“Honey, why did the stairs suddenly collapse?”
Li Caifeng quickly turned to her husband, Yan Zhenyi, as the staircase in front of them crumbled without warning.
“It was destroyed by that giant flame demon,” Yan Zhenyi replied, his gaze fixed on the massive fire demon below, which was overpowering the government superhumans.
Following her husband’s line of sight, Li Caifeng soon spotted the three-meter-tall demon. With two twisted horns, fists capable of smashing craters into the ground, and a mouth that could melt concrete, the creature was a terrifying sight. Instantly, she understood why her husband had said what he did.
“How do we get out of here now?” she asked.
Before Yan Zhenyi could formulate a response, his peripheral vision caught movement—a flame demon was closing in on them. Reacting swiftly, he turned and raised his gun, shattering the demon’s knee joint with a precise shot, temporarily disabling it.
But the sharp report of gunfire stood out amid the chaos. Two other flame demons, previously attacking other survivors, abruptly changed course and charged straight toward the couple.
Seeing the demons approaching from both sides, even Yan Zhenyi—confident in his marksmanship—couldn’t help but grimace. Taking down both demons before they got close enough to use their supernatural abilities would be no easy feat.
Yet, with his wife beside him, he had no choice but to protect her. Without hesitation, he raised his pistol, fired at the demon on the right, and dropped it to the ground. Then, signaling for Li Caifeng to run in that direction, he swung his gun toward the left.
But when he pulled the trigger, instead of the usual gunshot, there was only a dull click.
Damn, a jam!
Trusting her husband’s instruction, Li Caifeng had already started running—but when she didn’t hear the expected gunshot, she froze. Realizing something was wrong, she whirled around to help.
Yet by the time she turned, the flame demon—far faster and stronger than any human—had already closed the distance. It stood less than three meters from Yan Zhenyi, well within range to unleash its fiery power.
“HONEY!!!” Li Caifeng screamed, her voice raw with terror.
Ignoring her cries, the demon activated its ability. In an instant, Yan Zhenyi’s body erupted in blisters as if he’d been thrown into a furnace. His clothes singed, his skin bubbled—he was moments away from being engulfed in flames.
But then—
A golden spirit sword shot through the station’s entrance, piercing the demon mid-cast. A surge of sword energy erupted, tearing the creature apart in an explosion of force.
With the demon dead, the supernatural flames flickered out, leaving Yan Zhenyi severely burned but no longer in danger of immolation. Still, the damage was done—he collapsed to the ground, groaning in agony.
Stunned by the sudden intervention, Li Caifeng snapped back to reality at the sound of her husband’s pain. Ignoring the remaining dangers, she rushed to his side, cradling him as tears streamed down her face.
“Honey, are you okay?!”
Before she could process anything else, a breathtakingly beautiful woman in an elegant cyan hanfu descended through a broken window, landing gracefully beside them.
Taking in Yan Zhenyi’s near-lifeless state, the woman’s expression shifted from shock to fury.
Her spirit sword, having just returned to her side, shot out again—this time targeting every remaining flame demon in the station. One by one, the creatures were beheaded, their bodies shredded by sword energy until nothing remained.
After clearing the second floor, the sword streaked toward the first-floor entrance, where the massive flame demon was still rampaging against the government superhumans. Sensing the lethal threat, the demon raised its arms to block—but as a mere two-star abyssal beast, it stood no chance against the wrath of a three-star peak-level empress.
The spirit sword cleaved straight through it, splitting the demon in two before reducing it to ash.
“What… just happened?”
Shen An’an, who had lost an arm in the fight and had been certain she was about to die, stared in disbelief at the hovering sword that had just annihilated their greatest threat.
Before she could make sense of it, the woman—Yan Qi, transformed into the Daoist Empress Daoyan—recalled her sword and turned to Li Caifeng.
“Stay here with him. Don’t move. Help will arrive soon—I promise he’ll recover.”
Without waiting for a response, Yan Qi gripped her sword and vanished from the station, pursuing the three cultists who had already fled.
“We came to rescue the Bishop, but now the Priest is dead… What a waste. Next time, we’ll have to be more careful when saving high-ranking members. Still, don’t worry, Priest—I’ll purify plenty of souls to avenge you.”
Disguised as an ordinary civilian using the cult’s secret illusion techniques, the ever-scheming cult member muttered to himself as he slipped past the perimeter of the encirclement.