sharpened as she shouted:
"By this blazing fire—nothing shall remain uncut!"
The flaming greatsword cleaved through the air, heat twisting space itself.
This strike landed solidly on the Mangfang Elephant.
A burnt, acrid stench spread as the beast let out a furious howl. A massive fissure split its hind leg—yet the flesh was instantly charred by flame, leaving little blood to spill.
Himeko's eyes lit up.
This was the first time she had truly injured it.
Wolf's Gravestone was far stronger than she'd expected.
And this was merely a mass-produced martial weapon refined by Cloud Retainer. If it were a true immortal cultivator's artifact, its might would be terrifying to imagine.
She flapped her flaming wings and ascended once more, surveying her surroundings.
Himeko frowned.
This was the world of immortal cultivation. Every inch of space was saturated with boundless spiritual energy.
Her Honkai energy replenished rapidly, and her attack power was significantly amplified—but…
She could clearly feel it.
The spiritual energy of this world was suppressing her.
Compared to spiritual energy—the foundation of all laws—any other power was inferior.
If described anthropomorphically, spiritual energy looked down on Honkai energy.
The same applied to elemental power… and even a martial artist's inner force.
From a technological standpoint, spiritual energy was highly inert in their battles—it refused to resonate or cooperate.
She glanced at the wound on the Mangfang Elephant's leg.
It looked terrifying, but in truth…
It was little more than a superficial injury.
She had barely cut through its fat layer.
And when her attack struck, a certain force around the beast instinctively nullified much of her Honkai energy.
This must have been what Alice mentioned—
Ferocious beasts of the cultivation world could only truly be dealt with using cultivation methods.
The spiritual energy entwined around them was the highest-order existence among all non-cultivation powers.
Using inferior quality to challenge superior quality meant only one thing:
Quantity over quality.
She was trying to kill an elephant with ants.
"Well done, Miss Himeko! Keep disrupting it!"
Draymond's eyes shone as he looked up at her.
Martial artists could only briefly fly after reaching the Landed Immortal realm.
Yet Himeko's unique power allowed her to soar freely.
She seemed even stronger than him—though clearly not at Landed Immortal level—and still capable of flight.
That alone was an incredible ability.
The Mangfang Elephant impatiently turned its head, its trunk unleashing streams of light toward Himeko.
Though she had wounded it, such injuries were insignificant in its eyes.
Only Jiang Yan truly threatened it.
Even without intelligence, it possessed basic judgment.
After lashing out at Himeko briefly, it refocused on Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan was simply too agile.
Most of the Mangfang Elephant's attacks were wide-area strikes, making it difficult to hit him precisely.
Otherwise, a single blow would've been enough to seriously wound him.
A Landed Immortal martial artist might threaten an Essence-Refining beast—but in terms of defense, they were worlds apart from true cultivators.
One solid hit, and Jiang Yan would be forced out of the fight.
He knew this well and never dared to take an attack head-on.
After all—he wasn't Beidou.
If it were Beidou, she'd manifest a divine elephant phantom and slam the Mangfang Elephant with a planetary throw.
The innate advantage of cultivators was overwhelming.
Jiang Yan's attacks were just as hard for the Mangfang Elephant to dodge.
It wasn't slow, but agility?
For a behemoth hundreds of meters tall, that was wishful thinking.
Had it been an Essence-Refining demonic beast capable of freely shrinking its body—
Jiang Yan would've been dead already.
That was the difference between ferocious beasts and demonic beasts.
In the cultivation world, few cultivators considered ferocious beasts troublesome.
Even newcomers like Beidou regarded them as oversized targets… and walking ingredients.
The only enemies worth fearing were demonic beasts and other cultivators.
Of course, creatures like the Xuanjia Glazed Beast of the forbidden zones were exceptions.
Himeko stopped pressing recklessly.
She attacked from behind, struck once, then immediately retreated—never greedy for a follow-up.
The Mangfang Elephant could afford countless mistakes.
They couldn't afford even one.
The longer the battle dragged on, the more frustrated Himeko became.
What cultivators dismissed as "low-tier" disasters were apocalyptic threats to others.
In this world, cultivation was inevitable.
Including Jiang Yan—none of them possessed the decisive power to end this fight cleanly.
High above, Yunqing shook his head regretfully.
Martial arts truly couldn't compare to the immortal path.
Forget inner disciples—even an outer disciple who reached early Essence-Refining would have countless ways to deal with this Mangfang Elephant.
Sword control, talismans, spells—any of them would make short work of it.
If nothing unexpected happened, he would still have to step in to finish this.
Though Jiang Yan had moved the battlefield, they hadn't gone far from Mount Shu.
They weren't cultivators—how far could they run in an hour?
He didn't care about damage far away, but land near Mount Shu couldn't be ruined too badly.
Himeko slashed again, unleashing a massive vortex of flame that engulfed the Mangfang Elephant.
