The answered prayer.

Yun Yantian had met a few Earthly Deities before in the Eagle Soul sect so he knew what they felt like, the woman above them was definitely someone who had entered at least the early stage of the Earthly Deity realm. The woman's gaze swept over the people who had survived her attack, eventually landing on Yun Yantian and Guo Luo. The spot where they were standing was completely untouched by her flames, meaning that they had perfectly blocked her attack. The woman opened her mouth, muttering somewhat quietly in a voice so cold it didn't seem to come from someone using the law of fire.

"You guys it is, then."

The woman suddenly descended after speaking, crashing into the ground with a cracking sound as the dusty earth beneath her feet ruptured, pillars of crimson flames shooting into the sky and igniting the air. Guo Luo and Yun Yantian both realized the woman's intentions, Guo Luo clicking her tongue as her mouth twisted slightly.

"Tch, figures that she would target us right off the bat. Guess you really were on to something when you said that some of Jun'ers bad luck must have rubbed off onto us."

The woman didn't give them time to say anything else, charging forward like a blazing inferno, the earth behind her turning into fire that followed in her steps. Yun Yantian and Guo Luo both clicked their tongues and stepped forward, 13 new swords appearing behind Yun Yantian as he tightened the grip on his sword. He had yet to battle an Earthly Deity for real, so he was eager to test out whether his sword had gotten sharp enough to reach the throat of a god.

Guo Luo's eye suddenly flicked downwards as they took their second step, her arms quickly grabbing onto Yun Yantian and throwing him into the air. She quickly jumped after him, the air beneath them turning a floating wooden platform that they could temporarily stand on. The earth where they had just stood burst open right after Guo Luo jumped up, something that looked like a remora made from crystal rising up from the ground with its maw open, snapping down on empty air. Faint flames were flickering around in the crystals that the remora was made of, so it seemed to have been created by the woman that was attacking them.

Yun Yantian kicked off of the wooden platform the moment Guo Luo created it and the remora burst out from the ground, rapidly descending down towards the woman, both swords at the ready. Space around him started to creak as he prepared his attack, his swords releasing a soft humming sound.

While Yun Yantian was descending toward the woman, the remaining surviving people in the area were looking at them with bated breath. Blazing flames had surrounded the area around all of them, cutting off their escape and saving them for later, like a spider would save its prey. Sasha, who had survived thanks to the fact that a different soldier had pushed her aside just before the fire hit them, even caressed the tattoos that she had on her neck, muttering a low prayer.

"Oh Fierce Warrior, Noble Guardian, and Benevolent Healer, please grant them the strength to kill our adversary."

As she uttered her prayer, which was met with only silence, Yun Yantian moved his body. He spun his body slightly as he slashed downwards with the sword in his left arm, a black line of sliced apart space trailing behind the sword. The woman raised her head and stretched out her left arm, the fire around her gathering into a crystalline trident in her left hand. She stabbed out with the trident and caught the sword within its prongs, waving the trident to the right to deflect the attack.

But to her disbelief, the sword actually managed to cut into the trident she had made, slicing a few centimeters into it before finally stopping as she waved the trident. Yun Yantian was waved to the side along with the sword, but he hadn't given up on his attack yet. He let go of the sword just as it was starting to move to the right, spinning his body and rolling down along the handle of the trident. He slashed out with the sword in his right hand as he rolled down the handle of the trident, the upwards trajectory and speed of the blade catching the woman off-guard and resulting in her dodge being a fraction of a second too slow.

The sword cut cleanly through her chin from below, the tip of Yun Yantian's sword just barely missing her lower lip. But even this wasn't the end of Yun Yantian's attack, the 13 longswords floating around him all moving at the same time, turning into blurs that launched countless assaults on the woman as Yun Yantian finally landed on the ground.

The woman did her best to defend against the barrage of swords, but each one was sharp enough to slice into her trident, forcing her to repair it each time she blocked, chipping away at her energy. The corners of her mouth twitched slightly, her right foot heavily stomping the ground just as the 13 blades were all gathered at her sides.

"OH FUCK OFF!"

