Under the combined efforts of the four beauties, a fraction of Diyu Ding Zhe’s attack was dispersed, sadly the majority of his attack was still spewing toward Sky Cliff City at unbelievable speeds.

Clicking her tongue, Yuying performed a series of a dozen or so hand signs, causing golden colored runes to appear on the surface of her skin. 

“Reinforce!” Yuying yelled moments before hundreds of golden colored runes soared through the air toward the semi transparent bubble that encased Sky Cliff City. 

Racing each other, Yuying’s golden colored runes and Diyu Ding Zhe’s sea of bones were neck and neck as they overtake each other in succession.

“Hasten!” Yuying said as she performed a few more handsigns, causing the golden runes to pick up speed while her cheeks slightly paled.

With a sudden burst of speed, the golden runes shot past the sea of bones and the endless abyss of a shadow that crept across the land, arriving and combining with the semitransparent sphere that surrounded Sky Cliff City. 

Once the golden runes fused together with the semitransparent sphere, it began to emit a dazzling light that radiated the night sky, just a flicker of a second before Diyu Ding Zhe’s sea of bones impacted.

 Like a ravenous blood thirsty beast, the sea of skeletal hands smashed against the radiating sphere that encircled Sky Cliff City. Within the sphere, the citizens of Sky Cliff City could only watch helplessly and pray to the heavens as death attempted to encroach their home.

Without a means of escape, the countless citizens within Sky Cliff City could only huddle up with their loved ones or watch as Diyu Ding Zhe’s sea of bones attempted to pierce through Yuying’s barrier.

“Quickly! Attack! My barrier won't last long at this rate!” Yuying said to the other beauties as beads of sweat dropped from her brow she her hands were clasped together and maintaining a strange looking handsign. 

From the looks of things it was obvious that Yuying was somehow sending a portion of her essence to reinforce the barrier protecting Sky Cliff City.

“On it!” Ling said with a nod as she hastily sped toward Sky Cliff City, gathering up all of the moisture in the air in her path and condensing it into a gargantuan bubble of water the size of a hill.

With a thought, Ling caused the ma.s.sive bubble of water to burst apart into millions if not tens of millions of droplets that soon rained down upon the earth at unbelievable speeds.

Like a storm of arrows or an endless barrage of bullets, the millions of water droplets descended upon the sea of bones. Containing an immeasurable amount of inertia, the millions of water droplets shattered numerous skeletal hands, turning countless bones into bits and pieces.

Seeing the devastation that was invoked, one could only imagine the force contained within these earth shattering water droplets.

“I'll help too!” Ai yelled as her Black Thorn Wipe slammed into the sea of bones, grinding everything underneath it into fine powder.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Reverend Dark Moon could be seen wrapped within a cloak of crimson lightning as his limbs were bound by bleached white skeletal hands.

Despite Zhang’s efforts to hinder Diyu Ding Zhe’s plans, every time he attempted to put an end to Reverend Dark Moon’s life, dozens of skeletal hands with rise up and absorb the bulk of his attack. 

Compared to how furiously Reverend Dark Moon was struggling to break free from Diyu Ding Zhe’s grasp, his current state resembled that of a dead fish that was sitting on a platter, waiting to be slaughtered.

The flames of life that had been visible in his eyes had diminished leaving hollow vacant abysses, his strength had been slowly sapped away leaving limping limbs and his will had been shattered over the course of a few brief moments leaving a husk of his former self. It seemed as if his soul had long departed and only his body had remained.

In a battle between experts, seconds could mean the difference between life and death, as shown by what had happened to Reverend Dark Moon over the course of a few fleeting breathes.

What Zhang's wasn't able to see was that within Reverend Dark Moon’s mind, a peculiar scene was currently being played out. 

If one was able to peer inside and observe Reverend Dark Moon’s mind and read his thoughts they would be able to see a long and nearly endless white hallway that was constructed entirely out of white marble.

Seemingly without beginning and without end, this white marble hall appeared to stretch on endlessly as Reverend Dark Moon could be seen lifelessly treading forward within it. 

While in real time in the outside world, only a few minutes has gone by, within Reverend Dark Moon’s mind the pa.s.sage of time had acc.u.mulated to an alarming number. To Reverend Dark Moon, an uncountable number of years had long pa.s.sed since he had began treading through the white marble hallway.

At first when his mind had been thrown into this strange world of white marble, Reverend Dark Moon had employed a dozen or so different methods that he believe would allow him to escape, however every single attempt had ended up in complete and utter failure, leaving him with a single option and that was to move forward through the endless hallway. 

He had began his journey with brisk steps br.i.m.m.i.n.g with strength, but as days became weeks and weeks became months and months became years, Reverend Dark Moon’s will was slowly chipped away until nothing was left.

While a regular person would have long since stopped moving forward and allowed themselves to waste away, despite lacking the will to do so, Reverend Dark Moon still unconsciously continued forth, hoping to stumble upon a chance of escaping. 

Suddenly as all hope had seemed to have faded away, off in the distance, door came into Reverend Dark Moon’s view. 

“A-a do-door! An exit!” Reverend Dark Moon yelled as his eyes brightened and his pace quickened.

