Ye Chen's expression was grim. He hadn't expected to be caught up by the Blood Empress after all.
It wasn't that he didn't want to escape, but the other party was chasing too closely, not leaving him a single moment's respite. Under such relentless pursuit, he had been forced to exhaust the time granted by his secret technique's enhancement.
Now, not only had he fallen back to his original state, but the side effects of the secret technique also came crashing down upon him. A genuine sense of weakness spread from within his body.
And now, facing the Blood Empress's pursuit, the situation was undeniably terrible.
"Battle Saint King, can you still manage to escape from this Empress's grasp now?"
A voice so enchanting it could make any man's bones go soft slowly resounded between heaven and earth.
When they saw the seductive figure that had instantly appeared in the sky and was now slowly materializing, the many cultivators on the Desolate Ancient Fortress, who had been angered by the collapse of the city gate, all froze in their tracks.
Especially the male cultivators, whose faces instantly flushed as red as burning clouds, their ears turning crimson.
With the appearance of this seductive figure, the Desolate Ancient Fortress fell into a brief silence and suffocating atmosphere.
As the many cultivators witnessing this scene saw the two figures, one chasing and one fleeing, they couldn't help but gulp audibly.
"Battle Saint King?"
"Blood Empress?"
No one knew who spoke first, their voice filled with unconcealed terror and panic, but it caused everyone within the entire Desolate Ancient Fortress to shudder violently.
Both the Battle Saint King and the Blood Empress were peerless powerhouses of the first rank within the Ten Heavenly Realms Ancient Domain, surpassed only by the Ancient Sovereigns.
Although they didn't understand the vast gap between the Battle Saint King and the Blood Empress before them—after all, both their strengths were too high, far surpassing Divine Kings, making it difficult even for Divine Kings to comprehend the difference between Quasi-Monarchs—this did not diminish their reverence for powerhouses of this level.
They clearly understood that whether it was the Battle Saint King or the Blood Empress, either one alone could probably annihilate a significant portion of the strong within this ancient city with a mere wave of their hand.
Destroying the entire Desolate Ancient Fortress would likely take no more than half a day.
This point could be glimpsed from how the Chaos Great Cauldron had just smashed through the city gate, which even Divine Kings had been helpless against.
Ye Chen coughed up large mouthfuls of blood, his complexion somewhat pale. If not for the protection of his Dragon Scale Battle Armor, his entire body would likely have been cleaved into several pieces.
All because the Blood Empress was truly too terrifying.
"Blood Empress, you think you can hold me in your palm? Don't make me laugh. As fellow Quasi-Monarchs, I could suppress you with a raised hand!"
Ye Chen threw his head back and laughed heartily. Even covered in bloodstains, he could not conceal his peerless demeanor. This was a legendary figure who dared to fight a Quasi-Monarch while only at the Divine King realm, inspiring awe in countless younger generations.
Who among the younger generation could achieve such a feat?
Only the Battle Saint King.
The Blood Empress was not annoyed in the slightest, smiling seductively. "Your words make some sense. Unfortunately, you won't have the chance to grow into a Quasi-Monarch. You can only blame yourself for being too reckless. If you had known how to bide your time and conceal your abilities, and if you had stepped into the Quasi-Monarch domain, perhaps even this Empress truly couldn't do anything to you."
"But there has never been any such thing as 'if'."
A blood-colored sword slash swept out, whistling as it cleaved towards Ye Chen.
Yet Ye Chen charged forward to meet it, a wild smile on his face. His laughter echoed over the Desolate Ancient Fortress, lingering for a long time. "You want to kill me? What gives you the right!"
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Before him, the Six Giant Divine Soldiers appeared.
Each one was as terrifying as an ancient demon god, their might tearing apart the heavens!
"These Quasi-Monarch puppets again? A pity, but they still can't stop me!" the Blood Empress sneered.