The firestorm connected heaven and earth, rotating like a raging tempest.
In the Honkai world, this attack alone could annihilate a city.
To the Mangfang Elephant, however, it was little more than a scalding hot spring.
It stomped the ground.
The flame vortex instantly collapsed, leaving only singed fur behind.
"Miss Himeko, against ferocious beasts like this, wide-area attacks won't work. You must condense your power into a single point."
Jiang Yan reminded her while slashing another wound into the beast.
"Creatures of the cultivation world naturally resist non-spiritual attacks. Those methods are ineffective."
Himeko nodded, fatigue creeping into her eyes.
The real battle had lasted barely over ten minutes.
Yet she already felt exhausted.
She couldn't help but curse inwardly.
Alice once mentioned that some great cultivators fought battles lasting years.
It was said that the sect master of Yuhua Gate once fought a demonic cultivator for three hundred years—
Destroying four mid-tier worlds in the process.
So yes—
Cultivators were monsters.
Himeko refused to consider them human at all.
They were high-dimensional beings that transcended the very concept of humanity.
Her yearning for cultivation burned hotter than ever.
"This can't go on."
She narrowly dodged a wave of spiritual energy and glanced back, fear lingering in her eyes.
That single attack had collapsed the ground within a kilometer.
Had she failed to dodge, she'd be contacting Hu Tao—
If there were even remains left.
She spat inwardly.
Fighting beings of the cultivation world was pure bullying.
A group of them ganging up on the weakest ferocious beast—and after all this time, it was still energetic with only surface wounds.
Yet if it hit them even once, it'd be a total wipe.
Outrageous.
"Mr. Jiang Yan, do you have any plan?" Draymond asked breathlessly.
"What about attacking from the inside?" Himeko added.
"No!"
Jiang Yan rejected it outright, slashing another wound as he spoke.
"Ferocious beasts are indeed vulnerable internally—but that's only for cultivators. If we enter with inner force as defense, we won't survive even a moment."
Himeko understood instantly.
So its stomach is basically lava.
"We can't drag this out any longer," Draymond urged.
"If this continues, all the martial artists here will die."
Jiang Yan didn't reply, continuing to dodge and maneuver.
His techniques were exquisite, but this was a matter of absolute power.
He had overestimated himself—and underestimated Essence Refining.
A Landed Immortal was no match for it.
In a way, he was fortunate it was a Mangfang Elephant.
If it were a demonic beast, Mount Shu Village would already be calling the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
After a moment of silence, Jiang Yan clenched his teeth.
"I'll try something. Buy me some time!"
Buy time?
Himeko gave a bitter smile.
She and Draymond together weren't worth a single swing of its trunk.
Yet Jiang Yan had already closed his eyes, one hand gripping the hilt as his aura condensed to a single point.
Sensing opportunity, the Mangfang Elephant went berserk, charging straight at him.
Yunqing focused, ready to intervene at any moment.
But Himeko made her decision.
She and Draymond stepped directly into its path.
Jiang Yan's presence collapsed inward, forming a tiny singularity.
Himeko glanced down at the Plague Gem.
This Herrscher core—symbol of power and calamity in the Honkai world—had dimmed.
Even with its connection to the Imaginary Space, even with infinite Honkai energy…
She still hadn't fully mastered it.
Drawing on her last reserves, flames ignited even in her hair.
"Mr. Jiang Yan… please make it in time."
She whispered.
The battered Wolf's Gravestone erupted with its final brilliance.
Infinite flames compressed again and again at the blade's tip.
Crimson fire turned blinding white.
Nearby, Draymond felt the air being ripped away, engulfed by fire.
His heart leapt.
Sensing the opening, he compressed all his remaining inner force and channeled it into Himeko's blade.
When the Mangfang Elephant closed to less than a hundred meters—
The earthquake reached them.
Himeko's eyes blazed.
"Ever-burning… flames!"
She swung.
The charging Mangfang Elephant failed to dodge, misjudging the attack as another weak strike.
But when that tiny spark reached its eye—
It could only watch helplessly.
It shut its eyes in panic, its thick eyelids blocking the blow for an instant—
Before being pierced through.
The eye socket was burned into a blackened void.
At that exact moment, Jiang Yan's eyes flew open.
"Now!"
All his strength and inner force converged as he hurled his sword.
"Hundred-Pace Flying Sword!"
The blade tore through the air, piercing straight through the eye socket Himeko had opened—
And into the Mangfang Elephant's skull.
The light faded from its remaining eye.
Himeko and the others forced out their last strength to retreat.
The Mangfang Elephant staggered on for several thousand more meters—
Then finally collapsed, kicking up clouds of dust that filled the sky.
Panting heavily, they stared at the motionless giant.
After what felt like an eternity, Himeko asked hesitantly:
"Did we… win?"
The next instant—
The battlefield erupted in thunderous cheers.
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