Despite coming into Reverend Dark Moon’s view, one could say the mysterious door was an immeasurable distance away. Running with all his might, Reverend Dark Moon continued forward without rest for days before finally arriving in front of the mysterious door.

Employing all his strength, Reverend Dark Moon pushed open the mysterious door, as hope, relief and joy swelled up within him only to be overcome with hopelessness, and despair a few moments later.

A wise man had once said, the higher elevated a person’s mood was the easier it was it was to send them into the depths of despair. The more hope one held the deeper one would fall. After being given the faint possibility of escape, and having it s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him, Reverend Dark Moon had been sent spiraling into the pits hopelessness, robbing him of any will power he had left within him.

As Reverend Dark Moon lifelessly knelt on the ground and gazed blankly at the white marble floors, dozens of black colored wisps of smoke crept out from out of nowhere, slowly coiling through the air.

Like serpents, these wisps of smoke wrapped around Reverend Dark Moon’s body, seeping and drilling into his pores, eyes, mouth and nose as a chilling laughter made its way into his ears.

“At the very least I need to take a few of his limbs!” Zhang thought as he watched Reverend Dark Moon’s body being infused with wisps of black smoke. 

Although Zhang was not extremely knowledge in regards to subjects relating to the soul, after spending so much time with Yuying and witnessing what had occurred on Sea Beast Island when the remnants of the Sea Beast Sect attempted to reconquer the Eastern Sea, Zhang was able to deduce what Diyu Ding Zhe's was doing to Reverend Dark Moon.

Of course when one compared the method in which the members of the Sea Beast Sect and Diyu Ding Zhe had utilized  when possessing their targets, the Sea Beast Sect’s method was comparable to the mundane whereas Diyu Ding Zhe’s method was comparable to the high heavens.

While there aren't many differences between the technique they employed, the end result was vastly different.

When the members of the Sea Beast Sect had acquired new bodies, the cultivation  of their new body would drastically drop due to incompatibility between their soul and the body. In most cases, they would have to spend dozens of years to adjust and strengthen their new bodies.

Whereas in Diyu Ding Zhe’s case, not only did he not cause Reverend Dark Moon’s cultivation to drop, he was actually causing it to steadily rise.

Diyu Ding Zhe crushed the will of his victim before rewriting their memories to his own, in simplistic words he was able to possess a new body perfectly without resistance. The members of the Sea Beast Sect would forcefully seize new bodies without preparation, using pure strength to shatter their soul, often leaving many fragments of resistance.

Thanks to his countless years of reigning over a vast portion of the Underworld, Diyu Ding Zhe’s understanding of the soul could be said to be second to none. As could be seen in how he went about taking over and strengthening Reverend Dark Moon’s body.

Waving his right hand, Zhang conjured a flickering first full of black fire in his hand. Waving his left hand, Zhang wrapped his entire left arm in crimson colored lightning that resembled a fierce looking dragon. With a thought, Zhang employed the power of the Underworld Heart, causing his gigantic mithril sword to split apart into thousands of floating spears that dancered in the air around him.

“Let's see if you can block my attack this time!” Zhang roared his the soul devouring flame shot out from the palm of his hand. A fraction of a second later, thousands of mithril spears began to rain downward moments before they were wrapped within crimson lightning. 

s.h.i.+elding, Reverend Dark Moon or rather Diyu Ding Zhe’s new body, a sea of thousands of skeletal hands, skeletal limbs and skulls shot out from the dark shadows, creating a barrier of bones and skulls. Upon close examination one would notice that this barrier of bones and skulls was actually coated a thin layer of black colored essence that seemed to consume and absorb a portion of the essence in the area around it.

Noticing similar properties between his soul devouring flame and Diyu Ding Zhe’s mysterious techniques, Zhang had purposely arranged his three attacks in order to neutralize Diyu Ding Zhe’s chances of thwarting him.

Spreading it’s wings after being released from Zhang’s palm, the soul devouring flame drastically increased in size, becoming hundreds if not thousands of times larger than it was before. Like a gluttonous beast, the soul devouring flame, true to it’s name, devoured an immense amount of essence within the air around it, gorging itself as it continued to grow ever so larger.

Before long, the essence eating flames and the life stealing shadows met as black fire engulfed the sea of bones surrounding Reverend Dark Moon’s body. Equally consuming one another, Zhang’s soul devouring flames and Diyu Ding Zhe’s sea of bones and shadows mutually destroyed each other in a matter of seconds.

“Just a little bit more.” Zhang thought as he watched his barrage of lightning coated spears quickly approaching Reverend Dark Moon.

However moments before the volley of spears could reach their target, numerous bones could be seen rising from within the shadows, quickly creating another s.h.i.+eld around Reverend Dark Moon.

“As if I did not plan for that.” Zhang said as a glint flickered within his eye, while the rest of his face remained emotionless. 

Ejecting themselves or rather launching themselves from Zhang’s thousands of mithril spears, thousands of crimson colored lightning bolts that were shaped in the form of miniature dragons smashed into the barrier of bones and shadow, concentrating the vast majority of their power on a single location which in turn created an opening and a path through the barrier, to Reverend Dark Moon.

Without anything to hinder their path, a dozen of so mithril spears were able to directly strike Reverend Dark Moon, severing one of his arms and piercing through a few of his vital organs.