But Ye Chen paid her no heed. Manipulating the Six Giant Divine Soldiers, he also waved his hand, summoning a formation array engraved with endless, densely packed formation patterns. He threw it out, enveloping the Six Giant Divine Soldiers, and shouted, "Battle Formation, rise!"
Boom!
The Six Giant Divine Soldiers each stood at one of the six corners of the battle formation, forming a hexagram shape.
At this moment, the battle formation suddenly erupted with boundless power, tearing apart the sky and earth, unleashing a terrifying pressure.
Six divine lights flashed, colliding with the blood-colored sword radiance.
Boom!
After the tremendous explosion, the blood-colored sword radiance shattered, but the Six Giant Divine Soldiers remained undamaged. The battle formation was likewise intact, circulating with dazzling light, breathing in and out world-destroying might.
Within the mysterious battle formation, six extremely intense battle auras slowly rippled, eventually merging together to form an unprecedented, horrifying power.
Faintly, from the battle formation, came the sounds of countless ghosts wailing and wolves howling, as if the eighteen levels of hell from the netherworld had been opened—truly terrifying.
Ye Chen stood behind the battle formation, giving the Blood Empress a cold smile. "Blood Empress, you will be the first to witness the power of this battle formation!"
"What battle formation?" The Blood Empress furrowed her beautiful phoenix-like brows. She could sense the terror of this battle formation. Powerful as she was, a top powerhouse on the Epoch Quasi-Monarch Ranking, she faintly detected threads of danger.
"The name of this battle formation—Six Paths!"
As Ye Chen's words fell, upon the Six Paths Battle Formation, it seemed as if six mysterious, ancient great worlds had been opened. Within them, the sounds of endless ghosts wailing and gods howling rang out, filled with misery and terror, ceaselessly assaulting the ears.
The piercing screams caused countless people within the Desolate Ancient Fortress to shudder, their hair standing on end. Even the Great Powers and Heavenly Kings among them were no exception, feeling fear in their hearts.
They clearly saw that behind each of the Six Giant Divine Soldiers, a great world had manifested—pitch-black and dark red, with endless sinister intent spreading and countless souls wailing in agony.
"What place is that?"
Each one of them trembled with fear.
"Six Paths Battle Formation!?"
Rarely, a trace of gravity appeared on the Blood Empress's fox-like, seductive, peerless face. She slowly said, "Could it be that legendary Six Paths Battle Formation?"
Legend spoke of a peerless battle formation that had shaken the Chaos Sea across epoch after epoch, precisely named the Six Paths Battle Formation.
The Six Paths Battle Formation possessed the power of the Six Paths: the Heavenly Path, the Asura Path, the Human Path, the Animal Path, the Hungry Ghost Path, and the Hell Path.
Each of these Great Daos was among the top-tier supreme Great Daos within the myriad Daos of the heavens.
It was said that when these six supreme Great Daos combined, they could unleash world-shaking power capable of breaking the cycle of reincarnation.
It was said that the Six Paths Battle Formation was created by that strongest Emperor of the foreign races, the Six Paths Great Emperor. It possessed unfathomable abilities and was hailed as one of the ten greatest formations throughout history, possessing the might to slay Immortals and assassinate Emperors.
In that extremely distant era, not within this current epoch, when the Six Paths Great Emperor waged war across the Chaos Sea, shaking past and present, he had once used the Six Paths Battle Formation to slay a true Supreme One, staining it with Supreme blood, thus earning it boundless fame.
However, that Six Paths Battle Formation, in the hands of the Six Paths Great Emperor, to be more precise, should be called the Six Paths Imperial Battle Formation.
Only when wielded by an Emperor's body could it fully display the battle formation's strongest power!
With the emergence of the Six Paths Battle Formation, further enhanced by the Six Giant Divine Soldiers comparable to Quasi-Monarchs, it instantly erupted with vast Six Paths divine might. Combined, its power increased by who knew how many times, far surpassing the past. It could now faintly stand toe-to-toe with the Blood Empress.