All the flames she had gathered around her, even the fire in her wings, was aimed at her sides, two thick beams of concentrated fire erupting from beside her. The beams tore through the 13 blades and carved thick scars into the ground, igniting the air as they traveled into the distance. But before the woman could even rejoice at getting rid of the annoying swords, she realized that she had forgotten about the other person taking part in this battle.

She quickly raised her head to check the wooden platform, but it was already empty. The hair on the woman's neck suddenly stood up, her instincts forcing her to materialize a crystal armor on her body as she jumped to the side. But just as she jumped, a rainbow sword touched her crystal armor, the part that it touched turning into bubbles that popped under the edge of the blade. The sword pierced through the side of her chest, leaving a gash in her body and tearing a hole in her right lung.

The woman continued to jump to the side, resulting in the sword cutting through her body and exiting it just below her armpit. The woman quickly turned around after she jumped to the side, making sure to keep both Guo Luo and Yun Yantian in her gaze this time. Small crystalline shards started to cover her wounds, fire flickering within the crystal as it started to heal her wounds. Yun Yantian looked at the tip of his sword, which was dripping with a bit of blood, the corners of his lips curling up somewhat as he moved his gaze back onto the woman.

"If we can make you bleed, we can kill you."

Earthly Deities were gods and anyone below that realm was a mortal, and a mortal couldn't kill a god, that was a nearly ironclad rule in the cultivation world. Just the thought of being able to break that rule made Yun Yantian feel giddy on the inside it, his blood seething with excitement. But just as his blood started to boil, another voice from above poured icy cold water on his excitement.

"Da Wu, stop playing around so much. This is a war, not your playing field, do your job properly."

Yun Yantian and Guo Luo quickly raised their heads, their gazes landing on a somewhat older man from the World Tree clan that was hovering above them, standing on the wind and swaying alongside it. Yun Yantian clicked his tongue in annoyance, another Earthly Deity had made his appearance. Considering the commotion the short battle just now had brought, it wasn't strange for another Earthly Deity to appear this quickly. The woman, Da Wu, looked at the man and let out a short curse, pointing her trident at Yun Yantian, her voice somewhat distorted thanks to the cleft in her chin.

"Aw come on, at least let me kill these motherfuckers, just look at the shit they did to me."

Guo Luo's back was starting to tense up slightly as Da Wu spoke, her energy gathering within her hand as she prepared to handle any situation that might appear. Yun Yantian was also tensing up as the man above them was moving his gaze between the two of them and Da Wu. Dealing with one Earthly Deity was one thing, dealing with two at the same was something else entirely, even he didn't dare be so arrogant that he thought they could pull that off. The man finished moving his gaze between Da Wu and Guo Luo's group, nodding his head.

"Alright, but I'll help you so that we ca...!"

Space around the man started to collapse before he got to finish his sentence, the sharp fragments of shattered space acting as hooks as they dug into his body and forced him to the center of the collapsed space. The collapsed space then quickly restored itself, the man's body ending up torn apart as the shattered pieces that were dug into his body tried to return to their previous positions.

A large ripple ran through the surrounding space as the man was torn apart, a gray and silver bird that was nearly 400 meters long flying out of the ripple, its body casting a dark shadow on the ground. Sasha's gods might not have answered her prayer, but her prayers were heard by the subject of one god, one far more demonic and bloody than any of hers.

The giant bird descended to the ground and landed in front of the shocked Yun Yantian and Guo Luo, who were both trembling with excitement. The bird turned into the silver-haired and silver-eyed Little Gray just as he landed on the ground, nine more ripples running through space as Little Thunder and all of Yao Jun's other Demonic beasts were brought forth.

Little Gray knew that the safety of Guo Luo was paramount to Yao Jun, so the moment he discovered her he didn't hesitate in bringing over everyone else, tapping into a large portion of their sect's funds to make sure he didn't run out of energy. Little Gray took the lead to kneel in front of Guo Luo and Yun Yantian, the nine others immediately following suite.

"Mistress, Friend Yantian, it is good that we have finally found you."

While Little Gray and the others kneeled in front of Guo Luo, ecstatic that they had finally found them after searching for so long, none of them noticed the myriad of runes that had started appearing in the air above the planet, completely encircling it.