This time, however, the Desolate Moon Continent's reaction was not like the last demonic invasion. Their response was extremely strong, a stance of fighting to the death.
The Four Great Sects mobilized almost their entire strength, leading all their vassal sects and cultivation families to scour the land, determined to root out every last remnant of the demonic forces.
Consequently, during their attempts to hide, Mu Guyue and her forces were besieged by cultivator armies several times, forcing them into frequent, intense battles.
Ultimately, two more Demonic Generals were slain by the humans, and the Demon Lords and Demonic Soldiers under their command suffered heavy casualties.
Through a risky venture, Mu Guyue finally learned of the news concerning the Devil's Cliff Crevice. She discovered that the two-realm passage there had been completely sealed, and no more reinforcements would be coming.
This was undoubtedly a fatal blow.
She then conferred with the two remaining Demonic Generals and came to a decision: they would seek out that group of mysterious human cultivators who had crossed over through space to see if there was any possibility of a joint counterattack.
But the result was that the other party had completely vanished. Instead, their search exposed them again, and after losing many more of their clan, they barely managed to escape.
At this point, the thought of fleeing the Desolate Moon Continent had already taken root in Mu Guyue's mind.
She consulted with the other two Demonic Generals again and decided to forcibly cross the Sea of the Northern Abyss. It was said that the planar barrier of the Desolate Moon Continent was weakest there, and it was possible to reach another plane.
Although it wasn't the Demon Realm, what place could be more hateful towards the Demon Clan and more dangerous than the cultivators of the Desolate Moon Continent?
As long as they could leave the Desolate Moon Continent, they could find a way to return to the Forsaken Continent later. However, in doing so, few of their subordinates would likely survive.
Forcibly crossing a planar barrier was something even a Demonic General like Mu Guyue had no confidence in, let alone protecting others.
After several discussions, the three Demonic Generals found their disagreements growing.
The other two Demonic Generals unanimously believed they could lie low, just as their demonic predecessors had, and wait for an opportunity.
The current situation was only so tense because the war had just ended. As long as they survived this period, the enemy couldn't possibly maintain such a large-scale mobilization day after day.
Once things calmed down, they could seize the opportunity to make a comeback and see how they might once again bring the Demon Realm's army over.
But Mu Guyue believed that times had changed. The Devil's Cliff Crevice was completely sealed, so what opportunity was there to speak of?
They didn't even have a Realm-Breaking Pearl left. How could an army possibly cross two planes?
In the end, unable to convince each other, Mu Guyue led her twenty-eight subordinates towards the Sea of the Northern Abyss.
The journey that followed was the beginning of a nightmare for Mu Guyue and her followers.
Although she was a Nascent Soul-level Demonic General with an exceptionally tough and powerful physical body, she was only at the initial-stage of Nascent Soul. Forcibly breaking the barrier to cross between realms might have been better if she were alone.
In the end, she exhausted all her strength, even self-detonating several magical treasures, to barely make it through the barrier.
Not only did she suffer severe internal injuries, but only nine Demon Lords survived. All the Demonic Soldiers didn't even have their souls enter the cycle of reincarnation, being shredded to nothing by the chaotic spatial flows.
The ten of them who survived were all on the verge of their physical bodies collapsing and were in dire need of healing.
It was then that Mu Guyue learned they had arrived on the Wind God Continent.
Fortunately, there were cultivators from other worlds who traveled to the Wind God Continent for experience; it was not as closed off as the Desolate Moon Continent.
Therefore, facing a Nascent Soul cultivator who might fight to the death at any moment, along with a group of Golden Core cultivators, no one was willing to provoke them.
Thus, Mu Guyue stayed on the Wind God Continent for ten years. Only then did her injuries mostly recover, but she had also completely exhausted all the high-quality medicinal pills she had.
So, she decided not to wait any longer and led her nine Demon Lords on the journey home.
This journey took another twelve years. They constantly teleported or forcibly traversed planar barriers.
