Jiang Qiulan walked away from the summit at a leisurely pace.

Shen Yi watched the direction she'd gone with a faint, genuine feeling.

Capable practitioners were capable practitioners. She made time look like it cost nothing — even walking carried that unhurried ease.

He didn't know when he'd have that kind of strength himself. Enough to stop and actually rest for a while.

The thought formed and was immediately pressed back down.

The fight with the White Deer had drawn out everything Shen Yi had.

The Heavenly Demon external pill was nearly empty. The cyan and crimson light from the peacock demon needed time to recover. The Solar-Splitting Bow's golden glow had dimmed by more than half.

Even the fifth transformation's physical body was producing a weariness that reached inward.

Worthy of being one of the demon lords whose name carried weight across Qingzhou.

And even the White Deer, standing beside that bull demon, had still been all lowered head and servile posturing.

The road to standing unmoved in a world heading toward chaos was still long.

He pulled his thoughts back and remembered what Jiang Qiulan had said about the Heaven-Devouring Core-Consuming Art and the Solar-Fusion Furnace.

She clearly hadn't identified the external pill as deriving from the fox clan's technique — but she'd noticed he was drawing on some external force, using a demon's cultivation.

Her attitude had surprised him.

She didn't seem to think it was a problem at all. She'd simply pointed out that a Condensate method could be used to take that external force fully into himself.

He'd barely touched the ice sword and it had been nearly too much. If he remembered correctly — her body held thousands of identical silver needles, enough to fill the sky with a jade dragon made of ice.

By comparison, suppressing one external pill wasn't anything to get alarmed about.

She meant — using the Solar-Fusion Furnace's suppressive force, use the Heavenly Demon external pill to feed the inner core as it formed?

"…"

He settled his mind. Thinking about this too early was pointless — he didn't…