When the plumes lost their lustre, the vast phoenix lay prone in the middle of the Imperial Capital.

The blaze had dispersed; the warmth of it lingered.

Perfected Master Lingxi stood on the black scorched earth, and even now did not dare be certain this formidable great demon was truly dead.

She and Nie Jun had been returning together and had met the brute along the way.

With their dharma-robes behind them, and every method they had brought to bear, the two of them had not lasted half a day.

Amid the collision of a sky-wide sea of fire and the Purple-Empyrean Divine-Thunder Dao Palace—

Lingxi had felt she could not so much as put a hand in. That scene had left too deep an impression, so much so that what lay before her now felt faintly like child's play.

The overbearing flames of the Mysterious Phoenix, and silver armour that not even the Purple-Empyrean Divine-Thunder Sword Art could break open.

It had given a sense of utter helplessness.

And then this phoenix demon had been beaten to death, alive, by a man standing on its neck with a pill furnace.

"……"

When Lingxi saw Shen Yi begin tearing the crimson phoenix's flesh off and packing it into storage treasures, that sense of child's play grew thicker still.

A terrible great demon capable of destroying heaven and earth was, in the young man's hands, like a roast chicken being pulled apart at leisure.

She shook her head, somewhat dazed.

The others had not, as Lingxi had, watched the Spirit Emperor and Nie Jun fight — but the sight just now of a single sword shattering the grand formation, with the mere backwash of its aura collapsing a golden-body relic, had been shocking enough.

There was no need to say anything more about this great demon's strength.

That it had died so absurdly could only prove its opponent more terrible still!

Li Qingfeng watched Shen Yi pack the fire-phoenix away entirely, and then his gaze caught. That great heap of storage treasures the man had produced was oddly motley — some…