When they ran out of spirit stones, they would rob and plunder. When Mu Guyue finally returned to the Forsaken Continent, besides herself, only one Demon Lord remained.
This return journey had resulted in an almost complete annihilation of her forces.
However, when she arrived at the Black Demon Clan's territory, having nearly given her life to get there, she was immediately imprisoned.
She later learned that she was not the only one who had returned by relying on formidable strength to cross realms. Three other Demonic Generals had also returned to the clan ahead of her with a few of their people.
As for the Spirit Transformation cultivators like Tu Tai, they had likely been targeted and killed by Gu Jiuqi and the others, or had already fallen. Not a single one had returned, nor had any news been sent back.
The four Demonic Generals, including Mu Guyue, were not punished. Instead, a Spirit Transformation Demon Marshal used a "Mind-Inquiry Art" on each of them.
The "Mind-Inquiry Art" was a high-level technique that only high-ranking cultivators could practice. It was similar to the Soul-Searching Art, but it did not cause much harm to the subject's soul.
However, the art still had to be applied to the soul. After being subjected to it, one would need a full day in a dazed state to recover.
Under the "Mind-Inquiry Art," what Mu Guyue and the others said was basically the same.
The Black Demon Clan's Demon Marshal discovered that this battle was not lost due to their cowardice, but because of unexpected changes, all of which were related to the Malevolent Spirit Sect.
First, the long-vanished Chimei Emissary had appeared.
Second, a Malevolent Spirit Sect cultivator had fought to the death, using a Realm-Breaking Pearl to blow up the Devil's Cliff Crevice.
This was what had turned their painstaking plan into nothing. The group of mysterious human cultivators had also vanished without a trace, forcing these Demonic Generals to tear through the barrier to return.
When Mu Guyue was released from her confinement and returned to her cave residence, her once-soaring fighting spirit had been worn down by more than half, but she buried the name "Malevolent Spirit Sect" deep in her heart.
She knew that for the Black Demon Clan to reopen the passage to the Desolate Moon Continent, it was unknown how many years it would take.
But if she one day advanced to the Spirit Transformation realm, she would definitely cross the realms to meet that Gu Jiuqi and avenge this crushing defeat.
However, after more than twenty years of rushing about and forcibly crossing realms, her cultivation had not only failed to advance an inch but was even showing signs of decline.
Along the way, because she needed to forcefully protect her subordinates as they crossed the barriers, shielding them from the attacks of the chaotic spatial flows, her body was in a constant cycle of injury and self-healing.
All her medicinal pills were exhausted. In the end, she could only rely on plundering pills and spirit stones to make her way back, and her injuries never fully healed.
With the accumulation of old injuries throughout her body, her cultivation realm had loosened, but this was not the loosening of a bottleneck before a breakthrough, but a trend of decline.
The Black Demon Clan had always respected the strong. Without strength, everything was empty talk.
Even as a Demonic General, Mu Guyue had to use Demon Crystals or spirit stones to buy the healing pills she needed. No one would just hand them to her.
Especially since she had returned from a great defeat, there would certainly be no rewards from above.
When Mu Guyue had crossed the realms, she had taken all her treasures, spirit stones, and pills with her. There was nothing left in her cave residence.
With her cultivation and stunning beauty, a simple purse of her crimson lips would have had many Demonic Generals willing to offer her pills or Demon Crystals for free.
But her proud and cold personality meant Mu Guyue would never ask anyone for help. Thus, she thought of the "Demon-Swallowing Abyss."
Her injuries could be quickly healed by a demonic plant called "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass," something that many mid-to-high-level pills could not achieve.
This grass matured in three hundred years and bore fruit in five hundred. Even without being used as an ingredient in medicine, it could be consumed directly.
It contained Blazing Sun Demonic Qi, which had an unparalleled effect on the physical bodies of Black Demon Clan cultivators.
Not only could it temper bones and reconstruct flesh, but it could also burn and purify the demonic qi in the body, and even help a cultivator break through a minor realm. However, it was not something that cultivators below the Nascent Soul realm could consume.
If a low-to-mid-level cultivator consumed it directly, the only result would be their body exploding. If Mu Guyue could consume this grass, her old injuries would surely be healed, and her cultivation might even increase.
However, the "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass" was extremely rare because of the companion demonic beast that grew alongside it, a powerful demonic beast that made others pale at its mention.
The reason "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass" had this name was related to its companion demonic beast, the Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon.
The "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass" was nourished by the breath it exhaled daily, which was filled with blazing sun energy.
The Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon was a variant of the Dragon Clan. Its ancestor was likely from the "Profound Gold Dragon" lineage, but it was completely different.
"Profound Gold Dragons" absorbed spiritual energy, while Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragons needed demonic qi for their cultivation.
Legend has it that in ancient times, a pure-blooded Profound Gold Dragon entered the "Demon-Swallowing Abyss" and later managed to cultivate using the demonic qi within, gaining world-shaking power.
But its bloodline also mutated, just like the original Black Demon Clan's Xiahou Shangxie.
He brought demonic plants out of the "Demon-Swallowing Abyss" to cultivate. Although his strength became exceptionally powerful, he also became what is now the Black Demon Clan.
So, the Profound Gold Dragons in the "Demon-Swallowing Abyss" eventually became Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragons.
No matter how the Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon mutated, its body still contained the noble bloodline of the Dragon Clan.
Therefore, its offspring were born as third-rank demonic beasts, equivalent to Golden Core cultivators, which was terrifying.
Even if they didn't actively cultivate and only breathed in demonic qi in their sleep, they could easily advance to the fourth rank after a hundred years.
However, suppressed by the laws of heaven and earth, advancing from the fourth to the fifth rank in the Mortal Realm was only possible through arduous cultivation or by breaking through the shackles of heaven and earth and ascending to the Immortal Spirit Realm.
Back then, Xiahou Shangxie, with his initial-stage Spirit Transformation cultivation, had fought a fourth-rank Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon in the "Demon-Swallowing Abyss" for more than ten days before finally subduing it and making it his companion demonic beast.
Therefore, the possible locations of Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragons were recorded in the Black Demon Clan's records, but they were only possible locations.
Someone had heard a dragon's roar near where Xiahou Shangxie had once subdued a Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon, but they had fled early on.
So, it couldn't be confirmed if they had misheard or if it was real.
The combat power of the Dragon Clan was too astonishing; even Spirit Transformation cultivators were generally unwilling to provoke them.
Usually, where a third-rank Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon appeared, there would definitely be one or two fourth-rank Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragons, because it was still a young dragon and would have its parents protecting it.
Only when they advanced to the fourth rank would they establish their own territory.
Therefore, Golden Core cultivators dared not go under such circumstances.
Nascent Soul cultivators also didn't know if they would encounter one fourth-rank Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon or a family of them, so they usually stayed away.
Encountering a newly adult fourth-rank one by chance, like Xiahou Shangxie did, was a matter of luck. If he had encountered more than two, even he, at the Spirit Transformation stage, would have had to flee.
Mu Guyue knew that the accumulated injuries in her body had reached a point where they had to be cured.
The healing pills she needed were at least fifth-rank or higher, and she couldn't afford the required Demon Crystals or spirit stones. She immediately thought of the "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass."
Her plan was also very simple. She was also a Nascent Soul-level Demonic General. If she could find a place where a fourth-rank Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon was residing, she had some confidence in seizing the opportunity to steal the "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass."
Even if she couldn't find the "Black Jade Profound Dragon Grass" in the end, given the location where a Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon lived, it was already deep within the "Demon-Swallowing Abyss," and there would be some rare herbs that were scarce in the outside world.
If she could gather some herbs and sell them, she could also exchange them for a few fifth-rank pills, achieving the same goal.
Gazing at the rolling demonic qi in the abyss, Mu Guyue pushed off the cliff with her long legs, and her figure disappeared from the clifftop.